ProZ.com Translation Forums

Which classification for General field and Detailed field can I assign EU translation projects | Fredrik

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Mon, 25 May 2026 09:24:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Which classification for General field and Detailed field can I assign EU translation projects
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Post title: Fredrik

The scope of EU translation projets is so broad that’s difficult to say, it depends on the suject matter…

Which classification for General field and Detailed field can I assign EU translation projects

Fredrik Pettersson — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:40:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Which classification for General field and Detailed field can I assign EU translation projects
Poster: Fredrik Pettersson

I am adding samples to my profile and can't find a suitable classification for my EU project. Would the most suitable be this?:

General field: Social sciences
Detailed field: Government / politics

Major bug in the leaderboards | A new administrative model?

Robert Forstag — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:13:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: Robert Forstag
Post title: A new administrative model?

[quote]Maria Laura Curzi wrote:

It's not a surprise, the state of neglect in KudoZ is appalling, and it's been months since moderators have disappeared. It seems they vanished for good.
[/quote]

Maybe the master plan here is to have the entire site administered using AI: Kudoz, Forums, Jobs Board, Blue Board, , Powwows, membership sales, enrollment in upcoming congresses - even responses to complaints (and complaints about responsiveness to complaints).

Major bug in the leaderboards | A new administrative model?

Robert Forstag — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:11:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: Robert Forstag
Post title: A new administrative model?

[quote]Maria Laura Curzi wrote:

It's not a surprise, the state of neglect in KudoZ is appalling, and it's been months since moderators have disappeared. It seems they vanished for good.
[/quote]

Maybe the master plan here is to have the entire site administered using AI: Kudoz, Forums, Jobs Board, Blue Board, Powwows, membership sales, enrollment in upcoming congresses - even responses to complaints (and complaints about responsiveness to complaints).

[Edited at 2026-01-22 18:13 GMT]

Major bug in the leaderboards | Same

Maria Laura Curzi — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:49:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: Maria Laura Curzi
Post title: Same

The same happens in language pairs EN-ES, EN-PT, and PT-ES.

It's not a surprise, the state of neglect in KudoZ is appalling, and it's been months since moderators have disappeared. It seems they vanished for good.

Last October, I contacted five different moderators about around 25 fake questions that appeared out of the blue in the EN-ES pair in 10 minutes on two different days, all posted by "students" - who never logged in again to check any reply -, all repeated the same source text (from a 2010 newspaper article), all without any context, and all wrongly categorized.
Four moderators out of five never replied, and the only one that replied was upset with the word "bots" that I used to describe these fake profiles and did nothing. He never replied again when I asked for updates.

Also, it's been a while since the Wikiwords server stopped working; there's a “Connection timed out Error code 522.”

Major bug in the leaderboards | Oh wow

Zea_Mays — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:58:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: Zea_Mays
Post title: Oh wow

I just found that in the English>German pair, many of the users (mostly not-paying ones) - including the leaders! - in the 3 and 12 month boards didn't contribute since around 2010-2011...
To what extent does this affect the ranking when potential clients perform a search in the translators directory?

[Bearbeitet am 2026-01-20 18:59 GMT]

Major bug in the leaderboards | Thanks, Jennifer

philgoddard — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:07:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: philgoddard
Post title: Thanks, Jennifer

I had no idea the problem had existed for so long -- basically the leaderboards are meaningless.

I got a similar reply years ago when I asked for a new subject category in KudoZ, Horticulture/Gardening. They said they'd implement it, but they never did.

Major bug in the leaderboards | Still waiting for action, 9 years after I reported this bug

Jennifer Levey — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:21:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: Jennifer Levey
Post title: Still waiting for action, 9 years after I reported this bug

[quote]philgoddard wrote:
I haven't looked at the leaderboards for a long time because there are so few questions these days. But today I see that in at least two of my language pairs, French and German to English, many of the names in the three- and twelve-month leaderboards are people who haven't answered questions in fifteen years or more.

Has anyone else noticed and/or reported this? [/quote]

I reported this bug several years ago - on 10 Jan 2017 to be precise ( [url removed] ).

In that ticket I gave some examples:
[quote]
Today's leader #4 in the "Last 3 months" list is argosys, with 174 PRO points. But if I click on his/her PRO points total, I see that argosys was active on Kudoz (regardless of language pair) ONLY from 5 March 2008 to 20 August 2010. So how does he/she rank anywhere at all in the "last 3 months" list generated on 10 January 2017?

Leader #5 (Last 3 months) is Leonardo Lamarche, with 129 PRO points. But if I click on his PRO points total, I see "In memoriam. Removed per [url removed] The contributions made by this member throughout the site have been left public for the benefit of all." That makes it more difficult to trace his Kudoz history, but via Google I have been unable to find any contribution from Leonardo that is more recent than 2010.

If I switch the language pair to "English to Spanish" (again, with no category selected):

Leader #18 in the "Last 3 months" is Pablo Marrero with 38 PRO points. But he only ever answered 25 Kudoz questions (regardless of language pair) - ALL in September 2010.

