Well, when you’re a complete beginner, you’re okay with any project, that’s how it works. You can’t afford to be picky, you just want to build some experience. When I remember the first dramas I translated, I shudder with boredom. I realized later that those moderators gave me what nobody else wanted. But it was perfectly okay, because by working on those, I slowly got to understand how everything works, and by the time they were finished, I was ready to go around and explore and choose what to ask for.
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Maybe I should have put it otherwise. I meant that people click on the buttons for like a few minutes… So you end up getting like 5 of those messages within 2 minutes. Why send messages to all the projects in one go? Then you might end up with 5 projects or something and how do you plan to complete all those within a reasonable time when you are the only subber in your language?
that’s sad. Hope this matter could be sorted out in the best way possible, so new and old volunteers don’t feel discouraged. 
Hello,
I am a beginner here and would like to expand myself in drama translation world. You mentioned here non-on-air projects, which I find quite interesting to start with. Could you please kindly advise, where I can find these projects or whom to contact? Fyi, my preference is to translate from Chinese to English. However, I am fluent in other languages as well, e.g. Indonesian and German.
Looking forward to hear your feedback.
Many thanks in advance
Regards,
boppytolly_520
Well, there are supposedly four ways to find projects. Unfortunately only two of them work.
1. The project finder method.
As you may already have gathered from the previous discussions, it’s completely useless.
I searched for Chinese to English translation, and there were zero results (I tried with both styles of Chinese). I added that I want the show to be from China and again zero results.. When I know for sure that there are Chinese projects in desperate need of subbers
It’s a total disgrace which puts Viki into ridicule, I don’t know they haven’t given priority to fixing it, before putting so much effort into other stuff. Anyway.
2. The Explore method.
A bit long, but it might yield results. Of course, if you don’t have Viki pass yet, there is no option to filter only those you CAN watch. The only options are “All shows” and “Viki pass”. Yeah, I know, this sucks. One would think that Viki would make the new volunteers’s lives easier, but no, they couldn’t care less. Aaaaanyway.
I also chose TV and that left us with “only” 461 shows. Let’s sort by “New” (menu on the right), so that we quickly go past the first ones which are Fan Channels (not yet licensed), Coming Soon and On-Air. This brings us to the next page. Okay, from here one, you’re stuck. There’s no way of knowing whether those hundreds of shows have already been completed in English or not. No percentage shown on the thumbnails or info. You will have to click on each and every one of them to check.
Fortunately if you hover your mouse on the thumbnail it will tell you how many languages it’s translated into. If there is more than one (English), it probably means that English is 100% complete, right? Wrong! It may be that English, and the other languages with it, are all stuck somewhere in the middle. To be absolutely certain, you have to go to the show, click on the “episodes” tab, choose the last episodes, and see whether those are more than 96% in English. Be careful to have English as your subtitle language before doing that. (It’s done by clicking on any episode of any show, choosing English as subtitle language. Then you will see info about the English anywhere you look)
So that method is also pretty useless, it will take you ages to find something.
3. Writing here on Discussions
There’s the thread “Do you want to subtitle? Let people know”. Moderators have a look when they need subbers, so do leave a post there.
4. Asking the moderators.
I think the quickest method is to go to recent channels (no matter whether they are on-air or recently finished) and mark down names of English moderators who work or have worked for Chinese shows. Go to the show, choose the Team tab and choose English moderator. Better still, scroll down to the so-called “Cover page”, where the roles are detailed. You don’t want an English moderator who is just a General Editor or a Translation Editor, you need the name of the Chief Editor. That’s the one who chooses the subbers. Collect a good bunch of names and keep them on a document, they will come handy in the future as well. You may even keep notes on how they responded to you. Then send a message to each of them, in English, telling them that you are available for in translating a Chinese show if they need help in one of their projects. Include some other info about you, whether Chinese is your mothertongue or how long you studied it or any diplomas you may have or whether you lived in China etc. And be sure to mention whether you have Viki pass or not. The region you are living in is also helpful. Americas (North and South), Asia, Europe, Middle East? Because not all shows are licensed in all regions.
Tip: Don’t write to too many people at once, not more than 3-4 at a time, I would say. What if ALL of them write back offering you a place in a project? How will you handle so many? And it’s a bit rude to decline after you were the one to ask.
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Hello irmar,
Thanks a lot for the guidances and suggestions. I will try them (it) out 
Regards,
boppytolly_520
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Before coming here, I thought Project Finder is the correct place to let people know I want to volunteer. Right after I joined Viki, I dived into the Finder but found it a little difficult for people to understand my message.
The message had I want to subtitle from English to हिन्दी (hindi) and I knew for somebody who doesn’t knows or understand Hindi, it could be difficult to know what language I want to subtitle to. So instead, I looked for people to whom the message is going to and sent them the message with the project finder.
