Recently, I have seen many posts about newbies getting rejected as moderators or editors. Part of this is due to the fact that CMs tend to reject people with little experience, which I understand. I have seen CMs choose the person with the highest contribution count because “they have more experience.” Which I consider very unfair toward newbies who are genuinely good at what they do and who want to try other roles. The same thing can be said about the OL moderators, at least in my community, who reject newbies because they don’t or have little experience in editing. I try to help as much as I can and give opportunities to people with little experience, but then again, it’s hard to keep track of every newbie and give them the appropriate feedback. This even applies to new subbers, many of them get rejected because they don’t have experience or because the OL mods have their go-to teams.
This might be a very dumb idea, but I was thinking that maybe we could come up with a program of some sort to give proper training to those people who want to spread their wings. Many communities and individuals do this, but it would be nice if the newbies in any role could contact a person who is willing to help them get started in the new role and give them proper feedback.
This is just a thought; it might even be a naïve or dumb one, but let me know what you guys think and any ideas on what can be done.
Training will take a lot of time and efforts, but at the end it is worth it!
I trained newbies for subbing, editing and even tried for mod! by providing and making documents and screen records and reviewing their work.
some are fast learners some needs more time, but at the end if they didn’t become the best they at-least become decent! So it is totally worth it!
I prefer ppl don’t jump up roles and take it step by step!
First be a good subber, then try editing, after that go for mod!
I actually jump to mod directly, back then I only know how to do a project worksheet, but step by step, and a friend help to get where I am and could now help others!
If you want to be an editor, the mod should help you to learn, if you want to be a mod, you could seek for a former mod and ask him/her to help you within the process, by adding him/her to the project and if the community is big maybe they will help you get your first project!
I think it’s a great idea, I know how it feels to arrive as a newbie and that at the first moment they don’t even respond to you because of what I told you.
I’m willing to help the new Viki volunteers as a sub and editor because thanks to you and the other moderators I’ve gained a lot of experience.
You can count on me in case you have a concrete idea, I will also be thinking about what can be done to help.
Although I don’t know you and I haven’t worked with you, I think it’s great that you can help people when they start, I’ll tell you that I was also step by step to get to where I am now.
I started as a newbie being rejected by everyone until Miss Thalia came and accepted me, thanks to her and my friend Gissell is that I can say that I have gone from sub to editor and finally I could be moderator of a small project, which made me happy.
I am all for giving newbie moderators a chance. I rather prefer them on shows that do not require any particular skills, only if they are willing to be assisted by an experienced mod/editor in their language. Of course, I can’t have a newbie in a 24 ep historical. So, I have to reject newbie mod applications too.
I would also love to train new mods and editors in my language. But the resources to do so are almost null or limited. We can be co-mods, but what about slots
I try to give feedback to my subbers, I also often conduct sessions where I edit subber’s subs live and give them feedback. They can improve their language skills that way. But my horizons have not yet expanded to training editors. I have not done that yet, I would love to give it a try though.
I do have this very basic idea of training new subbers. They can submit their sample videos. I can give them feedback on their work, then ask them to correct it. They can improve their sample video’s quality while also improving their language skills.
But it also depends on the subber’s will. If the subber is not determined enough, who am I to waste my time.
Hello, I am actually looking to be trained as a GEditor/FEditor. American English is my first language and the only language I am proficient in. I have studied Spanish and Russian so I understand how sentence structure and syntax can differ between languages so I think this will also help in my understanding of editing. I am just anxious to help polish the excellent work of the Translation editors. Trying to save the world one Clam vs Calm at a time (just saw this in a drama I am re-watching yesterday where grandpa asks for clams and then the FL/ML go dig for calms)
I am on the wait list for the Ninja Academy for Segmenting and a kind Community member commented that I could be trained potentially as an Editor while I am waiting.
If any of you kind people on this thread have a project going and are willing to take me along on the ride or can point me in a direction, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance for any consideration.
I think you’re right about the 24 episode project for a newbie moderator, but the idea is to start small.
On the other hand, to be an editor you need to have good coherence, logic, good writing and most of all to take into account the opinion of all the editors (I say this because a word can have different meanings, the idea is to use something neutral).
For the subbers, let me tell you that it is somewhat complicated (if you can say so) to see the sample videos and give them feedback, I just saw a video of a new volunteer, but it is difficult to make a decision when watching it, however, as you say, we would waste our time if that person does not accept the feedback.
I hope you are doing very well, I would like to help you but my language is Spanish, from what I read you are learning, if you have any questions you can contact me and I will gladly help you.
