Abusers on "top volunteers this week"

Contributing
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   On the main cover page for viki on the far right is a column meant to honor high quantity volunteers. However, the list is automatically generated and apparently no human actually reviews the list before it is posted.  For the past two weeks, one of the top volunteers is someone who has entered the same single word in about one hundred subtitles.  On at least two prior occasions, a top volunteer entered thousands of segments by tapping on the spacebar at a high rate to cut segments which were 1/10 second long and messed up completely subbed episodes.  You do not have to know the language to know repeatedly writing the same word one hundred times in a row is not making a valuable contribution nor are 1/10 second segments of any use.   These "top volunteers" rapidly attain gold QC status which remains on their profile.  
   I informed viki staff more than once using the various ways of communication about the abuse -- by pming staff, by going to "help", by email, by tweeting when one abuser was in the act of segmenting, and by flagging the user from the function on their page.  Only the tweet while the abuser was actually cutting segments worked.   Otherwise, I have received deafening silence.    
    To honor abusers and to allow them to remain "top volunteers" is an insult to true contributors but there has been no response thus far reports of the most recent abuser.  I reported the user last week and despite that, this week the user hit the top of the chart!  I know I am not the only person forming the opinion that this is abuse, not a contribution.    I suggest that a staff member rapidly go through the list of "top volunteers" by looking at their recent contributions each week or vikik should remove the column entirely.  It is a meaningless honor if totally nonsense qualifies a user.  
   The reason I raise the issue is that abusers are not rare.  And I am even afraid that I have now given the clue about how to become a top volunteer to  anyone unscrupulous who reads this post.
   On another issue, the list is not useful to channel managers and moderators looking for staff for upcoming series.  In the past we had the  "top ten contributors" in each language and that was extremely useful.

VOLUNTEER QC ABUSE COVER PAGE

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Yes please bring back top ten contributors in each language! Or else I would’ve never known who is active!

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And segmenters separately? Because they don’t belong to any language.

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Absolutely agree. The top contributors per language and top segmenters were extremely useful when it came time to recruit teams. It is one of the tools that should be brought back for those of us who need to put teams together.

The top contributors on front page is not a bad idea, but it becomes a bad idea when it’s not monitored. People have more of an incentive to “cheat” to become QCs or Gold QCs, so they can get Viki Pass. Those of us who contribute consistently find this disheartening. I do hope Viki finds a solution to this, because it is not helping morale at all.

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They used to be separate. A list of the top 25 segmenters. Extremely helpful as well.

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Yes Viki should take our reports seriously. We don’t report people for nothing! We do it because they do something toxic for our volunteer community they say the value too.

I have reported quite a few people for doing the stuff you mentioned but also people who just use Google translate or 3rd party subs to sub. But all Viki does is ignoring you 99% of the time. Way to go Viki.

But who knows maybe they do better in 2017? I hope so because if this isn’t given more priority many awesome volunteers might have left Viki by the end of the year.

Ohh and I want separate lists again as they where indeed quite helpful. (Why did they even combine them?!)

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Me too I’m quite upset to see people who don’t give a pineapple about people when they submit their contribution to the whole world to watch and who will clean the mess after playing in the sandground ? Not his parents, nor him.

But without them being on the top main page, I would have never spotted these people, nor report them, nor knowing about their existence or the damages they caused on other channels.
And I wouldn’t have written to these cm to alert them on channels they played on.
And who and when these damages could have been discovered if they weren’t advertised as top C?
So I still have to concede that even if this is a bad thing to advertise them as top C, there is some good in this if I dig into it.
So for me, the solution would be to let them on the top C (for a few few days or even for the week) and let volunteers report them (even if it’s boring to fill these reports).
Because at least, someone would care about these damages channels and send a msg to their cm to alert them.
And only after these steps, it would be fine to remove him.
Because if the culprit is never advertised, how can we know that there was damage done except some great luck or if we are working on the same drama ?
That’s the only reason why I would accept that they are put on top C or the wall of shame (because being spotted as the intruder among hardworking people, this is really find Charlie)
Maybe they can be put off the top C after a few days if some see this as a fair thing to do and then demoting them from every role they had. Just a suggestion. I don’t have an opinion about letting them or putting them off the main wall after a few days.
I mean, I know that top C wasn’t meant to be used like this but it’s a good way to find people who should be report.
If we see that something is missing from Viki, and that Viki can’t do something about this, we can find alternate temporary solutions among ourselves.
When I look at what volunteers have made themselves to make it work, wow they don’t lack of creative ideas.( for finding new staff, I think we can dig here to find some alternative way even if it’s temporary)

