CM , Moderator and translators

[cahcodognatto]

Wow! Well said

[sushi_ane]

I think the team involved and the banned subtitlers should flag this manager, so Viki staff can evaluate and decide what to do.

[xylune]

I was aware that people have something like 1-Mod rules or requirements for moderators… but a limit of the team size? Makes no sense to me. There’re dramas with 60+ translators from the huge communities. Even our medium-sized community doesn’t have huge issues finding 12 people. There’s no point in limiting it, the quality won’t necessarily be better or worse, but the translation speed may suffer significantly.

Maybe, there were ancient rules before, but there’s nothing like this nowadays.

I don’t agree with adding many subbers for a short project.(I’m not talking about the drama mention in this thread)

I think it doesn’t matter if people have many projects and fewer subs or few projects and many subs. Like this, they can ensure translation after release, while I can’t do that in a medium-sized community. I might be able to guarantee 2-3 episodes per week (or even 4 if people agree to do 2 parts), but that’s it. They would run if I throw something like “you have 2 hours from now on” at them, or if I made them do 3 parts a week for one drama. The language communities have huge differences, so they should be permitted to do whatever works best for them and doesn’t influence the goal negatively.

[bozoli]

That would just escalate the situation, instead of resolving it at the lowest possible level.

(Note: This post was edited after proper steps were achieved to preserve the privacy of the persons involved in the issue.)

Dear community, we don’t do this. We don’t publicly attack one contributor. Please respect their privacy, no matter how outrageous you think this issue is.

If you want to discuss the issue, feel free, but anonymously.

[sushi_ane]

I don’t think so. If the channel manager already said there is no room for discussion and the volunteers feel wronged, that is what must be done. The tool “flag” only exist for situations like this.

[ale_sandra99_933]

Put the name is not a way to let the people involved know about it and has an opportunity to give to us its side of the history?!

To hear (read) what people think, and then maybe have a second though about things.

[animarina_677]

I can understand the thoughts of the CM a bit… for example, if I’m not mistaken, there were around 300 Spanish subtitlers for a super popular drama lately. I don’t know how the OL managed it to make sure each of them can sub a small part of the drama.

But still, I also can’t see a value in limiting a team to such a small number. From my point of view the size of the team should be up to the OL who knows exactly what to do, and how to manage their subtitlers. If the CM has concerns about it, they can reach out to their OL and just ask them how they do it. That way there is a communication (which, I think, is one of the key points between CM and OL), and the CM can learn more about their teams and moderators.

The key issue here, in my opinion, is that the CM seems to have changed their mind after a team has been put together. If they had communicated it from the start, the OL could have adapted to the situation and only recruited the specific number of contributors.

[kakashiandme]

There is no limit.

CMs make final calls and take care of bad behavior and recruit the MODERATORS… who then make the final call on their teams and who they need to work on their teams. Moderators, again, I’ve said this once and I’ll say this a million times… know who works well on their team. CMs (unless they speak the same language) should keep their toes out of the pool. Again… I speak English, pretty darn fluent in Spanish and Korean, learning Chinese, Japanese and Thai. Do I speak French? No. Do I know who is the best on the French teams? No. If there was a problem in the French language, could I solve it? Probably not. I’m there to support the moderator and make the final decisions when needed. If another language person asks me to sub in let’s say… Swahili… I can only pray and hope this person speaks that language. I can ask questions to find out what they know but I can’t say if they are good, bad, are just plain ugly. THAT is what a language moderator is for.

So if the language needs 100 subbers, so be it. The moderator will have to deal with the selection and who/what/how that team plays the game on Viki. If the OL moderator is certain they need this many, I wouldn’t/couldn’t say no.

It would be glory be if I could find 30 English subbers for one drama…

[bozoli]

Put the name is not a way to let the people involved know about it and has an opportunity to give to us its side of the history?!

I agree the person involved should have an opportunity to read what has been said here and reflect. But that can be dome by sending a PM! the CM in question has no obligation to “justify” herself to us, the community. This is the internal matter of the team. We as the community can only advise, not interfere.

I think the OP (@egle_toita) did the right thing by asking the community what the rules are.

[bozoli]

I don’t think so. If the channel manager already said there is no room for discussion and the volunteers feel wronged, that is what must be done. The tool “flag” only exist for situations like this.

A proper conversation between the CM and the Mod hasn’t happened yet. At least not a conversation with taking the Community’s standpoint into consideration (if at all). So, it’s too early to report a CM, since she hasn’t had time to react.

[simi11]

That “rule” is quite surprising and disturbing. I think a Mod is responsible for his team and the quality and timely subtitling, a CM shouldn’t interfere with making “to me unknown such rule”. It depends a lot on styles of managing a team and how they work together, one size fits all isn’t appropriate.

It is known that Spanish and Portuguese have a much larger demographic therefore more folks to subtitle and therefore are usually very fast because they have a greater availability when someone cannot subtitle under certain time another can spring in.

