Suggestion: Subtitle completion as "In progress" or "Complete"

From time to time a viewer wanders here to Discussions to complain how Viki’s subtitles are never completed. Despite the fact that they are, for example at 99% and considered more or less completed by the team.

The percentage of subtitles completed doesn’t do anybody any service, not to the volunteers, nor to the viewers. A lot of people don’t feel at ease seeing something at 99%. It’s human nature. Additionally, it makes viewers question the capability of Viki’s volunteer team to finish projects.

No other streaming site has subtitle percentage either. Which is probably because their subtitles are uploaded all at once. But it still goes to show that viewers are mainly used to and interested in only one thing - are there subs or not.

There are some viewers who follow the increase in sub percentage with fervor (borderline stalking that is) and are not afraid to be vocal when the translating process slows down. I’m not interested in my translations being monitored like a fish in a tank. It’s bad enough my raw unedited subs are available to everyone the moment I write them and click TAB.

A volunteer has plenty of ways to determine their own progress on an episode within the Subtitle Editor and Bulk. And I’m sure sub percentage can become a new part of the subtitling tools, as well.

So, I suggest that Viki changes the subtitle completion to only two categories:

  1. In progress (0-94%)

  2. Completed (95-100%)

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I don’t pay much attention to uneducated whiners complaining about those last few percentage points. I’d just ignore them. They don’t know what they are talking about.

I do like to see the percentages though. If the subs are 95% or higher, I consider them complete. But, when they are 88% or lower, then there are often translations missing for large chunks of dialog and they aren’t all missing sign translations either.

I’ve noticed on a few of the older shows that the segmenter adjusted a segment and copied over the text from an adjacent segment but forgot to remove that segment causing the first segment to flash by too fast and then dead air space while the actor is still talking.

I segment here on Viki so I notice that kind of stuff. :slightly_smiling_face:

If the episode isn’t translated after a sufficient time, I’ll watch them anyway. I can usually guess what’s going on anyway. I just miss the specific points. That’s one of the reasons I am learning Korean, I am picking up a lot of Mandarin also just from watching and segging these shows.

If I applied myself to systematically learning these languages I would not have to wait for any subtitles. but, Admittedly, I am lazy. :laughing: :sunglasses:

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Yup, also notice this type of stuff. It gets annoying sometimes, but there’s no one to go and adjust all those things (and yes, I’ve sent messages about this in the past).

Yup, loads of people complain. I know that volunteers usually have a better understanding of what the percentages mean, but regular viewers often have no idea and some go ahead and complain about it everywhere :expressionless:.

I have seen some (older) dramas where an episode was at 95% and was missing certain segments, so is 95% enough to be complete? :woman_shrugging:

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I don’t know about now, but in the LOL good old days 97% officially counted as complete.

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Yea, 95% is about 3 minutes of missing dialog in one show that I asked a channel manager if she could get her team to fix. I even gave her the time stamps. But that show is old and nothing has been done. So, I have to learn more Korean, but, I have a pretty good idea of what they were saying on those 3 minutes.

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I would also count 97% or more as complete. When the subs are 95%, the missing 5% can’t all be only team credits or translations of signs or names etc. I once saw an episode translated in Dutch with 95% subs and the lack of subtitles in certain scenes was really noticeable, so 97% would be more reliable for completion.

I’m working on a drama from 2012 and there are so many segments like that.:unamused: I often have to copy the same sentences 3 times because the segments are too short to contain all the dialogue. But I also notice something else. In many drama’s at the end of the episode if you work in subtitle editor there are segments that are translated, but they don’t appear in the video. Do you (or another editor) know how these segments are made? They have dialogue and all so they must have been part of the video before, but then they get cut off, while still present in the subtitle editor?

I’m also thinking if there should be a minimum percentage of subs before it gets counted as in progress? If the subs are 0%, there is obviously no progress yet, but if the translation gets abandoned after 5% or something (even though it shouldn’t) , the viewers only will have had their hopes up high for nothing. The higher the sub percentage, the higher the chance that the subbers will complete the episode.
Or how long should the translations be abandoned before it no longer counts as ‘in progress’?

