Is the system failing or our members?
You will need to read the thread on the Word of the Day pretender to follow my question. Also, I am posting links to our dictionary's definition of pretender as well at the R A E's dictionary definition. Next is an about.com article on the word. Sorry, for all of the research, but you will need the background information to answer my question.
If you read the thread you will see that several incorrect uses of the word pretender are provided in replies. Comments are often attached suggesting the use of other verbs for the context provided. However, several of these incorrect replies have been voted up and when I read the post none had been flagged for inaccuracy. The corrective comments seem to be ignored or misunderstood.
We have a system in place for handling such situations. We have a flag for marking incorrect or inaccurate replies. This situation is exactly what that flag was made for, but everyone seems hesitant to employ it.
An no one had created a reply drawing everyone's attention that an error was prevalent in the answers.
Now I see no problem with the incorrect replies. If you weren't aware that pretender and pretend are false friends in some contexts that's understandable and completely forgivable.
What isn't acceptable is the weak responses by those that did know. Why no flags when you noticed that the comments weren't preventing additional incorrect replies with the same error. Why no reply highlighting the problem for those that don't read the comments to other people's replies. Was a moderator contacted to say that a problem may exist in a thread?
If I hadn't known the correct usage of the word before reading the thread I would have left the thread wondering if pretender and fingir were synonyms. I think the shortcomings of this point system and flag system were highlighted in this thread.
So now my question: is the system faulty or are our members at fault for being hesitant to use it?
18 Answers
Quote from Quentin I couldn't care less about the word. I only care about how the problem was being handled. an error was being made and I don't feel that those that saw it were doing enough to stop it, correct it, or draw attention to it.
While I agree with Quentin that this is a problem overall, I found the corrections and conflicting information in this particular thread to be extremely confusing.
First of all, as Jeezle aptly pointed out, our own dictionary did fail in this case. I do care about that, it's a big deal, and it contributed to the problem in this case.
Second, the correctors of the "dictionary issue" helped out by posting dictionary entries that were completely in Spanish. Folks... some of us can handle that, and some of us can't. I imagine that many people read those all Spanish dictionary entries with eyes glazed over, then proceeded to vote for incorrect sentences because they didn't know any better - they didn't understand the corrections given, and kept going back to the good old SpanishDict.com dictionary, which said it was fine.
And the problem is that flagging someone takes away ten points from a person's reputation. Do we really want to penalize our learners for sincere attempts at participation? ¡Ojala qué no!
We have had a policy on the Palabra del Día that nobody's post may be accepted as the correct answer unless all the necessary correction have been made. That is an encouragement for people to come back and make corrections, and that's probably as far as we ought to take it.
Quentin said:
I can't promote the idea of editing other's replies.
I completely agree...I'd be very upset if another member edited my answer and made corrections. It's more appropriate to put a comment below my answer.
As for that particular post, it occurred to me that "pretender" was a false friend, but I admit that I didn't take the time to research it. I posted a very different use of the word, i.e., to make a claim.
As for using the "inaccurate" flag, I seem to recall a post where some Admin (not sure who) said "be careful to only use that for outrageously bad answers." So, I almost never use that flag. I would certainly be willing to use the flag a lot more often if it didn't subtract 10 points from the poster.
Bottom line: I think SD policy is failing our members. If you want us to be comfortable using the "inaccurate answer" flag then there should be no points deduction attached to it.
I think most people would be scared to hit flag because usually flag is used just for inappropriate comments that should be removed, they aren't used to there being options for why they're flagging it. At least that's how I feel a little bit. I didn't know there were flagging options.
EDIT: UGHHHH I cannot believe I wrote "their" instead of "there". I never make that dumb mistake.
Good discussion of the point system Q.The fact that the dictionaries vary in their definitions lends greater weight to having a flag just for attention of a moderator without penalty.
I agree with you Quentin. Particularly in this case -the pretender thread- I was the one that corrected many posts where the verbs were misused. I also posted the meaning from the WR dictionary with several examples so that posters could understand the proper use of the word (because it's confusing sometimes). You're right when you say that very few people corrected their posts. I had a look at the thread this afternoon...
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Do you think I should flag those responses when they are wrong or when the word is misused? This is what Luisa said:
Después de este fin de semana yo he decidido no meterme más en respuestas ajenas. Me encanta este sitio y no quiero crear animosidad. - LuisaGomezBa 9 mins ago flag
Cuando he hecho comentarios las respuestas que he recibido me hacen sentir como una "sabelotodo" y eso me incomoda. - LuisaGomezBa 9 mins ago flag
And I back her up here... In general people don't like to be corrected. Can you imagine if we flag them?? . Be honest please... They're gonna hate us!! I feel flagging is like foul language here... correct me if I'm wrong please... but that's how I feel.
