Just to be clear right from the start, this is not a blaming post, but just a way to make everyone aware, even the OL, of this situation. I really appreciate all the seggers and CSs working even harder with so many pre-subbed languages, and with no tool improvements from Viki.
My situation and also the situation of others: many incomplete pre-subtitles after the final release. I did my investigation before posting this, so that I can be sure of it. I know, there are too many pre-subbed languages and the same basic Segment Timer, but here are some important aspects of chopping the pre-subtitles:
It can be a channel without a moderator for that chopped pre-subbed language, and this way the viewers will end up with incomplete subtitles â I know, the Viki AI pre-subtitles are not the best, at least in my language, but still the viewers can get an overall idea with a full Viki pre-sub instead of one made incomplete after segging.
It can be a channel with a moderator who does not edit the channel, or they just fill in the empty segments, or they just edit at an extremely low pace. I have already seen these cases.
Itâs also not okay for Viki to upload the pre-subs and find out that they have been chopped.
All these situations are not good for any of us who are still here and want to contribute.
Since now more and more channels are coming with so many pre-subbed languages, probably more and more CSs and seggers will start to work on them if they still want to stick around, but at what cost? At the cost of the OL finding their pre-subs incomplete even though they were fully uploaded by Viki?
OL with pre-subs, please make sure you pass these situations to the CSs and CMs. Itâs not to accuse them but to help them improve.
P.S. I kindly ask you not to mention any usernames and channels. You can just share any tips to help the entire community avoid this situation of incomplete pre-subtitles after the final release.
So far, as CS, I have come across 1 subtitle where the segmenter had forgotten 3 languages and I had to recover them. The CS wonât always see this, though, as we generally only look in the bulk if we have something to combine or split. We just all have to be careful and trust that our segmenters are, too. And check the percentages, though that isnât always a guarantee.
Still, the subs are never completely lost as they are both saved in spreadsheets ĂĄnd available in Vikiâs reference subs so they can always be recovered if need be.
I do get your concern, but I would also hate to see Viki telling us to refrain from doing A&C again, like they did before. I know from experience that multi-language A&C is realistically possible, as long as people are careful and take their time. And we will get more and more used to it. And when accidents do happen, we still have 2 backups.
I would have to add, though, that not all errors come from the segging teams. There are also missing or misplaced subs in the presubs.
Not sure who u referring or whats the goal on this post, but this post for me kind of an insult to all seggers and CS, who try their best and adapt the situation with this many languages.
As some of you may know, Robert and I donât always see eye to eye, and things can get heated between us when weâre working together.
In this case, however, Iâm on Robertâs side. I donât think his approach is the right one, and it remains to be seen whether this will cause further problemsâŠ
He doesnât mean that something happens accidentally in this case, but rather that it happens so frequently that itâs clear the presubs are simply being ignored.
CMs, so we donât lose our jobs, make sure the CS is actually qualified and ask your moderators to let you know right away if missing subtitles happen very often in their language. That way, you can address the issue with the CS in time or make a replacement. (Always remember that you can be reported by your team to Viki for such things and that this can possibly lead to a ban as CM.)
CS, keep an eye on what your Seggers are doing. During QC, you should notice when presubs are missing; give them feedback on what they need to pay attention to. (Always remember that you will certainly not be chosen as CS by the CM next time for something like this.)
I actually count subs in the subtitle editor,I donât speak all the languages we have in the pre.subs so I count when I QC and when I notice a difference between languages I take a closer look just to be sure if thereâs anything I need to do. It takes a bit longer to QC but thatâs the only way for me to know if something isnât as it should, I might miss things but itâs less likely than if I assume everything is ok. That said anyone that has seggers that isnât up to date should be recommended a refresher in the segging academy.
@mirjam_465
Itâs absolutely clear to all those who know me that Iâm not the type who makes a public fuss just because of a little thing. Iâve been on Viki for some time already and through many unpleasant situations, so I learned to be patient. Actually, after seeing that Viki decided not to have an EN team for a recent channel, I thought carefully whether I should address this concern or let it go, but I still posted since Iâm not the only one pre-subbed language in this situation. I never said that the subtitles are completely lost, but they are also not in the player for the viewers anymore, and the viewers do not have access to the ref subs. And no, this is not about little omissions of Viki, but like even half of the subtitles.
