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: