You can look into this and maybe u can find a project to work on that @cgwm808 offered
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Why they will like or unlike someone they donât actually know or even contact with before! And to avoid favoritism they can do it anonymously so they will not know the person who they have to give their feedback to his work! And if they are not good in the first place that is because of the poor system of recruiting volunteers, which we want to overcome it.
About the Staff and their language! I will aware they donât have a staff that know all the languages!! But they could figure a way to deal with the situation! Or just give them the chance to start to build their own language community! Simple 
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Oh dear, Iâm already handful, I have 2 solo projects, one of them I am already a mod, Iâm done with the practice a while a go! and I am heading my way to become a Golden QC soon 
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OMG, thatâs huge numbers! Good for you really! I joined two projects with teams, one of them only the mod and me and another lady that really active, there were other ppl but not committed to the project, we already finished it. same goes with the second project, only me and the mod working on it, but it is on hold because we are busy with other projects!
I work ALONE in two projects! Numbers bigger than 2 digits is a something I canât dream of in our community!
But quality must come first, there is no granted solution to it, but if they could build a system why not?
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Well, Spanish teams may have many subbers in their team, but usually (based on my observations) when they assign work (give the ââGoâsââ) out of the 16 in the team; they send the message to, only 6 of them keep getting assigned parts. I got a 15 minute part once, while the favorite 6 got a part in all episodes to be subbed. When a part could not be done by any of those 6 subbers, the moderator takes the part and does it herself! Although I offered myself plenty of times to be able to do any part that was assigned (but the person couldnât do it for whatever reason) it was never offered to me. What this tells me? They donât care to finish the episode faster with Quality work included because all they really want, is to hog it all for themselves. Itâs more evident now since the 5 moderation rules limit how much ââhoggingââ they can do. But I have seen plenty and saved enough evidence that proves they found a way to break rules, hog as much as they can, and get away with plenty of things. I believe the controlling groups we have here took the reigns again and we are back to square one.
I donât want to sound like a broken record, but I mainly worry about my native language, and thatâs why I speak out about things done wrong with my SPANISH language. Just like I do; every other community (OL) should speak out, and defend any wrongdoing with their language. The needs the OL may have, and what can work for their communities, donât have to be resolved with my suggestions or ideas since I already have more than enough on my plate. Donât generalized what I write here and my concerns and issues regarding the spanish language with other issues OL may have because then, and only then, you can say my ideas are useless. I really wish the ones in charge (owners of this site) could take their time to investigate more, and pluck out the weed we have here from the blooming flowers; so the garden can flourish in quantity and quality in equal amounts.
You are/were what I would call a persistent, motivated and resourceful new volunteer. Firstly, you did not get discouraged by first rejections. Secondly, you managed to understand or were explained the volunteering system on Viki well enough to find a work-around for your problem. Lastly, you took any chances you got for translating even though you were not interested in those projects, and reached your goal of 3000 subs.
But you are more of an exception, than a rule 
We are all aware that in order to implement their rule of not discouraging any volunteer from contributing, VIki is obliged to lower or keep that initial threshold for newbie volunteers in small languages not raise it.
Any new apprising/reviewer system system on VIki has to be double-blind. Meaning anonymous from both sides. Those who grade the submitted work (reviewers) cannot know who the author of the submitted work is. Authors cannot know who the reviewers are.
Which is why their current idea of new volunteers (authors) submitting the short test video sucks!
Agreed. Which is why there are two solutions to this core issue for small languages:
- Either Viki permanently hires (on hour basis) experienced professionals of each small language to review the submitted work.
- Or Viki first hires these profesisonals to test the experienced volunteers. And after finding fitting individuals for each small language, they create their own permanent reviewer team on Viki made entirely of volunteers.
In any case, the ball is in Vikiâs court. After all, they need to create this digital reviewing system. We canât do anything (substantial and objective) on our own here.
@irmar, I know youâd be interested in this topic, as well 
P.S. the short video can be used for other languages asides from the ones on the list. One can write Croatian translation into what is for the computer system officially Spanish.
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Agreed.
Iâm not so sure if they could find and afford staff for all those languages, but if they do, I fear the day we get to read:
This drama will be presubbed in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Croatian 
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So it cannot be on existing channels, because there you can clearly see who wrote what. Theyâd have to make a special place for that purpose. And the material? It cannot be old, already translated dramas. It cannot be dramas which havenât aired yet. If itâs compiled sentences, soon the volunteers will make a database of them and friends will inform friends of the contents so they can be prepared.
Itâs tricky!