@xialongne
Before replying to this post in such a hateful manner, it would have been nicer to actually reply to my DMs, which have been waiting for you for months. But wait, maybe you actually saw a perfect occasion in my post to attack me and overturn my intention. I can do a solid analysis of your message to reveal your actual intention, but it should already be clear what your actual meaning is. Anyway, itâs nice to see that you are still able to have a conversation with me, even though not a proper one. Thanks! P.S. As a contributor for a pre-subbed language, you should also be concerned about this situation, even though you may never be in it. Here, itâs not only about the channels we moderate/edit, but also all those who may never get a moderator or at least one whoâs actually doing their job of fixing the pre-subtitles in a decent period of time.
@a_hauth_238
Thanks, Alex! And as you said, we are not always on the same page, but I think that this is what can help us evolve and stay anchored in the reality of this platform. And yes, for sure it wasnât something accidental, but either a lack of interest in the pre-subtitles or just a lack of a lot of attention. We should be realistic about the fact that not all of us can have the same level of attention, or at least not all the time. Thatâs why even with so many great EN editors, the OL still finds things to be fixed, and this is absolutely normal and what makes us a community.
@maria_lavendula_77
Thanks for sharing your tips and showing responsibility by understanding the actual meaning of my post. Once again your are proving your worth for the Segging Moderator Division role. Thank you once again!
Guys, I know, my post was not posted in the greatest moment since we are all in an obscure time where we donât know anything about what Viki plans to do with us. They already moved the âSubtitle teamâ tab from the channels in the last position, they also just had a new channel without the EN team (they already did this in the past, but now the context is different and we know they like to change things in small steps), and the most important is that the community was left without any staff to manage it and help us.
But I always believed that in this community, there are still all grown-up people willing to do everything they can to support and keep alive this community. And this can not be done just by showing only the good things and hiding the unpleasant ones. At one moment, all the unpleasant things will pile up to the point of blowing up and leave us with nothing. So why not show responsibility to Viki and that we have even more work to do, and somehow we are still managing to put out a very good quality despite being just volunteers, but we are also in need of technical help from them to improve the Viki tools.
So I count on everyone to share and help each other, instead of throwing shade. Of course, this is if we want to improve day by day and not stay in the same unrealistic impression that everything is fine and that we are âperfectâ.
Robert, usually I do not get involved on posts there at all. But this was a bit harsh even if u right or not. Can be a problem, yes, i do agree we do have this problem, but i still think the way u wrote was not the best way. Also solving this isdue, since have CS and CM on the drama, openly u can talk about with them or go above if u feel nobody listening to u. But as no backround, just pop the post there how bad CS doing, well can take it on the wrong way, as involve all. So have one, few flaw in the system not mean for me all parts wrong and bad.
Also not answering to u nothing to do with this topic, and i do not attact peope, believe or not.
Have reason why u did not got any answer, and i try to stay professional much as i can and do not put âthe laundryâ out.
U might feel wronged, but so do I. Thats it.
My post has only one purpose, and doesnât need any explicit background or details for the curious ones, especially in this public community space. And good-intentioned people will be able to see it. Iâm not responsible for any personal interpretation of any other contributor, interpretation made based on their own way of thinking and reasons.
The same goes for me.
And I was not attacking you, which you seem to think. I was actually seriously replying to your post. But the way you make it sound is not what I have experienced so far. If a segmenter has a âlack of interestâ in the presubs (or is just scared they canât do it) they rather just do adjust-only and let the CS do the work or donât join the team at all. The rest of them are just doing the best they can. Yes, it is possible that some subs/languages slip their mind now and then. This will improve with experience. It is also possible that the work they actually did do is not being saved because of the technical issues the Viki tools (and especially the segment timer) have always had. And then there are the errors in the presubs themselves. In some cases, some presubs are totally misplaced by the Viki subber/bot. The segmenter splitting or combining them canât really know this if they donât know the language.
So, I believe the problem occurs but not at the rate that you are describing and if it does, it is likely to improve over time, as we all evolve.
Still, this way we canât see if subs have not been chopped off here and there, only if some are completely missing. If we really want to be absolutely sure that none of our seggers has accidentally lost something, we would have to thoroughly check every single subtitle in the entire show for all languages. Or work without segmenters so that we only have to make sure that we ourselves donât make mistakes. And even if we actually would do that, weâd get scolded because QC-ing would take way too long for Vikiâs precious viewers.
Actually, we nowadays have more splits than combines and those remain in the player and will in the worst case just slightly have shifted to a neighboring segment. Not great but still visible for the viewer.
