Subtitle formatting

Contributing Subtitling
40

I didn’t tell you to change your views, darling, only to have less high expectations of perfection from human beings, to avoid disappointment and feelings of betrayal. Of course, if the person who did such things used to be your friend, then these feelings are unavoidable, but if she’s not, then just a mild disgust is enough. And some corrective action.

Yes, it’s perfectly okay to expose bad practices, I am all for it! But those rivers of desperate text in several threads, related or not, disconnected and vague, so long that very few will read them, don’t serve their purpose well.

I’ve worked for more than 20 years as a journalist and I’ve learned that the best article is useless unless you write and format it so that the people are willing to read it. And people don’t have the patience to waddle through stuff, they want the information to be presented to them in a time-saving and organized way. Especially if they’re not - yet - passionately concerned about the subject. Give an informative and catchy title to draw people’s interest immediately. And the gist of it should be in the very first sentence.

Rest for a while, go for a walk or have some comfort food, then gather your thoughts. Then go to an appropriate thread or make a new one. Write something coherent, specific, brief and to the point, with headings, paragraphs and bulleted lists, that people can understand easily and respond to - and probably they will also add to it, because of course these disgraceful occurrences are not only in the French community.

And of course… please report these people abusing the Viki system. Urge others who know the situation first-hand to report them as well. Repeatedly, until Viki takes action. They are a bit slow in these cases, especially if it’s a well-known and old-time moderator.

P.S.
As for the NSSA, if I tell you the reason why the Italian subbing academy hasn’t yet been created, you will laugh and cry at the same time.

[spoiler]The reason is there is more than one candidate for the job and they cannot choose among them for fear of being unfair.
There are the two factions in the Italian community, who have a sort of monopoly on all popular shows, who hate each other and won’t collaborate even with a gun on their head. Plus me, a third one, running as an independent candidate. NSSA higher-ups wrote me a message saying they don’t want to offend anyone so they prefer to not give the job to anyone “for now”. This was many months ago and I’m not expecting it to change.

Actually they are sort of right. How can they know who will do a better job? It’s me of course, but they have no way of knowing it. First, because they don’t know the language. But even if they did, it’s not only about the language, it’s about teaching. They don’t know the training/coaching job each of us does - or, in one case, doesn’t do - behind the scenes with new subbers.[/spoiler]

1 Like
41

is there for every language a academy?

  • i wonder :thinking:
42

No, not my friend, I don’t have this attitude toward friends or old friends. I’d defend an old friend if it’s right to do so (contrary to some ppl who will use their friends and not defend them and pick the CM’s side). I don’t want friends like that. A friend supports you no matter who they have in front of them, not the contrary.

You know me already. I don’t like injustice.
It’s even harder for me to understand injustice on Viki. In real life, you have courts, but here, you feel sometimes that there is no court or no law. It’s incredible.
So it is difficult for me to stand by and staying silent. I’d be disappointed at myself for staying mute. If people have some conscience or empathy toward other volunteers, they won’t do things like that.

I should take writting tips from you, seriously, I’m thinking about it :wink:
I have to say I know how people are and I am just like people. You remember our conversation with the GDPR and lazy people? I am lazy to make something structured, not always, but still, I am lazy xd But what you say is totally right. Something short, concise and well-presented is always better.

For the Italian nssa: “It’s me, of course.” Hahaha
For the French academy, they have many senseis.
So why not for the Italian academy?
But I’m afraid, as we were discussing it, the initial goal for helping the community will finish crushed.
Some will use the academy to recruit more followers to their “faction” to use them, have some influence on them and keep them in their team only. Finally, there won’t be independance in senseis. A student should be free to choose and a sensei should not be biaised or manipulate students. Teaching, that’s all.
But I agree, ppl should know and be warned of the situation with factions existing, etc.

I think it’s an utopia on Viki. Believing that all people would act correctly… but if we can do something even if it’s small, why not?

Ps: we have to make a decision in life. As to know who should be able to do the job, sometimes you don’t know and pick the one you believe in. I think taking more than 1 sensei if there are many applicants can also be a solution?
Or put on trial and see which one(s) can do the job.
Between blocking an academy and picking someone you are not sure to trust, I prefer to pick and then if the person can’t be trusted, take someone else. If you can’t pick bec you don’t know the language, in 10 years, if you haven’t learnt Italian, you still be stuck without an academy.
Whereas if you tried already, at least, you know who can be trusted. Without trying, you can’t possibly know…
So I think, Irmar, it was not possible at the beginning to build a decision on that. Ya sure it was the reason? It seems absurd. Think it’s more because they don’t want to create more problems between factions and don’t want to hurt applicants. Maybe they think that the sensei will influence the students and only favors one faction, so most subbers will go in 1 faction only?

