First Experience When Joining Viki Contributor. How Hard was it to get a Project When You First Apply?

[annieisntfamous]

@maria_lavendula_77

I must say that it’s surprisingly interesting in translating because I sometimes have to search for a flower, bird or anything elses namn because you can’t just take the English word and translate it straight of.

Yes! Same here. It is important to get the right words. I mean… we are not like a dictionary. Also it’s hard to translate words-to-words as sometimes they don’t really make sense.

@feyfayer

I think in both cases I got to work with a sensei from the NSSA on my first projects

Wow, you are really lucky then

[cristymarie613]

Hi! You said that you gained experience in subtitling through other websites? May I know what are they? Thanks!

[annieisntfamous]

@irmar

This user is new and she doesn’t know we must first search whether the topic we want to create exists already.

@feyfayer

Hi, some of us have already answered your question a few years back in this topic

Yes you guys are right, I understand. And sorry because I wasn’t being detailed enough. Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the advice, I will make sure to never make this mistake again. Once again, I’m really appologise They are quite similar, however, I want to be more specific.

To add-on, what I mean is like your first experience when joining Viki Contributor to be specific, and how hard was it to get a project when you first apply. Sorry for not being detailing enough.

[annieisntfamous]

@cristymarie613

You said that you gained experience in subtitling through other websites? May I know what are they

I did a few subs as a freelancer, captioner and subber for my language for YT videos, that’s where I got my experiences. Websites like Freelancer would help alot. There are also a few sites that help/practice your subtitling skills. If you want more websites, DM me and I will give and explain more in detail.

[feyfayer]

@annieisntfamous

Wow, you are really lucky then

Idk if I would call it luck , but in my experience segmenting Sensei’s do make an effort to invite new graduates if they are Chief segmenters on a project, since students may have a hard time finding projects. And if you put in practice what you’ve learned and are active, you’ll keep getting invites for other projects after that. I’ve only been CS one time, but I made sure to invite new graduates as well .
I think they do the same in the subbing academy.

@annieisntfamous

To add-on, what I mean is like your first experience when joining Viki Contributor to be specific, and how hard was it to get a project when you first apply. Sorry for not being detailing enough.

Maybe you can adjust your title to that then

[annieisntfamous]

@feyfayer

Idk if I would call it luck

I mean… you are lucky that you have so many chances to practice, and your language is available for practicing/learning. My language is quite rare on Viki, so you are luckier than me

@feyfayer

Maybe you can adjust your title to that then

Oh yea, I didn’t think of that, thanks!

[irmar]

@annieisntfamous

I will make sure to never make this mistake again.

No big deal and no need to apologize, you didn’t know, that’s all, nobody is bashing you for it.

How to find a project has been covered quite a lot, in many threads, because it’s not really straightforward, and the Project Finder is perfectly useless.
Try here:

How are people finding projects?

Everything seems stalled. Is there an even newer way to connect to available projects? I find subbing and editing so peaceful, but I can’t seem to find anything. Doing more project searching than I ever dreamed. I’ve been looking for a project for a couple weeks.

Various options on how to find a project

Hi everyone, In the past I did read quite a few times that segmenters and subbers have a difficult time finding projects. For MV’s it’s simple you just check if a MV you like has segs or subs in the language you want and if not you add them if possible. For series it can be a bit harder sometimes. I don’t have problems finding projects so I decided to share some tips and tricks. How to find a project: Option 1: On this board Option 2: You search for a project available for your regio…

Beginners & project finder message system

Listen, the best way for a new volunteer to find a project is to go to the drama pages and look for names of moderators in his/her language, then write personal messages to them, asking whether they have any project in need of help. Include anything useful about you: the languages you know, your level, how much free time you have (maybe even which days of the week if there is anything like that), whether you have a Vikipass or not etc. If you happen to have specialistic knowledge (for instance…