With just a little bit alterations, I suppose project finder can be of some use.
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You can customise the message.
Unfortunately Viki didn’t take the trouble to put this information on top of the message, so very few people actually guess that they can.
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I know this probably isn’t the right place, but I’m a beginner and I hope someone can direct me.
I am a native English speaker, my degrees are in English and Writing. I am not fluent in any other languages. What I would like to volunteer to do is to correct/edit translated subtitles. Sometimes the English (from Chinese or Korean) translations of subtitles are great, but sometimes they are very badly done. This is not a criticism, because something is better than nothing. However, I have turned my elderly mother onto Viki and she loves watching the shows, but if the subtitles in the first few episodes are a little difficult to understand–they don’t flow, they are choppy, spelling errors, etc–my mother will stop watching the show. This is sad, because she is missing out on some excellent shows.
Anyway, where should I post to volunteer? Thank you.
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Try this thread
I hope you and your mom will still have a lot of fun on Viki in the future.
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Just a little update about my experiences with this auto message system/tool:
So far, non of the users that was using the tool and sending auto generated messages replied!
I think in the future, I’m really done with answering those auto generated messages since it just makes me angry; spending my time and NEVER get a reply anyway.
Besides, those who’re writing a personal message by themselves, even when they’re completely new to VIKI ALWAYS reply to my answers. That shows that it is not about being new but how to approach this subject.
#better spending my time for those who show some personal effort too instead of just hitting a auto generated message button.
I still don’t know why you keep this tool in the way it is instead of altering it and e.g. lead interested new users directly to the forums and the subtitle thread?
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And it’s not just beginners who use this tool. Even some Gold QC’s still do.
Maybe the project finder should just be about finding the project (and not just episode so-and-so) that still needs help and then show a pop-up with a link to the show page and a few lines about what to do to get a chance at working on that project, like go to …, PM … or … Write your message in language X, think of correct spelling, etc.
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I like your idea of using this tool as some kind of info window instead of a auto generated message system.
Thanks for mentioning that even Gold QCs are using it (that didn’t happen to me but if a Gold QC uses it that is even worse because a Gold QC should know how to write a personal message to a CM/language mod…)
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ok I feel really bad about this, but I wanted to say this hoping it will help you at least a little.
When I first got interested in volunteering here on Viki, I didn’t fully understand the GRAVITY of what I was getting myself into. I don’t know how to explain it, I was just too stupid to know that it was a serious job, I guess. I just thought it was a fun lil thing, translating stuff to the language I know. I didn’t understand the organization behind it, the rules of the community, nothing. This volunteer concept of Viki is really different from anything we know previously. Somehow it didn’t fully occur to me that I was writing something other people were going to seriously use. So I just clicked on the ‘send message’ option and thought “Here we go, let’s see what happens.”
Only after I actually started working did I realize what was going on and everything. I feel really bad about how I just messaged like five people at once and I want to apologize to each of them for being so careless and inconsiderate.
I think a lot of people think like me, or just want to see what will happen. Or they mght just want the QC status to get the Viki Pass without paying? I quit subbing before I reached QC status because I wasn’t good at it and I wanted to know I have actually EARNED the perks I get when I reach different statuses, instead of just cheating my way through.
So instead of directly letting users get onto the Project Finder, I think Viki should first make sure they go through the Subbing/Segging Academies before even starting anything. I’ve enrolled into the Segging Academy, and the wait is making me evaluate again and again whether I’m serious about this. Making people WAIT is a good test of sincerity.
For segging, I agree, you can’t do it without training. But with translation it is very different. There are people who do this a a living, they are writers, editors, translators, or they are really bilingual or just very very fluid in both languages. Some are just talented, they have a knack for it, so even if they make a few mistakes when they first start, they learn quickly and before the drama is finished they have become very proficient.
You can’t oblige all those people to go through an academy before even starting, it would really demotivate them.
It is the language moderator’s role to guide those who have potential to become better and give them the knowhow. It’s also his or her role to filter the ones who are not up to par, and gently advise them to work on their language skills a little more.
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I am not sure if this is the right thread to do so, but I still am trying hard to figure out how the Volunteer Finder works. Neither are there any volunteers nor do I can see a way to enlist myself there (I don’t want to though).
Can somebody help out with this?
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Tbh, I never even use it. Are you looking for Hindi subbers?
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In short, it doesn’t work.
Here is a post I made about how to make it work, on January 17th, 2018. Nothing has happened since.
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Here you can see all the shows that have (some) Hindi subtitles:
https://www.viki.com/explore?language=hi
You could narrow it down to only on air shows, but when I did that only 5 shows were left and I think you already know everyone working on those.
Yeah! I now know everyone in Hindi community (almost)
I just asked out of curiousity 
I guess, no progress was made ever for Volunteer Finder.
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