I don’t ever remember seeing any rules against it, and I think it’s usually a subber / editor choice whether they censor or not.
I have kind of the opposite reaction. When I see swears censored, I’m a bit surprised. If they swore, then they swore. And the subtitle should reflect that. I mean, even when you censor the word, everyone knows exactly what the word is… So what’s the point?
I never censor my swear words; I only censored mine in this post because I didn’t want any sunbaes (seniors) to scold me or anything, even though they probably don’t really care.
I just feel nervous whenever I swear because my parents are strict and I feel a bit guilty whenever I do it in such a public place like Viki. 
I censor the stronger swear words. But I don’t consider the word “bastard” to be a strong swear word because on Viki it often overlaps with “punk” (jjashi).
What I’m thinking is that, particularly in English which has the widest audience, different people have different personal/religious/age-related/world views on the matter, so it’s best to stay mild. You don’t offend anybody like that and it costs you nothing.
I know that some countries are strict with swear words but at least when I translate into German I never censor them since swear words aren’t censored in German television.
What’s funny though is that sometimes content from the US get’s censored because we get so used to these dumb censors that make no sense because everyone knows that behind the censor is a swear word and most often they also know exactly which word was censored…
I try to subtitle as closely to the original as possible. If a character swears, I’ll write that translation… If the editor has an issue with it or wants to add a censor, that is his or her discretion. I am here to translate, not censor content! 
I think it depends on what the swear word is. Here in The Netherlands is confusing, sometimes they bleep things and sometimes they don’t. I think that’s due personal taste. For some swear words I think it’s ok but for others it’s best to sensor a little because there might be young people watching.
But then I think of my dad who was watching a gangster series last week and if they would have used sensor in there they could bleep whole dialogues. It was pretty hilarious like geez can’t they use normal works?! Why do the swear all the time?! Ohh there he goes again…
I think it’s not the subbers’ duty (or right) to change the scenario.
If the writer makes the heroes swear, they swear and it gets translated.
Also, when the viewer recognises the missing words, starts wondering whether there are more censored/missing lines.
You would NEVER censor to the point where you omit a translation, let alone change the scenario. Like, never. It’s just a matter of whether you write “shit” or “sh**”.
Actually, I’ve taken to writing them wholeheartedly. It’s just viki has its own G-rated sensor so even words like idit are pending viki approval. -.-
I write’em as I see 'em. I use stars. Some of the worst Korean words when translated don’t look bad at all.
I do it to capture the feeling so as much as possible is transmitted faithfully to OL.
One of the worst Korean cursewords is foaming at the mouth and wishing typhoid fever upon your enemies. The most common are variants of body fluid exchanging activities that happen in the bedroom.
What’s annoying to translate are the 씨’s, the 짓, the 인간 the condescension in the speech, the polite/impolite feeling when English has no supeformal speech etc.
The audience for sh** is different from the audience for shit, in my opinion.
I think we should choose carefully what we watch. If we can’t stand swear words, maybe we shouldn’t be watching something that contains them.
Swear words in rom-coms are different from those in gangster movies.
Therefore, a person who watches gangster movies should be able to take the uncensored version. Otherwise, they would be watching cutsey rom-coms.
I think that younger people shouldn’t be watching something inappropriate for their age. If they do, chances are they are already familiar with the swear word.
Yeah. Most korean dramas are ages 14 and up, says so at the beginning of every drama! It gives an age and some of the dramas w/ profanities has a clear “19” (mature, or 19 and up) rating on the corner of the video lol
The teams I’ve worked with that have sailor-level cursing characters without any debate decided viki censors won’t let us post the uncensored version so we’ve been using these kinds of curse words like: s***
Even the word btch, uncensored doesn’t get shown in the TD. srsly so many of our comments/segs went to auto-mod because of the viki censor. Even idiot. So still whatever is actually shown is quite G-rated. I think I wrote F-word for yeot. But it made total sense! Never checked if the editor let it through censored as F** off.
I have a list of alternative insults for my subtitlers to use. We hear those swear words all the time in real life, we don’t want to promote them in subtitles, because the spoken word is over quickly and does not have such an impact as the written on the subtitle, which remains to be seen for 4-6 seconds and thus registers more forcefully.
Moreover, there are young teenagers watching, they may know them or even use them, but why condone its use? I don’t use asterisks and such, I just put something milder.
It also helps educate viewers about the great variety of insults and exclamations, when nowadays everybody uses the same 3-4 words all the time (Gordon Ramsay, do you hear me?).
But of course, this is just personal opinion. When I am not moderator but subtitler, I ask my moderator about her guidelines on this.
Seems viki censor only knows English… We are forced to use stars or else the subtitle won’t save.
Good question. One I’ve always wanted to ask. Although I thought it would probably not be a question of ‘allowed or not’, but rather ‘appropriate or not’, and more importantly, ‘accurate or not’.
