Moderators who hoard channels

Contributing
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This is exactly what I’m afraid of (since there are so few Finnish volunteers ), that I some one blaims me for hoarding.

I’ve been subbing only since late September this year, but have given a change to be a moderator on 5 projects. Two projects I only applied to be as a subber, but got to added as a mod and three projects I applied as a mod and got selected.

My first project (and second) as a subber I did almost the whole series by my self (there was only me and Fin mod on the team), so maybe that showed my dedication and I got selected because of that or maybe it’s just because there are no other Finnish volunteers, who knows :woman_shrugging:t2: How ever it is, I think I have done pretty good job as a noobie without a team and with a little to no help from my mod on those two subbing projects.

I’m so thankfull for the CMs who have gave me a change as a noobie :hugs:

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I hardly enter into the discussions, however everything I read in this one seems to me to be just what happens in almost the entire community, recently more than 5 projects were delivered to a single person without taking into account that they already have others. in your hands.

I agree that Viki should implement a tool that does not allow CMs to add a moderator that has more than 4 or 5 active projects, regardless of whether they are stopped or not, this tool should allow there to be opportunity for others volunteers can moderate new projects.

Likewise, it is a matter of the CM to thoroughly review that the new moderators not only comply with the amount of contributions to be QC, but that the required quality is actually met. Which has not happened lately and the projects end up being very bad, so bad that viewers look for them on other platforms.

And I find it even more worrisome that many of the more experienced and skilled moderators are being turned away just because someone else asked for it first, we are no longer in the times where the one who gets there first must get moderation, it is no longer compatible with quality that had characterized Viki, in my opinion the CMs should review both the projects, as well as the quantity and quality of contributions and especially the activity time in Viki (in my case I do).

It is annoying that someone with much less experience and especially less quality rejects the true moderators who have the experience and quality so that the projects continue to be the best. In addition, volunteers who have everything they need and who have been contributing to the community for a long time and who are very good at it are not given the opportunity to assume this role.

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You have to take into account that on this platform there are several communities with individual particularities, and not all communities have as many volunteers as your community, as well as a large number of responsible moderators. For my community it would be a disaster. I have mentioned in previous posts more details.

Regarding the quality offered by the moderators, a CM cannot know all the languages on this earth, or at least the ones volunteers apply for.

I can see that your message is more directed towards your community, but from my own experience, I can tell you that every volunteer has a chance.

As someone said above, those who view content on Viki are not interested, or probably don’t even know, about all of our discussions. I wasn’t interested either until I became a volunteer. I was only interested in finding the drama I wanted, translated into my language. I usually prefer to watch them in my native language, but I ended up watching just as many in English. So, those waiting for our translations are not interested in who is moderating or how many projects a moderator has. Also, the pace of work for each project has to be taken into account. It can happen that someone with fewer projects can’t cope, because the pace is too fast. So as you can see, this issue of the number of projects should not be discussed superficially, as there are many different communities involved.

I am also against those who have many projects and do not finish them. They apply for new projects, and leave old ones unfinished. At the moment, in my community there is one such case, with almost 40 projects. Recently took on a project, even though it hasn’t completed the first two seasons, which have been released for some years. When I started my work, I had a volunteer in the community with 60 projects, who kept applying for new ones, so the previous ones remained unfinished. I am also against those who leave behind execrable quality. If time permits, why not get more involved as a moderator, so as to limit the activity of those with serious problems in their native language as well as in English?

The main goal on Viki is to translate qualitatively and in a reasonable time. That’s what those who use Viki expect. So, first of all we should be willing to give our time to translate. Further, if time and life allows, we can get more involved, and moderate/edit. I think this discussion sometimes ends up being strictly about each of us wanting to assert ourselves, forgetting the main purpose for which we have gathered here. Personally, at the moment I have more projects just as a subtitler than as a moderator/co-moderator…

My advice would be to try to get to know your community better and, why not, ask to co-moderate with someone. I have been in the situation where a volunteer asked me to co-moderate on one project (even though it had been a while since I was a moderator for that project) and on the second I wanted to add her, in order to have a background on that genre of project. Also, on my first project as a CM, I decided to take a co-moderator who was on the first project. Now she ended up moderating on her own, having also co-moderated projects with me.

In conclusion, I think everyone has a chance. It all depends on how you relate to the community and, most importantly, luck. It’s part of our life, but we can’t have it all the time.

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You might be mixing apples with pears and adding some kiwis here.

  1. An “experienced” Moderator means only a person who has had that position before. And does not mean that the person:
  • finishes their projects,
  • translates and edits
  • and knows English and their language well

  1. Number of contributions one has says nothing about the quality of their translation. (I have several examples of that just in my tiny community, with some of the contributors with highest contribution counts having the lowest translation quality.)