Gracias but I would never consider my skills to be good enough to translate into Spanish. Maybe 40 years ago when I was learning in school, LOL. I live on the East Coast in America and felt pretty confident with my Spanish until I went to school in California At that time my grammar skills exceeded other students whose first language was Spanish, but I couldn’t speak it worth a darn. I gave up after my first semester in College. Now I wish I would have stuck with it. Thanks for replying though. I truly feel the only way I could contribute is to help review the English translations for grammar, word choice, syntax etc.
I think it depends.
In my community we have some cases that people who use google translate get recruited into projects that are not edited by their moderators and they gain contributions there.
Then they go and gain their own moderation projects, before meeting someone, who would stop them.
Such people may have even up to 20k contributions sometimes. (if they get moderations, they translate on their own projects and noone edits that, so they might even gain high contribution count later)
That’s why I’m a bit wary, when adding people with a small number of contributions.
I would prefer it, if someone from their community, who edits, could vouch for them. Then I’d be sure, that it’s okay.
This is a great idea but note in my situation my time is limited, I never train anyone not because I don’t want to but my time and I think to train someone you need time, although if a newbie wants to be Spanish Editor i could help giving feedback and tips the same if they want me to be co-mod but that’s all.
If you can do this program let me know and I would love to help you organise that’s all I could help you with my friend .
I completely agree with you. However, many people don’t know or have been aware that they can ask more experienced people for help. They just apply and hope for the best. I wouldn’t call it gatekeeping, but I feel like many older volunteers keep a lot of things to themselves and don’t share (now this point might be a little controversial). And by saying this, I don’t mean everyone. I know some great older moderators and CMs who are lovely and help you, but there are a handful of those who don’t.
It would be great to have a designated number of people who offer to help newbies who, for example, want to be editors. So if you want to be an editor, you know you can reach out to X person, and they will help you. Obviously, it’s hard to spread the word around, and not every newbie will know about it. But if the older people know, they might be able to point the newbie in the right direction.
For example, let’s say that X person applied to a project as a moderator, maybe the CM can point them toward that person that is willing to help them begin their journey as moderator. Again, I know this might be challenging and require that our current volunteers know what’s going on, but it’s just an idea that’s not fully fleshed out.
Hey, I am glad I was able to help you and I am super-duper glad you were able to get your project as moderator🥂 From now on, I will be pulling you into my projects that require editors.
Although our Spanish community is big, sometimes I feel like we don’t have many editors. And the ones we have are fully booked with projects.
I completely agree with you. Sometimes I am also hesitant to add subbers when they have little to no contributions. It’s a big risk to accept new people. It also depends on the community. I can evaluate Spanish subs, but not other languages. So whenever I am in doubt, I do go to other moderators for that language to see how that potential moderator works. I think it’s a very fine line, and it doesn’t help that many people have betrayed that trust.
Hola señorita, todo es gracias a usted por darme la primera oportunidad, espero poder ayudarle en el futuro en lo que pueda.
muchas gracias por tenerme en cuenta para proyectos de edición, para ser sincera me he ofrecido también para editar pero simplemente dicen que no, así que me es difícil creer que hay bastantes proyectos que les hacen falta editores.
I would also recommend going on the Team Tabs and look on the cover page to find out the CE. Then write to them, they usually have more projects and can tell you if they would need your help or can note you down for the next project.
It’s a good idea. As for the training part, I would put this responsibility to the selected language’s community. I think first, we should collect those groups in every language, whom are able to train some newbies. As most of the languages have bigger, well known groups, I’m pretty sure that from these groups there could be always someone, who could help to the new volunteers. When someone with near 0 experience apply, I think the CM should tell these ppl, to look for the selected language’s group for help (and not just saying right away, that they should go away). In these groups these ppl can get experience. If the community finds out, that the newby is a GT Fighter, then the community itself could punish these ppl. Those, whom are taking serriously, the language community could keep help them, and in a very short time, they could be a very valuable contributors.
I dont know how it is in other languages group, but for example in mine, it actually works. We were able to collect some amazing ppl, just because we gave them a chance.
So I think really the main point here, to create a list/post something somewhere, and when anyone new appears at a CM or at a mod, who don’t have the time to train, then they should redirect these person to the right “team”.
I think this is a wonderful idea! I was given a chance by a lovely CM when I was new at this and I really appreciated it. I’m very thankful for having gotten the opportunity. I’d definitely love to and be willing to pay it forward if anyone comes along in my language community (I translate in Macedonian) and needs some guidance and a chance to learn. I’ll just leave this here in case someone does come along and comes across this thread. Newbies, do feel free to send me a message and ask for help.
At that time my grammar skills exceeded other students whose first language was Spanish, but I couldn’t speak it worth a darn. I gave up after my first semester in College. Now I wish I would have stuck with it. Thanks for replying though. I truly feel the only way I could contribute is to help review the English translations for grammar, word choice, syntax etc.
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