So that all of us can understand what you’re saying and show you our support.
12 Likes
20% is an absolutely amazing number. This means that the subs are done rather well. Before, the subs were so badly written, you had no clue what the subber was writing. “Engrish” at its finest. The presubs have been done amazingly well over the past couple of years. Yes, there are mistakes. It’s only natural. Subbers (paid or volunteer) are only human.
My comment was the overall quality in general, not minor mistakes.
I can’t remember the drama but the sub was “You ugly dress go to school.” I laughed and laughed so hard. The correct sub was something like “Why are you improperly dressed for school?”
7 Likes
My opinion about the Korean to be one of the best presubs is based on the info I get from the TEs. Some of them are so accurate that in one whole episode there were less than 10 changes from the TE. This is not the same for japanese and especially thai dramas with presubs. Our heros thai TE and japanese TE changes an average of 70% of the translation per episode (my experience). So, based on this, I can tell korean presubs are the best of all the presubs and I imagine that this is due to the amount of investment on these. After all, N and the other streamers are coming very strong after our kdramas and viki needs to run for the money on this.
5 Likes
TOTALLY AGREE! I actually had one Thai drama that came with a reference script (with timing and everything, even OST). I was so freaking happy when I saw it. If Viki could supply us with more reference scripts for all languages… our teams would be even faster.
4 Likes
Again I agree wholeheartedly. Kdramas are so vital that the mistake factor in these dramas is almost minimal. The only thing I hate is in most cases they “whitewash” the subs and cultural things might be buried. Case in point, Squid Games. When it came out, Ntflx got a crap ton of flack for removing cultural importance. I see the same in Viki presubs, so if the editing team is in the know, these things can be easily remedied.
6 Likes
Again, I can speak only for Kor-Eng pre-subs.
I am a Korean-American who has lived in the US for decades, has worked as an interpreter, and is currently a NLSC (National Language Service Corps) Korean Language Consultant so I believe I am qualified to speak about the quality of pre-subs created/edited by the paid Kor-Eng subbers. They are quite good. Yes, there are occasional mistakes, but no one is perfect.
My advice to the English editors is that instead of openly criticizing and alienating the paid subbers, try to work with them. Kor-Eng pre-subs are here to stay, so wouldn’t it be wise to find a way to work with the paid subbers?
4 Likes
I agree, one should always try to work well with others. If not purely out of respect for others, then at least to reduce your own stress and increases productivity and accuracy of the translation.
Unfortunately, the real gap between paid subbers and volunteers has been made by Viki itself.
By forbidding communication and raising walls between two groups of contributors, Viki is making it impossible for the two groups to work together and make a one unified team.
CMs don’t really have control over what is happening on their projects. Viki doesn’t either, not really. They think they do. But they lack the understanding of what is happening behind the curtain, in the Segment Editor and Subtitle Editor. Or the hoops the volunteers have to go through to fix things. A lot of things, not just a few wrong English subs.
The stuff happening with segmenting at the moment is absolutely ridiculous! Why would you forbid merging of segments? What does Viki gain from it? Nothing! And yet, we accept is as given and have to make hundreds of work-arounda. We loose time on fixing segments while we could be focusing on other things, such as translations.
A real change can only happen if Viki allows cooperation. If not, they can expect even less productivity from the volunteering community. And it will be entirely Viki’s fault.
7 Likes
I know very well the work of worthyromance and it’s top quality, alongside her TE’s and GE’s. I also worked firsthand with sunset_vermont, otmomonline_81 and jadecloud88 - kakashiandme was too busy everytime I reached out hehe but I know she’s also top best, too. They are the best of the very best I know of here ^^ So, I think if every CE would do just as them who gather precious help and manage very well their English teams, no drama would be ever be badly delayed and I believe this situation wouldn’t be as grim as it is today for this community of subbers.
Nobody Owns a Project so if anyone falls ill or something, get another helper and do not stop the process of delivering subs and have a whole audience waiting. It happened recently on (I’m omitting the drama for not paying back what I’ve worngly received) and I was the mean one for sending a message to both CM and CE. Then I sent a message including all other languages mods on other drama and I became the evil one hehehe
If everyone talked with honesty and tried to find a solution keeping in mind not delaying dramas and maintaining quality and if the people whom we speak with recognized their mistakes, I believe all would be better now.