  2. Quality of the translation is something only those who are fluent in that language can judge. That means that the CM often has to “wing it”, give the mod position without knowing the actual translation quality. They can ask around other members of that language community. But that is also a leap of faith, there is no guarantee the person they’re asking is competent or honest about their appraisal of another volunteer.

  3. The quality of project management perhaps can be more objectively assessed by looking at the number of finished projects vs. unfinished, etc.

I agree that one shouldn’t give the Mod position to the first person who asked. But that doesn’t imply the CM should wait for an application from a more experienced Mod. Those who have been contributing for a long enough time as subtitlers and wish to progress should also have an opportunity to do so.

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In fact, being able to find experienced moderators is quite complicated, however, and I am talking about everything they mention, fortunately there are many CMs in each language who are very experienced and know very well the more experienced moderators, who without any problem can give Objective evaluations of those who are experienced and those who are not and specially the rookie ones who wish start this adventure.

Perhaps and as I’ve always believed, these situations, including the abuser problem, could be solved if within our own communities we put these volunteers a stop, but this is also complicated, because those who do it are classified as arrogants or at worst, they’re called cocky or envious.

That is why the most objective thing and without having to do any kind of plot or send messages to remove any moderator or subber (from being subber the problem can be avoided), is that from the CM and onwards we respect the fact that having 4 or 5 active projects is more than enough to keep us busy, of course also taking into account the languages that have a limited number of volunteers and that we know they have seen the need to have more in their hands thanks to the requests of their own language.

I say this because apparently when a CM is told or get a reply saying that the chosen moderator has several projects, they consider that we got angry for not being chosen. No, the problem is… For example, in my language, the good moderators (they know perfectly their native language and English, since several are English teachers), they are running out of projects and give them to subbers who are so careless that they even make the most basic mistake when they copy and paste, and when the project is finished, and even edited, the project turns out bad.

Being an editor in my language, and yes, I say it in my language because it is complicated by the variety of words and meaning in them, it is not an easy task and many times when the editors make their revisions, they must redo complete parts, but You can’t tell them because they get offended, and you happen to find them later moderating and editing projects just because they’re the first to submit the request.

In my opinion, respecting the guidelines of no more than 4 or 5 active projects and even implementing the one that has all their projects completed, would help more volunteers to be chosen and that all projects are not given to the same person, which in the end It ends up being the worst option for the project and that the CM never finds out about this.

Each language has its own difficulties, but I think that many times taking well into account the time that volunteers have been collaborating on Viki is very important, anyone can reach QC status, I have seen volunteers arriving from one day to another only putting points in the segments, yes it is surprising, but I have seen it. The QC status does not give you any quality parameters.

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@irmar
Hi Dear Irmar, hope you are doing well these days. :raised_hands:

Please let us know any update on your health. You are a very valuable member of this community.
Sending good vibes to you!

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@perilousal

I have actually seen MODERATORS that has worked here for more than 10 years and when you go to their page all you see are periods,points (…) all over their page, but when I tried to report this once before as I noted all the information in: the SUBMIT BUTTON wouldn’t work. The report does not go through, and I just gave up. Maybe there is a logical reason for it to be happening.

Anyway, congratulations on your new project as a moderator. Hope this HOARDING of channels that has been going on for years on end, can be stopped by the higher ups. I also hope they stop how the teams pick and choose who they want on their teams, and give away quality work over quantity, that is also affecting the enjoyment of viewers in the process with ‘‘bad’’ subtitles in the drama.

I was able to confirm what @irmar had mentioned before that some TEAMS are adding people that have not being active for 2 and 3 years, but are in the page as subbers of the said drama. I will not disclose who and where, but it’s REAL as @irmar said.

I also pray as @marykarmelina posted that she (@irmar) gives us an update on her condition. I also hope she comes back healthy and rested enough to continue giving quality work in her projects.

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This problem of ‘‘some’’ Moderators ‘‘hoarding’’ channels was resolve recently mainly with the elimination of allowing ppl. having many accounts, VPN, and adding wonderful paid subbers who jump in whenever needed. and limiting how many moderator projects they can have/work in. But I wonder; how will they resolve the problem with ‘‘abusers’’ here at Rakuten Viki? The way I see it, nothing has been done from stopping a confessed abuser to keep working as a subber, and who knows at this point… a moderator too?

I’m glad the issue of hoarding channels was resolved, but how is RVIKI staff/higher ups, planning to eliminate abusers from this site once and for all? Most of these abusers have no desire to give quality work in their projects, and they are only interested in contribution count numbers (i think that’s it), but who knows their real ulterior motives of doing such a disrespectful act here at RViki. Are they trying to damage the great reputation RViki had for such a long time?