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I guess it's a 50-50... a faulty system and hesitant members afraid of the big egos wandering around 
This might be stupid but I personally thought that the flag was to flag inappropriate material...
I believe there was some problem with the SD verb conjugation on pretender. Krama asked the question, if you want to check it out.
Many of my answers need correcting, mostly because I'm not that good. I don't always correct them immediately. I may not see it immediately. I may be unsure of the correction, and wait for another. I may ask a further question in order to understand.
My answer to pretender is a good example of this. I waited. I checked, I corrected and I learnt. You can't punish someone for not sitting in front of a screen 24/7 waiting for a correction.
If I was flagged for every remark which required correction, I would have a minus score. My only choice would be to refrain from participating in the forums.
I would not use the flagging system for corrections, only for inappropriate questions or comments. Perhaps that is a fault with me.
A minor contributer to the aspect of the voting issue might be that some individuals vote people up for no reason. I've definitely seen irrelevant posts voted up before, so aside from the issue of flagging there is something more than well intended members who gloss over corrections to other posts.
I personally never use the flagging system for things other than bots selling things or intentional vulgarity. I wasn't aware that it could be used for things other than this.
And the problem is that flagging someone takes away ten points from a person's reputation. Do we really want to penalize our learners for sincere attempts at participation? ¡Ojala qué no!
- Goyo
I think most people would be scared to hit flag because usually flag is used just for inappropriate comments
- soccoryo3
I almost never use that flag. I would certainly be willing to use the flag a lot more often if it didn't subtract 10 points from the poster.
- Marianne
Is it time to revisit flagging? Deducting points for spam, insults, obnoxiousness (and some forms of outright stupidity) makes sense, but those committing that kind of behavior probably don't care about points and Admin seems to do a good job of showing them the door.
I would like to see a box to check that imprints a message similar to:
validity of this answer challenged with maybe a place for challenger's name so that you know where to look for an explanation. Point reduction may or may not be necessary - I won't vote up a challenged answer without more input, would you?
I had a feeling pretender was gonna cause some problems, if that's what you mean, but you know that our dictionary lists "to pretend" as the definition so I can see why some of the members are having problems with it.
From the Spanishdict dictionary Pretender = to pretend. Of course you and I know that fingir means to pretend and pretender means to intend, or to aspire to be.
Here is my thread that I created long ago about pretender. I wanted to post at the very beginning of that thread a warning about pretender but I wasn't sure how to begin to do that.
I too found the thread you were referring to Quentin as a little frustrating, I did leave comments on a couple of posts to let them know that either their use was incorrect and/or fingir etc would be a much better choice and then I'd see multiple other posters doing exactly the same thing. :(
Still, having read the concerns above about flagging -
I wonder if it might be possible to bring in a different coloured flag for the purpose of flagging incorrect answers.
This wouldn't need to carry any penalty but just serve the purpose of alerting those who might not know better that the answer is incorrect and shouldn't be learnt from. Just an idea - I guess it would be up to the site operators whether or not to rework the site and implement such a thing and I don't know how much work is involved to do so.
Here´s my view on people gett up set over being corrected which the point of qfreed´s thread If you believe that you´re perfect, you´ll get upset when someone correct you If you´re humble and realize you´re going to mistakes that you won´t be.
What I do is compare the definition of the Spanish word with the definition of the English word and try to use the word that is closest in meaning. Sometimes, I need to clarify in what sense I am using English word before I can chose the right Spanish word. Also realize that languages don´t always follow the rule so pretender might be increasingly used like pretend as in claim faslely or to fake although that not the true definition of the word especially where Spanish has been influenced by English.
Plus, context context context. Some of the answers used the word in the wrong context. - LuisaGomezBa 25 mins ago flag
Once again Luisa... I agree with you
As you can see from Diccionario, here are the synonyms for pretender. Now what?link textJust put in pretender I want the admin to see that Elmundo's lists fingir the false friend as a synonym for pretender
If the members don´t pay attention to the corrections that their problem. At least you pointed t out I know I am grateful when someone points it out. I don´t think it is failing of the system, it just the member have varying amounts of knowledge. I don´t know if I would use flags for inaccurate information I only save that for inapporpriate posts. That´s why when I am not sure I check the definition in the monligual dictionary or compare definitions.