Agree. It depends on the genre of the drama. Yet, in non-gangster genre, I’d still prefer better choice of (alternate) words, and do appreciate the asterisking of vulgar words if used because seeing some of the awful vulgar words on screen is such a turn off for me, personally, and particularly when the genre doesn’t call for its usage.
I actually do appreciate this auto-censor mechanism on Viki. While I wholeheartedly agree with translating it as it is spoken/scripted, I do believe some level of restraint would serve a good overall purpose. Not that it is necessary a need to withhold vulgarity from the younger than 14 age group, since with the vibrant internet and its ease of accessibility, there really is no way to ‘censor’ to be ‘protective’. That lies squarely on the shoulders of parents. Still, a little restraint is a good thing. Besides, I think it is also a reflection of quality work or good taste.
Without any intent to offend or single out any specific site, I do cringe whenever vulgar words are used in subbing, esp when inappropriately used, or there are other options of words to use that can also reflect the spoken/scripted line. For instances, in the currently airing Drinking Solo drama, I thought these instances of vulgarity were pretty tasteless and not appropriate. I’ve noticed such ‘vulgar’ usage on this channel happens often, which is one reason why I thought Viki’s volunteer community churns out more classy/accurate subs and would be my first choice of site for any drama. No doubt, it’s also thanks to the auto-censor mechanism.
http://i.imgur.com/pFTcaRc.gif
http://i.imgur.com/IWx1n2t.gif
http://i.imgur.com/2sB7Dna.png
Choice of translation for the scripted 개 쓰레기 gae sseulegi (lit. dog crap/trash or SOB, 狗 屎/废物) , I thought it was better to be literally subbed as dog crap or alternately as SOB (개자식 lit. son of a bitch, 母犬子) than the vulgar word ‘a**hole’. The word ‘crap’ though also vulgar, doesn’t sound as bad. Even then, I thought if using such a vulgar word is inevitable, inserting asterisks would be less tasteless. Also, it has nothing to do with East vs West influence or conservative vs liberal leaning. IMO, it’s a matter of appropriateness and quality.
Again, instances posted are just for sake of discussion and happen to be timely too. (I’ve seen worse instances in the past). Absolutely nil intent to denigrate any site or any translation.
I agree with you, although the asterisks look a bit ridiculous to me. I vastly prefer alternate words.
Just out of curiosity, since you know Korean.
You say that 개 쓰레기 gae sseulegi lit. means dog crap, so it is translated trash or SOB.
I knew that
새끼 is a generic offensive word, often translated as crazy bastard/jerk/punk/brat/son of a bitch/bastard, (not literally bastard in the sense of illegitimate son). It can be easily combined to form other words such as 씨발새끼! (f*g bastard) and 개새끼!(son of a bitch)
개새끼 gaesaekki is Lit. ʺSon of a dogʺ Derived from개[gae] meaning ‘dog’ and 새끼.(offensive).
So my question is, what does saekki literally mean? It will help me select the right translation.
Here is my profanities and slang spreadsheet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13g5wl5eaC9bknf7u-OsNJw7liBRJfUUK0NmAckqV7JA/edit?usp=sharing
I’m not as well-versed in Korean as I hope to be. But below is what I understand (please take with a pinch of salt):
개 gae = dog (having watched so many Kdramas, we know there are variations of dog-related swear words. Adding ‘dog’ to it makes it all the more ‘derogatory’, in korean terms.)
새끼 saekki = young kid, young dog(i.e. puppy)
자식 jasig = child/offspring
Hence, 개새끼 gaesaekki and also 개자식 gaejasig = SOB/b*stard.
Anyone, please feel free to correct.
Have you also considered the option of caption reading?
Asshole is one word
Son of a bitch is four words.
Sometimes captioning space needs to be considered when words are chosen.
It’s interesting that you consider asshole more vulgar than SOB. If you translate SOB into German you have something that means “son of a prostitute” and basically you are offending the person plus their mother (plus in my opinion you shouldn’t even use that word to offend someone, upsets my feminist tendencies 
). I know that the English term also has that tendendy but in German it doesn’t have the 2 meanings of female dog/women but just prostitute/whore. So in my opinion “asshole” basically only offends the person in a very non-discriminating way. Does that make sense? Like everyone can be an asshole, there is no need to put racist, degrading or anti-feminist words into it because asshole is pretty neutral in my opinion. Am I seriously arguing about neutral insults here But yeah, therefore I definitely prefer going for idiot or asshole instead of SOB. Let’s go with “crap” then? I feel that that may be the best alternative
I can only say it again, there is no censoring in Germany so it it’s annoying trying to replace the subs when you only see **** there. Sometimes I just keep it, sometimes I try to understand and translate the word. I do not think it’s good to just use any word, of course the best and most precise translation should be chosen, but I also definitely disagree with using lighter words than actually spoken because that isn’t translating then, it’s changing the content.
I do feel you with the cringing though. And that’s simply because I don’t use these harsh insults in my personal life, I am one of these persons who always makes up these weirdest insults that have no bite at all because I am not a person that likes insulting people.