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I’ve been wondering myself. Thing is, even on Netflix I see sometimes 3-4 sentences per episode not translated. That translates to roughly 0.5% out of 700 subs per episode.

So 95% might be too low to be complete.

EDIT: When thinking about what could be among the 5% untranslated material, it might be the hardest sentences. And those might be very important for the story.

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Yes! I was thinking the same. Perhaps 15%. In some Chinese dramas 10-15% are intro and outro songs.

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Yes, I’ve A & C’d a lot of very short segments. Especially the pre-subbed shows. You’d have to be a very fast speed reader to catch those short segments.I combine them into coherent sentences in a larger segment. The real problem there is on > .5 second segments where each one is a different speaker. Yikes! Those are always fun to make readable to viewers.

Missing/invisible subs that won’t change: I’ve had that issue on even new shows. I just go back and forth from segment view to subtitle view. However, if you don’t have both segmenter and subtitle access, you won’t be able to do that unless the CM gives you moderator access.

Since it’s an older show, the subs might be locked. Unlock them and see if that fixes the problem. The issue with unlocking subs is for other languages which work off the English subs, so I don’t make changes to existing subs when I unlock a video.

I’m just a subber for that series, not a mod. I’m subbing it because I started it a long time ago and I don’t like unfinished projects, but it has so many episodes that I don’t want the burden of moderatoring (is that a word?) it. And I don’t have much time right now, so I just work on it slowly but steadily.
The CM’s are no longer active by the way. One was active 3 years ago and one 6 years ago. The English subs are not locked, however and I guess all the other languages aren’t either.
I don’t really bother with subs beyond the end of the series. I just fill them in with … to get the sub count to 100%, because they won’t be visible anyway

1 Like

What show is this? I can take a look at it but if there is no management to let me in I wouldn’t be of much help.

@oriya

image
moderatoring… (is that a word?)

No, the way you wrote it (spelling) is wrong, but you can write it

verb
or present participle: moderating

I don’t want the burden of moderating this…etc.

PS. I just love volunteers like you that are so responsible and committed in not leaving projects unfinished, and try so hard (no matter the obstacles) to finish their work.

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This show. It has mainly the problems of too small segments.

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Thank you for the explanation. I have a new word in my English vocabulary :slight_smile:

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Aw. I’d help you but there is no one to give access. Good luck on that project.

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Thanks for checking anyway

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If a show is abandoned by the CM’s, can some of the still active team members request access for new members?

Oh! I found the answer.

Becoming a Channel Manager of an existing Channel

If a Channel Manager has been inactive for more than 30 days, please submit a request to the Help Center and we will look into the matter.

I guess it would go under content issues.

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If a show is abandoned, anyone can message Viki to get access :slight_smile:

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@oriya

I saw and worked in that drama a long time ago, and the segments, and the English subtitles were almost perfect. After all, @amypun #1 segmenter here at RViki was working in that team. I just don’t understand how they were able to mess up the segments in such a way that is affecting your work there.

In all honesty, if I were you, no matter how responsible you feel about it; I would drop it. Once some of the segments in a drama are bad, and the thing is locked and those bad segments can’t be fixed, you are wasting your time/energy there; now at present time.

Volunteers like you deserve to be where their work is going to shine, and you deserve to shine, but in that project in my opinion, all your time/energy will be wasted. Unless of course, someone here pays/takes attention unlock the channel, and fix those segments that need fixing (and hopefully @porkypine90_261 can also give a hand in there). Funny thing is, I remember I did Spanish subtitles in that drama, but they magically disappeared, and I got no credit mention for that in my project contribution page (last time I checked).

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Thanks for that post!

It happened couple of times in the past that we got PMs by viewers asking why/when a show is finished although it was already finished (whole movie/all episodes).

The reason for them to think it is unfinished was the 99% thing. In almost all cases the reason for not showing 100% was

a) a technical bug that makes it impossible to reach 100%

b) empty segments without any text that were never removed for whatever reason (even after telling the CM about that issue)

Sometimes movies had 3 minutes of empty segments at the end, sometimes in the middle of scenes without any dialogues there were couple of empty segments.

I think your idea is great and a good way to solve these issues :slightly_smiling_face:

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