I think the top priority of Viki is not chasing contributors who “cheat”, nor making us find top volunteers (maybe because of fairness ? The more the merrier ? 2 is better 1 ? I don’t know but we always see the same volunteers no ? Do they need more advertisement ? Just look at some popular pages, see the team cover or top volunteers for lambda dramas and we see names that reappear later. We have to find new blood too and they might never be on the top25 of each country or top C because they didn’t contribute enough (and to be on TopC, most of the time you have to really really contribute like at least 6500 subs a week (do you know much people who sub 1000 subs/day ? ). Same problem for segmenters : new blood vs really active old blood, how can they be advertised on these top walls ? Even if they are not on walls because of not enough subs of segs, it’s still contributions. And if we add people who can work a little during we, it can make a good result in the end.

I think the top priority of Viki is not chasing contributors who “cheat”.

1st prob : if Viki staff don’t speak the language, they won’t know that the culprit is using a translation software. So even if dots and - are easy to interpret, words ask more knowledge.
This knowledge is between the hands of volunteers. And volunteers would use the report system in this case (but 3rd prob coming)

2nd prob : If they remove cheaters from the main page without advertising them on top C, I don’t think that they will send mp to cm where these contributors have played. Will they erase their inappropriate contributions without volunteers report ? I don’t know but my answer would be more “no” than “yes”. So the damages are just not healed.

3rd prob : Dudie said it. The report system doesn’t eradicate people (the same or not) who don’t give a pineapple about their contributions. It’s come and go and come again.
So even if we report, it’s like cancer. The risk is still there.

The only fast way to fix damage (because yes, we volunteers can do nothing about these sick cells but we can do something about our channels without needing Viki staff for once) : Cm erases inappropriate subs after damages are done.

If some want to protect their channels from intruders (preventing way), the fastest way : make it a designated channel if it’s not already the case, so only people that cm and mods choose can work (take moderators to lock).
How ? Send a pm to one of the viki staff, not through viki support but directly send a pm.
That worked for me and I was really relieved after knowing that the same intruders will never come back on the channels we are working.

Wish a happy new year to everyone !!!
Wish you the best for 2017 !

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Pirana brought up a good point. If the abusers were not on the Top volunteer list we would never have noticed them. But if a viki staff member would just do a cursory look at the “recent contributions” the way we users did to identify the abusers, and if the viki staff would remove the users’ privileteges to access viki that would be solving the problem.
And it is absolutely true about the Open channels being the playground for abusers on the Top volunteer list.

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Happy New Year !!! Bonne année ! Adios 2016, bienvenida 2017 ! :tada:

Everyone brought up good points : )

There’s 1st problem mentionned : viki staff doesn’t know the + 250 languages that they offer.
I can only spot French abusers in top C because I know French. But if you ask me to find other languages abusers, I can’t because I have no knowledge in these foreign languages. I have to rely on foreign volunteers who would report them.
Viki staff encounters the same problem.

In addition to that, I don’t think that they have French employees because all the communication I had with Viki was in English. And they don’t have an office established in every country. Might be the same for some other languages except English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean etc…

And if one member of Viki staff could check before publishing the Top C each week : it means that he has to know many languages to check (6 top subtitlers = at least 6 languages, more if one subtitler can subtitle in multiple languages).
But the top C is changing every week, so because of this turnover, they must have in their staff at least one speaker in every +250 languages. Or let’s just say for 40 languages that are most subtitled on Viki (40 languages : I took W Kdrama as basis since it was popular and translated in 39 languages).
They have to get in their staff employees who should reunite 40 foreign languages in globality and mobilize them to ask if the subs are done appropriately.