Likewise, #24, Laura Colpachi, is listed with 33 PRO points. She only ever won 37 PRO points (regardless of language pair), and all those 37 points were won from May to September 2010.

Leader #1 in the "Last 12 months" list (English to Spanish) is again Leonard Lamarche (RIP?), with 2019 PRO points.

Leader #21 in the same list is "raulbo1" with 184 PRO points. He(?) only answered Kudoz from 01 December 2010 to 11 April 2011. This, again, is well outside today's "Last 12 months" timeframe.

I could go on - but I think it's already clear that there's something terribly wrong with the statistics.[/quote]

The response from support staff was:
[quote]
This issue has been already sent to the development factory to be processed internally by site developers. Development, including adjustments and fixing-ups, may take some time.[/quote]

JL

Major bug in the leaderboards

philgoddard — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:44:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Major bug in the leaderboards
Poster: philgoddard

I haven't looked at the leaderboards for a long time because there are so few questions these days. But today I see that in at least two of my language pairs, French and German to English, many of the names in the three- and twelve-month leaderboards are people who haven't answered questions in fifteen years or more.

Has anyone else noticed and/or reported this?

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Tons of new profiles

Maria Laura Curzi — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 21:37:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Maria Laura Curzi
Post title: Tons of new profiles

Also, I don't know if this happens in other languages, but in the EN-ES pair this month, we had 27 new profiles asking for the first time.
Several with student accounts from the same place, some of them asking the same questions using exactly the same phrasing, making this look like there could be repeated accounts, something I thought was not allowed: [url removed] #7.

Early on in the month, there were like a dozen profiles from Panamá, all created in just 2 days, and all suspiciously seemed to be bots. I reported them, without any reply so far.
Right now we have, all of a sudden, 17 new questions, many repeated (asked within a few minutes apart) from "translation student" profiles this time from Spain.
Even this one: [url removed] that says it's native in Spanish!

And, of course, moderators are nowhere to be seen. It seems that ProZ, and especially KudoZ, is under some kind of spamware attack, and nobody is doing anything to solve it.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Opposite

Maria Laura Curzi — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 19:04:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Maria Laura Curzi
Post title: Opposite

[quote]ibz wrote:

Remember when ChatGTP started answering KudoZ questions and the long fight we had to ban this "valuable member" from participating in KudoZ? Might have discouraged some human translators from posting and answering questions. [/quote]

I think the opposite happened. ProZ opened the door to the free use of AI without rules.

So now, some human translators feel it's fine to copy-paste what ChatGPT (or any other AI) provides in their replies. Those are the fake replies, and those have increased after ProZ allowed a ChatGPT fake profile to participate in KudoZ.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Fewer jobs

Lingua 5B — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 08:51:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Lingua 5B
Post title: Fewer jobs

Must be because of the fewer real jobs? It's all AI. One robot create a translation, and another robot proofreads it.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Remember?

ibz — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 08:19:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: ibz
Post title: Remember?

Remember when ChatGTP started answering KudoZ questions and the long fight we had to ban this "valuable member" from participating in KudoZ? Might have discouraged some human translators from posting and answering questions.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Fewer questions, more fakes

Maria Laura Curzi — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 19:09:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Maria Laura Curzi
Post title: Fewer questions, more fakes

Yes, there are fewer *real* questions and more fakes.
More fake questions, more fake profiles, and more fake replies done with AI.

Sad to see KudoZ in such an abandoned state, but I guess that's mirroring what's happening with the entire site during the last couple of years. With endless connection problems, less moderation/vetting, more spam, and the "new" new site being developed at a turtle's slow pace (since 2022/2023, I think) and still needing a lot of improvements.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | No changes

Emily Scott — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 09:49:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: No changes

[quote]Laurie Draï wrote:

I noticed this very important drop a lot of months ago.
So after seeing your post, I navigated a little in the KudoZ section, and I was able to find out that my KudoZ settings seem to have been changed and weren't correct for me to receive the question notifications...
Maybe you can check these settings to see if everything is correctly settled. [/quote]

No changes on my settings, just genuinely fewer questions it seems.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | That sky again

Stuart Hoskins — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 09:39:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Stuart Hoskins
Post title: That sky again

I’m no seer, but back in 2012 I could already see the writing on the wall and guessed that the translation industry would be transformed beyond recognition within ten years. That proved more or less accurate with the mass rollout of AI in 2022.

My strategy at the time was simple: build visibility on KudoZ so that, if I ever became a member, I would hit the ground running. Beyond that, go with the flow, stay humble (be an "I'm-aware-of-market-trends guy" rather than an "I-know-my-worth guy"), accept that I am a small cog who needs to adapt to new trends, and invest in passive income as a safety net.

So far, touch wood, the plan has partly worked. I’m as busy as ever, although lower rates mean my translation income has fallen by around 30%. With no obvious alternative career on the horizon (tour guiding? Back to teaching?), I’m hoping I can limp into retirement in about ten years.

