I really think there should be a global limit of projects (not just on-airs, but all projects) for both moderators and for the English editors.
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I’m just curious: you are talking about editing a pre-subbed drama twice (2X) in your native language or in English? That seems to me like a lot of work for just one person. Thanks in advance for your answer…
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In English, by both TE and GE (and in one case they somewhat hired 4 English editors for… whatever reason). Nowadays, some dramas are indeed “just” presubbed by hired translators (which were mentioned above) who differ a lot in terms of quality.
The problem is - just as Irmar stated in another thread - that projects differ a lot. On the other, I’m not sure either if 20 projects scare me off or if I should admire those who handle them all at once. I’m “only” subbing about 16 projects and figured I should sub less (there’s usually a part every 1-4 episodes depending on the team size and deadlines of 5 to 7 days unless the releases are delayed [which is probably a long time for huge language communities]). But well, I’m “only” responsible for my own OL releases and those are usually handled within a day after release.
I think it’s mainly expected from the CM to keep those in check that tend to overdo it. But it’s in fact not as easy, since CMs don’t necessarily care or avoid discussions or involvement. I consider it exhausting as well to run after people, put that’s not a valid excuse. There’s more to it.
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For one of the first presub-shows I worked on as a GE, the CE had asked us to clean the presubs up before the TE came along. It was a show where punctuation was missing and which had weird sentence structures. This might not seem like a lot of work, but TEs are very scarce so having someone already make the pre-sub decent English helps the TEs because it means less work for them. Another reason why a show I worked on had presub-editors was to make them easily understandable for viewers who would already be watching the episodes way before a TE or GE or CE worked on them.
Some shows with presubs are quite all right and don’t need any editing before the TE comes along, but others are a disaster.
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That’s not happening with many Chinese shows.
On the other hand it’s often expected OL teams translate it right away after the GO for OL teams which seems quite unbalanced to me because why should OL teams work faster and in a hurry when the English teams sometimes just releases 1 episode/ month or even just 1 within 6-8 weeks?
It also demotivates the whole OL teams, causing subbers to leave a project or taking too many projects at once. The quality suffers also because of that. I think it’d be higher if people - in general - focus on a few projects they’re working on as subber, mod, editor (also the OL teams) instead of working on up to 20+ projects (as subbers/mods/editors/CM).
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I have zero experience with Chinese shows, but I’ve read here in Discussions about this problem. And yes, it can be very demotivating for the team!
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Ok, I’m familiar with that part bc I’ve seen it happen here a lot, but I’m just wondering since you say you take 16 projects (forgive me if I misunderstood) of those 16; How many you are editing? (if you are editing any that is) Subbing 16 projects I can’t even picture how you manage to make time for all this work.
I also sense a lot of sadness when you are writing, and I pray I’m WRONG. If you feel too overwhelmed, I think you should cut taking in so many projects. Sometimes we need to learn when to say ‘‘no’’ for the sake of our own well being. Please, forgive me if I became too personal. QUANTITY or QUALITY doesn’t matter because the only one that matters; IS YOU. Enjoy your Sunday.
Indeed, the projects differ a lot. But let’s just discuss English Editors for now, since this seems to be the original issue.
A TE and GE would normally work on one episode per week. A CE would work on both episodes per week. That’s a lot of work invested in one show.
So, simply put, here having 16 projects is way too much.
I think the dramas (yes, especially Chinese ones) where the release to OLs is so slow, are also the same dramas where the CMs don’t expect OLs to finish the episodes quickly. I think it has more to do with the unbalance between different projects, as I previously mentioned.
I think I’ve seen these issues, e.g., in Thai dramas. But after FE reading 3 times “I wash my bathroom” I didn’t have the feeling anything happened in between… and there was an enormous delay (generally, I can imagine there aren’t many TEs for Thai, but the entire English editing wasn’t convincing unfortunately).
At least if it takes you 3 days to complete one episode. 
But I wouldn’t recommend 16 projects either, since even rather quick editors show their limits at some point (well, a vast majority at least). Especially if they engage in OL moderation at the same time.
Generally you’d say “they should know their limits”, but what if they refuse to? In this case, a defined limit would be helpful.
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Why do you say that? Typical k-dramas have two episodes per week and usually there’s only one TE and one GE for both of them. So we have to work on 2 episodes per week, not 1.
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I said it because the last 3-4 projects I was on had that arrangement. But that may be coincidental. So, the GEs are even more swamped.
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So there were two GEs and two TEs, and each one did one episode per week? What a luxury! We recently had the luxury of two TEs in Lovers of the Red Sky, as you know, (with only one GE, myself) but it’s definitely a rare occurrence, as TEs are hard to find.
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