Thoughts on abusive activity

Contributing
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Not directed to an abuser case in particular, but just a general topic.

In answer to:

I think that when you see an abusive activity, it’s not someone else to fix that when the abuser is in the team. If he doesn’t fix, he doesn’t care. If he doesn’t care, then he shouldn’t volunteer on this drama.
If no one stops that, then he knows he’s free to do it again.



Hearing some volunteers on these discussions made me realize that it each time, it is the same specific reasons that are invoked and difficult to prove (hacker, family or friends or rarer viki quality inspection), but what surprises me is there's some info that is provided by another part that is not the abuser, nor the victim.

Will we believe or not the information that is provided without further arguments?

If it’s nssa or CM or moderator, will you believe it?

Before, I would have said without blinking “Yes,” because I trusted an institution like nssa or some moderators or some CMs.

But now, after taking a step back on these years on Viki, I have to say that I have changed my mind.
It wasn’t direct, but it was little by little that I less and less believe blindly what people told me on the web or from volunteers on Viki, no matter what they did on Viki or who they are or their positions or how they say it.

Why?

Because of a lot of events and meeting a lot of different people on Viki.
And we can say everything we want.

I don’t know how to explain this feeling, I don’t know if the appropriate term for it is “covering”, “complicity” or “hindering” or simply an instinct to protect someone that they don’t really know and without digging more in the reasons provided and also giving the same reasons as the owner of the account.
I don’t know how to call it, but there is something that I have not understood.

I have reported a few times in the past to nssa.
I don’t remember every report or every answer, but there is this one where I had this answer before hearing the explanation from the owner’s account who did abusive contributions: “If she doesn’t write back (as she has been inactive for a long time), I think you should let Viki staff know that her account may have been hacked or invaded by an intruder.”

In this case, when you see abusive activity on an account who is CM or moderator, the reasons are already provided even before contacting the owner’s account by nssa: may be a hack or intruder on the account and give this reason to a Viki staff directly.

The last case, the reason was similar.

It’s my feeling, like reasons already prepared in advance to make us turn directly in this direction, without looking in other directions or dig more in the direction that is provided.

It’s like a volunteer with a certain profile is unable to do an abusive activity. It can’t be. But why?
We don’t know them personally and we’re different people in real life or the net.

And some similar things about the CM/moderators account I’ve seen this abusive activity is:

  • it’s “inactive account” or volunteers who are not active anymore
  • the reasons provided are always hard to prove and the same
  • the owner of the account always recovers her account and manages to give the same answer nssa would give me.

If the hacker knows your password, the probability of recovering a hacked account is normally really low in real life.
And the profit from hacking a volunteer on Viki instead of a non-volunteer is… The profile of a volunteer is not really what a hacker would want.

Earning a Viki pass whose value is at max $120 with these abusive contributions, whereas he could be spotted by Viki/the victim? There are illegal websites everywhere, the hacker could know other ways to have these videos HD, full subbed…
If he’s a hacker, it would be best to hack first an account to have payment info and with the hacked money buy a vikipass for himself easily for these $120 without needing to contribute? He has to search for a show where he can make this abusive contributions and waste time to do these abusive contributions?
But he will lose the payment info (an account that may have more than $120) to have a Viki pass worth of $120?


Do you believe an intruder (i.e. friend, family) would take your account and would be interested in Viki segmenting? When he doesn't even know what it is, what the counter is and the benefit from doing so? I'm not sure if he even knows the Viki pass thing and the connexion with segments and possibly do > 500 abusive contributions (why more than 500? I would get bored before reaching 500 from doing something I don't even understand I'm doing).

angel: It’s the only thing that makes sense here: GREED.

Just until what extent they have to go to get what they want?
It’s not normal that for a Viki pass they’re ready to stomp and destroy another contributor’s labor.
I think it’s really dehumanizing some volunteers.

That’s why I think to avoid that (because it happens again), there should be severe sanctions. Not something light.
Like when you drive, you will avoid doing some things, because you know that you will pay a lot.
So I think, here, to avoid this, they should make a sanction that would invite volunteers (old or new, active or no), to either pay for a Viki pass (the Viki pass standard is cheap), either to contribute (real contributions) and not make abusive contributions.

In that way, they won’t even have the idea of making abusive contributions, they would keep their account away from anyone, they won’t share it to anyone and they would scan their computer.

