As some users on here already know I have to use dictation software to write my community posts. This is of course speech to text technology. It is from my experience of having to use this technology that I can tell you this is a bad idea. Even when converting spoken English to written English there are quite a lot of mistakes made. Luckily people on here don’t get to see most of those mistakes as I can catch most of them before posting. Although occasionally there are a few things that I have to edit afterwards. Maybe just for fun I will have to create a topic of all the outtakes, so to speak. I simply don’t think speech to text technology is ready for a situation where you have more than one language involved
Can you imagine the extra complexities of having to convert spoken Korean or spoken Chinese into written English or any other language in written form, for that matter. That is in effect what would happen with the auto/computer-generated subtitling feature, it is speech to text technology with truckloads of complication added on top
I find myself thinking about those that horrendous auto subtitles you get on YouTube. Such a thing could give users a very bad first impression of viki and it is of course first impressions that count the most. A bad first impression would very likely drive people away. Viki , please drop this idea from a height of 10,000 feet and don’t speak of it again
I understand that it may be frustrating for some users to wait for subtitles, and I imagine that is a significant part of the thinking behind this idea but as the old saying goes, ‘good things come to those who wait’. I think Viki will just end up frustrating users even more with this
In my opinion this is a very bad idea and I’ll tell you why.
These are the things I am very certain will most likely happen if automated subs are implemented to bridge the gap before the volunteers’ subs are complete:
The people who complained about the volunteers not subbing fast enough will instead start complaining about the quality of the automated subs. They will not stop complaining, they will merely redirect their anger at someone/something else.
Some people might complain about “slow” volunteer teams but the volunteer subbers still provide them good-quality subs in the end. If you implement automated subs, they might be satisfied with the speed but not the quality of the subs which will ultimately anger them much more than having to wait for a few days for the volunteer subbers to do their work.
It’s been said before, people will watch an episode with automated subs and complain about the quality but they will not bother to watch the whole thing again once the actual volunteer subs are complete. Why would they? No one wants to have to rewatch an episode because they weren’t satisfied with the quality. They might as well just go to rival sites and watch it there with better subs.
In addition to the previous point, we can assume that all volunteer subs will be useless, unappreciated, and in vain because people will not stick around to actually see the volunteer subs. They will either get frustrated and leave Viki for a rival site or they will complain about the quality of the subs and give the dramas low ratings. This will be incredibly unfair to the volunteers as well as the dramas themselves.
THIS WILL NOT LOWER THE TIME PRESSURE FOR VOLUNTEERS. You say you want us volunteer subbers to feel less pressure but this will INCREASE the pressure on volunteer subbers. The reason being that we feel pressured to complete subs as quickly as possible to avoid viewers seeing the automated subs and complaining about the quality. We want the viewers to be satisfied, even happy with the quality. It might sound harsh but we also want viewers to see OUR subtitles that we worked and sacrificed our time for. And that is reasonable.
You want Vikians to be able to watch episodes as soon as they are available because their curiosity is overwhelming. I can only say this: viewers who are that impatient and absolutely cannot wait to watch their favourite current drama should just invest some money to watch Korean/Chinese/whatever cable TV at home. Alas, that is often not possible. AND YET Viki and us volunteers are not responsible for their impatience. That is entirely their own problem and Viki will be feeding into that problem with the automated subs. I can entirely understand the burning impatience to finally know what happened to your favourite character but a little patience doesn’t hurt anyone. Acceptable comments like “OMG I can’t wait for next ep, I need to knowwww like NOW” are not the same as “SUBS PLS why are the subbers SO SLOW, I seriously don’t know why I am paying for Viki Pass, might as well watch somewhere else”!
If you want to avoid that problem you should look into other options such as promoting and explaining the translation process to non-volunteers more heavily etc.
For German translation teams this will mean that virtually no one will see the subs we spend our precious time on. Why? Because we don’t have teams of 40 or 50 subbers who work on a first-come-first-served basis. Ergo we cannot complete and release entire episodes within only a few hours. We need a realistic few days to do our work and do it well. But by that time people will have watched with automated subs and moved on so our work is useless as explained above. We need to wait for English subs first. Then we need to wait for all final edits.Then for the episode’s release. And then, only then, do we get to work on it. Not to mention that our language teams also need to edit the episodes.
And another huge consequence will be that us volunteer subbers will feel severly unappreciated for all the reasons mentioned above.
Do not underestimate our insight into viewer behaviour and other consequences. We are subbers but we are viewers, too. We are a part of the viewer community. Of course, we do understand that there is a business side of things that we do not have insight into but we do know that this implementation will cause massive problems in the long run.
We all know automated subs are qualitative much inferior to volunteer subs. Viki has admitted so itself in their post above. That is not only the premise of my argument but also a reality. As a volunteer subber I can guarantee you: not once have I taken impatient whining from viewers seriously. It has zero influence on my life or working methods. Is it annoying? Sometimes. Does it bother me on a personal level? No. I am aware that others might feel differently but personally I would rather put up with some whining than with our efforts being worthless and the sub quality going down.
