Viki Wants Releases Before English Editing

Sadly, it wasn’t exactly accurate.
You said “especially those responsible for creating subs”, meaning Ko-En, Chi-En, Jap-En subtitlers. But, no matter how warmly we welcome them, those people (as well as wannabe segmenters, hoping to get to work, after long months of training) can’t easily find work anymore, as so many dramas - the majority of new ones - now come pre-subbed and pre-segmented.

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I think it’s only fair that I add this here so people KNOW where I stand when it comes to ‘‘viki’s subtitles’’ QUALITY.

RAKUTENVIKI has one of the BEST SUBTITLES you can find on any site including in many ANY OL; due to the dedication and efforts of the many (free non paid) volunteers we have here adding the best translations in dramas, movies, shows etc. We also have here volunteers that also mastered the gift of finding ways to make viewers learn more about the Korean culture (especially Korean culture) through the N/T explanations of things throughout the dramas etc.

MANY faithful, devoted subbers, have stayed here through situations that no human should go through because of the actions of these few controlling groups we had here in the past, and I still see some groups to be working here with the same pattern of behavior, that in the long run if they keep them here is not going to be very productive in the end because they need to learn from their past mistakes and stop doing the wrong things they have done/are doing, so far. IT’s a BIG mistake for someone who is not proficient enough (one year college is not enough to be writing Spanish subtitles!) to be assigned parts in endless episodes in dramas in the Spanish language, when a native speaker that knows the Spanish language gramma rules has been told the ‘‘channel is close’’ (whatever that means) That’s the line I always got in the past.

The thing I criticize the most in here is; that by allowing certain groups of people to be controlling many aspects of their positions as CM/Moderator/Subbers/Editors etc…, they allowed a system (that could have been so perfect) to fall into disarray and bias in nature because when you in a team add as a Spanish subber someone from Italy, France, Armenia because they claim they know Spanish, something is really wrong in here. They manage to block many Spanish Native speakers, MANY subbers, that more than qualify to be in that position as a Spanish subber. They also did an injustice to this site/CEO’s when they betrayed the trust some volunteers were given to them, and abused the power given to them in all positions(CM/Moderator/ etc). At one point I thought it was done on purpose by a rival company recruiting people to work here to affect the quality at this site.

I also read somewhere how in some of these English Editing teams everything was halted, completely stopped to change, and not necessarily to add a Quality subtitle, but to the contrary; to add something that took the Quality away from the subtitle; that a hard working volunteer added. To make things more unfair for these volunteers/subbers, they could not even complain about it because they were insulted, and kept away from doing any volunteer work in any drama/movies/shows etc. if they persisted on trying to change something they KNEW was done incorrectly.

As we all know by now, once the main language (English) is lacking Quality work, all OL will lack Quality, too. I always call it: the ‘‘DOMINO EFFECT’’ (unless you are like me that will change into my native language what I know is wrong in the English subtitle). No one here is going to make me a fool, and like I don’t know what I’m doing with my full consent. ‘‘IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN, NO SIRE!’’ You ppl. noticed I know how to ‘‘talk’’ Ghetto? That doesn’t mean I will bring low quality ‘‘talk/writing’’ into my subtitles. That is why the word ANYWAYS was what made me speak/write about this things going on in here that was affecting so much the Quality we loved so much in viki’s subs.

I HOPE and PRAY these many CHANGES help this wonderful site to thrive, and be a success story in always staying as number #1 when it comes to BOTH Quality and Quantity offered here in the translations/Subtitles. So far in the ENGLISH department when it comes to having subtitles fast and with good quality in them, I can say they are accomplishing that in many dramas, but some still needs improvement (Chinese dramas especially).

I ALSO just hope they give the many [OL] other language (other than Spanish and Portuguese) to be offered in dramas, movies, shows for the happiness of viewers who lack in the English language, and only knows their native tongue. Let’s not forget the OL devoted volunteers that are waiting ‘‘in line’’ for their turn to be working here as subbers/translators; for the benefit of this site because a site that offers so many language can surely expect to be the success story ‘‘of a site that offers in their dramas different language worldwide with Quantity and Quality included.’’ Quote/unquote.

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“Selamat datang!” is what the DeepL translator says is the Indonesian equivalent of “Welcome!” :slight_smile:

(Giphy)

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On ******* I left a review saying I would upgrade my rating once I’d finished watching ALL of the episodes. My review was Flagged as Inappropriate Content and it said This review has been removed in public. The last time I checked my review was still there)yet hidden, I assume), not deleted and no message from the channel manager saying they would delete the review.

