A friend of mine is Italian moderator in a project. There was an abuser, someone who was in the Spanish team, writing only Italian subtitles.
The Italian mod wrote to her to tell her to stop.
The abuser replied, in Spanish, something to this effect (quoting from memory)
“I apologize for what happened. The thing is I was asked to do this by a person from the community, as part of a quality control investigation. The idea was to go into a team and start subbing, to see whether the moderator cares enough and will react. I don’t know the details, but I know for sure that I’m not the only one who is doing this.
Actually, out of the projects I did this in, you are the only moderator who wrote to me, meaning that you take the work seriously. And I asked an Italian-speaking friend for help to do this, since I don’t know any Italian myself. Again I apologize for the inconvenience caused.”
Now, I’d like to ask, did any of you have a similar experience? Is this even a thing? Is it Viki that’s planting those spies, or what? Or is it just a regular abuser who came up with a VERY creative excuse?
(And if so, why not write in her native Spanish?)
P.S. I went to look at her Recent Contributions and I saw that
On the series my friend moderates, she is on the Spanish team, and only did 19 Italian subs.
On another series, where she isn’t on any team, she also did only Italian subs. Which are horrid. Her “Italian-speaking friend” must be Google Traslate on a bad day.
Now that’s odd and I would like to know who asked the person to do so?! As to me there is no way VikiStaff will come up with something like this?! Why would they give volunteers who work hard a hard time? Why ruin projects on purpose?
I suggest you report the person who did this to Viki along with the story they told you. If it’s indeed a control check then the staffer will tell you… if not then the person risks their account getting suspended but then they cannot abuse anymore.
I don’t know if there is or not a link between that and what I saw a few days ago, but I received a message from someone asking to be English subtitler on one channel I have as Channel Manager and when I went on her profile I saw she was on three teams. Two as Spanish subtitler and one as English subtitler but she never subtitled in Spanish nor English.
When being English subtitler she was subtitling in French. When being Spanish subtitler she was subtitling in Portuguese, French and Greek.
When I answered I asked her if she knows she doesn’t have the right to do that and I told her I can’t take the risk to add her and to see her doing nonsense on other languages.
She only answered she knows Chinese, English, Greek, and French without answering to my question if she knows that she doesn’t have the right to subtitle in another language than Spanish when being Spanish subtitler, English when being English subtitler.
And when I saw she didn’t mentioned Portuguese in the languages she knows I found it really weird since she subbed in Portuguese.
So I don’t know if there is a link between that person and the others who were asked to do that but when I read what you said I immediatly thought about it.
I was asked to add a person to a spanish team in one drama. Before adding somebody I always look into the profile. Then I saw something weird, even with the subber asking to be in a spanish team there were no spanish subtitles in her profile, so I answered her that according to her profile she must apply to be a member in the italian team. So she answered exactly what you said in the previous message. Exactly the same including that I was the only moderator to claim her not to do that.
I felt that even trying to make the things in the better possible way, there was somebody trying to laugth at us as if we werren’t appreciated at all in this community.
I told her to get out of the communitiy if she was here only to tease us. That every single moderator I have worked with tryed to do their best and didn’t deserve that.
This is definitely an abuser with a VERY creative excuse.
Even if it was true the person was ‘‘doing quality control investigation’’ Why pick a Spanish person, who doesn’t even know the italian language?
Secondly, no one doing such an important thing like that, would ever expose what is suppose to be done in secret because once the word goes out more people will be alerted about this and will be aware that they’re been ‘‘monitored’’ for quality work as a moderator in a specific language and cover their tracks.
In all honesty, I like that idea but to all LANGUAGE moderators, of course. Yes, what you’re saying is true, volunteers are working hard here but you have to admit some are also doing a very poor job here, and it needs to stop. I still see Spanish subtitles so bad bc it’s obvious they were done with a translator, and that takes a lot of quality in the subs. Some claim to know Spanish when they don’t and their native language just assimilates a little with Spanish.
I DO feel that these ‘‘quality control investigators’’ as that smart abuser called herself, should be proficient in the language they are ‘‘investigating’’ That way if a moderator is not doing what she chose herself to do as a volunteer moderator, she can be removed, replaced and never again be chosen to moderate any drama.
