I am the person who gives extensive feedback. And when I say extensive, a full list of the most important mistakes and why they are mistakes.
I try to word it in the most polite way possible, without hurting people’s feelings, but I always make sure to say exactly what I want to say (in the less hurtful way), not leaving anything.
Most of them respond in a positive way, thanking me for my time and asking for forgiveness for giving me so much extra work correcting and explaining to them. So I ask them to have a Skype session with me so that I can explain more easily and in depth why things are not good and how they could be made better.
I was very inspired from the feedback style of the Ninja Academy, where they pointed out the mistakes, what to do about them and then let you correct them yourself. In some cases it’s easier like that. For instance, if the person keeps ignoring formatting rules and does not copy standard sentences from the spreadsheet, I don’t correct, but point out where (sometimes I even put asterisks on the subtitle to be corrected), and tell her to look again at the formatting rules etc and make the corrections herself.
I had to write a harsh message to somebody who used to be very good and lately got lazy, using google translate, guessing things instead of looking them up, not checking her work once more etc.
I felt very bad doing it, but on the other hand, it took me three times as much to correct her translations than it would to translate the piece myself, so I thought it wasn’t fair.
A good method is, instead of attacking and saying “you are this and this and that”,
- say “you did this and that”, which is accusing the behaviour and not the person and
- speak of what you feel, how her behaviour is making you feel.
This is less aggressive, and it is always a good method even in verbal conversations, so as not close the communication door and to avoid making them into bitter name-calling fights.
In that specific case I went to the point of writing something like
"I understand that we are all volunteers here, and we’re doing it for pleasure as a hobby; this said, however, when we take on a project we commit on doing our best and follow viki’s and the moderator’s requirements, to ensure that the viewers have quality subtitles.
I always tell all of you that if you have any real-life problem and you cannot translate for a while, or you want to quit completely for any reason, it’s no problem, just tell me and I’ll arrange for someone else to take your place, or do it myself. But doing a sloppy work is not okay.
Therefore, when I see that you used automatic translation, that you didn’t bother to make a one minute search on the online dictionaries I provided on the spreadsheet, that you never looked at your work again to correct typos and formatting mistakes, I felt insulted, I felt you were spitting on my face. I felt that you were saying to yourself ‘Who cares, why bother, there is a stupid slave editor who is going to sweat and clean up after me’.
In your case, you should have written a personal message as soon as you noticed her not following the rules, directed her to where to go (assuming that she just didn’t know and she did it out of ignorance, which of course isn’t true, but this is so that you don’t hurt her pride), and tell her to correct her last work before attempting to translate a new piece. When she does, insist on everything being done correctly, and, just as the Ninja senseis, not let her move on to the next assignment until she corrects everything.
Make clear that this is the prerequisite for staying in the team.
That’s what I would do. Of course every person approaches things in her own way.
Hope this helped.