One other reviewer left a 3 Star and it’s still there.YET, there are 33 pages of reviews that have NOT finished watching ALL of the episodes like Viki policy states before they can leave a review. These reviews have been left in place, and ALL of them are 10 STARS. I took screenshots of all the reviews BEFORE someone (I assume the channel manager) deleted them. The deletions ranged from 1 Star to 7-8 Stars.

I suspect the downvotes on the reviews that still remain are from the disgruntled reviewers who had their reviews deleted or flagged as Inappropriate Content. Like I said, the remaining were ALL 10 Stars. So, tell me someone isn’t manipulating the rating system. three people suggested I complain, Yes, I’m complaining, here in Discussion. Why on this particular board…bc all of you apparently take your job seriously. I was told I couldn’t mention the drama I’m complaining about. I was told I can’t really question anything.

Someone is apparently benefitting (repeatly chosen channel manager perhaps) from the rating system and manipulating it to show 9.7 or better.

I see this as a form of censorship when 1 reviewer leaves a review stating they will upgrade their rating after watching all episodes (and leaves 1 Star) and is flagged as INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT and hidden from public view, WHILE another reviewer leaves a review stating they looking forward to this drama, haven’t watched any episodes yet, but it’s probably going to be outstanding (and leaves a 10 Star) and isn’t flagged nor hidden from view.

Isn’t there anyone here who is able to audit the Reviews? Will my review be released for public view AFTER all of the episodes have aired on Viki, and thus give me the opportunity to upgrade my rating like I said I would do in the review? Will all the other reviews that are currently hidden from public view be released to show publicly once all is done?

I have developed a dislike of the channel manager because of the biased manipulative censorship. My dislike of her is driving me to rate dramas under “her care” much lower than I normally would.

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@entwyfhasbeenfound Common sense is not common.

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You’re really very far from the target here.
Firstly, the Channel Manager has no power to delete or hide the reviews!
Everyone, every registered user, has the right to downvote and/or report for one of the reasons stated in the drop-down menu. And if a number of people do that (I think 3, but don’t quote me on that), then it gets hidden automatically.
Many of us, including me, make it our job to report ALL reviews that were submitted before the drama aired, and, if we have time, also those submitted in the first couple of episodes, regardless of their rating.
BECAUSE IT’S JUST NOT DONE!
Review means review of the whole drama, not of a couple episodes!
And promising to come back and update your review doesn’t count. Just wait, no? Many people don’t come back to update anyway.
We have repeatedly begged Viki to disable reviews until the drama has finished airing on its original country TV, but to no avail.

Now, of course, since all of us have also other things to do, it’s very possible that we don’t catch all such reviews, or that we go there and do this checking only once or twice, not several times. So it may have happened that yours was one of the first, and some others, equally inappropriate, came a bit later and were not reported.
I don’t know of which drama you’re talking about, but we usually do this on dramas where we are on the team, although it’s not uncommon to go help on other dramas as well.
I repeat, we don’t even look at the ratings when doing so. There are some fake reviews with very high ratings (fans of the male lead) and some fake reviews with low ratings (sub-whiners). So they usually balance themselves out. If anything, the positive fan-“reviews” are more, especially nowadays when most new shows and films come pre-subbed.
But no more on that, because we’re being off-topic here. If you want, you can continue the conversation on one of the many threads dedicated to it:

  1. Let's all go downvote and flag those who post reviews of shows before they start airing
  2. https://discussions.viki.com/t/reviews-section-needs-to-be-moved-below-comments-section/11780
  3. Why are people leaving reviews on dramas NOT WATCHED!
  4. Update Review Section and Monitor Reviews more
  5. Let's talk about the Reviews and Ratings! - #3 by irmar
  6. Let's talk about Viki's "Reviews" category...🤨
  7. Viewer reviews when shows aren't yet available. How? Why?
  8. What is inappropriate content in these reviews?
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I think majority of us in the Viki Community are of the opinion that Reviews should not be open until a movie or the first episode of a drama isn’t uploaded and available to watch.

Unfinished reviews are definitely not inappropriate content.

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Like these???:



I’m always willing to learn. I was under the impression the CM had control over the reviews and the ratings for a drama she was responsible for. Thank you for clarifying.

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Inappropriate content primarily refers to vulgar text, personal harassment or language generally offensive against a particular race, religion or gender/sexuality. In essence, everything which goes against guidelines of the Viki community.

We, the volunteer community, sometimes (ab)use this button to mass-flag reviews prior to shows airing. "Omg, Opppppaaaa!!! This is for sure going to be good! 10 stars! " are efficiently filtered out this way, since Viki didn’t give us any other choice how to flag them. And, you know, since Viki si the main culprit for all this mess.