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I think she didnât mean that the paid staff will have to be full timer, it is only for a period of time untill they put the base of a good volunteer QCs. They could do it a language at time! They start with the common languages. Like every quarter of a year they choose a language and so on.
No, it canât be. Whatâs done is done! Better to do the approved qualification method to newcomers After putting the base of assuring that the QCs that volunteered for testing the newcomers can be trusted.
I donât think it has to be a clip at the first place, it could be a random text, paragraphs, liners, and they MUST be randomly assigned, and changed every once in a while.
Every thing could ppl have a work around in it no matter of what, but I think most of the ppl who joined they didnât know anybody in the community and they build friendships over time.
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I know what she meant, but that is how things go on Viki. Originally, all shows came unsubbed. Segmenters would create segments, the CS would check them, the English subbers would come in and their work would be checked by 3 editors, after with the Other Languages could start their work. Everything was done by volunteers, from scratch.
Nowadays, almost all shows come with English presubs. Part of those are subtitles from the content provider that came with the license, but nowadays, most shows that donât come with presubs from the content provider get segmented and translated into English by the staff and all the volunteer segmenting and English teams can do is check their work (and even that is sometimes disallowed or discouraged).
More recently, we have presubss in Spanish and Portuguese as well, which is ridiculous when you look at how many Spanish and Portuguese subbers there are among the volunteers. And lately, weâve had several movies that could only be translated (or edited in case of presubs) into a handful of languages while all other languages were blocked.
All Viki cares about are the viewers who might fill their wallets, not the blood, sweat, and tears of the volunteers who help them realize that, and they wonât hesitate to wipe us off the map.
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I think it should be a designated channel, just like the NSSA has one, with:
- all new contributors, who wish to be tested, added under an alias such as DutchSubber_1, DutchSubber_2, CroatianSubber_1 etc.
- permanent reviewers should be added under the alias ItalianReviewer_1, GreekReviewer_1, etc.
- there should be at least 100 different episodes on the channel to prevent repetitive material and misuse
- they should be random from each other
- preferably very old and therefore relatively obscure (for our current Viki newbie volunteers anything older than 2015 is old-old)
- comprising of all 3 major origin languages for cultural context: Korean, Chinese and Japanese
- and having modern, historical, legal and medical language
- episodes should not be visible to those who are not added to the âteamâ as subbers
I think this is doable with regards to coding. Yes, Vikiâs efforts would be needed. And yes, they may think itâs easier to just hire translators. Itâs very tricky!
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Like the Training Channels? That might work. Then maybe they can choose a channel that is about to lose its license and save it in the âreview channel,â which canât be searched for and doesnât appear in Explore/Categories/whatever. And because the license is gone, no one can prepare in advance by watching the regular version of the show.
Would they need a separate account for that?
So those 100 episodes would be of at least 3 different shows?
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They wouldnât need a separate account if the coding is done properly. The reviews one gets should be connected to their public account in order to be useful.
Yes, bare minimum. But better at least 10 shows. Mock Translation notes for each of the different shows and each language required could also be used.
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Controversial opinion:
I think the fact that some dramas donât have a beggining of translation is good. Hear me out.
It the past a lot of dramas were started and not finished. For example the first 6 episodes are translated, next 6 have 50% completion of each episodes and the next 6 ep have nothing. And noone has been working on it for 2 years.
It makes people waiting for translation and people who started watching frustrated. The drama shows in the category of subbed things, but itâs not subbed.
Taking over such project to complete is more difficult than taking a new, untouched project.
Less projects started also makes translators âcondenseâ in fewer projects, so in result those projects will get completed.
There are things, that I donât like/hate with 5 slots for projects, but I think in my community it works well.
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So true! I been there! And honestly this is the reason why I joined the community! A lot of shows not completed, so I had to complete\watch them in other streaming services! One of them was a 20 ep show, it got translated till ep17!
They are still working on it on snail steps, I offer to help but got no answer, and till now itâs not completed! I know now that subbing needs a lot of time! For a part of 7 to 10 min I had to work for 3 hoers sometimes! If only one subber working on it it will definitely took too much time! I could understand if the subber donât want help after going through 17episodes, but 2 years for a project, I think it is not done!
I think the role of 5 projects is good, it will help QC to focus on what they have instead of going around 10 projects and none of them complete.
For me I prefer to work one project at a time if the show is already completed! 2 to three months is a decent period of time for a project specially if you work alone!
But they need to think about testing volunteers before giving them the freedom to work, and then they will not need a QC mod to guide the newbies so they could join projects they are interested in and work even if the project doesnât has a language mod.