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I told the CM to get a Chief segmenter if they wanted it fixed. I usually watch the series I’ve participated in to see whether my segments + subs look good, but I can’t do it with that series. I’ve finished my parts and that’s it.

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I think your reaction is understandable (discouraging).
Have you asked later to the CM that the segmenter should be reviewing her own segments because she (probably) segmented other parts and you can’t check all her parts?

Sometimes, I expect something, but I have realized that I have to state clearly what I want.

On 1 channel:
We asked privately some segmenters to review their parts when we saw some parts were not respecting the standards for most of the part: we made a list of parts and asked directly to the authors to review them.
In the end, we shared their parts to review between them, Cm and me (co-CM).

I think it served its purpose and segmenters being more conscious (at least on this drama).
And since they’ve never tried Chief segmenter role, they understand that being a Chief segmenter is not easy, so by being in the shoes of the people who review them later, they might be more attentive and understand the work it requires.
I think they’re more careful of their own work.

It’s difficult to find Chief segmenters on some dramas.
In case there is no Chief Segmenter, I think the ideal thing would be that segmenters check themselves their segments once they’re subbed/before edition, because their segments could be the final version (take 10-15 min).

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What you describe is some inadequate/lazy segmenters (surely a bad thing!) but not abusers. Abusers are those who come and ruin everything on purpose, not caring about anything, in order to increase their numbers. And most of the time they are not even part of the official segmenting team for that drama.

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I don’t know how terrible the segments were (the term used in the post) and I thought the person was in the team because the member wasn’t kicked out (of the team?).

So abuser or no, if she’s in the team, what I think is appropriate is to correct herself her segments and not let her teammates do it for her in absence of a CS.

Mmm… I don’t think an abuser must have the intent to do bad (for me). It could be an ignorant, but the result could be more or less the same: we still have to fix because they didn’t respect the nssa subbing guide or nssa segging guide in general.

Examples:

  • CM who didn’t know about segmentation programs and thought that the viki tutorial was enough so segmented a whole drama without knowing and the full team translated it.
  • Subbers who put their emojis or smiley in the subs or their thoughts or “I don’t know what he’s saying” (I think they didn’t know that we don’t put this normally or leave it blank) not once but for a great part of the subs that makes it hard to watch.
  • People who want to segment, but never followed the nssa program. You insist that they have to follow this course. They insist they saw the nssa videos already. You insist they have to enroll to train with senseis help. They insist it’s been months and they had no answer. You finally check the waiting list with their name to tell them “your name is on their waiting list on this page. There are many people interested in following this course and enrolled before you, so…”

And I won’t be surprised to see that person will look for a show to segment without waiting, but hopefully not on shows I’m working on.
And how many think they watched the nssa videos or viki tutorial and can do it and finally do abusive contributions?
They’d still be labeled as abusers, if not ignorant (but did they have bad intention? I don’t know).

So abusive contributions for me are contributions that you will have to fix for the most part of it.

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No, the segments were really bad. I see inaccurate segments every day at the NSSA Sandbox, but this frustrated me in a way I never experienced before (hmm maybe when Viki first started cutting segments and asked us to fix it? Those were some horrible segments too :laughing: They got a bit better at it).
For example: too many unnecessary segments & random segments.

This was different. I think the CM was also overwhelmed by the project or maybe this person just ignored whatever I was saying, expecting that I would fix everything (since I fixed the Viki staff segments as well). But it just tired me out and like I said, was really discouraging. If I fix it, I don’t get credit for it (which doesn’t matter) and it makes it seem like that person was doing a good job (which does matter), so I didn’t want to anymore. It would’ve been a lot quicker (I timed it once) if I just deleted everything and started from scratch.

I’ve encountered people like that too, they usually tell you when they you send them welcome messages for the segmenting program, so I tell them to stop (they can’t segment anyways during the program). If I see that they keep doing it, I warn them and if they still continue, I tell them to re-enroll in the program when they can respect the rules.

@irmar yes exactly. As I remember, this person wasn’t even part of the team, but kept coming back, because their segments weren’t deleted, sigh.

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Recidivists => put sanctions or barriers to access the channel.

