Most of us have compiled stuff, in the course of our years here.
If you go to my profile page and scroll down after the list of projects, you will find the documents I made on medical terms, on Joseon terms, Korean profanities and slang, Korean reference, English guidelines, Italian guidelines etc…
Ajumma2 also has a long and wonderful list of reference documents she has compiled
and cgwm808 has a Google document of legal terms for Korean subbers.
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Wow I didn’t know about these! 
You all have worked REALLY, REALLY hard! Thank you!^^ I’ll be spending some of my drama-watching time going through all those wonderful docs!
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@vivi_1485,
Try to post a follow up here 
us fans like to know how things work, as that’s the best way we can support our teams of volunteers! 
@leerla73
I have so many Scooby moments with so many aspects of K-dramas and other dramas. I know a lot thanks to a life-long interest in Asian culture engendered in me by parents and grandparents and my being absolutely gobsmacked by several 1950s Hollywood blockbusters with Asian themes.
However, saying (to use a tasty word picture) “I love Lindt truffles” is not enough to construct a giant Lindt chocolate truffle that is a simulacrum of the real thing that will encourage people to buy the real thing.
I am so left-handed, big-picture, what-if-and-why in my approach to learning anything that the minute a new Viki offering is “released.” (RELEASE THE DIGITAL KRAKEN!) I hit pause every five seconds because I just want to know stuff.
My head was spinning the first time I saw a saeguk that was NOT set in the Joseon era. Goryeo??? Whatwhat??? I learned about food and weaving and the traditions of mourning that are still reflected in “modern” funerals and pottery and traditional musical instruments and coins and who was whose legit and bastard children . . . and which characters were simulacrums of historical figures.
And one reason I think such information could be of immense use to subbers and all the other members of a Viki “team” is the prime interface between the different dramas and Viki users and subscribers, and that is the synopses of dramas.
When members of a family or clan communicate with each other, they can talk about a whole lot in language that is compressed and mysterious to non-family members. There is a lot that is assumed and unspoken so that letters and emails and whatnot can be brief and cryptic and yet deeply meaningful to “the fam.”
But if you are not a member of “the fam,” then nothing makes sense, and people invited to dinner with “the fam” arrive feeling insecure, left out, afraid of looking stupid, etc.
"Hi, thanks for inviting me; I’m sorry I’m so late; I read the invitation over and over, and based on the description of things I had a really hard time figuring out who invited me, what the restaurant address was, what kind of food would be on the menu . . . "
For me the current example of this problem would be the C-drama Be At Ease, Mr. Ling.
As a visual sort of person, I was immediately attracted by the splash screen when I saw it was up a couple of days ago. I love the colors!
Also, having gone through the very lovely, very sweet, very tearful My Little Happiness, I was eager to get into another C-drama rom-com e-commerce espionage thriller.
Interesting how romance and espionage are so intimately linked in Viki dramas.
So I went right to BAEML’s home page. When I read the synopsis, I had no clue what I would be getting into.
My perception was that there was way too much context for the amount of content provided, and the content was not relatable.
I started the first episode, assuming there would be a lot of character backstories and that I would be introduced to the characters in such a way that (even if the backstories took sixteen episodes) I would be able to get a clear sense of meaningful connections between various characters (even if I didn’t understand exactly what those connections were).
In BAEML, all the characters that I saw in the first episode seemed to be someone with the name “Ling” attached to them. However, I could not tell (in the rapid crosstalk of each scene) whose given name was “Ling” and whose family name was “Ling.”
In addition, because the transliteration “Ling” is not pronounced as it would be in English, my English-speaking ear missed almost every time somebody with the name “Ling” was addressed or mentioned.
I could not, either by listening or by reading, identify which actors were portraying which characters, who was related to whom, or why I should give a hoot.
From my perspective as a non-asian English speaker, it would do an immense amount of good to have a very concise synopsis of a drama such as Be At Ease, Mr. Ling that would include helpful links to contextual information that would aid clueless people such as myself.
I know, from certain features that stand out to me visually, Be At Ease, Mr. Ling is going to be a very fun, very sweet, gently tear-inducing cdrama. Obviously, because if it didn’t have that kind of potential, Vicky would not have bothered to get the license to show it.
However, I feel somewhat dizzy and annoyed because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what is going on or figure out how to get into the heart of the show to begin enjoying it.
A synopsis of Be At Ease, Mr. Ling (which reads more like a class syllabus than a mini-novela) would make me very happy, and would I’m sure make a lot of other people happy as well.
(It’s THIS kind of thing that drives me to do all kinds of Internet research and create way too many bookmarks on all sorts of arcane topics!)
(Google screen cap)
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I will not come between you, and your deep rooted trust, but there are others who also recommend watching this very drama. You can start at the start, the review in detail starts at 1:25 to 3:40
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Xiǎo mèimei xièxiè nǐ。I enjoyed Marcus Here!
In the time it took me to get comfy in my computer chair, Mr. Sim rattled off a very short but very informative synopsis AND a very short but very informative review of Be At Ease, Mr. Ling.
That’s what I’m talking about. Still does not tell me who is whom, but I guess it’s full-immersion binge-watching for me!
(Giphy)
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Sounds like you’re describing the cover pages or be it that’s where this kind of details would be handy. Found under the Subtitle Team header.
Sure they’re inconsistent and depends on the cover page designer but some of them are useful.
(I’m sure I’ve seen one with practically a family tree of the characters with branch lines and all but the show escapes me)
Mr Ling cover page is a bit basic with just character and actor names but at least they matched it with a photo.
Usually they have a bit more details.
this one had a basic relation of…
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The synopses are provided from the source Viki gets licenses from. So volunteer teams have no power to change it, or we would have done so for countless dramas. Like @ninjas_with_onions said, the cover page will be most helpful to you. A lot of teams make very detailed ones to help viewers. However, because the cover page is so hidden(you have to scroll way down on the Subtitle Team tab), people don’t find it easily.
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So glad it helped a bit
Credit: WordHippo.com translate (◠‿・)—☆
你是欢迎姐姐！
Nǐ shì huānyíng jiějiě!
You are welcome sister! 
The story of my life! 
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Nice descriptions. I notice only one misuse of punctuation in English. Very nicely done “poster.” I assume the colors are taken from the public relations stuff that the broadcast network supplies?
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You can make it whatever colour scheme you want. I guess most designers blend a similar colour scheme as the poster for the drama released by the broadcasters.
Mr Ling poster
Cover page poster
Could have been a totally different vibe if they went with this poster
There’s some good topics on cover pages over at
https://discussions.viki.com/c/volunteering/design-artwork
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And there is another way that subbers get no love. Just a tiny bit of website reformatting, and the different Viki fan bases would be even more loyal . . . because they would finally have a clue.
I went to see a stage production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol a number of years ago during that famous winter holiday when everyone wants to hear it. The program very carefully included a synopsis of the story (even though it is so well-known), pictures of the performers, the set designer, the director, the costume designer, the dramaturg, just everybody so that by the time the curtain went up on the first act, everybody in the audience “knew” the cast and crew and was invested in what was going on throughout the performance.
Viki as originally conceived had that kind of vibe, but . . . not now sadly.
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