1 Like
43

I don’t know for other languages, but I don’t think so because too many languages! For the most popular ones, it should be covered, but some are under construction for many years.

44

ah okay. thanks for your answer =)

2 Likes
45

I assure you that’s what I was told. It made sense to me, although I was sad to read it. But of course you’re also right, having nothing is surely not good.

Aaaanyway, we’re off topic, so let’s stop talking about that here. We might move the part about NSSA, starting from your post about French senseis which is on another thread, and also what is here, yours and mine, to a relevant thread. For instance this one, made by you:
https://discussions.viki.com/t/how-to-become-a-better-subtitler-subtitle-academy-for-each-language
What do you say? So that everything is where it belongs and we don’t confuse other people…

1 Like
46

I’m going to link this post to the other post so ppl won’t feel it’s going all over the place:
https://discussions.viki.com/t/contributors-who-want-to-demotivate-other-contributors-on-purpose/12476/81?u=irmar

47

About those breaks everybody is talking about. My LG smart thingy coupled to ChromeCast interprets the breaks by:

  • skipping them
  • adding a space between two words if no space was previously created around the break
  • does not add space if space is already there.

Since we know that Viki is no longer supporting smart tv apps, only casting devices and tv boxes, the information from Viki posted up there seems outdated and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I’m more annoyed that the same combo (ChromeCast-Smart TV) recognizes every single space. Which means if someone makes a typo of a double space, thinks it doesn’t show on smart tv (like it doesn’t on viki.com) and therefore they don’t feel obliged to correct it, the mistake is very visible.

2 Likes
48

I had to read carefully your post to see the subs in my mind XD
If I understood it well:

  • breaks are replaced by a space, except if the space is already here, breaks just disappear.
  • double space… oh no… I’m having a headache… Have to go back on episodes to check… joy!

But I wonder if casting devices and tv boxes give the same display.
I have to check with tv boxes and ChromeCast, I haven’t watched TV since a long time!

Thanks for the update!

1 Like
49

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news :smile:
On the bright side, this might not be happening at all when using Roku and other devices.

50

No worries!

For TV box:
I’ve given up midway because it was long loading on my TV when I skipped and I haven’t picked a proper drama for that, they didn’t talk a lot for breaks XD
I have to find a drama with breaks mid-sentence on the web version and where they talk a lot, then watch a few scenes on TV.

If it’s different depending on the machine, it’s better to know which version will have the most “correct” display for all.

If we add a space before and after br for dialogues, it means the double space, right?

51

Wait…so is this format correct then?
I’m sorta confused :joy:

52

@feyfayer so we do this alle the time (Format: - First speaker here.
- Second speaker here.)

53

Yes I know :slight_smile:, but seeing the conversation between @piranna and @bozoli I wondered whether it should be:

Speaker 1BREAKSpeaker 2 (no spaces before or after the BREAK)

  1. Speaker 1 BREAK Speaker 2 (a space before and after the break)

  2. Speaker 1 BREAKSpeaker 2 (a space before, but not after the break)

I was confused because the formatting results in differences on the smart TV / apps, which I don’t use, but I wanted to know, because:

54

i was confunsing too all the time reading this. but i know all the german teams take this one => (Format: - First speaker here. < br >- Second speaker here.)

we cut the br out of dramas in the middle of the sentecne, cause when you watch them on plattforms it looks…
so yeah… what is wrong or right… hm hm

1 Like
55

When I subtitle I do it this way:

‘‘Hi, how are you?’’

  • ‘‘I’m doing well, thanks.’’

The dash is placed there to indicate there are two speakers. If both sentences get a dash in front of them it only gets confusing. Some people don’t hear very well and sometimes a scene requires your full attention to follow the story. If both sentences then get a dash, what differences do they indicate? There is no difference.

Besides, this is also the way professional subbers from tv programmes and movies subtitle. I think we should not adapt the subbing to be compatible to the Roku app/Smart Tv, but these devices should adapt to these subbing styles.

1 Like
56

also on netflix they do it the way we do here … i saw there also => - Speaker One. < br >- Speaker Two.

The “…” i only knew from books, ff´s and so on.

Roku App is something most Europeans don´t know… i think… oô
samsung don´t have a viki app, i checked on my brothers new tv xD
on my new sharp tv also not, cause it´sno samsung x_x

57

I agree you on this, however, I’ve been told several times that that form is incorrect. I just reply that people have their preferences and neither is wrong O.O

1 Like
58

When I started volunteering on Viki, I was told to add for each speaker one dash with a space before the text and all my teams are following this rule.

-blankHow are you?< br >-blankI’m fine, thanks.

And I’ve never seen your version with just one dash in the English subtitles.

59

When I’m subbing in a team and the moderator asks us to do it this way, then I’ll do it like this. But do you know why this is the rule? I don’t see any logic in this.