Not there to clean sb’s mess, let’s be clear on that. They can clean by themselves by deleting each segment if they feel apologetic (but have yet to meet one).
Fervor when doing, no one when cleaning xd

Is the channel (don’t name it) still in the same state as before?

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No idea, I haven’t checked it, nor do I want to :upside_down_face:

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On 1 side, I’m like “Oh yeah, it’s not her channel, so why bother with it? It’s not her job to look out for it.”
(the devil voice)

But then, on 1 side, I’m like "Oh but still, if we all reacted like that, it means that a lot of shows would be… and we’d let CMs would do as they’d like (not reporting to Viki such problems).
(the angel voice)

It means that if editors let some mistakes, since we’re not editors, we would think “Oh, it’s their job, it’s not mine.”

So 50-50 feelings on this for me. It depends. :slight_smile:

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I didn’t mention this before, but I didn’t just warn her once or twice, I did that for every episode I was working on (and I did most). Since Viki was working on the project as well, I discussed my issues that I had about their staff’s segments as well (and trying to find out if the abuser was part of their staff), so they were aware of everything that was happening on the segment side. After doing that for at least 10 episodes, I got tired of it, because the CM didn’t react to anything, instead she asked me to fix everything (I wasn’t Chief segmenter, she didn’t have one, so I asked her to recruit someone).

At least the staff members who were working on the project, tried to fix their following segments according to my pointers and afterwards they enrolled in the NSSA (I saw their names on the list). I have a lot of patience, but I am not wasting my time when someone doesn’t want to listen. I tried, it didn’t work, I’m not going to force her. Viki knew, I did all I could.

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Lol we really studied hard in nssa, and it’s by doing the training that we understand how much we need it.
I think all viki staff who might have to fix segments one day should follow the training like any segmenter.
There are standards that are the result of watching exp, the only way to know, understand them and assimilate them is by doing this training.

(So it was fixed by Viki staff?)

I think you could have formulated differently to ask something different: asking for the channel management or finding someone else as CM so that person could fix or recruit a CS.

I don’t agree with all the replies from Viki or every way they solved things, they know.
So each time, I’m giving them feedbacks (good or no), so maybe they could understand better our problems and find a better way to fix.

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I’m not interested in managing channels and the CM was a first-timer (which isn’t an excuse, I just figured she needed more tips/ time). I did all I could as a segmenter on the project: Viki knew what was going on, CM was aware of what was wrong. I checked the comment section and viewers only complained about not having subs.

I don’t know if they eventually fixed everything (after I stopped), but what I meant is that when they continued segmenting, after I called them out on a few things, they made an effort f.e. to make their segments longer, to sorta add extensions, etc. It wasn’t perfect, but at least they tried and after they enrolled in the NSSA.

In this situation, it would’ve been nice if random people couldn’t enter the project to segment. I’ve experienced it on other dramas as well, even designated dramas, where a random user would enter and start segmenting, while that shouldn’t be possible. But this is a situation that happened in the past, I don’t know if they have changed it now. If they did, good.

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Edit: you mean that you didn’t know if the abuser was a Viki staff member?
Is it another joke? Xd
If they try to segment without having done nssa, what about the content provider? I don’t think it’s a good idea…

It must have been a new member. Yeah, it is hard to believe they don’t know how we work and why we work like that.

(I wanted to delete A from B because I misunderstood it in a good way so I let it)
(A)
I don’t really know who the unlucky viki staff members were to have to fix segments of an abuser without having foundations in nssa training and then re-fix it following your advice on extensions.
Maybe new members or members who didn’t know?

Because I think if they knew that the CM was ignorant, that they could just change CM who will recruit a CS and the CS would do it for them and that maybe, it would have saved them precious time… I think they would have listened to your suggestion?
I don’t really understand the move of recruiting a new CM who will give more work to Viki staff members by fixing segments because the CM didn’t know what a CS is or didn’t want to listen to his segmenter’s good advice.

