Subtitle and Segment Abusers

Contributing
1

HI! As you might know, an abuser in Viki (Is Not a written definition by the website or viki itself ) is the one who does not ask for permission before start subbing or segment in any language (Is a definition by the community that anyone who works in a channel will tell you) , the reasons for people to start doing this might be hurry to the drama be 100% so they can watch it or maybe hurry to get the 3000 subs or segments to get the QC status. I’m not saying everyone has bad intentions because it could be that they might not know that is something wrong, so they do it. But regardless of the reason I think there must be something that we can do to help prevent this, maybe gather some ideas to make a proposal to the Viki Staff or something.
Just yesterday I saw several teams fighting abusers over and over again in different Channels and our work as a team is ruined or delayed because of this. Not sure if you all will agree but there is a lot of hardworking volunteers in this community who spend a lot of time making the shows, dramas, channels, etc possible for the rest to watch and enjoy so the minimum we can expect is a little of respect between us and just follow the protocol.

  1. If you want to sub in any language ask permission to the Channel Manager or Language Moderator. Normally they (we) are busy people so be patient and wait for their answer.

  2. If you jump to do subs without permission just to “help” the show to be subbed faster is going to work the opposite way around: the team is going to stop their job completely, those subs are going to be deleted, and is going to take way more time.

  3. Please be patient : It takes time to put the team together to start subbing after the video is uploaded, then edit the subs and so on, so is not a fast process.

  4. The most probable scenario is that the person who does segments or subs without permission will be reported to the Viki Staff.

  5. If a show is 100% in English it doesn’t mean is going to be subbed in Spanish right away, as I said It takes time. The Team was to wait the Go from the Moderator and then start the process.

The Teams at Viki will always try to make the subs as fast as they can (For shows or dramas currently on Air).

So I want to gather some ideas, or tell us what you think we should do to prevent this in the future, making some sort of request to Viki to help prevent this or how to report it for all the community to know about this. Thank you.

I will take care personally of making a petition to the Viki staff with whatever conclusion we get or we can do it together.

16 Likes
2

@Niennavalar, I second this. Some may want to help but do not follow or read the rules thoroughly. Even after there’re informations regarding this on the channel’s wall. It still happens… Oh, you may need to add another point as well Nienna, if there’s no response from the Channel Manager or Moderator (after 7 days?), then they can submit a request to? (I found this information somewhere before, but I forgot.) This is not happened very often though, but I happened get through this. It shouldn’t bar people who want to help.

2 Likes
3

They can send the request directly to the Viki staff on the help center if that happens, in case no one answer your PM for weeks.

4

Well you might be surprised how often happens, Yesterday it happened to the SHH Team (“Secret”) and to the Passionate Team (Madly In Love) --> which I’m part of. Other cases have happened to the “Ugly duckling” Team in which case someone did hundreds of fake segments in order to get her/his numbers higher and that is very annoying, So if anyone has an idea or a complain write it here and let’s see what we can do.

5

Yesterday was so annoying with Heirs (I heard that Secret had trouble too) it started with locking the, in my case, Dutch subs. I couldn’t for a few minutes and someone else started to sub during that time without asking me first. So I’m for a tool that locks all other languages except English automatically for a certain amount of time unless unlocked earlier by a mod. Maybe a pop up (with basic info) for newbies is a good idea too since many go to the episode directly and don’t see the community wall and therefore not realize/know there is a whole team working on the subs.

I don’t know if it is because I’m more aware of the fact these things happen or that it really starts to getting worse lately. But it’s good to know that unlike some might think they can get away with everything Viki is taking this matter seriously and did suspend some accounts, or at least so i’ve heard.

1 Like
6

Oh, dear!
This is a very sensitive topic you chose.
Ever since I started at Viki this was a point Viki and the volunteers never reached an agreement.
And if you check at Viki Help Center, you will find that Viki doesn’t know or writes anything about “abusers”. Your definition of an abuser

is not in confirmation of Viki rules.
I am not trying to make it harder on you, it’s only the facts and the years and the conflicts I experienced in here.