I donât think anyone here is âthrowing shade.â I certainly am not.
Like I said before, the only way to have a 100% guarantee that nothing slipped our seggersâ minds is to either check all subtitles out there or refrain from hiring seggers, neither of which is preferable.
There are a few things we can do to decrease the likelihood of errors:
Mention all presub languages with their English name, source-language name, and fastest shortcut (typing a maximum of 2 letters plus Enter should immediately take you to the right language in the bulk without even looking) in the TN
Learn all those shortcuts by heart (the few characters in other scripts can be copied from TN)
Always go through the languages in the same order so that all languages and when to address them get into our system
Compare the percentages of all languages
Make sure we are really focused while working on a show
Practice, practice, practice! All new things start with a little bit of chaos. We will evolve over time, but we canât do that without a few minor risks.
I refuse to believe that the majority of segmenters would deliberately mess up the presubs. Such people might exist, but they will be exceptions.
This topic is not, and it should not be about defending the responsible segmenters and hiding the others. So there is no need to start a defensive affront to protect anyone. Iâm sure Viki can also see the good job most of the seggers are doing.
Instead of being stuck in this loop, it will be much more productive if some of the most active ones can post tips and solutions to help everyone. Letâs note that not all the contributors are in the outside communities (like Disc0rd) or any other closed teams or groups.
So this is the best place to post an awareness message and bring everyone to give their help, not only defensive explanations.
We talk about different things. If half of the subtitles are missing from the editor, then the remaining half will be in the player. Otherwise, it means that the missing half is somewhere hidden from the editor and visible only in the player?
The way I do it is look at a specific seggers work, I didnt say that it was perfect but in the end that is the only thing I can do more than looking at segments. Iâm always open for other methods but this is how I do it and I have thanks to this been abel to fix things I would have missed otherwise. Iâm after all not perfect.
Iâve faced the same issue as Robert. Many presubs were ommitted/deleted in the segmenting process.
Itâs already comendable that we have people still ready to segment with so many languages, even more than 15, which I really appreciate. I really respect anybody who still takes on a project with these conditions.
In the beginning, I was confused why some subtitles are missing or why Viki wrote incomplete subtitles. Later I put two and two together to realize this happened during segmenting and subtitles of the âlaterâ segments were deleted along with the segment.
As a moderator, I am slow. The video could be QCd immediately and I get to the episode after some days. In the meantime, if anybody saw the episode with existing subtitles, theyâll obviously be left with missing lines.
From a CM standpoint, it also adds complexity, since itâs already challenging to get a moderator for so many pre-subbed languages. If subtitles are unintentionally lost during segmenting, it can affect multiple languages at once without anyone immediately noticing.
I canât accuse or pinpoint the intention behind it. Maybe the segmenter did not know they had to save the subtitles? Maybe there were just so many languages that they missed a couple of languages. Maybe they thought the moderators will fill in later anyway, so why worry now? Itâs hard to determine from the outside.
What I can say is that Iâve seen this happen across multiple episodes (itâs worth mentioning that I am not saying this because I saw one or two missing presubs, but a amount after which it became concerning), and it does seem worth bringing attention to for the community to avoid incomplete pre-subs after release.
Then there also shouldnât be suggestions of accusation like âthis is not about little omissionsâ or âlack of interest.â
I just gave you mine.
Wasnât the NSSA Discord obligated for everyone involved? But even so, a CS communicates with their team about the process so the seggers will know what to do.
Any qualified segmenter would know these things. Thinking it is something the OL mods will do is what got us in trouble with Viki when they first started adding more presub languages. The old folks learned the hard way and the newbies will be taught properly at the NSSA.
This is possible but will likely occur less often over time when the segmenters get more used to it.
Level 5 is 4 languages nowadays so going from 4 to 6+ isnt a big deal. We have old seggers coming back and learning how to work in multiple languages and those who do a refresher are often amazing at it (at least the ones I have worked with).
We might want to make sure, though, that all returning segmenters actually do the refresher course. When we still had a maximum of 4 languages, they could be trained on the go with a little help from the CS but with 20 languages and counting, the step would be way too big so we need the NSSA. So maybe make âflyersâ for the course, spread the word in any way you can, or maybe even go as far as making it obligated for those who werenât around in the times Viki evolved from 1 presub language to 20 and countingâŠ
But even so, a CS communicates with their team about the process so the seggers will know what to do.