I think I should just do what you did, asking Viki staff members to correct segments from abusers (actually, it’s a good idea so they will enroll in nssa, learn segmentation and they will understand our pain so they will take reports in a whole new level because they will have to fix them themselves and against abusive contributions, they will be more drastic and abusers would think twice. It could even be a training ground for Viki staff members when they learn in nssa program. There would be less abusers, less reports to take care of).
(B)
__

It’s the reason why I think giving feedbacks to Viki is important from our part:

  • How can I detect some abnormalities in segmentation if I don’t understand segmentation and its basis?
    How can we recognize abnormalities in the segment timer once we’re in there if we don’t know the visuals of a correct segment or the visual of an adequate extension?
    How can we segment or fix correctly if we don’t know what is correct?
  1. (You have detected them because you’ve learnt it during your training in nssa, but not some Viki staff or new CM because they didn’t do it)
  • How can I think of recruiting a Chief segmenter if I don’t know his role and the importance of it?
  1. (You know how to solve it because you know what a Chief segmenter is, but not the new CM or some Viki staff:
  • between asking Viki staff or anyone who never did nssa at all and ask them to fix segments
  • vs asking a chief segmenter to do it
    Any volunteer here: what will you pick? Why? What’s the fastest and effective way?)

I think some Viki staff don’t really know how to work with volunteers because they are not volunteers and don’t know how we work.
They haven’t worked in a volunteer team to know why it’s like that, why if you touch here, it’s going to have consequences in this area, or why extensions are needed or why a CS is needed. Why we can be bothersome here and there, because we know that it’s going to ask us more work if it’s not done correctly at this step or by someone who knows the rules.

These are basic things that you know when you are CM (because it’s needed) and if you don’t know, just ask around.
Whom to ask? Team, moderators, editors, here on this forum.
But before asking, I think it’s best to read guides out there that everyone is normally aware of:

Nssa guides in translating, in segmenting and in channel roles:



All of them when you’re CM, you have to know them.
This is not highly recommended, it’s a must for me.

And these guides should also be read by Viki staff, because how can you solve what is wrong (our problems) if you don’t know what is correct/what is wrong?
If some Viki staff members don’t understand something we’re talking about, they can just ask us before. I don’t mind (I even prefer that vs they reply but not giving me an adequate solution to my problem).
In that way, they won’t need to read all the explanations we make (sometimes, I don’t know if the Viki staff knows this and that or will understand this and that, so to be clear in my ticket, I add many details (too many)). If they knew from reading the manual, they would understand immediately, they might know how to solve it fast and we won’t be bothersome. Gaining time for everyone.

I don’t know if they received a training or enough information about how it really works when they arrived, that’s why I think it’s not too idiot that they read these guides, they follow nssa training and they ask us questions in how we volunteer, the order, because maybe they don’t know how they can solve some of our problems fast, but we know (but they don’t know that we know or we don’t dare to tell them something different from their solution?)

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Question of the day:

Are moderators who only copy and paste OST considered abusers?

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Do you mean that that’s the only thing they contribute and nothing more? Or if that’s the only “subs” they contribute, while still managing the team, etc.?

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As a Moderator, you often have to get your hands dirty, helping here and there, subtitling, editing, particularly when there are no subtitlers.
So my question is, are those moderator who are ONLY copying and pasting OST abusing their authority, and should they be considered as abuser.

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If there are only a few subtitlers and the mod should help out with subbing, but only copies and pastes the OST, then it does look like abuse.

Personally I copy/paste OST in the episodes I work on as a moderator because I want them to be uniform and sometimes I translate them from the OL (mostly with Chinese dramas), which means that the translation won’t resemble the EN lyrics that much. But I also do most of the subbing, so I wouldn’t call that abuse :slight_smile:

I know some moderators have rules about how they want their OSTs, so they tell the team to leave them blank. I have no problems with that either, since those mods are often the editors as well.

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Well, just like feyfayer said, if they are ignoring their duties (for example leaving the drama unsubbed or unedited) and just doing that then yes. This is abuse.
But if the team is doing great and he subs are well done then no.
Personally, I translate the OST and put it for my subbers to copy and paste from when they encounter OST segments. But many of them find it too much of a hassle and just leave them to me. So I give them the opportunity to do it and leave the choice for them.

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I’m of course, talking about the first case.
Since it could be considered as abuse, what can be done to ensure that this case doesn’t occur?
When someone is abusing a drama, while subtitling and such, we do report them. In that case, what should we be doing? Because that’s a particular kind of abuse.

Yes, I also know some subtitlers that find it boring. As for me, that is kind of a reward for accomplishing a part.

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Who writes the subs then? Do they tell their subbers to not post the lyrics by themselves?