About courtesy and subbing norms

Hi there! I just joined Viki, and I’ve been dying to contribute to the community. I’m particularly interested in translating and subbing in Norwegian. I went through the subtitle tutorials, found a show on the Project Finder but then realized there was a Team assigned to the show, and a cold chill ran down my spine. It dawned on me that I was not a member of said team. Was I out of line? I’d already added a few subs when I figured this out, but I immediately contacted the person in charge of …

[maria_lavendula_77]

Swedish is my language but I must admit I have realized that we have a much bigger vocabulary than is used from day to day… and working on a historical drama makes it more intersting… I really hope that you stumble apon something like I did, I thing my language-mod is easy to work with so I hope that we will work again on something when this is over… The day I get to start segmenting on a real thing and not the assignments in the academy is the day I will be even more greatful for my old senseis starting from the Sandbox. Segmenting is my dream even thoug translating is fun. One thing I have learnt is that it really is so much behind every thing here on Viki allot of people has dedicated to giv it to us all.

[yannapuma_99]

My first experience finding a project to contribute here on Viki was similar. I wrote and no one answers back at that time. It took me about 7 months to really find a project to start contributing when I was about to quit at all…

[dramalover7856]

Hey guys, I hope this will be helpful for those who are looking to subtitle (ESPECIALLY FOR THE LESSER COMMON LANGUAGES) but have not found any projects:

My experience: Less than a week ago, I joined the Viki community. Much like others, I found no success when applying through the ‘Project finder’. Now, thanks to the kind moderator of Persian, I am subtitling a J-drama in Persian! Also thanks to @mirjam_465 for recommending the lovely moderator to me.

Just to echo what everyone else is saying: kindly message the moderator for the language you are interested in. There are three options,

1. Message an active moderator of (a language) to say you are interested in subtitling (in said language) and they might be kind enough to give you a list of available projects to choose from.

OR

2. You can go to the main page of drama/film you are interested in subbing, scroll down and select ‘Subtitle Team’. You can find the moderator for each of the available languages. If your language exists on there, you can respectfully message the Moderator and they will be happy to let you know if there are sections you can help with.
   
   

OR

3. If the drama you want to subtitle does not have an existing moderator for your language and you have less than 1000 contributions (QC status), you won’t be able to subtitle (unless the Channel Manager is kind enough to make you mod, but that’s unlikely). If this happens, don’t worry! Once you reach QC status, you can apply to become a mod for your language in the drama you’re interested in. And then you can start subtitling!

Hopefully, this will help the newcomers (trust me, I’ve been there and I know it can get a bit frustrating at the start). If I got anything wrong or inaccurate, feel free to kindly correct it. I just wanted to help

[annieisntfamous]

@dramalover7856

Also thanks to @mirjam_465 for recommending the lovely moderator to me.

Oh, this person also helped me a lot! And I seriously respect her.

[xylune]

How hard things are usually depends on the size of the language community. If you’re aiming for Spanish or Portuguese there are lots of people, if you go for Vietnamese, there aren’t. And Viki nowadays actively tells us CMs not to add people if there is no moderator for said language: Subbers Without Mod are Not Allowed Anymore? - #27 by vikicommunity
Of course, there are CMs who don’t respond or hardly respond - but Viki prevents us now from adding inexperienced contributors. Instead, they are supposed to contact fellow moderators or Viki directly if there are none available.

[mirjam_465]

@dramalover7856

If the drama you want to subtitle does not have an existing moderator for your language and you have less than 1000 contributions (QC status), you won’t be able to subtitle (unless the Channel Manager is kind enough to make you mod, but that’s unlikely).

1,000 contributions = QC Trainee
3,000 contributions = QC
20,000 contributions = Gold QC

To be added as a moderator, you need to have 3,000 subtitles in the language you apply for on your name. Nowadays, Viki has made it technically impossible for us to add moderators if they don’t meet that requirement so even if the CM is kind, they can’t add the person because the system won’t let them.
Viki is hoping that this way, all new subbers will get guidance from an experienced moderator, but of course, this makes things very difficult for new volunteers in less common languages.