I did subs in some Japanese/Spanish dramas where the moderator who was in charge of the SPANISH team was not proficient in Spanish at all. A few only knew to communicate with me in Spanish using a translator! Why they were moderating a Spanish team still baffles me to this day. If you look around some old dramas are still in limbo to this day bc of those moderators. They are really easy to spot.
We have wonderful moderators here I don’t debate that but we also have a few that needs to go and they still moderating teams from left to right because ironically those are the one most eagers to take 3 and 4 dramas at a time. I feel that many good or new moderators get turned down because of them.
In your case it can be possible it was an ‘‘investigator’’ bc as you went to her/his? page, you saw so many subs in different languages that didn’t apply to what she requested from you. You rejected her/him, which was the best thing to do in this case.
I always confirm with several translators if their translation is done right, and then I go to several of the dramas the person has done subtitles. I won’t accept anyone without doing a thoroughly check bc I went through 2 bad experiences with these girls. One told me she knew Korean and I had to delete every sub she did, and another one who said she knew Chinese and insisted to be a moderator and I said NO as a moderator but let her do the Chinese subtitles. Once she said she was done I checked the subs and they were so bad I had to delete them.
Thankfully, I know someone who helps me from time to time and fixed the Chinese subs for me. I learned my lesson that when in doubt I say a rotund NO. Sadly, my korean subs are on hold bc I haven’t found someone to help me so far, and now I’m so traumatized that I can’t trust anyone anymore. The ones I know for a fact knows Korean well, work only on air dramas and this is a simple recipe show…
If you see someone is using Google Translate, an other translator or 3rd party subs report them to Viki with proof.
If you see a moderator in a language they don’t seem to know contact the CM so they can either decide to kick the person out and give the position to someone else. It’s possible that the person is Spanish but doesn’t know English.
2 weeks ago someone PMed me in their native language asking me if they really had to know English well to be a subber in their language. Yes really! You would think that’s pretty obvious because you sub from English to whatever language. Unless you sub from Original to English.
…sounds completely laughable. Viki is a serious company. They would never do something so devious. And for sure they know we care about our projects. This is mere BS.
Now, the questions are:
How many people/users are doing this?
If more than a few, is this an organised “attack”?
And finally, how do we stop such incidences?
It’s the weekend, so we probably won’t get any official answers until Monday.
Dear, it’s an abuser for sure. With subathons comes creative people looking for excuses and reasons to manipulate the system on Viki. What moderator wouldn’t care enough about their teams subs? There is not one moderator I know who wouldn’t react on Viki.
With the implementation of badges, there are some who truly violate the law and order of Viki to earn language badges. For sure. As long as she subs in foreign language segments, she earns numbers to get those badges. All I can say is… mods have to be vigilant in locking subs from people like this.
Maybe not Viki but a suspicious Channel Manager?
And… some of us care, some of us don’t. I’m sure you know that there are many hoarder moderators who take a zillion projects only to leave them lagging for months, sometimes not even visiting them once.
It didn’t occur to me that it could’ve been the CM. In that case the actual abuser would be the CM. I have to admit, the thought is slightly scary, considering the CMs can unlock all the episodes.
A CM who wants to test their mods by going against the rules on purpose?! That would be strange but if that’s really happening Viki should be informed so that CM can be either removed and replaced by someone else or never get a channel again.
Today, I decided to investigate if the person who did my terrible korean subtitles was still here, and the profile name changed slightly but now she knows English, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and even Portuguese!
I thought when you report a person provide evidence was enough to remove the person. What gives?
@irmar - If you have filed a report in regards to this, could you please let me know your Help Center ticket number via direct message on here or through PM on Viki?
I will forward this to our moderation team for further investigation.
What happens when you report an abuser? You just give them a warning?
All my reports say solved, but now that I think about it I don’t remember reporting the person who did the wrong Korean to English subtitles. Is there any way I can find out who I reported although it says ‘‘solved?’’
When an abuser is reported through the report user feature, a moderation team member investigates and takes the appropriate action. A user may receive a warning, or may be banned depending on the violation. Or, for example, if a user violates the comment policy, their comments are subject to immediate deletion, and they may be banned for multiple offenses.
Thank you for your answer. The ones I reported a while back was due to what I considered used translators for their Spanish and or Korean subtitles. I know for a fact a few are around doing subtitles, so I was wondering…Okay, is fair to give them a chance anyway.
