I am saying that Viki may have started out as something good, but that it is more and more starting to look like they are just using us.
And my reply was partly based on the picture you painted of them as a company that’s all about the money.
Companies need to invest. They don’t invest in us. A Viki Pass is nice, but it doesn’t equal what we do and it benefits them, too, since we need access to the shows they want us to work on. I’m not saying they need to actually pay us, but if I am a volunteer, I at least want to be treated right.
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I couldn’t agree more. It’s not like we are asking them for much. I would even say that if they fixed the issues we have been pointing out, it would end up benefiting them a lot.
We just want an adequate environment and tools so that we can work.
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I’m really confused with this one here since I thought all volunteers here got those things covered. Something must have changed that I’m not aware of, but I’m thinking you are referring ‘‘tools’’ as when you work as a moderator, right? As a subber, there are no issues, right? What are the tools you need that are not available to you or others here anymore? Maybe the higher ups are not aware of this things going on in here since controlling groups are making a comeback and that’s something they need to take care of PRONTO (imho).
I know where this comes from, but to be honest I don’t quite agree and see some things a bit differently. During the last 2 years, I had twice the chance to be CM of BL content and I moderated about 6 BL dramas in addition. I usually got them when I only had very few projects (1-2) and I got better when I changed my applications. However, I don’t deny it’s helpful to be part of the international Viki community in general. I’m not around here since 2010, so I met people in the forum, on Discord, during projects I moderated… “Networking” is only natural, especially if you are new and hardly know anyone.
I didn’t receive any applications that offered me things, but certainly people were sometimes unhappy or asked me how they can improve. So I told them about my criteria, or why a page designer isn’t considered as someone having too many projects. Surely, some things that happen make you doubt people, though.
Like I don’t think that people should be permitted to use tricks to artificially reduce their projects, I can understand it’s annoying to have a hard time if you do the projects that are not everybody’s first choice. Unfortunately, I can’t really think of a fair solution to ease the situation between “genre moderators” and “all-rounders”. Like assigning a different value to projects, for example. Still, BL is rather simple and of course much easier/faster to manage than some Wuxia drama.
I lost projects too because the CM “liked” someone else better. But this isn’t a BL issue. It can happen anywhere, and you could argue that “you can at least be sure to trust someone more you actually know.” It’s a difficult decision if you have a great application on one hand and a great reputation (regarding reliability etc.) on the other hand. Furthermore, I know a couple of newbie moderators that started moderating in the last few months. Some work really hard to provide good applications, handle their projects well etc. So I’m glad that they find recognition and that they’re well-received. Out of 10–13 people that apply for said genre on a regular basis, about 10 of them get projects as well. I only know 1-2 people that applied for months and were basically only receiving rejections.
Something I experienced as well - and I guess many of us did if we’re part of a large to medium-sized language community.
Just like I didn’t get a single Kdrama I applied for between June and November… but then I got “Reborn Rich” and forgot all about it. 
Before this I was accepted for some major drama after I had the CM twice as a moderator myself, but I certainly didn’t talk about this by any means. Did they “repay” me? No idea. I chose them because they had few projects and were very excited about my projects. That’s all. 
Just like I asked someone to co-moderate after I heard they were rejected, even though they had fewer projects and were more excited than me about some project.
We shouldn’t be naive, though. There might be weird things going on sometimes, and my or any “perceptions” sometimes don’t have to be the real deal either. I can only recommend taking everything into account and making a decision based on the facts you can access. 
Back to the topic:
I recently offered help to a new CM that never moderated before since not much happened on their channel after weeks. While Viki wants two people for experienced moderators/Engl. Editors that become CM for the first time, this doesn’t apply to someone like that? That should probably be thought through more.
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I think it’s more of the issue of being able to do something easly, than to be able to do something at all.
Sure, the most basic things work. The subtitle editor rarely gets any bugs and that’s great.
BUT. There are many things that could be improved.
The new “explore page” is horrendous and I can’t find a single thing there. Everything is bugged. New shows aren’t new. Half of them is displayed without a title… It makes my like as a contributor more difficult, since I can’t find the projects I’m interested in. Another option would be project finder, but it also doesn’t have enough filters and you have to spend unneccesary amount of time to find anything.
When you moderate a project and want to have all episodes closed, you need to manually check each one of them and manually close them. There could be something like a summary page, that would allow you to see a progres in all episodes in your language and close all epiosodes at once.
When you are a CM, there could be a better way to display applications or sort them. Right now you just get a massive spam of messagess, you need to sort them yourself to the categories (languages, positions). Then when you make decision and respond to everyone, you can’t just mass-delete the messegess that take unnecessary space in your inbox. Noooo. You have to do it one by one. I don’t thing it would be that difficult to implement. Even if you don’t CM, and just want to free your inbox, it takes way too much time.
Also voluteers before me had many suggestions about this process and other things on Viki, I’m sure there are way more improvements that can be added to the list.
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It would be great when each channel gets its own message box for the CM and applications, e.g.
