Machine translation from Viki

Contributing
363

My pov:

The strike comes from free will, we can’t force you and if you don’t want to because for you, there’s no benefit, then it’s up to you not to do it.
It’s already really nice that you came to give your feedback and you picked to support us even for a moment.
After, each one is free to do what he likes.

  • The bot is universal and is experimented.
    For me, the bot has replaced volunteers (here, French) to provide subs faster or when they were not active according to their message.
    The bot has already come to do Portuguese and Spanish subtitles replacing subbers as mentioned above by other volunteers who witnessed it and you have experienced it personally when you took dramas back.

If they will do only for French… I don’t know, but the bot is not for French language only.
Maybe it’s just a question of time.
Have they invested in a bot only for French?

I think what we meant by doing this strike is:
The bot won’t work for French, it won’t work for any language, actually and it won’t work with volunteers if you implement it like that. Most importantly, in the sheet, we proved that it won’t work with viewers.

  • Inactivity shouldn’t be solved like that. Inactivity touches every language.

  • Benefit point:
    Did we get some benefit by contributing on Viki? :joy:
    What’s the difference if we don’t contribute? :joy:

I’m kidding, if people depend on you, then it’s understandable that some of us wouldn’t want to: English teams or CM or maybe because we’re in the middle between Viki/viewers.

On one hand, I don’t want to sanction all teams because of my decision and I’m sorry for viewers.
On the other hand, they’re also friends or comrades (French or no). I want to support them because they helped me in the past and I just feel really sorry for them and I’m indignant that Viki picked this solution to deal with viewers complains maybe about speed. How did they show us they respected these volunteers? But not only French volunteers, volunteers in general?

  • It depends on each person. When people give money, food or clothes to an association for poor people or animals, they don’t look particularly for a benefit, just it comes from the heart because they’re humans and we’re humans.

  • Do I need to have some benefits? I don’t win anything in that actually, the dramas impacted are not dramas I was participating in, except 1 but I didn’t get to subtitle it (0) since the CM/French moderator has never contacted me about it and the drama needs English editing, segments fixing for some parts and filling some English subs. I don’t want to take a project because I can’t now.

  • There are other points people mentioned in the sheet: like better communication or for unfinished dramas for all the community and all languages. It’s something everyone has been asking for.
    There were also other things such as a page for recruitment or for projects, we spoke for every language on that.

  • The solutions we tried to find were for everyone.
    Some were more focused on French inaccuracy of the bot, because it happens for French.
    If people want to add for Spanish and Portuguese (preventive measure), it could help if these languages will be next.

  • Each person is different. I don’t like injustice, so I tend to react to injustice.
    This decision was not fair, they didn’t get to ask or hear these teams on what the situation was before or making any diagnostic. It’s the basis of communication.
    It’s like a judge pronouncing something, but without looking at the case, hearing people involved, only seeing that a murder happened and there was someone, this person must be the murderer…
    Or a doctor prescribing something without seeing the patient and asking some questions.
    How is it possible to be fair or to understand a disease and find the remedy or the correct sentence?

5 Likes
364

Wow, you are something. I did not change anything at all. I will stop replying to your messages now, I know what I told you in private, and it’s exactly the same as that. If you are like that, I can not do anything about it. If you have recommendations, you can say them out loud in discussions about these topics (improvement) for these GOOD RECOMMANDATION OF YOURS. But do not get angry and do not act unfairly because I said “no” to include something other than vikibot for our petition and strike (since the beginning).

I’m done with you, Lyla. That’s all.

368

I’m ok with that. XD Goodbye, Lyla.

(These messages being private, I was not informed that they would be published like that, but I revoke my right of confidentiality. I certify to accept the publication of these private messages. For the legal service of Viki)

369

Anna, le tempérament de feu, ton image te va comme un gant et le nom de ton équipe aussi XD
Quand envoyez-vous le sheet à Viki, il est finalisé ?