If you read the Community Rules and the Subbing Rules, you will find the advice to ask for permission to sub, but it is far from being a rule, because if it were one, the would be at least some consequences noted, if you “break” it. While reading these, Viki seems always to make the “easy” decision to believe that subbing without permission was either unintentional or channel volunteers were to slow to answer. At least it seems this way.
In the Community Guidelines ( not rules! ) you might find this:

Treat others on Viki as you would want to be treated. The following
actions are against our guidelines. Ignoring any of these guidelines
may result in being banned from participating on Viki.

However there is nothing related to volunteering subbers at that point.

But of course there are Guidelines for Channel Managers, such as:

Do not discourage users from participating on your Channel, or on Viki

That sentence always was contraproductive for me, as for me it is discouraging, when someone does a poor job at Viki and is ignory others advice and help, so they could become better. And increase the volunteers’ “workload” by doing so. It’s not about making front to new contributors, it’s for them to find the “right” place to practice, a popular, airing drama might not be that good of a place to “get” experience.

Do not “blacklist” community members

The closest definition in the Guidelines for abusers list.

Guidelines for moderators:

You may create individual Channel rules, but those rules may not
conflict with the Viki Terms of Service, Privacy Policy or Community
Guidelines

Finally some Subtiteling Guidelines:

As a courtesy, contact Channel Manager and/or Moderators before
starting to sub

Courtesy? Shouldn’t it be more than courtesy?

No inappropriate subtitling, which may include but is not limited to:

So there are some Unwritten Guidelines?
At the end this is the real thing as it’s a guideline for subbers and segmenters:

Follow the Channel rules set by the Channel Manager and Moderators

About Spanish subbing:
I know that there are a few Ko-Es or other Ko-? subbers out there, and I always wondered, why they should not sub directly, if they are able to. Only those subbers, subbing Korean content with the help of English subs, should wait for the final edit of the English subtitles.

If you mean that Spanish viewers are rushing the Es team, then of course not every Korean content channel will be that lucky to have a knowledgeable subber to get quick subs.

I always hoped Viki would at least “reserve” the most popular dramas for “more experienced volunteers”. However, there are a lot of competent contributors around and I know Viki tries to avoid to lose any possible volunteer. But I do not see how this has to be related. There are a lot of channels, like 50 ep channels that are in dire need for contributors. I understand that people want to chose their projects as well.

It’s not easy.
I wish you good luck on this and hope for others that there might be some changes.

7

It wasn’t only the Dutch subs, at Secret the subs were locked and filled with Spanish subs.
I know how frustrating this can get.

1 Like
9

I honestly is stating to get worst after the Vikipass, why because now poeple really want to get the QC status so they all over the place, So something about the QC status might need to be done as well, But again we need to be agreed on this before we go ahead and contact the viki staff

10

@lutra I meant a person went to sub in Dutch already not that Dutch was ruined. I know the English subs where ruined a few times in both Heirs and Secret causing a delay of a few hours. Honestly I’m happy I’m mostly ‘just’ a segger/subber, or language mod and not a CM.

11

It’s ok you are not being hard with me, actually that’s exactly the reason why I started this, because we need to come up with a solution, in order for something to work, and actually you have pointed something very important and that’s the fact that viki has not a rule per se against just going into the subbs without any permission. which is contradictory because if anyone can do whatever it wants just to “motivate subbing” (lol) then there will be no good subs.

There are many many ways that people that want to learn how to Subs can do it, but the problem is almost everyone wants to subs a korean or a popular drama.

1 Like
12

It’s awful and it’s getting worse and worse each day. Most people are polite and respectful when we send them a private message, but others are really rude and blurt “I was doing it because you were slow, do your job properly”. Then I have to explain that we can’t start until the English subtitles are done or explain that they were writing over other languages subtitles again.

I go along with dudie and suggest the “pop up” message explaining the need to wait for the editors “ok” and other stuff when a non-QC accesses the subtitle editor or segment timer.
I also think that “clicks” must be redirected to the CW first, not to the videos.
And I would like to add something more: The need to reinforce the fact that people who don’t know the languages shouldn’t translate at all. Seriously, that’s a must. It sounds obvious, but we still have many people that think it’s “ok” to copy and paste from google and other translation tools.

