[Viki Community Team] January 2020 Updates

General Discussion
1

Project Finder - Phase 1: Behind the Scenes

Hello community!

At the end of last year, we were excited to inform you that a new Project Finder was in the works! The soft launch of phase 1 was released last month, and it’s just one of many steps forward to make Project Finder even better.

The engineering team behind the scenes have been hard at work, and though it may seem like small changes, we wanted to share some behind the scenes info!

PHASE 1 - Problems to be Tackled:

(1) Make Volunteer Roles Clearer

This was a big one! We received lots of feedback that new volunteers don’t realize all the channel roles you can possibly take on. The old Project Finder displayed a Channel Manager tab only, and it wasn’t so clear that there were other roles – Segmenter, Subtitler – available as well. It may seem like a little detail, but tabs were added to make it clearer:

(2) Make Search Filter Users more Intuitive

Based on user interviews, the search filter options were confusing for a lot of new volunteers. For example, the old Project Finder, if you selected that you wanted to be a segmenter, having to choose a subtitle language may not have made sense. The new search filters were streamlined to be easier to use.

(3) Fixing the Filters

Irrelevant shows would sometimes appear in Project Finder results, and our engineers are fixing that! The internal filters will continually be worked on in the next Project Finder phases.

(4) Think from the New User Experience Perspective

On the old Project Finder, shows in search results would display “Original Language,” which based on user interviews, was confusing. Does this mean the country of origin language, or the source language?

Additional feedback we’ve gotten was that “Contact the Channel Manager” was confusing to new users who weren’t sure what a Channel Manager was. The wording was changed to a simple “Apply” button to encourage new users.

Designated channels are shows where you have to be a part of the channel team to work on it. This term was displayed on the old Project Finder, but was not defined and therefore new users did not know what this meant. This label was removed for the new Project Finder. As of October 2019, all new channels are automatically designated.

(5) Redirecting Channel Team Applications

Previously, Channel Managers would receive all requests from Project Finder. Now, if a Moderator for a language is available, subtitler requests will go to them instead of the Channel Manager. If there is no Moderator for the selected language available, the request goes to the Channel Manager(s).

Additionally, if a show has two Channel Managers, the application will now go to both. Previously, the old Project Finder would have the applicant select from 1 of the 2 Channel Managers. New users were unsure of who to select, or sometimes, if one Channel Manager was on break but received the message and the other didn’t, this caused delays in responses.

PHASE 2 – So what’s next?

  • Improve Project Finder discoverability
  • Continue to improve search filter accuracy
  • Continue to market channel roles and availability more clearly

Please try out Project Finder phase 1 and share your feedback on the form!

All of this feedback goes back to the engineering team, and will be helpful for them with the next steps. When you visit Project Finder, you’ll see a Give Feedback button on the upper-right!

We thank you for your shared feedback and experiences, and all your help!

Cheers,

Viki Community Team

__

Previously:

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I am thankful for the segmenter tab, and for the sending of the message to the appropriate language moderator - which has been implemented for some time now.
I will put my feedback on the form, but I’d like to also put it here for others to be alert to those things and comment on them:

Genres:
Film is missing. People may be able to commit only for a short work, therefore prefer a film to a TV series.
Vlog is also missing.
And there is a lot of overlap.
Entertainment means what? Aren’t they all entertainment?
Historical vs Costume and period. What’s the difference? I wouldn’t know which one to choose, and if I choose one of the two, I may miss some which would be perfectly suitable for me.
Music means what? There may be a music variety show, an awards show or even a drama centered on music, like Tomorrow Cantabile, Beethoven Virus, The Liar and His Lover or others taking place in the music industry.
What about idol drama? Just because an idol is acting in it? Then, because Junho acted in “Just Between Lovers”, the whole drama went into the “idol” category? Im Siwan was an idol at the time of Misaeng, but would you just call Misaeng an “idol drama”? It’s much more than that! Im Siwan was also in The King Loves, which is a historical/period and costume.
It would have been more or less okay if you were allowed to click more than one category, but you only have to choose one, so you might eliminate many good results.
Please make fewer and clearer categories.

Some categories are unnecessary.
Why put on Korean drama and Taiwanese drama (but no Chinese) as category choices when the next selection below is “This show is from”? The country of origin will be asked on the next step, so it is not necessary to have it there. Just “drama” is enough. Or, better still, put “TV-series”, in case it’s a new person who doesn’t know how the term “drama” is used in East Asia and thinks it only means “dramatic/heavy/weepy”. We think it’s obvious, but it may not be obvious for a first-time volunteer.

This show is from:
Why put the long list of all the countries of the planet, when Viki only has Asian dramas right now, and especially from China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, maybe also include Thailand just in case. And maybe Latin America if there are still any telenovelas.
No point in including Virgin Islands or Greece when there isn’t any content from there and make for some unnecessary scrolling.
OR, if it’s not possible to only include some countries, you could put the “popular” countries (actually they are the only ones, not just popular) up on the very top, and then the full alphabetical list.