2 Likes
370

J’aimerais attendre un peu plus l’avis et les suggestions de tous les contributeurs du monde. Peut-être demain soir, je dois voir avec Irmar. :slight_smile:

I would like to wait a little longer for the opinion and suggestions of all the contributors of the world. Maybe tomorrow night, I have to talk with Irmar too. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
371

Los voluntarios merecen respeto y los espectadores subtítulos de calidad. Por favor Viki no siguas así.

1 Like
372

We ARE asking to remove Vikibot for every language. Didn’t you see our Spreadsheet? That was my intention. I prepared everything thinking of all languages. It’s French today, it was Spanish a year ago, who knows who will follow?

7 Likes
373

Reminder for new friends who just jumped in:
please put your experience and suggestions on our spreadsheet here:

4 Likes
374

Sigh No Vikibots, please.
I always have loved Viki because of the TC, I love that experience of watching a drama with other fans and without adds (adblock, lol). And I also loved the work of the volunteers. That’s why this year I decide to contribute too and be volunteer.

I didn’t care that much about the adds or the crying gif every 10 minutes. But I’m really surprise for what Viki is doing to all of us. After join to the volunteer team I realized how hard people work and how much time they must use here and how much they love dramas. I respect that, and I wish Viki would do the same.
We love dramas and we love this place to watch them. Please, don’t ruin it. I don’t want to go.

4 Likes
375

@bozoli I know what you mean saying:

When I discovered Viki, I was so happy. “What a great place. That’s what the Internet should be about - freely sharing your work and your passion. Finally, someone noticed the strength of the fan community and made good use of it.” - I thought.

I love freedom as much as any other translator does, but there must be someone who oversees it all. And I’m not talking about any strict regulations made by Viki or meddling at every step, but about help in carrying out our tasks.
I read comments in this thread and I noticed, that many of our problems are due to the fact, that some CMs are not doing their job properly (no matter, what the reason is). And in this situation, Viki should react. Of course, the problem is that there is no transparent information about what is happening with the projects. And it doesn’t help that where should be communication with Viki, there seems to be a wall instead.

We like it or not, there are three parties involved here: viewers, Viki and us. We should not fight with each other, because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. Everyone has their own rights and those rights don’t contradict each other.

THE VIEWERS
From my observations, viewers can be divided into 3 main groups:

  • Those who, as @glykeria said, “drool over Oppa” - they came here for the visuals and they don’t care about the translation. Let’s say it clearly: they have the right to do so.

  • Those who do not care about our community and are here only to watch dramas. If the quality of translations or the speed of their delivery does not suit them, they will go elsewhere. - They have the right to do so.

  • Those who appreciate our work and are willing to wait for the translation (of course they will not wait forever)

Viki
The ones who own Viki, they have the right to do whatever they want with it. If they want to replace us with bots, they have the right to do so. If they want to replace us with so-called professional translators, they have the right to do so. Of course, they do not have the right to do this as long as they use slogans such as “powered by fans” etc.
I have nothing against the bots, personally, and I am very much in favor of their development. I think that a universal translator will make life easier for many people in the real world. As many of you have said, we are light years from these bots being able to translate a show better than humans do. They would have to learn to analyze the picture on the screen too. After all, you can’t make a really good translation of a show using a transcript alone.

The translators
There are many dedicated people among us, who do an amazing job translating. They give their heart, soul and time to do it. There are also those who only want recognition for their so-called achievements by coping translations from Google and there are those, who translate the absolute minimum to watch for free. But let’s not focus on them.
We have the right to have our hard work respected and what Viki has done with French (or any other) translations is unacceptable. Viki uses our work to make money and doesn’t do us any favors by letting us have fun in their backyard.

As I said, we all have the same goals. Viewers want good translations delivered quickly, Viki wants to earn money, and we want to have a place, where we can create a community and pursue our passion. There is no conflict here. So let’s make everyone happy.

I suggest that Viki should add bot-translations as just another language. Let it be the French version and the bot-French version, the Polish version and the bot-Polish version, etc. at the same time. Both versions can coexist. That way Viki can bot-translate every single show. The new ones that have not translation yet, the fully translated ones, and the ones with unfinished translation. They can change bot-translation every time they feel their bot was improved. We can work on a parallel translation. This way viewers will have a choice, Viki can develop their bot. They will not lose money or viewers and they won’t lose us. They will let us do our translations in peace (hopefully).

