Insisting for too long on completed edit in English before OLs can continue

Contributing Subtitling
#1

Recently I’ve seen several channels suffering from backlashes of English team insisting that Other Languages do not begin translating at all until the episodes are finished completely with editing.

Normally this would be no problem if the editing was finished within let’s say 3-4 days after the rough/draft English had been added to an episode. However, there are unfortunate cases where editing took longer than a week. The episodes were available to non-subscribers, as well, and you might have guessed what happened next.

So, is there really SUCH a point in holding hostage the episodes for so many days and watching the other language moderators, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French, suffer the utmost abuse by their audience?

There may be cardinal errors in English which would translate into OLs should the episode be released to OLs before its final edit, but do they trump the humiliation all the OL mods have to suffer while waiting for that one person to have time to go through the English in that particular episode one last time?

Some Eng Editors actually release the episode before its final edit, warning OL mods that changes would come in the following week, and to check the episodes then. I bet you that those abused OL teams would gladly go through the same episode three times, as long as they don’t have to read hater mail.

And, yes, I know that viewers shouldn’t complain about the sub to the extent that they think they are going to die if they don’t see the next episode right this instant. But people will always whine, will always criticise and there is very little we can do to stop them, except marking their last messages before death as spam.

For me the solution here is obvious.

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Contributors who want to demotivate other contributors on purpose
#2

First, I feel sorry for the language teams that need to work under these circumstances. One of the reasons I don’t read comments anymore is because I understand them in too many languages and wow O.O people can be so rude.

And two, I have to agree with you. I worked on an older drama with a moderator and the English is that drama was bad… it was so hard to figure out what the English sentence meant, but listening to the Korean I was able to decipher most of the text. So, I do understand why editors want the other teams to wait and I also understand that you don’t know what that person is dealing with in real life, so it can happen that there is a hold-up. But if it is a regular thing…
I don’t know. It just makes it more demotivating to be a volunteer. On both sides of the spectrum.

3 Likes
#3

I think it’s a decision to be taken case by case, without making a rule for every single drama. There are some shows with decent subbers and T-editors, so the English makes sense, even if it sounds a little weird at times.
There are some other shows in which the English is almost incomprehensible, so in that case there is no point in translating it.

2 Likes
#4

I absolutely agree a universal solution doesn’t exist here. But in 80-90% of cases the rawish EN subs are bearable.

My point is, let’s not insist on perfection while your colleagues are being attacked on a daily basis.

This is what I am actually afraid of. Volunteers, especially new ones, just throwing their arms in the air out of frustration and giving up on Viki in general.

CMs should also take more responsibility here. If nothing else, they should participate in cleaning the garbage in the discussion left by the sub-whiners and support OL mods, who are in fact their team.

3 Likes
#5

Yes, of course they should. Some do, many are too lazy, I know. But unfortunately even the most willing CM and Managers can only clean up the Timed Comments, not the comment section below. This is where I blame Viki, it has given us no tools to fight this.

1 Like
#6

These days I usually just let the OL mod decide what they want to do. I advise them to wait till the English edit is complete but if they want to go ahead and translate already go ahead but please check if some subs need to be changed later.

And I have a project where almost everything that can go wrong goes went wrong. Every once in a while I get PM’s from people who think I do not care for that channel which is not true but there is only so much you can do. It’s frustrating enough that all you try is fruitless and on top of that people PM you because they can’t sub.

2 Likes
#7

@bozoli Thank you for posting that link in the other topic. I was looking for this one, but could not remember the title. I will write more later, I got an answer, but I think …
I really need to think, what to write about it …
Maybe I need to look up the “job specification” one more.
I think, I might get a headache.
Do you perhaps know, well I think you know - How to send a picture in a PM?

1 Like
#8

Good morning, dear.

Piranna had a nice post about it here:

https://discussions.viki.com/t/adding-images-in-private-message-pm/22153/3

1 Like
#9

Thank you! LOL I thought, I would never need it again. In older days it was easier just copy the “infamous line” and drop the image information in. Maybe I should really get some lessons …

#10

I’m always looking at html coding as a foreign language which I will never be able to learn :smile: But if we follow such simple instructions, we could actually learn it and use it! Ha-ja!

2 Likes