Translation is intellectual work, even a craft. It needs time and should be taken seriously. Knowing a language is not enough to put out good translations. It isn’t as easy as some might think, especially when we need to bridge such big cultural gaps. We know essential linguistic and especially cultural nuances that automated subs will never be able to convey (it’s far more complicated than just explaining what a traditional breakfast dish is). We know. We can evaluate. We know what we are doing. So take us seriously. In translation you cannot have speed and quality at the same time. It simply does not work that way.
I BEG of you to listen to the volunteers on this one. We’ve seen before how our suggestions are often in vain, how we only preach to the wind sometimes. But please listen to us on this one. Please do not choose speed over quality. Making our subs essentially invisible (since people will not stick around to see them regardless of them existing) will destroy everything Viki stands for: quality subs, community, volunteer-driven translations, overcoming language barriers, and even contributing to maintaining endangered languages.
If you’re already dissing @dafne88 for some minor flaws, then how are you going to handle the terrible subtitles the AI agent is going to throw at you, once it’s there?
Please don’t assume to know what ALL of us think. Even though I prefer to stay on as a volunteer for years to come, this is NOT my main concern here. As a linguist my main concern is the quality of the subtitles. And the consecutive deterioration of our languages if this becomes a trend.
Btw, if Viki would really kick me out as a volunteer, there’d be no way in hell I’d become a PAID subscriber.
Paid or not, who would even WANT to edit artificially created subs?
You think? Machines may have improved over the years and will continue to do so. But they will NEVER get to the point where they can meet the standards that we need here, cause that’s simply not in their nature.
There’s two other options:
Replace them by other human subbers
Train them so they become better subbers.
If neither of those is possible, we’ll have to think of another solution. But AI isn’t it.
And is it really that horrible to wait a week for a new episode? If that’s the case, then you could also choose to start watching when there’s already a couple of episodes released instead of just jumping at it from day 1. Even paying subscribers have to adjust to what is and is not possible at the company of their choice.
I totally agree with you.
Unfortunately, there are many abusers in the Portuguese community. With the implementation of automatic subtitles, the number of abusers will surely increase, so I’d like to know how Viki will deal with this issue. It’s a nuisance to report them and it’s discouraging for us when Viki doesn’t take any action against them.
Info: I think they blame viki and its management, more than volunteers And personally, I feel the pressure more from you, vikistaff members, than from the viewers.
Your magic solution:
I think everyone has told you guys the positive and negative points of such a decision. I also think everyone has said why there is this amount of time, namely: English teams, volunteering, lack of qualified English volunteers. Why? For quality and accuracy. Why? For the benefit of viewers and understanding. A paid site must ensure quality, otherwise why pay?
In this community, we are 3 (Big Three V):
Volunteers
Viewers
Vikistaff members
If there was a viki ethic, it would be to come up with ideas, change systems and reorganize for: the BEST of everyone (Volunteers, Viewers, Vikistaff members). And I repeat, I speak of the BEST to suit everyone, not necessarily “good”.
What is best for everyone? If we read volunteers messages, we can note that this idea is not the best for them. If we asked the viewers’ opinion, we would certainly have some interesting answers with yes and no (some answers that we can find in the following documents where the viewers had said that they did not want a machine-generated translation when we had the problem of vikibot a few months ago : Machine translation from Viki + the google doc petition, @kylamia can you give us the google document please? You are the owner). Btw, why don’t you do a survey for viewers? Ask them! But ok, let’s say a 50/50%… (I’m optimistic, I know)
I guess viki staff members are also supposed to be people who promote the well-being of volunteers and viewers. Of course, pressure from top executives also has its weight, but we are not here in the “best”, nor even of ethics or professional conscience. If we all listened to what the morons who rule us say and without making our voices heard, we would be screwed. Let’s go dig our hole immediately!
Staff members: ask yourself the right questions. By the way: would you, as a person, pay for a plateform with machine translations? (Yes, auto-translated subs and vikibot is the same, it’s not human)
We told you guys:
What’s the problem: in english teams, sometimes because of some volunteers that we report (and you guys need to do your job here).
We offered you more logical solutions : see above all answers.
If you guys don’t listen and cannot take a step aside for the better overall, we will be forced to note that: you don’t listen us, you absolutely want to use these translation machines not to help us but for other reasons. But what can we do? That’s your job, not ours. If you are under pressure from above, you should consider educating them on things and explaining to them why this is not possible or why it is possible. If not, please think about other possibilities.
I think it’s general: we want to do the best for viki: for the viewers, for the staff members and for us. Do you, as vikistaff members, want to do the best for everyone?
PS : I don’t know if I said everything I wanted to say, if I made myself clear, but hey, I said my little piece of thought.
