We can’t believe it’s already that time! As the year winds down, our team would like to thank you all for being part of the Viki Community. We look forward to more fun and exciting things to come in the new year!
Safe and happy holidays to you and your loved ones! See you in 2023!
Fall Subathon
Thank you everyone who joined and participated in our Fall Subathon!
Upcoming Subathon
You know the drill now! In preparation for our next subathon, please let us know in the form below what animal you’d like to see on the next subathon badge!
The team will review, and voting will take place after the holidays.
The updated Help and FAQs are very well-made, I must say.
I’d like to discuss a little that elusive figure, the All Language moderator.
I am happy that the new rules acknowledge the question of page designers who are given the All Language role for the duration of their designing.
Another interesting thing that I don’t know whether Viki knows is that in most dramas, segmenters are also given the All Language Moderator title, so that whoever comes first can unlock the episode and work on it as quickly as possible. Then, after the drama is over, they are removed from that role. This is not contemplated by the rules (nor prohibited either), but it’s very practical and doesn’t do any harm - they are segmenters, they don’t have the five-slot restriction anyway.
So this brings me to my final question. I have searched in Help, but I haven’t been able to find a description of the role of All Language moderator. Except for the fact that the English Chief Editor should or could be that. And of course, it is given as a temporary “pass”, for the page designer. But who else, if anyone, could fit the role? And what is it exactly? I think they should write an article about that too.
There’s also a point under the Channel Manager article, in the FAQs, that needs clarifying.
It says that on the cover page, no other pictures can be included except for the official pictures like posters etc. I hope this doesn’t include bits of clip-art or generic backgrounds and frames that many talented designers use to spice up the cover page!
I’d like to ask at which point were Language Moderators reduced to a pathetic role of mere managers of their language teams?
Nowhere in the description of Language Moderators for CMs does it say that Language Mods are responsible for QUALITY of the subtitles their teams produce. To put it to terms you might understand, OL Mods are Chief Editors of their languages. Always have been, always will be.
In only a handful of large language communities could this role be sliiiightly lessened. But in a large majority of languages, if an OL mod does not contribute with any subs, they are not moderators but managers. The difference is huge.
Viki should at least attempt to take interest in the quality of subs and not only their completion to 95%. Because, if you knew what trash is being written in the subs sometimes (too often), we would already have in place official Viki mechanisms to ensure good quality of subs.
How would Viki know whether the subtitles in, say, Greek or Serbian or Latvian are trash or gems? Should they have a high-quality editor knowlegeable in each and every language of the globe? Or should their peers judge them (ha ha ha…)?
We had a bit of a discussion on this topic before.
A double blind system might be the safest. Within the community for rare languages and community and a Viki (outsourced) staff for middle and big languages?
You, of all people, are saying this? When we have discussed at length, in the past few years, the internal wars taking place in small communities (and not only those)?
I know many “well-respected” (my ass!) members of my community who would readily say I am completely worthless and not to be trusted with any project. Just because I don’t lick theirs.
Hehehe… I know exactly what you mean. I said that because I don’t see Viki bothering to find a temp to check these rare languages such as Croatian and Greek I was trying to be practical
That’s why I have doubts about choosing community representatives or overestimating the NSSA for subtitlers. In the end, those may not represent objectivity or the whole community either. Personally, I differentiate between the work/ performance as a contributor and other stuff, but I’m aware how this is handled in reality. Just like I can’t be sure that the person I talk about someone with can be trusted.
E.g. I once handed a project to a contributor of a medium-sized community, then another person from said community wrote me repeatedly in weird English that this person has too many projects (they didn’t in fact, they were added as a page designer only). Much later, someone else told me how the person I chose was supposed to be harassing people for a long time and that the second person mentioned might not be as good, but they were treated badly by the other party. While objectively, the first person remains to be the best choice, you may start doubting their ethics. On the other hand, this doesn’t really matter to the CM, since they should choose someone that does a good job. Should…
I absolutely hate to say this… but I think that accusations of bullying have to unfortunately be disregarded because they are hard to prove. Worst punishment for mods who are bullies is that, after working with many people from their language community, they are with time naturally shunned. If after that they want to continue working (alone) and finish their projects on time, they may very well do so.
Generally, I would recommend anyway not to badmouth anyone without concrete evidence (if they’re e.g. providing Translator Subs or something, not because you don’t like them). I would have doubts then (if there was a PM like “omg Xy is so bad”) - and I guess others do as well.
Some things are rather complex in my opinion. I know how to voice opinions in a way that may sound nicer, but the opinion’s still the same one.
Unless you have screenshots of messages, with the sender clearly showing. Yes, they “could” be tampered with, using Photoshop if you can find a similar font, but hey, I don’t know how many would go to those lengths.
I could prove it to you if we Skype, and I do “Share screen” and welcome you into my inbox.
Same issues plague every community. That’s why it’s nice to come to Discussions and, you know, discuss with others what to do, how to approach things. Even to ask: Is it me or is this really weird?
Fall Subathon
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I was trying to be practical 