That would be interesting if 1 employee could check the 6 top subtitlers and then ask to corresponding foreign speakers employees to check each week.
And then inform Cm, sanction abusers, heal damages.

However, knowing them, the chance of this happening is weak in my opinion.
But who knows maybe it will happen : )

“and if the viki staff would remove the users’ privileteges to access viki that would be solving the problem.”
Sorry, I didn’t understand that part : S
“Users’ privileges to access viki”: do you mean deleting perks of QC in general for everyone or just for these abusers (since if they do that, it’s mainly to have perks of QC) or do you mean access = they can’t log in on Viki anymore ?

If privileges= Qc perks and for everyone, so at the end it means deleting QC system, so everyone on the same pedestal and it would mean that only payers of Vikipass can have more avantages than others.
I don’t know if it would be a good idea. Because that would mean that : if we want to contribute on some dramas with restricted access, we will have to buy vikipass.
And if we ask people to do volunteer work (free) +paying to do volunteering on some channels with restricted access… Most of volunteers would not be happy about this.

And Qc perks attracts abusers and non abusers. If we had cut these perks, maybe non abusers who are attracted by Qc perks would have never contributed first on Viki. So that would be a loss of volunteering, less attracting for some people to volunteer and less volunteers.

In our society, it’s normal to attract people to do some free work by giving them something in exchange (like customers who are attracted to go on a shop that offers them gift for their loyalty). Not that everyone needs some candy to do free work but some who are hesitant can accept the deal if candies are a bonus.

If deleting privileges= Qc perks for abusers only, it doesn’t suppress the possibility to create another account and do it again. Like cancer, even after chemo, it can appear again.

If access= abusers can’t log in anymore on Viki.
How can they track them without using IP adress ?
I don’t know enough in NICT to find answers.
I can just go at my neighbour’s house or my cousin’s house or a public place with wifi (airport, McDonald’s, library…). Or using something else to make it hard to find my IP adress.
I can just create 10 email adresses.

I would totally be in if abusers were one less problem to have.

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@piranna : quand quelqu’un ne met que des points au lieu de sous-titres, il n’y a pas besoin de connaître la langue pour savoir qu’il y a un problème ! Et c’est souvent ce que font ces personnes, pas des mauvais sous-titres, mais autre chose.

À part ça, bonne année !!! :heart:

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Une très bonne année à toi aussi !!! Mes meilleurs voeux et plein de bonheur à ta famille :yellow_heart::blue_heart::purple_heart::green_heart::heart::sparkling_heart:

J’espère que le plus souvent ce sont des points et des tirets parce que c’est facile à détecter par tous
: )
Mais j’ai pensé aux abuseurs qui font du google translate et si j’essayais de détecter ça en Allemand ou en Espagnol, je crois que ça me serait impossible xd

I hope that most of the time, it’s dots and dashes because it’s easier to detect by everyone : )

But I thought about abusers who use Google translate and if I tried to detect it in Deutsch or in Spanish, I think that it would be impossible for me xd

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Vetted list, to remove abusers from this list too. No need to waste time PMing and trying to recruit some jerkweed who puts 4600 segments in 15 minutes of drama.

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In English though…(grin) When most languages are translated by Google translate into English, there are some very awkward moments.

One of my personal favorites is the use of the word 'severe" rather than “difficult”. Chinese to English that one crops up. Plus sentence structure can also be a dead giveaway - a person not truly fluent in English may instead use the structure from their mater lingua - e.g. Korean - and then have it obvious that it was a Google translate affair -the structure can not be faked this way. :slight_smile:

OH…and most abusers are pretty lazy, by the way.

