New contest coming soon with a new version of the certificates
Thread poster: Julieta Llamazares
Julieta Llamazares
Julieta Llamazares  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 12:14
English to Spanish
+ ...
May 6, 2021

Dear all,

A new translation contest will open soon, with a new version of the winner certificate, which has been updated to match the look in the recently modernized areas of the site.

Winners of
... See more
Dear all,

A new translation contest will open soon, with a new version of the winner certificate, which has been updated to match the look in the recently modernized areas of the site.

Winners of the last four translation contests (Alien first impressions, Ploughing mountainsides, The comic life of a translator and Stories about travel) can already see the new version of the certificates in their profiles and download them.

Here's an example of how the past vs. new certificates look:

Previous version:


New version:



Also, if you would like to see a source text in a particular language, you are welcomed to submit your text suggestion here.

Happy translating,

Julieta
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Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:14
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
Did you ever consider May 7, 2021

to reorganise the contest as a whole instead of projecting new winner certificates that the "winners" will hardly have the chance to see as they will never be awarded as we all know?

Elena Feriani
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Erik Freitag
Mina Chen
 
Julieta Llamazares
Julieta Llamazares  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 12:14
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you, Christel May 7, 2021

Hi Christel,

Thank you for your reply and feedback.

to reorganise the contest as a whole


Would you mind elaborating further on this idea? I am really interested in hearing your thoughts.


 
Elena Feriani
Elena Feriani
Italy
Local time: 16:14
Member
French to Italian
+ ...
No winners isn't fun May 12, 2021

Hi Julieta,
The first thing you should try to fix in my opinion is the fact that there are "no winners" in language pairs with many entries but not enough voters.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Mina Chen
 
Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:14
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
Simple considerations May 12, 2021

Make sure that every contest is closed within a reasonable period of time and that a winner for each language is determined. I suppose contestants don't require much else. Like Elena writes, a contest without winners isn't fun.

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Mina Chen
 
Julieta Llamazares
Julieta Llamazares  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 12:14
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Winner selection depends on the amount of votes May 13, 2021

Thank you for your reply, Christel and Elena.

I agree with you both on the fact that contests without winners are no fun. This is why each stage of the competition, and especially the final one, is widely promoted throught ProZ.com and social media.

Closing the contests within a reasonable time, as Christel pointed out, is also important. On the previous contests I have run, the deadlines were extended only for a few weeks in order to gather more voting points. I
... See more
Thank you for your reply, Christel and Elena.

I agree with you both on the fact that contests without winners are no fun. This is why each stage of the competition, and especially the final one, is widely promoted throught ProZ.com and social media.

Closing the contests within a reasonable time, as Christel pointed out, is also important. On the previous contests I have run, the deadlines were extended only for a few weeks in order to gather more voting points. It actually worked, and a few more winners could be selected.

There is a key point to take into account: winner selection depends on the amount of votes that each language pair receives (not on like or dislikes tags) so that the minimum voting ratio is reached. Jared has also talked about this on a another topic. Thus, announcing a winner in every language pair ultimately depends on users and members participation, that is, rating entries during the qualification phase and voting during finals.
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Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:14
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Promotion doesn't seem to always do the trick May 14, 2021

Julieta Llamazares wrote:

I agree with you both on the fact that contests without winners are no fun. This is why each stage of the competition, and especially the final one, is widely promoted throught ProZ.com and social media.


Well, it seems that wide promotion is not enough. In the English to German language pair, for example, a winner has only been announced in two out of the last eight contests. In one of the two contests that have been closed, the source text was a very short comic strip (which might give a hint: More people might be willing to vote if the text is very short). If we leave this somewhat special contest aside, no winner has been announced in as many as 86% of the contests in this language pair.

May I ask: What makes you think that the (curiously arcane) threshold number of votes will be reached this time, when it wasn't six out of seven times in the past?



