You should definitely send this to the Viki people. If I worked for viki I would hire you on the spot. All the point made in your post should have been considered by the viki people before making any upgrades.
Finding English editors is not always that easy. As a moderator I experienced it several times, that a TE was added belated to the team and as a CM I had problems finding one, too. Not just once. Sometimes you have to look around, to ask lots of people, just to find one, who maybe doesn’t have that much time. I once ended up with 3 TEs and 2-3 GEs and the releases were coming slowly, because of the lack of time. So, I don’t want to offend anyone, but it’s sometimes quite difficult to find someone for these positions. It’s easy to blame the CM, but what should we do? We are all volunteers, we can’t force people to work, we can’t bribe them (just kidding) and we can’t “bake” us a TE. What should a CM do with a very big team of English subtitlers, but almost no one has time and the subtitles are done very slowly? It’s easy to say, you should replace them, when you already asked 60-70 people. I managed dramas with tons of subtitlers and was desperate because of the slow results. But I also managed dramas with few subtilers and the subtitles were done over night, very fast working editors and releases within 24 hours.
I already mentioned that the TE position might be an exception. Usually, they don’t approach you either. Anyway, the dramas mentioned are not released slowly because of missing a TE in the first place. Out of the dramas I participated in since 2020 about 13 out of ~80 progressed slowly. A minority suffered from slow Translation Edit. Still, it might be an issue with historical or “boring” dramas. But there’s a drama where the CE requires 3-14 days to release an episode after GE. Without even changing anything. Maybe the TE and GE are geniuses… maybe the CE is an existence to delay the progress here. Who knows.
That hasn’t been an issue since they introduced paid translators, I guess.
Oh, that’s wonderful! Just like the segmenting course. I had no idea. I wonder why we don’t have the same in other language subbing academies.
Yes, now I see how this can be a problem for you, then. A creative solution is needed.
Update, the two training channels don’t count for me, so I hope they’re also not on oriya’s list.
What you’re describing is something we in science call peer-reviewing. So, let me explain in short how this system works, and maybe Viki users find some good points.
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No scientific article is published without peer-reviewing in order to prevent cheating.
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Each article is sent to 2-3 reviewers who have previously proven themselves in the same field.
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There are three systems used:
a. double-blind: neither the authors, nor the reviewers know who the other one is.
b. mono-blind: the authors don’t know who the reviewers are
c. open: both the authors and the reviewers know who the other is. -
Authors usually have the right to:
a. suggest one reviewer
b. put a veto on one reviewer -
The entire reviewing process is coordinated by the Editor of the scientific journal.
a. The Editor has full autonomy.
b. They may, but don’t have to respect the choices of the Authors in point 4.
c. The Editor has to read the reviews and the final conclusions of the reviewers, but may form their own opinion in the end.
d. The Editor makes the final decision.
e. The Editor may decide that they need more input to make the final decision (or suspects lack of objectivity from the reviewers) and may send the manuscript of the article to more reviewers for another round.
Someone of the community team is working on weekends. Don’t know who but some of my old mod projects with inactive CM have been removed.
The CM has the ability to inform the CE, before accepting him/her, just how many episodes should be released per week. Where a CE was able to do two episodes per week, she brought me in as Co-CE to do the other two episodes since the CM required four episodes per week. We had four TEs and they filled in for each other during illness or college exams.
I know it’s a problem to find TEs. With more and more dramas arriving pre-subbed, I like to train good subbers by having them fix pre-subs. Then they can reach the 3000 requirement and become TEs. I know that 10,000 subs is far too much to require for new editors. A translator can reach it in no time, but we don’t edit every segment, since we “make minimal changes.” https://nssacademy.weebly.com/subtitling-guide.html#editing
Only this one would solve problems on Viki where there is this cutthroat competition and internal wars are raging within language communities. But it’s impossible, since the software automatically puts your name under the subtitle.
Unless one submits the translations on another platform, i.e. a Google sheet.
I totally agree with you, Robert. I’m very worried about the future quality of translations if seasoned contributors with deep knowledge of both English and their native language like us are limited in their ability to set up qualified teams, ensure high level editing, and provide reasonably fast other language versions.
Viki should make a special system for reviewing.
UPDATE
Thanks to this new rule, for the first time ever I checked my moderator status and discovered about 8 or 9 years ago, someone whom I don’t even know added me as an Indonesian Moderator. I did not ever request to anyone to become an Indonesian moderator. I don’t know any Indonesian so definitely don’t qualify for the position. I don’t know the drama, the channel managers (who are now inactive), or the language. I’ve requested viki staff to remove me and am waiting for a response.
This is a definite flaw in the system. A mischief making channel manager could add anyone to a lot of moderator roles in different languages and prevent the victim from being ever appointed again as a moderator on a currently airing drama.
UPDATED information: viki staff removed me at my request as an Indonesian moderator on the channel I never heard of before which was managed by two people I had not communicated with previously who are no longer active.
I’m an English mod for SBS Inkigayo. No idea why, I never requested it for sure. I did segment a bit there but mod position?! I only remembered it because all of a sudden Viki sends me an automatic notification when a new ep is up The CM is still kind of active so hopefully I’m removed soon.
How could we add new subber if we are merely subber on NSSA drama? These drama shouldn’t be on the list because they are only for training.
Me too and also I have noticed an incorrect count of episodes on dramas that have been closed for years.
Or 16 episode drama appearing as 21!
I think the core problem is the lack of people who are able to offer “quality”.
That review idea is nice and if there were enough editors or high-skilled translators for every language it would have been already realized in one way or another.
Another aspect is Viki’s “don’t exclude anyone” rule. With this rule, it’s impossible to constantly submit high-quality subtitles because that would lead to exclude volunteers. Depening on the genre only very few would be suitable and those might not be available due to time aspects.
About the training aspect: Unless subbers mainly work within the same “high-quality”-teams all training would vanish because there are mods who force subbers to create wrong subtitles because they say it’s easier to have wrong OL subtitles than editing / train people to not follow English grammar and syntax in their own language.
The easiest way for a good quality would be a language/grammar/syntax software that also checks the translation itself. Then the editor/OL mod might have enough time for some adjustments.
For that the subtitle editor would need an upgrade… (Editing there is no fun at all).
That’s because of the special episodes in between
Hi Damicham,
I checked twice and NO special episodes on this specific drama (in this case also 7 …).
And also for the others that I have on my list (closed for years) with no special episodes … I have to check them one by one to see if SOMEONE, SOMEHOW has added seg.
I need to check if all episodes reached 100% … otherwise I’ll have to send a report to Viki, or I won’t be able to go forward with new dramas sigh, sigh !!!
The drama will have an official moderator, right? That person will add everyone.
But the real solution is what the Dutch NSSA has: two dramas INVISIBLE to the public, which are only used for training. Just as they do in segmenting. I only recently came to know about this.
The trainees translate their parts, they are mentored, corrected etc, and when it’s over, the subs get deleted and the drama is ready for the next batch of people.
Precisely because of changes which occur long after all episodes have been released to OLs, Viki put a 95% completion requirement (so, not 100%).
But it’s very strange this with invisible episodes. Must be a proper long-standing bug which could only now be seen, in the new system.