In the search results, there is no clear indication of what is a film, a tv-series, a vlog or a variety show.
For instance, I went to the Channel Manager tab and marked “Korea”. Among the results there was “Harmony” and “See You After School” which are clearly movies, not series.
And “M Countdown” is just labeled as “Genre: Music”, no other info. It’s a variety/musical show, not a drama nor a movie.
Ria Rua has no indication at all. When you visit the page you realize that it’s a vlog.
I think it’s important to make the differentiation.

You still include extras like trailers, previews and teasers in the content needing subbing
I put that I’m interested in subtiling Korean shows into Spanish, and in the search results I found “Rich Man Poor Woman” episode 000 Bonus Special.

The message sent to the Spanish moderator, my friend tess6, would have been:
I’m interested in helping as a subtitler for “Rich Man, Poor Woman Episode 000: Bonus Special”. I’d like to translate from English into Español

Okay, I went to the channel page and I found that all episodes have been fully translated in to Spanish, except for this episode 000 Bonus Special which was probably a collage of various scenes from the other episodes.
What’s the point of a volunteer offering him/herself to translate just one episode or a trailer or behind-the-scenes, when there’s already a full team working on the drama?
NOTE: We’ve been saying this since months ago but we’ve been completely ignored.

The name of the language in the message to the moderator/CM
The name of the language is in the language itself. Which is okay if it goes to the language moderator. But what if it goes to the CM and it’s a language in a script that the CM doesn’t understand, like Arabic, Thai or Russian?
Please put the name of the language in English.
NOTE: We’ve been saying this since months ago but we’ve been completely ignored.

On-air vs completely aired, potentially abandoned channels
I don’t know how you will do it, but it should be easy for the applicant to differentiate between the two.
When I was Chief Editor of My Mister, I got many requests of people requesting to subtitle “Episode 8”. I wondered, why episode 8 especially? And yes, it was the latest episode uploaded, which wasn’t still subbed completely. But we already had a team and people were working on it.
This kind of thing is not logical. If you don’t want to exclude ongoing dramas, at least give the asker the possibility to know. There are many new people who will get disappointed and discouraged just because they asked for a drama with an already established active team and of course they were refused. If someone wants to find a completely aired but unfinished project, it’s not easy at all. I’ve been told that by many new people who have written to me, desperate to find a way to “put their foot in the door”.
NOTE: We’ve been saying this since months ago but we’ve been completely ignored.

Vikipass - Vikipass plus
I understand you cannot put publicly the information about licenses in various countries. But whether it’s behind vikipass is not a secret, it’s clearly stated when you visit the channel page. So please include it here.
I’m asking you to put another filter, with three options: “free” “vikipass/QC” “vikipass plus”. So the search results will not include projects which are inaccessible to those who don’t have the necessary pass.

Please also refer to this discussion. The sending of messages to the CM has been solved, thankfully, but many of the other important issues have been ignored:

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Or just hide stuff which the applicant can’t work on (due to license or pass). What’s the point of seeing the channel, sending an application, getting accepted, joining a team and then not being able to work?

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Maybe it was a glitch or someone copy pasted the message but I received a finder message when on the same day I did add a mod for that language. Was it just because there was some sort of delay?

And yes it would be best if content someone cannot work on to be hidden because now I always need to ask if someone can see it because newbies sometimes think being a part of a team grands access. And I have to ask if they want to sub the whole drama and not just a random episode. My suggestion is to remove the clips, teasers and trailers from the finder. And not work with episode numbers when a PM is send. I mean why do you mention ep 32 when ep 1 still needs subs too? Now I hardly get any response back from people when I ask if they only plan to do one ep or the whole drama.

And does Viki have an update about the new inbox already as mentioned in the previous update?

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I was just going to explain some ideas you already said.
I will confirm them and send through the feedback:

1. Remove all the countries in the volunteer section as only Asian countries and sometimes India, Latin America and USA/UK have shows.
All other countries are unnecessary and evoke confusion and loss of time.

2. Remove all the videos which will never be translated or which are already translated like bonuses, trailers, specials, etc.

3. Fix Pass compatibility.
As mentioned, if an user can’t collaborate because they don’t have the right V Pass, then hide the content they can’t translate!

4. Display shows/movies in general
When we’re looking for new shows to collaborate in, we wanna work in the full show, not only in one episode.
So just show the show/movie which needs help and might be the general percentage of how much the team has advanced in the show.
It’s unnecessary to show “Show name - Episode 1”.