CM writes a message that’s shown at the channel saying something like:
Deadline for applications date xy
Or if people who are interested to work on a project could already hit an “inform me” button so the system sends an automatic message when a show has a CM/ air date etc.
(Some only apply as CM to get the message about the CM to be able to apply as OL mod right away.)
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Lately this doesn’t work.
Why? Did something change?
The last couple of times I did that I didn’t get any notifications. Of course the last time I asked for a CM position was 1 1/2 years ago, it may have been a bug and now restored, I have no idea.
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I think that bug occured when they were working on the page’s new layout and is fixed now.
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Another thing about channel distribution. I don’t say it’s necessarily bad to assign two seasons to the same person if a) they are related (there is no point if they’re unrelated, I’ve seen that too) b) and/or short c) or come only with some time in between. Assigning two long seasons of 30 and 24 episodes to the same CM and releasing them one week after another resulted in the worst case scenario.
Season 1 is seriously neglected (2 episodes released for OL in 2 months) and Season 2 hasn’t even been worked on (I think it’s planned to do it afterward… when? In 30 months? Will the license still be there?). Maybe this is all right if you progress at a normal speed and there are months in between long seasons or if those seasons are short ones (max. 10 episodes), but this is just disappointing. After two months, I reported missing subs in the presubbed season 2 (it only took a day to restore them, though. At least after I insisted that I’m not just someone who doesn’t understand how Viki subtitles are made). It’s a nice drama, people would have liked to work on it and translate it. It’s sad to watch this, in fact. 
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Mm, how could you explain that, I work with someone who is fully capable of holding two dramas at the same time, but I have also seen people who get one drama and don’t know what to do with it, I would suggest doing something similar as well academy to train new managers, I have seen many of them who became managers and do not know what they should do, so an academy for managers would be desirable.
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As for dramas, I have my own style of drama that I like to watch, and I also like to be a manager on such dramas, here I can say that they are historical dramas with good script writers.But also, like you, for one reason or another, I haven’t found what I like for the third year, and even when I do find such a drama, it gets a manager who doesn’t know what to do with it.
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Certainly, it does depend on the CM, but I guess we could say that a lot of CMs do not like to interfere with their English teams (and a majority is worried to argue with the few editors). Some do it if necessary, others won’t at all, which resulted in the scenario mentioned above.
In that regard, it’s good that Viki considered assigning someone to help new CMs. Well, sometimes at least. Still, it’s not necessarily about taking responsibility. I faced a similar issue once as OL moderator and the CM refused to do anything, so I complained to Viki. The matter was solved after one year had passed then. That’s a long time. 
Somewhat, Viki is responsible as well, though. They send CMs a message stating “these are recommendations” and fail to tell that it is not okay to release 2 episodes within 2 months. There are some sorts of guidelines required in my opinion. I am aware people are overworked, I feel bad sometimes as well, and I guess many English Editors have a lot on their plate, but they don’t always set a limit and the system makes it difficult for new Editors (along with rules that require you to contribute to even become Editor). On the other hand, people tend to ask for extremely fast releases skipping e.g. Translation Editing which results in inaccurate translations sometimes. After learning a language for 2 years, you usually know the basics, but it’s not enough. I do check reference subtitles too, even if I’m not even A1 in said language, but that only allows me to verify a few things.
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That allegedly shouldn’t matter:
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So far, nothing has changed. The handful of favorites still get everything, apart from the few crumbs that go to newbies, and those of us who seem to be on some invisible black list are forever banned from becoming a CM again, despite semipromises from the staff.
No matter what vague reason is behind all this, what Viki doesn’t get is that they are demotivating even their most faithful volunteers this way. Or maybe they don’t care because they just don’t see our worth. But if they don’t care… why should we?
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I guess you still don’t believe me when I say that we have controlling groups here at RViki, and it’s from 2 females that have been here for ages… (not in the Spanish or Portuguese teams either) these individuals control those teams, too.
They took over again since they were loosing their control, but they managed to take it back, and things from now on, will go their way.
mirjam_465
us who seem to be on some invisible black list are forever banned from becoming a CM again, despite semipromises from the staff.
In here, there are those that ‘‘seems’’ 
to be your viki ‘‘friends,’’ and they might as well be your worst enemies. Even the same ones making empty promises to you and others are part of the control group. Do a bit of a research, and you’ll find out who took the reigns here again, and why you and many others from now on, will be ‘‘kicked to the curb.’’
they don’t care because they just don’t see our worth. But if they don’t care… why should we?
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So are you saying that the controlling groups are also among the staff nowadays? Cause they are the ones who choose the CMs. Or that the controlling groups have some kind of power over the staff?
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mirjam_465
So are you saying that the controlling groups are also among the staff nowadays?
They have always been, and that’s the only reason why they have been able to stay in control for so many years. Don’t worry, it won’t last long this time. Mark my words.
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(only emoticons because I.AM.SHOCKED.BEYOND.WORDS!)
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