Still I’m grateful and thankful by being considered mean one for the sake of my team and audience, thanks to my haters and other situations I finally broke free from the vain spell of investing time on not so worthy things ^^
1 Like
I have tried this! I have openly given compliments and thanks to the pre-subbers of - what was it? Lovers of the Red Sky? because not only they were good and made our work easier but also, the moment we decided on something, or some change, and wrote it in Discussions and Team Notes, in the next episode it was adopted in the pre-subs!
But it was the only time I saw one of them read the Team Notes. In other dramas they keep the romanization and the job titles as they wish, and I have to change every single instance in every single episode. I repeatedly write in Team Discussions “please look at the character names and titles”, “please don’t use gonna, wanna etc.”
They don’t look at it at all, they just ignore us.
Just as many volunteer Korean subbers don’t look at those notes. I’m working with one volunteer right now who is using “gonna” all the time, and calls everyone Ms. and Mr. instead of “president”, “director”, “team leader”, “big bro” instead of “hyeong” and so on. It’s so frustrating! But nobody can breathe a word: she’s the person who once threatened me to leave the team because I wrote to her giving (polite) feedback and requesting she has a look at the team notes.
7 Likes
I don’t think we are alienating the paid subbers. They stand away from us. I can’t speak for Korean but for Chinese, most of them are very open to our criticism, and I can stand firm and say they are lifelong friends I’ve made at Viki. Most of them ask us questions, speak to us in the Discussion, provide suggestions, take our suggestions, and we pretty much have an awesome experience with them (I’m pretty sure most of us on the Chinese side can think of one person). I’ve not once seen the Korean paid subbers talk with us in any way. They don’t ask so we can’t give them the feedback they want.
3 Likes
Did you reach out to me? Sweetie, I don’t normally turn anyone down UNLESS it’s a freaking horror movie. I can’t do those to save my life. Don’t hesitate to ask me again… Gosh, I feel bad.
6 Likes
It was about 4-5 years ago and you were Really full my super dear Kakashi ^^
I stopped contributing (can’t say for good because we can never say never) but if I ever give in into temptation again (which I truly prefer not to) and get another channel, I’ll surely remember you 
3 Likes
I really don’t understand… are you mad at me? I really don’t get it, I know how great her work is, but just like you and me and many others on viki, we are prone to making mistakes and that’s ok. Even if you are the most fluent person in the world in English, you are prone to making mistakes.
I really didn’t understand you🤷🏽♀️
4 Likes
I suppose personal experiences shape our way of thinking.
I remember “Lovers of the Red Sky” very well since I was the co-CM as well as behind-the-scene extra TE. The paid subber(s) was (were) indeed very helpful and I might have even caught them reviewing the Google sheet while I was making notes. I have also worked as a TE in another project where the paid subbers were very responsive. In fact, during that project, I was asked by the Viki staff to evaluate a prospective paid subber. However, it seems that at least one very competent paid subbers has been mute after being openly criticized by the community.
From what I have read in multiple posts, perhaps it’s not that only the paid Kor-Eng subbers are less than cooperative, but both paid and volunteer Kor-Eng subbers are aloof. If such is the case, I apologize on their behalf as a fellow Kor-Eng subber.
By the way, @irmar and @kakashiandme, I know from personal experience that you both are very good about complimenting good work.
8 Likes
Então já podem aprender o nosso sotaque 
(se bem que terão que escolher qual dos sotaques brasileiros vão querer falar kkkkk)
7 Likes
I can’t speak for others but I am complimenting them. The ones I could work with were very polite. The chinese TEs I feel are more approachable than the korean ones. But maybe is because viki has more chinese TE/Subbers than korean, and they end up having little time to reply. In many projects they even changed the names to fit what we had on Team Notes. I don’t think this post is to talk about the paid subbers. They are just doing their jobs. We are just a little lost to what Viki is doing and what is gonna be the future of the volunteers here on Viki.