Is there another issue that CM would be worried about because of the size of a team?? I wonder if there is something amiss…

[padmalayag]

I’ve never heard of it. Actually, there is a channel ( https://www.viki.com/tv/37390c-homemade-love-story?locale=pt ) which I moderated and the cm is a staff, I recruited almost 50 volunteers. I didn’t receive any complain from @amyk. Now @jeslynl is the cm, but at the time it was Amy.

That’s a very long drama, I’m talking about short ones…

I agree that the CM should not interfere with that.

But,
I don’t agree with adding many subbers for a short project.(I’m not talking about the drama mention in this thread)

I clearly mentioned that I’m not talking about loooong dramas which definitely need more people.
@cahcodognatto
@xylune

[xylune]

I clearly mentioned that I’m not talking about loooong dramas which definitely need more people.

Just as stated, I don’t think it matters unless the amount is really ridiculous (e.g., everyone subs 4 lines of a movie or people don’t contribute at all). But even in that case, I probably wouldn’t count the volunteers. It’s rather their problem if they’re assigned to 20 dramas with 0 subs.

[bozoli]

It’s rather their problem if they’re assigned to 20 dramas with 0 subs.

I’m going to slightly digress this topic… (Ducking in case of flung missiles from the community.)

If I were that subber with zero contribution on a project, I’d probably ask to be removed when the project is done, since it looks really bad when assessing if that person is worthy of being a moderator for the first time.

[maongaro]

[serenite78]

Good evening,

I am the CM mentioned in this discussion.

I did send out the request to shorten the list of the Portuguese subbers to a number that is similar to other teams - keeping it up to 8-10 persons maximum.

Here is a little summarization of the whole issue

1. The Portuguese team consisted (I have not checked it today so the information is from 2 days before) of 32 people, among which 8 have been inactive for a longer period of time or had no recent contributions. Of course, it does not say anything about their commitment or the time they can commit to this specific drama.

2. I have encountered a situation in Storm Eye, Love me if you dare and Ashes of Love before, where a large number of the team members (the general one not the particular language one) did not allow us to add another language subber thus denying them access to the drama. Deleting someone midway to make place for another language does not seem right for people who contributed to the show, so I did request the Portuguese Team and Spanish Team (over 20+ subbers added) to condense their teams before it actually happens this time. The Spanish Team had no problem with following this request, although they are also a large group of highly motivated and dedicated subbers, just like the Portuguese team is. and all the other teams here, of course.

3. I was asked by the Portuguese Moderator of the show whether the disobedience of my order (as it was described here) will cost him/her the position of the Mod and I wrote back that it is just a request, it will have no effect on the Moderator position. I also tried to explain my rationale behind the request and the concerns I have about the inactive members of the Portuguese team.

I understand that this request was uncommon and that it probably irritated the hell out of the Moderator who gathered all the applications and formed a great team.

I think we have reached a consensus on this matter and we have a good base for future talks on how to make a team more compact.

I also think that removing really inactive subbers or those who already have a couple of current projects under their belt to make way for the new subbers or those who are really following this drama and subbing it whenever they have the moment to spare (or those who actually really want to sub this drama because of their eye candies in it) is not an assault on anyone’s rights to subtitle.

I am pretty sure we will find a good solution with the Portuguese Mod and I will definitely not rip him/her apart just because the number will exceed the suggested quota.

And with this, I am signing off. The rest will be discussed with the parties involved.

[maongaro]

[flavinhaa]

Exacly!!!

[xylune]

If I were that subber with zero contribution on a project, I’d probably ask to be removed when the project is done, since it looks really bad when assessing if that person is worthy of being a moderator for the first time.

Well, in our teams everyone has parts assigned every few episodes (like 2 to 4), but I’m aware it’s different for teams that rely on availability. However, the statement is from the CM POV. I consider it my job to ensure that the drama is translated into OL and polished in a timely manner, however, I don’t manage the OL teams (unless there are e.g., people who fake subs or something, in that case I talked to the responsible Moderator of course based on the evidence I had).

I did send out the request to shorten the list of the Portuguese subbers to a number that is similar to other teams - keeping it up to 8-10 persons maximum.

As stated previously, there are dramas of the same size our medium-sized language community translated with ~20 people (all active), and it resulted in ~1000 subs. However, like this, we could only guarantee finishing the translation of an episode within 5 to 7 days. Communities have different sizes and working methods, and even in the case of a medium-sized community I’d consider 8 contributors a minimum for a drama of this length, but not a maximum.

I have encountered a situation in Storm Eye, Love me if you dare and Ashes of Love before, where a large number of the team members (the general one not the particular language one) did not allow us to add another language subber thus denying them access to the drama.

This sounds like there’s a “technical limit” which was denied previously.

[sonmachinima]

Mostly not working bc Viki locks movies behind QC/Pass, even older movies.