We also need to explain to the viewers what is going on, we are not here for ourselves, we supposed to do our translations for them. Let’s not fool ourselves, most people just want to watch dramas and have no idea about this subpage, or how the translation is provided. Let’s not treat them the way Viki treats us, we must communicate with them.

6 Likes
376

I always wanted a solution with the problem regarding the long wait for subtitles in the drama. I wanted a solution where the quality of the subtitles improved but vikibot is far from an improvement!

When they translate with the bot in English, the sentence are terrible, and I already mentioned this in another thread but I’ll repeat it again, what good is to get subtitles in the dramas fast, when more than half of them are terrible?

Miss. Hammurabi, Watcher, Welcome2life, Hotel Del Luna, tell me there’s nothing wrong in those subtitles, please (unless of course, they fixed them) since I have point out several of the many wrong subs there, and now I can’t even access them (for unknown reasons it says ‘‘this drama has no episodes)’’ Miss Hammurabi for example I clicked on the spanish subtitles and they don’t show anymore. Several dramas I worked in, all of a sudden became RESTRICTED ACCESS.

Yes, I’m glad they tried to resolve the issue of some irresponsible CM that took in 3 or 5 dramas and for lack of time they never even finished them on time. I also understand that some of them have personal tragedies, like sickness (that’s why I never took on air dramas or projects bc I’m a very responsible person and my health is really poor).

I have known of CM, Moderators, and even subbers who lost a loved one. But they should have Plan B if something happened to plan A they needed to have plan B but they NEVER did that. The project was left hanging, viewers frustrated and waiting to no avail, a total disregard for paying subscriber. To add insult to injury, if they complain about subs they were insulted by moderators (some CM did too) It happened to me, too. You would think they wanted to lynch me for complaining too bad I never copied those so i could show them here.

Let’s say that when the vikibot started to show up here at viki, I was: ‘‘great we work with the bot as a team and work will be done in reasonable time and quality of subs will improve 100%…’’ SAY what??? Not happening…translation had very poor quality, editing is not done by the ‘‘editors’’ in the dramas, and it so happens these terrible translation are staying on the dramas (as far as what I’ve seen) FOREVER. [HELLO… TO CGWM808, I WAS REFERRING HERE TO THE SPANISH MODERATORS/EDITORS. IT WAS NEVER TO THE ENGLISH EDITORS]

Google translate is not capable of giving a decent translation bc it translate word for word. It doesn’t give a good sentence structure, decent grammar, and other things needed in a
decent, quality subtitle. I have helped to correct sentences in English and Spanish, for Google translate for a while now. There are translation they use that are wrong, and I give them feedback that the sentence is wrong, and they add my sentence instead and so on…

I think that the best option is to make sure these vikibot subtitles are fully edited and that will really improve the quality of the subtitles. To do that, people that are proficient in that language can be the only ones editing the subs, not these bunch of volunteers that claim to know English/Spanish (I worked with a few of them I have evidence, too), and they don’t know cr*p. Right now, there are so many Spanish volunteers that they don’t even know how to spell some words in Spanish (their native language no less)! and they’ve been years here at Rviki, as Moderators, CM etc… unbelievable.

1 Like
377

I don’t know about Welcome 2life or Watcher but definitely Miss Hammurabi, Hotel Del Luna had many problems. I thought " Oh, maybe they are newbies" I had no idea it was vikibot!
That’s why lately I think so harder translate
subtitles. Because I need
to remake all.
It’s a disgrace, I mean, just difficult our work. I really, really hate it.:rage:

2 Likes
378

I wish some of Viki’s advertising partners were also viewers (and/or volunteers), started writing work emails in their mother tongue and sending them to Viki via bot translations: “None in slices of emotionalism us no accord five leeuwendaalder not.”
Since this would be an acceptable subtitle, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for a business meeting or Viki’s accountants.
:innocent::innocent::innocent:

6 Likes
380
  • I think some volunteers see these first steps (not so new because vikibot came last year) as the beginning of something else that is more general:

All dramas that are not completed until a certain deadline (currently, volunteers have no idea of the deadline set) or received a certain amount of complains: Vikibot will finish them.
Same with inactivity: Vikibot will finish them.