All that taken on the side, I don’t think the examples you published should be reported in any way whatsoever.

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I’m very sorry that this happened to you @lucylaiche. Unfortunately, there is a lot of censorship here at Viki. Your review might have contained a trigger word. That said, in my opinion your review was not inappropriate content. Sometimes things get taken down and it is difficult to figure out why. I appreciate that you took the time to leave your honest opinion of the series that you watched. I hope that your review will become visible again. I also hope that you will not be discouraged to leave more reviews in the future. I will say that there are many people who dislike “reviews in progress” and will try to censor those reviews by flagging them even though this type of review is not inappropriate content per se. So if you continue to do this type of review you may see your review flagged again in future, unfortunately.

Thanks for that reminder, @bozoli. Much appreciated.
I understand that many people are frustrated by the types of reviews that people leave, but they are not inappropriate content that needs to be censored.

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Exactly. We all know that it’s not inappropriate in the sense of “offensive” or “harmful”. But we have been asking Viki to create another category on the drop-down menu, like “irrelevant content” or “not a real review” or “fake review” for brevity, and nothing has been done, so we have to do our best with the tools we are given.
Even a properly worded review, given just watching one episode, is “not a real review” and I will continue to flag it.
Of course it’s Viki’s fault, when, after the end of each episode, including the very first one, it gives viewers a screen encouraging them to rate the drama and leave a review. This would have made sense if they had an option, like Mydramalist, to rate and review each episode separately. But it is not so, and if it is not so, that ending screen should appear only at the end of the last episode.
We had also asked that, when you try to write a review, there is a message saying
“Are you sure you’ve watched enough of the drama to write a review? Remember, reviews are about the whole work, not just about a few episodes, and remember that we want your opinion on the drama/film, not your expectations, or irrelevant things like your feelings for the actors or when the subtitles are available”
But when did Viki listen to common-sense requests?

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Yeah…about those paid subbers and how they should be perfect and let be… in a Ming Dynasty drama, the Emperor was using a “shuttle bus”. There’s a ton of other def lapses from the so-called “pro” and it took us long hours to undo the trash. Before that, someone ripped through a Liu Song Dynasty episode without even the courtesy of reading notes with names and all and it was necessary to remove and redo all but 1 word subs from this person… The delay from redoing the work is more than it would take for the team to sub it, but in the joy of getting a paycheck, the paid subbers run over the volunteers, the editors, the segmenters…and the peace of our teams is destroyed, all for their pay.

If the “paid subbers” were so good, why do so many sites buy or steal our work. Our volunteer work?

Well for one thing, experienced volunteer translators know damn well the difference between self-address and a literal phrase to be translated, and the differences in formality vs informality that make the drama live both in context and where necessary, care to do the research for both native speakers who do not know and those around the world who otherwise do not get what’s going on. Read also published versions even of old poetry and new lyrics, most are using something other than good understanding in English to place their word choices and send it out.

There is a mentality to binge/rip through a drama, and some dramas you can easily skim without making any difference really as to the end understanding. But the small niche I work with, the historical/costume dramas, it is a tragedy for a good drama to suffer both the rip and run of paid subbers and the same action by viewers.

Rude viewers demanding ice water in hell have been here since I started. Nothing was ever done, nothing will ever be done to still the yelling about “how they paid for subs, when the terms say they did not”. If that does change, then pay the volunteers too, and finish this notion of “volunteers” as we are being erased anyway. :frowning: we are merely a marketing tool now, or so it’s seemed for a couple years already.

One drama was notable in that the excellence of the drama was matched by the viewers, who impossibly offered to “mow our lawns and cook our meals” to ease the daily world burdens on the great translators we had. One moment such as that with courtesy and kindness directed as a laboring team where we must overcome our real world obligations to sub here for free…it was great to see, and it made our labor more sweet.

Our time is ending though, in favor of paid persons and machines who do not and will not take the same care…and the bots have ripped through OL work as well, causing past rebellions and other attempts to shake up this system of this site and the owners above, who have other views of us and remove us from sight as they can, in all ways.

Thank you to the viewers who do get it, show some patience and courtesy, and appreciate us still. Otherwise, why would we work for free.,?. The same reason an artisan may not sell their work, but make it and give it to others… there is no law we must be paid, but better treatment by the overlords would be welcome.

Be safe and well.

GeNie of the Lamp
Mei Daxia

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PLEASE enlighten me. Is it still on Viki? If so, please send me the name of it or say it here. I need more excellence in my life!!!

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I thought I would update everyone about what is happening on new shows or dramas since I started this discussion thread.