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Ah, sadly I disagree. There is a lot more to learning how to translate properly than initially meets the eye.
The testing of new volunteers would be a good way to sift out abusers and get some info on what the newbie is capable of and what needs to be worked on. Iâve never met a volunteer in my language who didnât have anything to improve upon. We are not just talking about the translation accuracy, brevity and natural expression here. Weâre also talking about working in a team, communication, using team notes, how to constructively give feedback to English mods etc. And all of that takes time. Months at least, if not years.
You will always need people to guide you through on any new job. Same applies for volunteering on Viki.
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I canât disagree with you in that, working with teams before taking the solo projects helped me a lot in so many levels!
But the problem is, if a volunteer joined for the love of doing a specific project, and start the process with a project that totally not his liking and didnât gained his interest, the process of subbing and learning will be quiet overwhelming for him and it may demotivate him from continue working, at the end he will not gain money, so if he didnât gain joy and sense of achievement why would he waste his energy and time? And we might loose a gem. You know , not every body as persistent as me 
It is a bit tricky, there is no right or wrong, and there is no solution that could work for everyone.
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Agree with you, and I believe these two groups were given here complete control which Iâm not too comfortable with that because it can become a whole new total control here issue by this 2 teams to an extreme level at RVIKi.
Do we have here at viki so many PAYING subscribers in Spanish and Portuguese, that merits this newfound preference with these 2 groups? I donât see a lot of Spanish paying subscribers; that require and need the subtitles done in SPANISH.
I canât give any opinion regarding Portuguese since I donât know the language well enough to make assessment whether they are perfectly done or needed here because of the mass amount of paying subscribers we have here at RViki site.
Anyway, I just hope they are just bringing here (OL) other language at a slower pace since now I see dramas which clearly starts with ENGLISH, SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, GERMAN subtitles (not seeing OL are mentioned/added). I feel that like with cancer until you donât get to the root and take it all out, any healing (good outcomes) canât be expected to be happening any time soon.
RULES need to be strongly enforced and followed respectfully, and Moderators should not be assigning themselves parts, and writing subtitles in teams where their role is ONLY to be the MODERATOR. If you have 100âs of subbers in your team; give it to the people that work belongs to be done, a subber!
I also 100% agree now that [Subbers without Moderators should not be able to add subtitles] just and only because they reached the 3,000 contribution count, and allege they know the language. They need to be screened with testing and careful attention, so we donât start seeing here more abusers writing crappy subtitles in all/any language, and be given rewards they donât deserve to get!
If a person wanting to volunteer wants to write subtitles in their non native language, they need to be tested in the OL they allege to say they know. I had an experience with a Portuguese person that mentions that knows English and Spanish. The English and Spanish sentence this person wrote was done with what I assume was Google translate, and they were both a horrible mess to read. I copied and saved this info bc I want to make sure this person wonât ever dare to do any subtitles in Spanish (you are in my radar).
Reading a language and understanding most of what we read, doesnât mean we know the language and can write subtitles in dramas/movies/shows etc. If that was the case, then I know FRENCH, PORTUGUESE, ITALIAN and can be added in teams to write subtitles in those language since when I read the subtitles I can understand most of it. Is this an honest thing to do? NO. Is it a fair thing to do? No, since others that really know the language might not get a chance to get in the team bc an abuser/selfish human being, took the spot that never belong to them in the first place. YOU guys are in my radar, so respect my SPANISH language; the same way I respect OL.
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As an English editor and Portuguese Moderator, I can tell that Brazilian viewers are a pain LoL honestly, it sucks to have presubs for a language that has a fairly big volunteer community, but at the moment, we donât have that many people to be done with the subs in 4h like in the good old days. And, speaking from the viewerâs pov, these presubs can make people watch the dramas and give Viki money way more than wait for around 2 days the whole process. Segmenting, translation, editing, and then the Portuguese translation. Iâve seen the Portuguese presubs for a couple of movies and I donât think is half bad. Not the best, but is way better than mechanical translation. The biggest problem are the formating and some translations that lost meaning because is literal and not translated to the way we speak.
Is sad to see how things are getting out of the volunteers hands lately, but we e are facing new days with new problems. In the end of the day, Viki needs to chose the best way for them and to keep earning money to keep this platform and donât become the next one to go down.
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Sadly, this also happens with native speakers. Even people who grew up with a language nowadays more often than not suck at it. Yet on Viki, they become big, as long as they deliver enough contributions.
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