Ultimately, my KudoZ plan hasn’t delivered. I may be top in Czech and Slovak, but it is meaningless now. The site has problems - slow loading, fewer enquiries - and every time I log in, I can almost see tumbleweed rolling across an empty street. ProZ still has a big role to play, but it needs tgiaig because, at the moment, its limp is more pronounced than mine.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | :(

Emily Scott — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 07:56:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: :(

[quote]Daryo wrote:

I don't think we will have to wait for very long before some truly catastrophic proof to the contrary happens. [/quote]

As sad as it is, I think it might take something catastrophically bad to happen as a result of poor AI-translated material for attitudes to be changed.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | A potential tip to fix this problem

Laurie Draï — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 01:00:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Laurie Draï
Post title: A potential tip to fix this problem

I noticed this very important drop a lot of months ago.
So after seeing your post, I navigated a little in the KudoZ section, and I was able to find out that my KudoZ settings seem to have been changed and weren't correct for me to receive the question notifications...
Maybe you can check these settings to see if everything is correctly settled.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | I noticed that too

Daryo — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:48:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Daryo
Post title: I noticed that too

It was predictable. The most plausible explanation: too much blind faith in Augmented Ignorance.

Resulting in less demand for the services of translation agencies, and then on that reduced demand translators relying too much on 'the easy solution offered on a plate' instead on asking other people for a second opinion, some of whom might even have a pretty good actual knowledge of the subject matter.

As for 'background knowledge is no longer necessary' & similar pearls of wisdom, I don't think we will have to wait for very long before some truly catastrophic proof to the contrary happens.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Agree

Charlie Bavington — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 11:22:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Charlie Bavington
Post title: Agree

Yup, same pair as you (Fr-En) and there is nowhere near the volume of Qs there used to be. Same applies to a couple of Yahoo groups I'm in. One used to have Qs posted daily. Just checked; last activity was in July.

Obviously there are more resources available over the years, and you'd also hope people had got better at searching, but there can be no doubt that the arse has dropped right out of the Fr-Eng translation sector and AI is obviously translating all the tricky terminology as it ploughs through whatever texts our ex-clients are now giving it.

I can imagine that even in those pairs where AI is not yet particularly adept at producing a plausible translation of entire texts, people might be using it for specific queries. And as I'm sure we all know, it will always deliver an answer with 100% confidence.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | I blame AI

roeland — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 09:55:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: roeland
Post title: I blame AI

I noticed that too. It might be because most AI providers are shamelessly harvesting from multilingual websites so the chance that some online dictionary has what you are looking for is growing.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | @Zea

Emily Scott — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 07:47:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: @Zea

That's a good point. The slowness, the severe drop in enquiries for genuine translation work - these enquiries were what made paying for membership worthwhile on this site, but now I'm not getting that, maybe I need to reconsider when it comes to renewal.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | another possible reason

Zea_Mays — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:29:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Zea_Mays
Post title: another possible reason

Maybe KudoZ as well as forums are in hibernation thanks to ProZ's extreme slowness in some regions (perhaps where American servers are used?). This also means money loss, as the same issue would affect potential clients.
A case for asking our money back?

[Bearbeitet am 2025-10-21 17:36 GMT]

Fewer KudoZ questions? | @Maria

Emily Scott — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:07:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: @Maria

Yes, come to think of it, I've had much fewer genuine requests this year through ProZ, almost all of them have been generic mass emails about AI-related stuff.

I may have only been in the industry for 10 years but this is the most quiet I've known it too.

Seems like a perfect storm for translators at the moment...

Fewer KudoZ questions? | :(

Emily Scott — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:02:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: :(

[quote]Matthias Brombach wrote:

I suppose that AI answers / translations are regarded as the truth nowadays and background knowledge is no longer necessary. [/quote]

Depressing but probably true in some cases...

Fewer KudoZ questions? | @Emily

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 12:35:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Post title: @Emily

I have noticed the same thing, but it does not surprise me. It's in line with the decline in demand (the few translation requests that do come in are either MTPE or from countries that traditionally pay very poorly), with the number of translators who have said here that they have left the profession because of AI, which is profoundly transforming the sector, with the downward pressure on prices that has been occurring over the years, all of which is exacerbated by political instability...

P.S. I have been translating for over 40 years and I've never had a month like this one, not even during the Covid pandemic.

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Probably because

Baran Keki — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Baran Keki
Post title: Probably because

all the questions that could be asked have already been asked?

Fewer KudoZ questions? | Reason why

Matthias Brombach — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 11:32:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Matthias Brombach
Post title: Reason why

I suppose that AI answers / translations are regarded as the truth nowadays and background knowledge is no longer necessary.

Fewer KudoZ questions?

Emily Scott — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 11:19:00 +0000

Forum: KudoZ
Topic: Fewer KudoZ questions?
Poster: Emily Scott

Has anyone else noticed a downturn in the number of KudoZ questions being asked? I have for my language pairs (FR>EN and IT>EN) - I get an email whenever one is asked and I've had significantly fewer notifications this year compared to previous ones. Has anyone else noticed this in their pairs? Could the reason be fewer jobs or different kinds of jobs maybe? Interested to hear your experiences.