I feel like TE should have to take a test and pass with a certain amount of knowledge in the targeted Language.
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I agree with you that life is full of surprises but just one bad one is enough to ruin something for life sometimes. Uncorrect is not use to correct someone. English Speakers never uses it, you’ll only get laugh at if you say that. Point being one can use big and fancy word in their sentences but if that word was used wrong then it doesn’t matter.
Well I’m glad you met people who politely and calmly explained things to you. Unfortunately I cannot say the same. I didn’t choose to translate on Viki to be a regular. I just had a love for this one particular show airing atm and always see comments about wanting Subs from other site like Youtube so I thought I’d lend a hand to accelerate the process. But after experiencing that I’d rather spend my precious time doing something else. I could have rewatched 20 Eps of my favorite show with the time I used to translate.
Good Luck to your future endeavours though and hope you can continuously meet good people.
I kind of agree with you for the TE.
Given the situation on Viki, where to find available and reliable TE?
I would prefer an academy for editing in general for each role, so people who already have good basis can get better with some training and are not refused from their first test. But then, finding senseis… not anybody can fill up. But at least people can give it a chance and see if it’s a success or not, after all, not much to lose?
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I kind of agree, but at the same time it might just become another cult if it’s not well regulated.
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We have more in common than what you think 
More people got to stay longer and so lived more different experiences, not only good, but also bad experences for a longer time. It’s just the tip of the iceberg with more nuances.
I also wanted to volunteer on 1 show when I began. It was the only show I wanted to contribute on. Eventually after 10 or 20k subs on dramas where you send your application to (I don’t remember the exact number), I was finally allowed to subtitle on this show and not everything went well.
After what I invested already, anyone could have said anything, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I was there only for this show initially.
But while doing these 10k-20k subs, I met different teams and moderators, so even if this experience didn’t turn well, I still had other experiences to put in contrast with.
Some don’t have these encounters yet, so they might want to stop after 1 bad encounter. If we discuss and invite people to try with different people, they sometimes change their opinion or add more nuances.
I also got edited by a subtitler who didn’t know the rules at that time. And so? I was confused, but told him the rules that I assumed he knew (a big mistake on my part was assuming and I will always send guidelines now no matter the counter or previous mods he worked with), I sent him the guidelines I also received when I first began, asked him to erase what he edited and instead, message me what he wanted to put and in my turn, I can do the same on his parts. Some of his suggestions, I added. Some terms, we discuss about together, looked for a better term and we just continued like this, it asks more time, but the advantage is he made me think, I made him think and one thing I didn’t allow myself to do was to discourage or treat badly a subtitler in my team like what I could have experienced already.
When I see holes in English edition, it just made me more picky in my own subtitles for my language by not wanting to see the same in my own subtitles. In other languages, we could be lenient because our subtitles won’t be used normally by other languages to subtitle, but all this had the opposite effect for some of us. We did the contrary.
We already have a subtitling academy, they plan to create an editing course in our own language, they take feedbacks into consideration. We pushed things.
From all mistakes we could meet and remember, we learn from it and try to do the contrary.
And this is what could be interesting on Viki finally. It made us think with other people and tried to do something by ourselves, because we are often left by ourselves. It made me seek the solution by myself when I could, instead of waiting for a savior. It made me move and be more stubborn.
Especially after these experiences, it made you more resolute on what you really want and push you towards a direction. You pick to valuate your time on something you like, I picked to continue at that time.
I rarely fight irl, so it teached me to stand my ground, to disagree, to express it, to be indifferent, to be stubborn, to be in situations I am not used to be and to understand better some people and myself. At the same time, I met a volunteer on Viki who happens to be a psychologist, we got to talk about behaviors or experiences with people we met on Viki, it is mind-opening because it is totally not my area and made me read psychology books, tragedies. These experiences made me learn a lot of things, bad or good experiences.