I’m happy to read that things worked out well for you, though.

[dramalover7856]

Thanks for the correction I thought QC started at 1000 but I guess that’s too soon

[layssagomes]

I joined the community a little while ago and I’m looking for my first job

[leonardo_bruno_chrom]

Well, I’m new and getting a new project was hard for me.

Some times they don’t even read applications and almost half of the projects are full but available at the Project list and some had Viki Pass projects.

It genuinely pissed me off but I’m here with my first on-going project. “Modern Marriage”

[sof1953]

I’m also on the subtitler team of that cdrama . I’m on the English-Spanish subtitler team

[leonardo_bruno_chrom]

Oh, that’s cool

[irmar]

@leonardo_bruno_chrom

almost half of the projects are full but available at the Project list

See, the Project Finder lists all projects which are not complete, even by one episode. But the team is usually finalized by the time the projects start. To circumvent the problem and avoid people applying in vain, Viki made a wonderful tool, which is the “Hide project” tool, in the Manage page. That is, once your team is complete, you click on that button and the project doesn’t appear in Channel Finder.
But it seems that many managers forget to do that because it’s relatively new (what, one year?).
The shows being behind Viki Pass is a problem. Once upon a time, when I first joined, there were many unlocked shows you could do your first subs on. I worked on many old American cartoons and old Hollywood movies. Now all of these have disappeared. As for Asian shows, you even see some from 2008 which are behind Viki Pass. Absurd! Then how is a newbie going to start? They want to oblige new contributors to buy a Viki Pass for the first 3-4 months until they get their 3000 subtitles and can unsubscribe. But I think one must feel very cheated, to be obliged to pay in order to work for free!
Those managers or Channel Managers who don’t read applications, or not reply, are just rude. When you are a Channel Manager and you take a new show, it’s true that you’re swamped with messages. I’m talking about 40, 50 new messages in a day. And if you’re a Moderator, there will also be a lot from subbers. It’s natural that you don’t have the time to reply to all of them immediately. But one should make it a point to eventually reply, even if it’s a few days or a week late.
Sometimes, though, even with the best intentions, one can fail to do so. For instance, you briefly glance through a message, you mean to reply to it, you get distracted by something urgent, and the message is not “bold” anymore, it looks as if “read”. So you may forget about it and think you have already replied. We are human after all.

[jasgiul]

I guess in a way I cheated myself in. I hope that this tip may help some of the newbies in the smaller language communities. I dodged the Viki Pass issue irmar talked about and the 0 experience issue mirjam_465 told us in this manner:

I found an older Korean drama for which only the first couple of episodes were translated in my language and apparently was abandoned. It was also free to watch for anyone at the time. I liked the drama so I wanted to finish it and applied. My luck was that my language moderator, who was also the only translator for my language, became inactive. I couldn’t reach her by message so I went straight to the Channel Manager and asked her by message to add me to the team. Which was no problem bc there was already a moderator in my language. Even though the mod was inactive, the channel manager gave me a chance! (Just like mirjam_465 said: I can’t be added to a team when there is no mod bc of my 0 exp.) I translated the remaining 14 or so episodes. Because the drama wasn’t airing then, there was no pressure and I could take my time to get acquainted with the translation tool and slowly gather 3000 translations to became a QC.

I’m not sure if there is still no need for a Viki Pass for this particular drama. But it was the case then and so I bypassed the issue irmar talked about. That was 2 years ago.

Little disclaimer: I do think that being under supervision when you start out is the best way. A moderator in your language who can be like a mentor and tell you the common mistakes in working as a subtitler. Also an experienced editor is important. But I found out a lot myself so I corrected some of my former mistakes and I got better at it. Now I can use the Project Finder to apply to become a moderator myself and I can pick projects that I really like. But let me remind you, my language community is rather small (and ‘gezellig’) so this will probably not apply to the Spanish, Portugese etc. communities I suppose.

Hope this helps and good luck!