  1. The Channel Managers are told to release episodes to other language subbers as soon as they pass Quality Check by the Chief Segmenter.

  2. Many dramas are also coming pre-s ubbed in Spanish and Portuguese. (I can’t believe the word was censored!)

  3. After an episode is released by the English Team, the Other Language Moderators are doing their final edit on the episode.

An episode loaded on Monday. It took the Viki Staff one day and evening to segment and sub it. Our CS got the message to start segmenting during my late Tuesday night or Wednesday dawn. Wednesday morning when I logged on, the episode had passed QC by our CS or by noon my time at the latest. She did much of the segmenting herself to meet the deadline!

It took me 8-12 hours to edit, explain idioms, correct formatting, spelling, grammar, etc. on each episode, plus load on Team Notes the new characters, terminology and OST lyrics. On one episode, a character’s name would be written with different spelling by the different subbers. So I had to maintain consistency and avoid plot holes within episodes and from episode to episode.

On episodes, the s ubbed OST lyrics were often different. I listened to two or more versions of the same lyric on different episodes to match the consistency, as only a partial lyric may be on each episode. I matched all flashbacks with previous episodes, and I always matched previews with the next episode.

I waited 1-3 days for my Translation Editors TEs to have time to check everything as they have busy jobs in real life. Then I formatted their edits and released each episode to OL Mods. I always had the episodes released before the next week’s episodes loaded.

I will always use TEs when I can get them. I much prefer to use my GEs. They catch two or three mistakes in formatting, grammar and spelling per segment so it’s less work and time spent for me. But I could not expect them to work under extreme time pressure.

Our Chief Segmenters are now working under high pressure due to these new demands. Many have struggled with illness. We may not realize the toll that it takes on our Chief Segmenters, and we editors are surely not the only ones affected.

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There is nothing worst, than to see different interpretations, and be listening to the same script.
You are AmaZing, as ALwaYs! Thank You! :blush:

We do need a good solution. . . . :thinking:

@brendas, @vikicommunity, @amm11,
To all fans reading,
What is a best solution? We need to take the pressure off where it does not belong, and satisfy a demand.

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It should be as it was. Segmenting by volunteers, CS, subbed, TE, GE and then the final release from the CE.
It’s thrice the work than before. And not every language community is large and has 50 subbers or so.
We all have a life, work, fam, some get sick and then we should release episodes within 24 hours? That is no quality.
One day, there will also be no segmenters anymore, because A&C is a lot of work, but you can’t get a lot of contributions from it.

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The reason why you see it that way is because you look at it as a viewer and a RViki volunteer and not as a CEO/Owner of this site ‘‘see’’ this things. They are trying to keep their paying customers, and the paying customers are demanding to see a drama within 24 hour of its release (other sites do it). Is Wednesday 8:33 am by me, and I’m already watching a drama (at another site not here) that the released days are Wednesday/Thursday. That’s what you call fast, but YES Quality has declined in the subtitles a WHOLE lot. I have seen a decline so drastic on N/P/F/T and it has to do with rushing through their translation.
AI is taking over and with time volunteers will be a thing of the past and even paid subbers, too.

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So no subbers at all? In that case, I also predict the English language in itself (and possibly OL) to suffer. Imagine kids growing up with AI subs and how that would affect their sense of language… :scream:

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mirjam_465
Imagine kids growing up with AI subs and how that would affect their sense of language

*If the School System in their respective country do their job right, AI influence on any given OL will have very little to any bad effect in the kids growing up with AI.

As far as I’m concern the sites I watch and my kids pay for, most dramas/movies are lately subbed now by AI, and although the dramas are ready for watch very early in the morning; the subtitles are getting very crappy. There’s a lot of she when is a he, and vice versa. They give no credits to any subbers, and the dramas are only available in English. There are a lot words used incorrectly and I’m taking notes of those to send a complaint to the various sites I watch since we are paying so they need to fix that issue.
Hopefully, this is just an experimental stage, and won’t stay like that forever, but so far on the news we have…

[IMPORTANT information]

What is Google doing with AI?

chat to Gmail and Docs. Google is giving access to artificial intelligence capabilities in Gmail and Google Docs to a small number of users as part of a test. The company plans to bring additional generative AI features to its Chat, Meet, Sheets and Slides applications.Mar 14, 2023

AI Translation Sources in 2023

In recent years, AI translation sources have made significant progress. ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, based on the GPT-3.5 architecture, is one such example. ChatGPT has the ability to translate between languages and communicate with people in a way that feels more natural than earlier tools.

Another example is the Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) system, which uses neural networks to produce translations.
This post was originally published May 21, 2021. It has been updated to include new information.

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