It's just a courtesy to say, "I may be making a small change but I am not trying to steal your work". I think this is particularly important if you are at a much higher tier than the original translator, or the translator is very new. It shows that you are not trying to bully or intimidate a new user and thus destroy their confidence before they have really got started.

@piguy3 Thanks for the lingot, I appreciate the thought. :-) ..... I wasn't trying to imply that it was actually stealing the work for the reason outlined elswhere, it is more the perception that one is stealing that concerns me. New users are not always aware of the fact that credit goes down the whole line and therefore can feel cheated. I am not trying for one minute to imply that anyone is stealing the work.

@BenYoung84 I take your point about leaving articles littered with extraneous punctuation marks but in my experience, which has mainly been in translation groups, the original uploader has always proofread the finished document and removed any remaining at that point. This has at times included myself on documents I have uploaded. It has always been done with the uploader using the same system.

Perhaps, a better method would be to amend the translation and in addition to explaining why it was being amended add a note that they will continue to get credit however far down the list they go. It's a balance between getting the translation right and not discouraging new users because not all new users understand the system, so just saying credit shared doesn't always have the desired effect.

One thing which is abundantly clear is that all serious translators do want to achieve an accurate translation whilst helping each other irrespective of the method they are using and that is a very positive note to end on. :-)

Yes, compared to the // method that's more efficient, more collaborative and more in line with Duolingo guidelines.

piguy3 that would be fine except that Duolingo mods have confirmed that sharing credit is transitive, so if there's a chain of 10 people who've worked on an translation and each of them has shared credit, then all 10 receive the upvotes, as long as their tier isn't above the upvoter.

piguy3 - Leaving extra punctuation is not pure silliness for the simple reason that once the original translator has reedited the translation to remove the 3 dots, etc., he/she can be upvoted a second time - which is something I always do. The original translator not only is thus fast-tracked, but also gets to reclaim the original translation for his/her effort. And yes it does work that way - I see it in practice every day.

@lfphigenia But it's the "stealing your work" concept that's not actually accurate, given that upvotes are given to everyone. If you leave the "uv/sc" you've clearly indicated that their work is worthy of credit, it just needed a small tweak. As I began immersion into Russian, I was always most pleased when all that my work needed was a small tweak! I see how it's kind of a nice gesture, but it seems to be a nice gesture born completely of a misunderstanding (or perhaps an outdated understanding given that I'm aware thing were once different) of how upvotes work. A misunderstanding that new users particularly wouldn't have cause to share in.

@DrWho100 I suppose the fast-tracking is true, but it also seems to sort of go against the spirit of getting upvotes for actual work done. Of course, the system is set up that one can get an upvote for every 5 words worth of translating, which one almost never gets (at least in the languages I've worked in), for lack of translators, so I guess it kind of gets to one intent while going around another. But with shared-by-all upvotes the "reclaim the sentence" notion just seems wrongheaded. Having the translation that happens to be at the top of the stack is not something that holds value in and of itself. They're the first translator, they, presumably, learned the most from doing the translation. It'd be better if people focused on what they're learning instead of incidentals. I've only ever been glad for corrections, for they are immensely helpful for learning.

In any case, I give you both lingots for explaining the alternate perspective, something for which I have been in search for some time!

That's what I usually do. Moreover, often I don't correct punctuation, for example, so as not to "steal" the translation. In addition to the upvote and UCVS, maybe I'll start doing the ///, now that I know what it is.

@SGutherie0 I think you just made an argument for why you shouldn't do the extra punctuation. You've made it to translation tiers 15 and 22 w/out knowing what it even means! What'a poor level 1 translator supposed to make of it? The "stealing" translation idea has no basis. Share credit, and make the correction so the poor folks have a chance to learn something. I'm glad the Russians brutally corrected my punctuation errors. I didn't have a clue about Russian punctuation and didn't know that I didn't know!

@BenYoung Thank you so much for this! I had definitely wondered. This confirms that the extra punctuation business is pure silliness, as I have previously suspected. I was just trying to figure out under what situation it could possibly be doing any good, figuring that so many do it, there must be a reason. But the madness of crowds is also a reason, obviously!

Ifphigenia of course that's a wonderful sentiment and I would support it if it didn't raise other issues. Issues such as original translators not reclaiming the translation and leaving extra punctuation there for months or years; 3rd party reviewers having to decide whether a translation with extra punctuation - which is clearly not a valid translation should be upvoted, changed or ignored, especially if there are further amendments required; all the extra time and effort required to manage all the dummy translations; the tendency of the extra punctuation method to only give credit to one translator, not recognising that Duolingo is designed to be collaborative. All of this runs contrary to Duolingo guidelines and the way the system has been established - sharing credit is there for a very important reason.

@Ifphigenia - I generally leave a comment saying I upvoted and shared credit, which hopefully has the same effect.

@DrWho100 - I don't believe it works that way, actually. I'm pretty sure that they won't count two votes from the same person on different translations of the same sentence, even if sharing credit all the way through (because I think I've tested this).

I suppose the logic of the extraneous punctuation method is that only 2 people get credit with credit shared, so in languages where numerous revisions actually do happen, it helps the person who really deserves credit remain among them. However, I've never really seen this spelled out by anyone who actually uses the system. As for me, I'm happy to upvote even the smallest correction, so I hardly feel bad receiving credit for the same.

:-))

Indeed. That makes me think that at the time they hadn't yet decided to remove immersion, at least not as soon as they did.