It seems that segmenters now have a number of responsibilities that, in the past, belonged to Chief Segmenters.
In case my opinion is useful, I would like to mention my following thoughts on the off-chance that they provide some additional information or insights.
(1) The only one who should adjust segments at the request of the English Editor or the Channel Manager should be the Chief Segmenter. It could lead to a great deal of confusion, and possibly some ill will, if all segmenters are expected to be answerable to the CE and the CM in the way described.
(2) Compared to subtitlers in major languages, the pool of segmenters is small and the number of tasks is large. In addition to this, many segmenters do not like working on A&C and Adjust-Only shows because at the end of it all, there is very little reward for the effort put into performing the tasks. There are also many shows coming to Viki that need the attention of segmenters. For these reasons, the restrictions placed on segmenters in these new guidelines will mean that in the not-too-distant future, segmenters will be unavailable to cover the new shows.
(3) I get the impression from the August Guidelines that Viki does not fully understand how the segmenting process works from a team perspective and the demands placed on the teams and individuals.
I want to add that I think if you have any problems as a segmenter the CS of that project might be better to contact than the CM. In the end the CS is the one responsible for quality control of the segments.
" Inform the Channel Manager (if the Channel Manager is not available, please reach out to the Editor or All Languages Moderator) of any breaks or hiatus from your duties as a Segmenter"
This is another gem… “Graduation from NSSA sandbox program is preferred but not required.” I have always thought the steps where great (and the previous system with training) but it seems like you don’t need it anymore…
I’ve always been wondering if they say that because some aren’t graduated from NSSA but are graduated from Seg101 (which doesn’t exist anymore), but if that’s the case, they should be more clear about this.
I’m just guessing here, but Viki might also be thinking of people who have verifiable experience from another streaming service like TED or Prime, etc. If these people can demonstrate a good segging technique, Viki might be open to considering a special program that introduces them to Viki’s requirements rather than have them go through the Sandbox, all the levels and graduation.
I only work with Ninja or seg 101 segmenters, sorry, we already have a lot to fix Viki segments, I don’t need to fix segments behind the segmenters I hire, that would be murder for the Chief Segmenter.
Dear, if a segmenter answers the invitation that he will be present, he should be present. I have segmenters who tell me “count on me but I can’t be regular” and that’s how I accept him in the team because I know that even the one who is regular can have something unforeseen, in those moments those who are not regular help a lot. But I also have those who say count on me and never show up. Which means it’s not a responsible segmenter. I also have those who don’t listen when I tell them don’t do it like that, it shouldn’t be like that, or I even have a segmenter who supervises other segmenters and writes something in TD, even though I told him several times that he doesn’t do that and that it’s my job and still no is listening, which means that he will no longer get an invitation to participate in a drama that I will be working on even though he is a ninja. So, yes, one segmenter is responsible, but he should say whether he will be regular or not. Same as at work.
You’re not the only one, there’s not many CS I know working with segmenters who never went through NSSA nor Seg101.
I also would never take a segmenter who’s not graduated from NSSA nor Seg101, especially since we can find many segmenters who are graduated already, even if it’s often the same segmenters we see in teams. There were some exceptions for old segmenters before, but not anymore.
As CS, I wouldn’t take a segmenter who’s not graduated from NSSA or Seg101, because we can see so many old projects which have been taken over these last few years because of having to fix the segments which were off and mostly made by not graduated segmenters. There’s still some old projects like that around, even if way less than before. Plus why would we take segmenters not graduated when some segmenters spend months to learn how to do it properly?
If we almost always see the same segmenters around, it’s mainly because some don’t know how to join a team after graduation, so they need to be invited, some aren’t active or just don’t want to work on A&C or adjust only projects which are what we get most of the time to do. And I can understand for the last situation. Because we only get a few contributions on A&C, but still not much, and no segments at all on adjust only projects, not to mention some adjust only projects presegments are not good at all and it’s frustrating not to be able to fix them (that’s why I decided not to work on these myself, because I wouldn’t be proud of my work if I can’t combine the segments which need to be combined).
I don’t think this is quite the right thread for my post, but since the new guidelines are being talked about here right now and @brendas@vikicommunity have also been tagged, I’ll just post here.
The problem that segmenters on A&C projects usually have to work a lot but get no credit at all is one we are all aware of. So far, no solution has been found.
I have been thinking about it for some time now and the following idea came to me.
Viki staff use so called “pre-subbing” channels to work on projects before official release. And the NSSA uses training channels to train their students. For both of these things, viewers and those not added have no access. Why can’t this be combined for the Segmenters and also the English team?
When a new drama comes out, there could be a pre-subbing/segging channel for the English team and the segmenters in addition to the channel. The official channel will be normal for the viewers with the release of the episodes. The existing segments and subtitles in English (and French, Spanish, Portuguese) will not be touched. The most impatient viewers will be able to watch the episodes without loss and immediately.
In the Pre-Subbing/Segging Channel, the drama could be uploaded completely without segments and subtitles. The segmenters could do their job normally and then the subbers can translate from original to English. Then the English edit takes place and the episodes are released for the languages.
Now we would have to consider if at this point the episodes are transferred from the pre-subbing/segging channel to the actual channel and the other languages start translating into the respective languages there, or if the translation of the languages should also take place in the pre-subbing/segging channel.
We would still have to consider if the CM can do the transfer of the finished episodes or if that would have to be done in combination with Viki, but we can think about that in detail later.
I think that with this kind of processing advantages could be created for all. The viewers don’t have to wait and the volunteers can work normally, get their credit for it and also the subbers from original language to English will find their justification again.
I used to be a very active segger but that became less and less because Viki changed things so much, now the last few times I only segged so my VikiPass stays active. Like in the past you knew kind of exactly when something should be uploaded and be ready to be worked on with some delays here and there you knew it should be up somewhere in the afternoon, evening etc.
But then Viki started to work with region delays meaning seggers from Europe had to wait 8 hours or something before they could start. Of course by that time seggers from other regions already had it all done. That even happened with at least 1 of my CM projects, that I couldn’t be there for my team during the most important time due that stupid delay. First I thought it had to be a bug and Viki let me believe it was but no it was done on purpose and who know why…
Then the uploading time got all over the place… Then project A. was up at 9AM, project B. at 2PM, project C. at 11PM and project D. at 3AM or something. It happened with a few projects I was planning to seg that they where up while I was sleeping or at the middle of the day where I had errands to run etc. It also happened that project A. had a different upload time all the time. Then it was up at 5PM, then 11PM and then 3AM. I don’t know why Viki is doing this… Do they want to give us all a hard time? Annoy us? Make us leave? You cannot expect of volunteers to keep refreshing all the time for the whole day!
Also when I got a notification of Viki that an episode is up for segmenting I expect it’s indeed ready to be worked on… But more often it wasn’t which pissed me off so much. Just don’t notify people and waste their time when it’s not ready yet. How hard could that be?!
And how annoying is it that you get notified as a segger that you can start segging and you see it’s already fully segged?! Then you get all excited and then it turns out to be a stupid A&C project.
Dear, don’t be so angry with Viki, Viki is doing everything she can to please us. It should also be understood that when the episodes are uploaded, the person in charge of that part of the work is exactly in that zone, when it’s 3 o’clock in the morning.