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I just tried the project finder now and I have to ask… why does it bring up completely random episode numbers? It’s not the first unsubbed nor the last. It’s just somewhere that ,to me, seems random.
If you ask me, you should also show the number of episodes in need of help. (as I suggested in a previous thread about this topic which I sincerely hope you’d check out)

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Something that confuses me a bit. When you choose Channel Manager you can actually click on the show and you will be redirected to its cover page, so you can possibly read up on the story and other information. But under the subtitler tab this is not possible and you won’t have any idea about the show.
I would think people would like to know about the shows before they want to apply? Genre doesn’t tell much. Some Asian dramas really like to bend genres and you might think it’s a romance story and suddenly you have to work with lots of medical or legal jargon. And manually searching for the shows on Viki seems a bit of a hassle. Thinking from the New User Perspective it could be also a bit discouraging to handle harder vocabulary at first.

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All things at once.
Got a new volunteers a few days ago and today the next one.

For one I would like Viki to add in the apply letter, that newbies should write some information about their skills. And a few links on the page for them to read about how to contribute, QC, terms of use, things that should be basic knowledge for any volunteer.

Since Viki has the community page on one side (very colorful) and the Help page (more bland) with really needed information, that is not at the community page nor are there links to it … It ends with some new contributors starting a project “kind of blue-eyed” and ending in frustration at some point, when translating “becomes work”. If the newbies are to give up it’s bitter for everyone.

I have noticed that the option to choose a genre is the same thing as the one in explore, which appears to me like an “unloved” child. Firstly the genre categories are more than random and never used consequently by Viki. Secondly it is too much, if I were Viki I would leave the variety to the collection section and would use much less. For example Viki uses C-J- and K-Pop, Music, Pop, Rock, - I would put them under Music and there is still an option for the country at the end there still won’t be so many channels to look through. Make Genre slim and think about a search function that might be able to go along with a keyword search.

Instead of showing the random number of the episode, it would rather help and give the helper a better information of how big the project is by stating the number of episodes all together.

It stays a problem that some can’t access because of Pass matters, at least a note to first check if the drama is accessible to them before applying would be good. But we all know that there were cases that changed later and hopefully this will no longer happen.

It’s a good thing that moderators get the request to apply now directly, but it leaves me unsatisfied, since it is in English and not the language, they want to translate into. I can’t tell how other moderators feel about it. I see the need for CMs receiving the messages in English, but …

That’s it for now.

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It would be good to highlight projects where volunteers are needed. Moderators should be able to flag if they need more people in their team. It might not be useful that a new person joins a team for the last 2 episodes of a show if the team is full.

There is no need to have all the countries in the drop down menu if there are only shows from 5 countries. It’s confusing for new comers.

Instead of showing the percentage of the current episode, it would be good to see the percentage of the whole series which has been translated as well. No point in joining at the last 2 episodes.

It would be interesting to have the year of the show. There might be old shows that nobody is aware of that need subtitling ?

When the title of the show is too long, the episode number is not showing.

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You can see it if you hover on the title with your mouse. A small ticket will show the whole name.

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Sometimes I get weird messages that don’t fit our process and also sometimes refer to a language I can’t easily identify because it is spelled in that language. An example would be:

Hi there,

I’m interested in helping as a subtitler for “Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People Episode 000: Special”. I’d like to translate from 한국어 into Ελληνικά

Thank you!

It would be nice if the language was also noted in English since that is the main language Viki operates in: Ελληνικά (Greek)

Since most translations, other than captioning, go from English to the target language, when they ask to sub from a language other than English to a target language, it makes you wonder if they have a clue what they’re asking and if they even know either of the languages. I end up "mini-interviewing and finally sending a lot of newbies to NSSA and SEG101 so they can learn how to segment properly and get started as a community volunteer without having to worry about being fluent in anything.

It would also be very helpful to have descriptive information with each category:

Channel manager - what does a channel manager do and how much experience should a person have in the Viki community to apply for a channel. (I still believe no person should ever have their first channel without a mentor. It’s a big job.)
Subtitler - what does a subtitler do and what are the requirements to subitle (i.e. fluency in both the language to be subtitled to and the language to be subtitled from (usually English), and no use of outside translation tools or subtitles from other sites).
Segmenter - what does a segmenter do and how can they learn segmenting well enough to be added to dramas (most CMs won’t take a segmenter who does not have NSSA/SEG101-level skills or isn’t in training in one of those programs - not that I think you should say this to the volunteers. Maybe note there are great programs beyond the Viki basic segmenting video to help them become master segmenters like NSSA, SEG101).

Such explanations can be fit into a few lines and can probably be worded properly to pass any legal concerns.

I love that you guys are working hard on this, and I believe you are going to fine-tune it so new volunteers are armed with useful information before they apply for projects.

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Concerning the very first thing you mentioned, I’d add that it’s necessary to have the option of changing the general language of that automatic message because it confuses Moderators.

I mean, my first language is Spanish but I have everything in English. So my automated messages are sent in English and when I send them to Spanish Moderators, they usually write my back: “Blahblah is the Moderator in English”

It’s like, [REDACTED], I’m not looking for the English Moderator.

Between, do you know any show that needs help from English to Spanish? I need to finish my contribution goal in 10 days!