Can someone explain to me: What is the real intention of an abuser?
Why are they able to get away with so much wrongdoing and even ‘‘brag’’ about it?
Are they so hard to trace that is taking so long to stop such behavior?
Are innocent ppl. going to end up paying the consequences for another person doing these ‘‘evil deeds?’’

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I would not say that they jump in “when needed,” at least not anymore. In the past, the volunteers would get at least a little bit of chance to sub things themselves. Nowadays most shows that don’t already have presubs from the content provider get subbed (and thus also segmented) by the staff before they even air.
Of course, we do have a lack of volunteer subbers here, but this way even the few we have left will leave. And apart from for the subbers, it also makes a big difference for the segmenters, who for most shows now end up checking ready-made segments instead of creating them from scratch. And that does not speed up the process since it’s actually more work.

I don’t think there is one answer that’s true for every single abuser. For some it might be the free Viki Pass, for others the sense of belonging, “accomplishing” something, the kick, a feeling of control, who knows? Maybe it’s even an addiction…

Probably. The more they sharpen the rules, the harder things get for the innocent people, as well.

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@mirjam_465
Thank you so much for your feedback since I was confused as to what happened during the months I left, and the atmosphere feels so different now like this ‘‘emptiness.’’

I agree with you that certain abuser has shown an ‘‘addiction’’ to instigate when there’s no need for that in here.

mirjam_465 Nowadays most shows that don’t already have presubs from the content provider get subbed (and thus also segmented) by the staff before they even air.

In every language? Even in your language? German? etc.

If that’s the case; what roles the volunteers play here now? I guess we are not needed anymore. so that is why I can’t access the sub editor although I was added as a subber?

But it baffles the hell out of me that the confessed abuser had recently added in one of his page Brazilian/Portuguese subtitles in a drama, and plenty of them. How confusing this whole scenario is playing out…:disappointed:

Nice ‘‘seeing’’ ‘‘hearing’’ from you. I really missed being here…but I see it won’t ever be the same viki. Although a long time ago we were told this would happen, it has blown me away to see such changes in just a few months. I never thought it would end like this…:cry:

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No, mostly in English, though I’ve also come across Portuguese staff subbers.

That must be some technical issue. Did you try again? If it’s still not working, I would report it if you haven’t already done that.

Nice seeing/hearing you, too. :slight_smile: I do hope it’s not the end, but things are indeed changing…

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It happened to me recently when I wanted read the progress on disqus in the editor and editor was entirely locked saying that it’s been segmented although I’m a mod. I’m not sure if this is a new feature… it did not happen to me before… or I never got to notice since I didn’t go into editor earlier.

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Was it a new show? All editors are initially locked and later opened by the segmenters (or sometimes, the CM). It used to open itself after 3 days or so, but that may have changed since I heard from a friend an editor was locked for more than a month until the CS finally opened it.
If the show just aired, all you have to do is wait until the segmenting team is ready. If it takes significantly long, you might want to ask the CS about it. They may just hav forgotten to open it. CM and All Language mods are all able to open it, but the CS should be the first one you ask.

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I don’t think it is a new feature. It’s likely just a momentary glitch (not sure if it’s due to Viki or Disqus). In my case, it’s not a new show and it’s not my first time (though not referring to the same drama channel, nor due to subscription level). I was “locked out” for a couple of days too. I have no idea what happened. Hope it’ll be fine today.

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You’re back! I’m glad you are back! :wave:

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@jadecloud88
You’re back! I’m glad you are back! :wave:

Thank you so much. I truly feel the sincerity in your words, and that makes me so happy.

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This is not a complain, I just noticed that, obviously when it says it’s locked for segmenting it means the segmenting team is working on it meaning it’s probably that way better than having other people going in, it’s just I have not seen this before yet :wink:

It was a movie that got re-licensed. But when it’s locked you can’t also access team discussion or team notes.

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If you are a mod and you really want to see the Team Notes right now, you can also get in through the segment timer, as long as you don’t touch anything there and leave as soon as you got what you came for.

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I should have done a screen shot, the editor was indeed locked, the gray picture like when you do not have access… there were not tabs.

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You can’t go in directly from the locked editor, but if you go back to the show page/episode and click on the scissors instead of the pencil, you should be able to get into the segment timer, as long as you are a moderator.
If you can’t get in there either while you are a moderator, there is another problem, in which case the error message you get will not be about the segmenters. It might say things like “this video does not exist” or something about the license in your area (because some areas may get it a little earlier than others). In those cases, it’s just a matter of waiting.
If you get the “this is a designated channel,” you are allegedly not added to the team, but of course, if you are, then it’s a bug.

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