From my perspective there is personal trust, and there is professional trust. When I was hired 26 years ago to work for the City of Rochester, NY, I literally had to swear an oath to act honorably in conducting myself as an employee of the City, and if I broke the law as an employee, jail for me big-time.
In fact, I took early retirement due to stress because it turned out the head of my department was part of a “pay-to-play” scandal and spent three years helping our Mayor siphon funds from the City budget to create a “slush” fund for bribing various public and private individuals.
When the head of my department was discovered to be very much part of the scandal, she was offered a choice: early retirement and a chance to keep her pension OR get arrested, go to trial, and go to jail.
I as a low-level worker bee was one of about twenty-five people who were constantly and vaguely threatened with unspecified reprisals if we dared to reveal to anyone outside our office any information that was not approved by my corrupt boss.
We were made to feel that newspaper reporters showing up to review documents (with approval from the Public Relations office of all places) and constant questioning by the Office of Public Integrity were our fault (though the group of people I was part of was one of the most honest, hardworking, long-suffering groups of worker bees I have ever known.
I’ve been retired for about four and a half years now, and it was only recently that I met the whistleblower who forced a mayor, three of five department heads, and four or five supervisors to retire early or find a new job. She was/is the mom of one son and the owner of a small general subcontracting business that wasn’t getting paid on time. Her investigations into why she wasn’t getting paid blew the lid off City Hall, so to speak.
On the level of professional trust and professional responsibility, it continues to make no sense top me that the acknowledged leaders of the Viki community need to ask Viki (actually Discourse) to grant “leader” status to people who are already:
- Respected in the Viki community
- Doing a good job of maintaining order
- Keeping people on topic and on task in discussions
- Reminding people of the need to interact in a productive and encouraging manner
- Asking people to consider taking certain topics in threads and make new threads to avoid confusing people who are new to the community
Maybe because I have only recently become involved in the Community Discussion Board, it sounds as if those recognized as Viki Community leaders already had, before purchase by Rakuten, the ability to perform necessary Discussion Board housekeeping (organizing of information, archiving, combining and deleting of threads, and so on).
What about Viki’s being owned by Rakuten and run by Discourse (at least on the Discussion Board) now makes it mandatory for the recognized leaders of the Viki community to ask to have conferred on them what they have been doing all along?
I did have a fairly simple question just a few days ago about whether or not threads could be deleted. In reviewing exactly what I had originally asked, and in reviewing questions you and others wanted to compile and present to a Viki contact person, it struck me that there was no need for the Viki community to ask for permission to do what is already being done (at least based on what I have been reading).
If anything, Viki as a subsidiary of Rakuten and Discourse as the manager of the Community Discussion Board should be answering questions such as: “When will you be upgrading the app, the infrastructure, the server (the whatever) that allows the Discussion Board to exist SO THAT clearly recognized and responsible Viki leaders can do a better job of managing the Board with less hassle?”
The answer as always is money. Which is where my quote from a young woman’s honors thesis comes in.
Viki wants to maintain the illusion that the Viki community is a fansubber’s paradise, a fun community where everybody’s doing it for love and giggles, because it creates appealing product branding, attracts more potential segmenting/subbing volunteers, and keeps Viki’s costs low, low, low in that area.
Which I am all for. Because I want to be able to watch great Asian dramas for essentially 10.00 USD per month. Because I want to offer Viki viewers the best possible subs. Because I know Viki can’t afford my PROFESSIONAL-LEVEL, careful, sophisticated services.
I know that the salary-earning Viki contact people are not bad guys. They have their issues and stresses and are under more pressure than members of the Viki community. Because if they don’t manage to keep Viki functioning as a very profitable income stream for Rakuten, they could lose their jobs during a tough time for economies all over the world
But after thinking about your question to me, it seemed to me that my original question was pretty irrelevant, and Viki community members needed to ask different kinds of questions.
And thank the team. Believe it or not, lots of team members regularly check Comments section. Mostly to clean up malicious comments, buy hey 