4 Likes
13

I was just surprised to see an amount of German subtitles, even the English subtitles weren’t done. So I contacted the CM. Normally I would have left a comment at the channel, but it’s more then a week that I can’t see any comments, as well as no reply form Viki HC but I am not going to rush things, since there are so many bugs with a higher need to be fixed.
I only am CM at a movie channel, that is/was enough thrill for me.
But I am De Mod at 2 channels, quiet channels, and weith lots of dialouge, that I am subbing alone. No one is rushing or complaining and I am thankful, but I got some “wild” subbers as well and finally made my piece, with fixing their subtitles if it’s up to 2 minor mistakes and if it’s more than that to erase the subtitle and write it anew.

14

That is right, and not only wanting to sub in popular channels but demanding it. And if you correct their lines, they sometimes will become aggressive as for others they ignore every word you say.

1 Like
15

This one is in the Guidelines for subbers:

No inappropriate subtitling, which may include but is not limited to:

Subtitling without knowledge of the original and destination languages
Copying subtitles from a non-Viki source
Using a translator program (ex: Google translate)
Subbing with the sole objective of raising the number of your total subtitles
Editing subtitles that are correct and/or complete
Adding only HTML or punctuation marks into an empty segment
Deliberately adding incorrect subtitles
Adding anything other than subtitles to the subtitling section
1 Like
16

I think if a person as you and me request a channel, gather a team and do all the work, as fan Channels, I think Channel managers and moderators have the right to choose who works in the show, people complains when the subs are late, when they see a typo when the sub are wrong etc, So to provide quality dramas or show there should be a protocol in how to do it. I’m also agreed that people need to be coached in how to do it, and If someone takes the time to ask to join a team most of the times even is is a newbie this person will be accepted and trained in the show, I don’t think anyone has people that want to learn or have zero subs in a black list if they really want to learn they can do it here. that’s why these volunteer system actually works but we need to improve this to be more respectful and efficient.

17

I know, but they are hidden. That’ why I said “reinforce the fact”. They could mention it somewhere else, like inside the subtitle editor if they implement the pop-up idea. Based on my viki experience, people don’t go after those rules by themselves, most of the times.

In heirs channel, people don’t even read the thousands replies we gave saying it’s not available for America’s region or the CW.

3 Likes
18

I know “abusers” might sound too harsh but is very intrusive when the team spends hours in front of the computer so the rest of viki can watch videos and suddenly someone comes and jump all over the place with bad grammar, no punctuation at all, or the obvious coping from google translator… I think is an amazing idea that moderators could get a notification or something when someone starts to subb and segment the videos. this will make it soo better!

1 Like
19

There is still a small difference between hidden and not that easy to find.
Help Center is unluckily placed, and finding the possibilty to make a request for new users an odyssee.
Sometimes I really wonder if this is a new method of keeping the numbers of requests down.

20

You understood what I meant to say… I’m not trying to talk in riddles and English is not my native language.

I find some rules quite contradictory, by the way. And when I say “rules”, I’m also talking about widely known community practices that are accepted by Viki.

Viki allows “Teams”, but still says its “open for all”. I think that boundaries are needed sometimes, for organizational purposes. If there’s an active team, I do think that there should be some sort of “line”. For the dramas without teams or inactive teams, subtitles indeed should be open for all.
What’s the purpose of making teams if they’ll be ignored in the end? Or have extra work to put things in place?
I used to be more peaceful about it, but after my experience with Heirs, things reached a whole different level. Things have reached a point that demands changes. Viki keeps growing and receiving more people every day, therefore it can’t be stagnant.

1 Like
21

Some is so demanding like you said. It’s not like we’re not appreciate those who’s willing to help, but then being aggressive and said something like: I can’t stand to see how awful the subs so I just dived in right away. Sigh… And then I found some people who also editing some subs that relatively fine and what they did actually does not make any difference, they only use synonym words to replace the existed ones. I think, @Luzevedo’s idea above is a good one, a reminder for people before starting to volunteer, otherwise more chaos…Imagine it could happen not only in one episode but also in multi episodes. Editing work would be harder and longer, and at some point these matters need to be resolved somehow.

1 Like