Has this bad experience brought something good into your life? That it’s on Viki or no, it doesn’t matter.
I also contribute a lot less compared to before and mostly, I learn things in different areas I’m interested in, I also live my own choice really well!
If it’s your own choice, I understand the feeling.
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If they don’t know, I guess we can count them in “taking on a function they are not capable of” category. Of course, this is a delicate situation but it can be expressed and discussed with the person (whether they take it badly or not). However, I don’t think this is the most common situation on viki.
On viki, we have English editors who are capable, but who do not do what they have to do or neglect their work for various reasons. So we have to deal with capable English editors, who know how to recognize things themselves, but who do not because they are busy, because they want to hurry, because they are less attentive, because they do not want to delegate or can’t… Among these editors, some are listening and we can discuss with them, they can make the changes if we point out a problem, sometimes this is not the case.
But can we really discuss all the English Edition problems? Sometimes there are a lot of episodes. Sometimes the sentence is understandable, but poorly edited in English. Some will say that, as long as we understand, it’s fine. I do not agree, the role of the English editor is to fluidize the sentence to create a correct sentence in English. No one is going to talk about this kind of situation. We can talk about mistakes, meanings… but not about the sentence construction itself.
This is the kind of situation common on viki. Knowing that these people can but don’t make me wonder why, I don’t really understand.
Irene, it’s funny because you are the only English editor that I really respect for your devotion to each sentence. Importance and time that you give to each singular drama. You set a goal and go for it. I’m sure that when you’re an editor, everything will be fine and open.
Before, the teams were not like the ones we have today. Of course, there is a better quality today, because it was more anarchic at the time. This does not preclude saying that edition is “average” now, even bad or not enough (nuance).
I think it is more a particular and self-centered person, not necessarily a bad editor. In this story, we want to improve english quality, but in the end, it does not impact us personally. Everyone can see the editing problems and if the person does not want to change because of narcissism, I guess that this person prefers to obtain the label, visible by all, of average editor (+ deaf and mute person).
So I don’t think it’s just a matter of “good” and “bad” editor. Because there are also capable editors, but who do not do what they can really do. Of course, as Irene said, there are those who are not capable at all. However, the capable ones are among the majority here, on viki.
Of course we will remember more bad experiences than good ones. But why must there be bad experiences in each project? Today, I refuse to work with people I do not know or new people because I do not know how they will manage their teams. I prefer to stay with those I like and know, in order to avoid bad experiences and arguments. Which is a shame because I may lose good meetings, but I also avoid bad ones and that suits me.
People should already want to learn for that.
Good idea, but who on viki could do that… In addition, I think they are already doing it but informally. Either you have the chance to come across people who will agree to teach you, or you have the misfortune to come across people who will just say no.
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As a sensei, you can’t say no or you can ask another sensei. The student can’t be ignored or treated badly. But you already know, you’re a sensei LOL 
As an editor, I would put:
“What are you doing here, Dark Lord?”
Problem solved
Of course they are not always so easy.
It’s true that there has to be a fine balance between faithfulness and clarity. Viewers have to understand what you’re talking about.
There are some, very rare instances, where people talk about themselves in the third person, and this is usually parents.
“Mom loves you a lot” (said by a mother to her child).
“Your King orders you to go, but you still refuse?” (said by the King himself)
As you know, I wholeheartedly agree with this. And thank you for your kind words, I know that you mean them.
Although I’ve been criticized by at least one couple of TE and CE, who told the CM “she is too keen on making them pretty”. Yeah, sure, I want them to be both faithful to the meaning (I’m very particular on this) and pretty, what’s wrong with that?
I think that my insistence on understandable subtitles came from my having started as an Other Language moderator. Even now, I often take both Italian moderation and English editing on the same show. And every time I see an English sentence which makes me scratch my head, I think from the point of view of my Italian subbers. Will they be able to understand immediately what is meant?
If the student doesn’t have good knowledge either of the source language or of the destination language, I think that trying to teach them how to make subtitles is useless.
