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.
It’s less a question about a certain language but instead a question of a scene’s/drama’s content.
I usually work on complex stories that are fantasy/historical. The dialogues are complex, not every subber could and would like to work on such dramas (that’s a reason why these dramas tend to need more time to be fully subbed, when it’s a long drama with 40+ episodes). It happens, that the English subs used way more modern words than a fantasy/historical scene should have (even after the edit was done). So sometimes the subbers of our team just kept the English term 1:1, e.g. something like playboy in a fantasy drama (you could say Playboy in a modern drama, even for German subs but not for a fantasy drama). Other subbers always adjust their wording to a certain genre, story, character. It also depends on the aspect how used someone is in subbing and in subbing certain genres (that is why many prefer to sub more modern dramas that are closer and more related to their own daily life language). Some love to sub fantasy and historical dramas because it’s more challenging.
Once it happens that I worked on a modern drama. The dialogues were SO simple and annoying because the characters just did not say anything meaningful at all. Most of the lines were like: Hello! Bye! FY, D***, I don’t give a **** and so on. So translating these scenes felt like being a bot because even Google Translate could have done that without any problems.
For such simple sentences AI would work. For all other dramas/scenes that are complex, including metaphors, outdated wording etc. it won’t.
(It might work in the future up to a certain degree when a machine learning software would be trained in ancient language/wording only but most projects are focused on modern language because of advantages in daily life, e.g. for tourists or communication between people, like Skype’s auto-sub and auto-translate option - you can try it for laughing, it could be funny to see what the software ‘creates’ and what you and your chat partner really said )
Thanks for bringing up that point. I hadn’t thought about that aspect
I’ve worked on a project where we had to test whether the AI was accurately converting speech to text and with simple (modern) things it wasn’t a problem, but as soon as the dialogue became more complicated or more noisy (or for example a different accent), you’d get these weird sentences that we’d have to correct, so the AI could learn from its mistakes. I’m afraid that will happen here too. And I really do hope that no one has to go ‘fix’ those subtitles.
In that case we would need several AI agents. One trained in Chinese costume dramas, one trained in modern Japanese dramas, and so on. Then each agent could be trained specifically for their goal and that would lead to less horrible subtitles.
But, as you said, “up to a certain degree”. Humans will always take things into account that the AI agent doesn’t.
And this would cost Viki lots of money. We may work for free, data scientists don’t.
Yikes! I can see the commotion created by subbers with this feature in Viki- and I do not blame them. I can understand Viki’s concern in providing a faster service to clients. Customer service is a big deal since they need to sell, especially with the economy situation nowadays. Now, I would like to express my opinion as a volunteer and viewer. It sounds like a great idea- faster subtitles, faster service, less complaints from clients, right? However, how accurate the subtitles will be is questionable (perhaps very). I know how much AI has improved these days- to the point that we depend of it. But that human touch will never be replaced. It is important to consider how well (in quality) the subtitles will be translated by serious and dedicated subbers and moderators. Yes, there are shows/movies that have been badly translated [such as translating from English to Spanish, Turkey (the country) to Pavo (the bird)], but once you consider the vast majority, are well done translations. And the time dedicated by volunteers like us, especially not being paid, is priceless. We do it for fun, to learn a new language, to meet people around the world, to get a certificate for work/school, and many other reasons. It may be disrespectful from Viki to do this to us as volunteers, but at the same time Viki is in the position to decide what can be done in order to increase or improve customer satisfaction. I would be VERY interested testing this feature and provide serious feedback. But at the same time, Viki (as stated above) will need to continue considering the value we, the volunteers, provide to the company. We are not asking for $, we just ask to consider our work done (free labor), how much value volunteers put into the company, and the human power we bring in. I hope this message gets read by one of Viki’s staff and a tangible and convinced answer is provided to volunteers.
And PLEASE, stop criticizing the volunteers who translate into Spanish. If you are going to complain, might as well join and learn a new language! It’s not a rocket science! Think before you post.
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], but once you consider the vast majority, are well done translations. And the time dedicated by volunteers like us, especially not being paid, is priceless. We do it for fun, to learn a new language, to meet people around the world, to get a certificate for work/school, and many other reasons. It may be disrespectful from Viki to do this to us as volunteers, but at the same time Viki is in the position to decide what can be done in order to increase or improve customer satisfaction. I would be VERY interested testing this feature and provide serious feedback. But at the same time, Viki (as stated above) will need to continue considering the value we, the volunteers, provide to the company. We are not asking for $, we just ask to consider our work done (free labor), how much value volunteers put into the company, and the human power we bring in. I hope this message gets read by one of Viki’s staff and a tangible and convinced answer is provided to volunteers.
It’s not a rocket science! Think before you post.