What will be next then? Just finishing or…

Are we talking just about French?
My pov is we’re talking about bot = the future of the community and viewers…
If there is a benefit, it’s for the future of the community and viewers. We are defending it.

  • Some don’t see it like that.
    They see it’s just impacting French language and not their language.

When it will happen for other languages and they will need everyone’s support, regardless of nationality, then it might be too late to react because we accepted it with French.

It’s solidarity in the community during hard times.
One of the most beautiful things in this community and what it makes our community what it is.

I don’t know for what we should ever go on strike then on Viki if it’s not to defend our community.

12 Likes
381

…which is like saying “it only impacts K-dramas/C-dramas/J-dramas […], not the ones I’m watching”. Next step is being surprised their side of the house got fire, too.:roll_eyes:

I am willing to spend time and patience to polish a well-intended but inaccurate human subtitle. I am also willing to have my subs/segs edited by a human who knows better than me.
I am totally against editing the work of the bot that was chosen over me.

…

6 Likes
382

@irmar Dear Irene if I want to simply agree with the suggestions made in your google spread where I should do so?
Shouldn’t we have a column with the option as well?
For someone to voice their support to a suggestion or more?
Or a survey created perhaps letting people vote the suggestions they support and then give the results to viki staff?

3 Likes
383

I added an opinion part. You can now do it. Great suggestion too :slight_smile:

384

Sharing private messages like that in this topic shouldn’t have happened, it’s not very nice and it’s against the right of privacy. Plus it’s not relevant for this topic.

And Hotel Del Luna is not done by a Vikibot as far as I know, the English isn’t.

9 Likes
385

@ [hellgirlselena_565 and @angelight313_168
I have no idea what problem(s) you are alluding to on Hotel Del Luna which already has complete subtitles in 12 languages. I am speaking as chief editor of the English subs which were completely subbed by volunteers.
And I don’t know of any problems in Miss Hammurabi which came pre-subbed to us in English which was edited by myself and my associate editor. As far as I can see the subs were done by the content producer or perhaps even the prior licensee in the US (???) and were checked by me against the Korean script whenever an English sub seemed strange. I don’t believe they were done by a bot and I don’t think we had any problems.
I can remember no problems with the English subs on either of these shows and on many episodes of Del Luna, we subbed in English extremely rapidly. I don’t understand your comment that you “need to remake all” as we have not announced any major and significant revisions of the subtitles on either show.
if you are fluent in Korean and know that an English subtitle is inaccurate or incomplete please pm me with specific locations for both Del Luna and Miss Hammurabi. I cannot recall your ever pming me about errors on either channel. Other moderators will attest that whenever they send me a note about an error, I always respond gratefully and promptly. We are not infallible. In releasing the English subs there is always a delicate balance in trying to make the subtitles as near perfect as possible in the shortest possible time so that the “other languages” can begin work. We are always aware that English viewers have many sites for watching K and C drama but viki may be the only choice for many other languages. For that reason, I don’t wait for an elusive 100% complete and perfect translation but am satisfied if at least 97% of the episode is complete and accurate. Why 97%? Because on average that means 20 or less subtitles out of 700 will have a minor error. Significant semantic errors are my first priority for correction. My co-editors and I work on consistency and the perfect nuance often after the release. But I would not consider corrections for consistency or finding a better way to phrase something as a “problem” or a significant error.

Let us focus on the French community’s concern right now.

7 Likes
386

Clipboard01

20:55 :timer_clock:
Yay! My fav drama is finally subbed! Thanks, bots!

21:03 :timer_clock:
Um…:scream::scream::scream:

Clipboard017

20 Likes