Yep! You’re totally right. Yes, one should be constant in terms of once one takes on a project, one should be responsible and finish said project. However, I would say that “quality” should be included in said “responsibility”, even if sometimes it takes a bit longer. At the end of the day, what’s the point of clunky sentences that a viewer won’t understand or simply wrong translations of certain jargon because the translator didn’t have enough time to research? Yes, I understand that there’s competition and Viki thinks they should match it and have the episodes ready and available at the same time as the others with certain subtitles. But… also, part of that is the quality, is it not? If the subtitles here are haphazard and clunky due to the imposed time limits, viewers might still go to another platform in search of better subtitles. Also, I would argue that just the fact that Viki has so many languages available that these other platforms might not gives them a step up in terms of competition.
I personally always try to keep a mostly constant pace when subbing, as much as I can, in terms of “I’ll dedicate some time to subbing every day or at least every two days” or however much free time I have outside of work and other engagements at that point in life. I’m sure all the other volunteers here serious about doing their volunteering do the same thing. I’ve definitely seen some wonderful translations as a viewer and you can tell how much thought went into them. But of course, some days I’ll get more subbed and some days less, depending on how much time the segments took. Sometimes when you have technical jargon, for example, you need a bit of extra time to do some research. On the other hand, when it’s a simple conversation between characters, the subbing will be much faster.
Furthermore, as you said, we are all volunteers and therefore doing this all in our free time, outside of work, because of our love for it and that should definitely be taken into consideration. Some days you have more free time and some days you have less, depending on your job, studies, and other outside engagements in life.
However, I do have to mention, in my personal experience, I come from a very small community, and so far I’ve always been a solo subber on all the dramas I’ve worked on. So, obviously, working alone, it takes me longer to sub a drama than a team of say, 10, would. All the CMs I’ve worked with so far have been super nice and organized, never pressuring me or imposing any impossible time limits, if there were any at all. It’s really motivated me and inspired me to keep volunteering and I really enjoy my work here on Viki. I’ve even introduced some viewers from my country to dramas because of those translations. My point was, I was actually quite surprised to hear that there were CMs asking for the kind of time limits you mentioned. I’m not sure, maybe it’s because of the bigger teams, so considering the number of people, they do honestly think the work is doable in that time-frame? However, just my two cents, not just as a volunteer and a linguist, but as a viewer on Viki, I’d rather wait a couple of extra days for quality subtitles than have them done haphazardly and have to guess what the characters meant to say. I always support quality over quantity.