5 Likes
Agree. Viki should give some “middle ground” to make our work together be more smooth.
6 Likes
Guys, I’m happy to see so many of you coming here, but please, let’s keep the subject, we want Viki’s staff to note this thread and clarify to us if we, segmenters and Portuguese subbers, are not needed anymore here, since everything is coming pre-subbed. We don’t want it to be flagged and automatically get banned because of personal issues some of you might have against others. Let’s keep it peaceful, please.
19 Likes
I have been noticing it for a while and it made me quite sad. I’m only in two projects and it has been weeks I have been trying to join new ones and I just couldn’t. I was thinking about paying for it as soon as my QC status expires but it will only make viki cash in. I’m really grateful to Viki, here I was able to meet great people and to do the thing I love the most that is translating but I think that is so unfair reward them for this kind of behavior with our community so I think it would be interesting for us to find ways to pressure them in order to change their behavior and, if it doesn’t work, the whole community should ditch the platform. I know there are many f.a.n.s.u.b.s that would accept us. Imagine for viki to lose a huge community as ours? They would regret treating us the way they did. So, that’s it. As soon as my QC status expires, if nothing changes, I’m out! It would be great if everyone was able to do the same.
PS: I really want to thank you @sheli for opening this discussion, I’ve been frustrated for a while and it made me happy to see I wasn’t the only one. Thank you so much for that!
8 Likes
I have written personally to @daiemyllygunnarsen_8 and she doesn’t remember or is unable to give me the segment number of where she thought I made a mistake in editing “VIP Thailand.”
@kakashiandme If we have Thai reference subs, then we would be using Google Translate to interpret them. I find that GT is far in meaning from what my TEs give me.
I have found that pre-subs in even recent Chinese dramas appear machine translated. When I see that a Staff TE worked on it, I know that we are getting decent human pre-subs. However, I don’t feel that I know any origin language in order to work without our TEs. My TEs do catch where the meaning is incorrect.
TE: yuccaz | Oct 17
I am no longer worthy of the words “Fire Immortal”.
Staff TE | Aug 1
The words “Fire Immortal” will never be something I’m worthy of.
viki | Jul 31
the word Fire Immortal,
Note: He has always been “Fire Immortal” up to this point. The Staff TE worked on this when it was uploaded. My team can do only 4 episodes per week out of 148 episodes. Staff TEs are great for speed.
Our Kdramas are pre-subbed by Staff these days. I’m grateful that Viki made this investment. However, without our editors, we would see inconsistency in the spelling of names, missing text and signs, the same lyrics changing from episode to episode or no lyrics, some incorrect terms, modern idioms in historical dramas, completely opposite meanings in previews with what happens in the next episode, etc.
I know Staff TEs do the best they can, and I do appreciate their efforts! Dedicated Viki volunteers give our time to ensure consistency and provide quality which makes Viki subs a cut above unedited subs on other websites. If Viki wishes to lose the quality, that is their freedom of choice.
Korean-to-English pre-subs were inadequate or unavailable. That caused Viki to pay Staff to fix the pre-subs or sub from scratch. I know that Cgwm wrote on another thread that Viki was overwriting our volunteer subbers who worked on a Kdrama. Should viki's paid subbers be overwriting volunteers
This surely affects our Korean subbers. So it becomes a snowball effect of losing volunteer subbers.
I believe this may happen to our Portuguese community. Viki will find that Portuguese pre-subs are inadequate so they will hire more Portuguese Staff. I doubt that it’s something that can be predicted by Viki now. They are trying this to deal with the complaints from Portuguese viewers.
If I have a choice of watching a romance on iQ or NF that I know is coming to Viki, I will wait to watch it on Viki. I don’t know if Portuguese viewers feel the same way or if they are content with bad pre-subs. It really all depends on the viewers.
Viki can never do without our segmenters. No one likes watching 0.2 second segments when one has a choice to watch 4-5 second segments that make sense and have proper word order. If we lose our segmenters, then nothing else that subbers and editors do is really worthwhile.
12 Likes