Punctuation - or say…Spanish, subbed into the LATIN file? :slight_smile: I answered one of those back by PM in Latin. :slight_smile: The Spanish happened to be locked down…soooo they abused in another language. With the rather ridiculous reasoning that the Latin too was “acceptable” for their use.

Sigh. Most can be easily detected. One click to the overview. :frowning: it’s that obvious. A 15 minute Buster Keaton film, “The Boat” - had over 1000 segments. The current abuser - has punctuation shown on the overview page…in an obscure language file. C’mon. It doesn’t take an actual rocket scientist to figure these out. About 10 seconds in most cases.

Pax vobiscum,
Per Ferrum, Ad Astra

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Right. I didn’t know the language of the last three abusers I reported - nothing at all. But I was able to put the English sub and “translate” via Google Translate to exactly what the abusers were putting into the sub editor. One right after the other, exactly as created by Google Translate. Or the current “top” volunteer used the same word for about 100 subtitles. It doesn’t matter what the source language or the “to” language is – there isn’t any media with the same word in 100 consecutive lines.
@pirana By removal of access I mean barring them from viki – yes, I realize they could go some where else and create another user – and some abusers have created users one after the other but their pattern of abuse is the same so they were stopped for three different identities and they finally stopped entirely.
And you don’t have to be a segmenter to know 1/2 second segments are not useful.

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Exactly. Just catching the abusers who put punctuation marks or the same word a hundred times, or who make microsegments would be a relief, even if they don’t go to the extent of checking for Google translate abusers.
And of course there should be a quicker response to complaints.
I remember when we had the Maurizio Disdetti problem, in the late summer, it took 20 or 30 people flagging, reporting etc., and it took me personally many hours to compile lists of his wrongdoings, screenshots etc. and writing to viki and all the CMs or moderators of his projects (at the risk of sounding a bit weird), for him to be completely banned from viki. It took weeks. Now he’s happily haunting youtube.

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I am curious about something that has nothing to do with abusers, but about the Top Volunteers of the week list.
You all say you hunt for team members there.
But… all those people who work that much will surely be full of projects, so they are the last ones one should ask, no? Am I not understanding something? In my case I read the list and admire, but I would never dream of contacting them to offer them yet another project when they are so busy already.

Or is it like people who like to collect things? They have a full collection of fans, and that’s why you give them a fan as a present? It means they are addicted and will take more and more jobs, they are on that list because they cannot say “no”?
But is that sort of person reliable? Will they have the time and energy to do a good job when the quantity is so enormous? Will they stop to read again their subtitles? I know one such case, an otherwise very good translator who is often on the list, and I know for sure that she never reads her subtitles again. She was on my team more than once, always kind and willing to help, but she left stupid spelling mistakes for me to edit; and when I asked, she frankly admitted she has no time for re-reading.

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The list is really useful if you’re looking for someone to do work in a month’s time or longer. Also, for smaller languages, where there aren’t that many active users, we are able to detect new volunteers.

About the abusers, Viki has become too big to detect and react to all the misdemeanors. What if Viki created an automatic system where, if you were reported as an abuser by 3-5 separate users, you get to be automatically on-hold (i.e. your account is locked) until further notice.

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No, I don’t think an automatic system would be good. For all of us, there are people who don’t like us for many reasons. There are two people that I know of who definitely dislike me here at viki. Who knows, there might be more. If there are five of them, and your proposed system was in place, I might get in trouble, LOL!
And I can think of cases of people who were reported who report the people who reported them (if they can guess who they are because they previously wrote to them a stern message), as a personal vendetta.
No, no… Automatic is dangerous. Too many possibilities of things going wrong.

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“subtitles are being prepared”

in a fully subbed drama. That was the best one so far!

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Here’s what I do - I look at the list and send the question to the person - because good subbers tend to possibly know others so if they are too busy, they can possibly give you a person who isn’t as fully engaged but could be brilliant. The dramas I have need really great subbers - beyond the modern by far. So it’s an even more limited pool to draw from.

Anyway that’s my own take.

take care.

gao ci

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