[Edited at 2021-05-14 07:42 GMT]


Gerard de Noord
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part? May 14, 2021

Speaking as someone whose language pairs will never feature in a ProZ competition, I would love the opportunity to see how others approached the same problems and find out whether I’m really as good as I think I am.

Like KudoZ, it’s not just about points and prizes.


P.L.F. Persio
Zibow Retailleau
Josephine Cassar
 
Elena Feriani
Elena Feriani
Italy
Local time: 16:14
Member
French to Italian
+ ...
Winner selection May 15, 2021

Julieta Llamazares wrote:

winner selection depends on the amount of votes that each language pair receives.


Hi Julieta,
I think you should change the winner selection system in order to have more voters (or have a dedicated jury of volunteers for each language pair).

It is hard work to read dozens of entries and rate them. Maybe giving out kudoz point to voters can help. Or giving out 1 free membership to 1 voter chosen randomly. That would be perfect!


Mina Chen
 
Mina Chen
Mina Chen  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:14
English to Chinese
+ ...
minimum voting ratio? May 16, 2021

Julieta Llamazares wrote:

There is a key point to take into account: winner selection depends on the amount of votes that each language pair receives (not on like or dislikes tags) so that the minimum voting ratio is reached. Jared has also talked about this on a another topic. Thus, announcing a winner in every language pair ultimately depends on users and members participation, that is, rating entries during the qualification phase and voting during finals.


@Julieta
Can you explain how does it work?

I’ve been wondering as the past several contests all ended up not having a winner in the English to Chinese pair because of “not enough votes” . How many is enough? The last contest, “Alien First Impressions”, the entry with the highest point at 2.94(very harsh peers) has 8 ratings for quality and 8 ratings for accuracy. There are 11 entries in total. How many votes is needed in this case to win?

I agree with Elena that giving some incentives to voters might help. Or perhaps bringing in past winners as judges, if they are not participating in a given contest?


 
Julieta Llamazares
Julieta Llamazares  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 12:14
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Jury system and minimum voting ratio May 17, 2021

Thank you for taking the time to provide suggestions and ask questions. Let me try to cover these as best as I can.

I think you should change the winner selection system in order to have more voters (or have a dedicated jury of volunteers for each language pair)


The idea of setting a jury has been brought up in the past, but I do not see it happening for several reasons. To name a few:



  • During the submission phase of every contest, entries are submitted into a great number of language pairs. For instance, there were 85 language pairs in "Alien first impressions'', and approximately 50 out of these moved forward to the other two stages. If a jury was put in place to determine winners, then 50 juries (at least) would need to be established, and these in turn should have at least 3 members each in case of a tie.

  • Since the possible language pair combinations that receive entries in each contest are impossible to predict beforehand, juries would have to be established as the contest is running. And then there's language pairs that are not as populated as others. In these cases it is already hard to get the minimum of three entries to move from the submissions phase into the other further stages of the competition.



As for the minimum voting ratio, Mina

The last contest, “Alien First Impressions”, the entry with the highest point at 2.94 (very harsh peers) has 8 ratings for quality and 8 ratings for accuracy.


In the case you mentioned, 2.94 is the average rating point this entry received based on the two rating categories: "Quality of writing" and "Accuracy of translation". When a language pair is in the qualification phase, ProZ.com users are asked to rate entries according to these two categories so that finalists are selected. But rating points do not determine winners, only voting points during the finals phase do.

The minimum voting ratio is automatically calculated by the system —with no intervention from staff— based on the total amount of entries each language pair received plus the total voting points entries received.


 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:14
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Why so secretive? May 18, 2021

Julieta Llamazares wrote:
The minimum voting ratio is automatically calculated by the system —with no intervention from staff— based on the total amount of entries each language pair received plus the total voting points entries received.


Yes, we all reckon as much. But why is the ratio considered a state secret?


 
Paul Dixon
Paul Dixon  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 12:14
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Contest? May 21, 2021

I am looking forward to this contest, but after receiving the initial notification I have not heard any more about it. Why?

 


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