Oh, and thanks for writing here before you act. Thanks for considering us this time. We see that you want to share more, I hope that will continue. On this one, we owe you congratulations and thanks.
As a long time VIKI Pass Plus holder and a newbie subber, I would like to say a few words of encouragement to the volunteers.
I have work experience as a Korean/English interpreter and always took pride in my linguistic skills but I am simply amazed by the level of linguistic competency of VIKI volunteers. Many of them are not only fluent in English and their mother tongue but also extremely articulate. I have worked in the U.S. legal system as a Judicial Assistant for 10 years and even had a chance to observe some great courtroom arguments by celebrity lawyers but I must say that some of volunteers can easily outmaneuver them.
It is absolutely mind boggling how dedicated the volunteers are. I was proud of myself for making 3,000 plus contributions in a month until I saw that there are many who make more than 30,000 each month.
VIKI is so very fortunate to have volunteers who care and are passionate about their work product enough to take their time to ensure quality over quantity.
Some complain is unreasonable, the show not even is on air and people are asking for sub, the review section is for review and there they are again asking for sub. Taking apart this unreasonable request, most of the problem of the delay of the Portuguese sub is the delay of we get the episodes released to us work. Why does not Viki focus on help the English team so they can do their fantastic work? This is a cascade problem.
I agree with what people said here, as I viewer, I will not watch again the episode because it was missing a few parts. Other thing, when the OST is not yet translated by the moderator we usually let it on blank, so some episode is already “full sub” and the auto sub will be seeing unnecessarily because the OST is not yet translated. Maybe the auto sub could be use on the abandoned projects.
As a volunteer, have the auto sub is discouraging. I understand that it is necessary to provide sub as fast as it can be but I don´t think this is the way. It is a way to put out a fire but it can brings others fires.
Ps: What I mean on help the English team is to give them means to work as the problem of the full acess of the show independent of the region and any other request that they have suggested.
I should hope not. If only Viki would let us know which projects they consider "abandoned’, then I’m sure some of us would be willing to help out. No machine translations anywhere on Viki, please.
Besides, the whiners usually complain about the on air dramas, not about the old ones.
I think that self-translator is a good tool for those desperate who ask for subtitles when just Viki has mounted the video.
I complete agree, that this self-translator does not replace our work as a volunteer subtitler, as the most certain is that the translation has terrible errors, especially in the Spanish and Portuguese languages.
I thinks that one of downside to this, which could be harmful as viewers would pay for low quality subtitles, and they would think that Viki has lowering in what has always been characterized, his EXCELLENT QUALITY OF SUBTITLES.
So I think yes, Viki opts for this tool, make it clear that the subtitles are made by this tool, that aren’t ours, and so the viewers learn to value quality.
This is my opinion, thanks for ask us VIki.
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Advertising like this adds to the problem, people see, people believe, people will subscribe to one or the other pass option, and then they believe - “I was cheated”.
I think this is also the feeling I got from reading about the auto-translation subtitles. Like others have said, Viki staff / management have to deal with a lot and the sub whining has taking over the comment sections, reviews and timed comments on many channels. And the comment writers also tend to be rude to the volunteers from time to time.
But instead of implementing some of the creative and helpful suggestions that volunteers have posted here on discussions and the help center, this is the answer we get? It feels like Viki is siding with the viewers and sub whiners instead of the community that they say they are trying to help.
I’m happy you are trying to solve the problems here on Viki. I think that the auto translation tool seems like a good idea in theory and maybe it works for certain languages. I don’t think that it would work for the Dutch language.
I think the same is important show when is the vikibot or someone the tecnology is help but **never remplace the human only is for help ** For this reason exist major for translate.
We all know we don’t own Viki. We know that much, mind you. But we spend hours working so that dramas on Viki have quality subtitles as soon as possible. We put effort, attention and time. Yes, it is by choice and voluntary but that doesn’t mean I can’t disagree or share my insight on the feature, that may differ from it. I’m both a volunteer and a viewer.
Another thing I’d like to add. “Global TV powered by fans”, that is the first thing you read when opening Viki’s app. Do viewers not know how to read? I don’t think so.
No matter what you say, our teams are great. We get things done. And spare me your “evidence”. You know why? Because we get those things FIXED.
I think you didn’t understand what I was trying to say, and maybe because my grammar is not that good
OMG! I can’t imagine your complaints if there were no more volunteers.
It’s sad how you talk about the team, it’s true that we have mistakes and that we are trying to improve, I ask you not to generalize about the team in Spanish. Many people do an excellent job!!
Actually, the language which would give the best results right now would be English. Just because that’s the language AI is mostly trained in. Compare for instance Korean-Dutch and Korean-English on Google Translate. The English translations often make a bit more sense than the Dutch ones.
So even machines can learn and improve. BUT they will never have all the qualities of a good translator.
I simply don’t think speech to text technology is ready for a situation where you have more than one language involved
And personally, I feel the pressure more from you, vikistaff members, than from the viewers.
