While Viki contacts OL moderators to let them know that they shouldn’t abuse the All Languages Moderator to have more than 5 projects at once, we have the other side as well. Certainly, you can argue that being in a position to accept more projects “than you should” can result in unfair distributions. But even if they’re punished for being an ALM, they might keep using other means to reach their goals.
Still, medium-sized communities currently pile up projects nobody wants to moderate. Are those bad? Not necessarily, but they might release slowly, might be mediocre, and many Moderators keep their projects at a minimum size to have the chance to get into fancier projects. While this is understandable, a method to suppress hoarding from (majorly) rare language hoarders and the dominance of large language communities (Spanish, Portuguese) resulted in less projects being translated into languages such as German or Romanian.
But is this just about the Moderation limit? No.
Channel Managers and English Editors are crucial as well. They determine a project’s progress. Let’s face reality. All the pressure results in CMs straying from having 3 Editors, while on the other hand, OL moderators might consider not doing a project with slow Editors. Lots of Editors accepted lots of projects, they work hard and still their pile of work doesn’t become smaller at all. Rather not edit at all? We mustn’t forget that people choose Viki subs over some other streaming services because of their good subtitles. We can read that on MDL all the time.
But there are Editors who got their job description completely wrong. And in these cases, OL Moderators are somewhat taken hostage by the CMs (and Editor/s) of such projects. Like the one where the CE logs in once a month to release some episodes without even seriously bothering to do their work. They last worked on episode 15 about 5 months ago. However, they last released episode 26. Are the subtitles superior? Probably not.
If the CM doesn’t care, the OL moderators are not only blamed by a bunch of unhappy viewers, but they’re also wasting their time doing nothing. They can only try to talk to CM and Editor - or contact Viki. Last time I contacted Viki about such an issue, a year had passed. Well, all right, it might not have been a year but only 10 months.
I could name another one where the CE keeps on not finishing the drama since 2020. The last 4 episodes got stuck. Nothing changed. But maybe someone wants to send a message for not probably being registered as an OL moderator on that show.
While I don’t think we should overdo it in terms of pressure, I know it’s hard work and lots of it… there has to be a proper solution for these things. We can’t keep demanding limits while people have their slots blocked because of only-in-name CMs, some editors or CS (who didn’t bother to find a replacement if they can’t QC one episode within a month)… okay, and these projects that don’t air for a year now. But technical solutions come as fast as some ticket replies. Waiting for some badges for 6 months now.
While Viki might be able to find solutions for some things, we have our own responsibilities as well, and lots of us know this very well.
Accepting a project is a risk. However, there are no measures taken to change this. So far there are just measures taken to change the risk that only episode 1 got translated (I heard they work on some things, but whatever it is, some things simply find solutions for issues that weren’t even issues to begin with). But that will continue to happen anyway. No matter what.
I’m aware this is a difficult matter and for many issues addressed there might not be a perfect solution. However, I think it’s better to have the courage to address things at least instead of just grinning and bearing it while seriously facing our own limits and behaviors as well.
And please don’t “it’s voluntary work” me. It is. So we can do as much as we want as long as we don’t bother others and all work together 