You can’t translate if you don’t know the two languages. Period.
You should say “Study English some more, get your Proficiency and then come back, we’ll be waiting for you with open arms”.
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We can’t teach the language in any academy.
It’s because of the entry test that we don’t have in the French academy, but you have your entry test.
Provided that the student has good basis, he entered the academy (entry test or first part passed) and can’t be refused or treated badly by his sensei.
I agree with Anna, I think you’re one of the easiest editors and meticulous one.
I don’t even know why you justify yourself. You must be blind or others didn’t give you good feedback or they never got to work with you or understand you. I can tell that after working with you on more than 1 project, old and new.
If you are an English sensei if one day it is built, I’d be at ease with the students. They will probably learn a lot.
You know very well of that incident when they accused me of making subtitles “too pretty”.
I’d love to teach editing, but see, if I have to instruct Chinese-English or Korean-English translators, I’d have to know Chinese or Korean, which I don’t. Even for editing, how could I know if the translation is good and faithful to the meaning to begin with?
Unless there were two of us, one a TE who would tell them about correct translation, and THEN I could pass and talk about putting it in better English.
I don’t know how this could work in practice. Because it would be as if I were judging the TE’s English. Or we could… I don’t know, make it clear that the TE won’t enter at all the matters of English grammar or syntax etc. and will only make sure the meaning is correct?
I don’t know… It’s a bit delicate.
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I will have to disagree with you here. People skills are very important for the job of a CM, Moderator, Editor, etc. An Editor with lousy people skills, no matter how proficient she/he is in translating/editing, is a lousy Editor in my book. Especially if they are unable or unwilling to explain why they made that particular decision in that particular sub. This way they refuse to teach others what they know and they refuse to learn something they themselves might not know yet.
None of us work in a vacuum. We all work in a team, with more or less contact with other team members, depending on our role in the team. Bad atmosphere in the team has the power to significantly downgrade the quality of editing, the final product. Not to mention that it severely demotivates other team members not directly involved in that particular task in the project.
We have to take both technical and people skills when assessing how good a volunteer is. They are equally important.
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“Mom loves you a lot” (said by a mother to her child).
“Your King orders you to go, but you still refuse?” (said by the King himself)
Speaking about oneself in third person and speaking to another in third person is two different thing.
I understand what you’re saying. I don’t have much time to spare normally so doing something like this is rare for me. I use to spend more time online meeting bad and good people, but that period of time have passed. I much prefer speaking to people face to face to be honest.
I still have my book I needed to write. I was just very excited and happy about this new show so I volunteered. Now that had fallen through I’ll just go back to writing the book.
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My spidey senses are telling me it might have something to do with what @yuukiayazawa wrote about people thinking they own the subtitle and that you shouldn’t change it “just” to make it pretty. Excuse me to all those ignoramuses, but making it “pretty” is the difference whether I’ll continue translating the episode today or if I will temporarily quit and return to it god knows when. OL Mods get tired of dubious or overly complicated subs and that affects the speed of their translation. Not to mention the overall amount of work they will do that week on Viki.
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By pretty do you mean the good pretty where it make sense or the incoherent flowery pretty?
Same here! My work requests much time, some nights or weekends…
What is your book about? I’m a bookworm.
I hope one day it could be possible!
It would greatly help other languages where we need editors who got a training and editors we can trust.
I actually have multiples in the work, mostly romance.
Currently I’m focusing on my tragedy romance novel. It’s about a girl who came from a rich family, never received the same love her grandfather shown to her twin brother. After witnessing her mother being murdered at a young age, she was subsequently saved by her mother’s acquaintance. She thought he was a kidnapper so when she tried to get away from him she jumped off the bridge.
She built herself up with the help of criminal organization trying to go straight and eventually come head to head with her family’s business.
I can’t reveal much else, don’t want to spoil the fun in between 
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