Volunteering at Viki doesn't count?

I’m between jobs, so I’m refreshing my CV. I was trying to decide how I was going to fit my QC in there, and long story short I was told that what we do here at Viki doesn’t count as “real” volunteering, because we basically watch TV and type/ translate.

I would never compare myself to volunteers in war zones, but I would like to think that being a QC stands a teensy bit higher that absolute zero on the Volunteering Scale.

Is it really just a hobby?

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The person(s) who consider this not really volunteering also would what, disallow someone reading to small children at a library, or doing acts of kindness in an elderly community center? Merely because one has not yet donned a CAPE and is flying about saving the universe?

It is my understanding that folks can get certificates from the viki mother ship showing their feats here to be used to prove such credit.

Perhaps acquiring the certificate they offer would help explain that you are actually volunteering to help make things more accessible world-wide - also to those in need of captioning due to their limitations, e.g. the hearing impaired.

That the effort of improving communication, that not all things here are “merely entertainment” but serve a higher purpose of expanding cultural awareness and building leadership skills, say with regard to moderators and channel managers - well, there’s part of what you get here right there. :).

I believe that one might phrase it to look more impressive, and there is at least one student here working to complete her paper (In China) for a degree that actually has to do with the making of Chinese dramas.

Perhaps also an expression of how many hours and the nature of your work here would help as well.

Granted, this is not the Peace Corps and we are not teaching people to fish…but we are teaching others about our culture and learning and expanding the knowledge of history and other cultures - how can this be merely “watching TV and typing”.

I hope I have been of some small assistance, and perhaps kristie could explain how to get this certificate they offer. :slight_smile:

Best of fortune, and hope your work permits you to continue here too.

Sometimes what we do for love far exceeds the payment of mere dollars.

Ars Gratia Artis.

GeNie of the Lamp POOF!

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They must have confused it with updating your FB.[quote=“deadliftdiva_548, post:2, topic:14251”]
The person(s) who consider this not really volunteering also would what, disallow someone reading to small children at a library, or doing acts of kindness in an elderly community center?
[/quote]

^
Exactly this.

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I think this fits quite well as volunteering in particular for the language and hearing impaired community who really depends on the subtitles.
Also I’m not sure what is your working field but if it were like office work or administration and you also did moderating or managing a channel there could be so called “transferable skills” like:

  • Creating and Managing a team
  • Communication with members (emails, via disqus or kkt)
  • creating google docs or google sheets
  • working with deadlines (time management)
  • keyboarding and digital design skills (for typing and photoshop)
  • translation from English language to xxxx (language skills)
  • online research (for special wordings)
  • participation in discussion boards incl. suggestions (team work)

just as an example… perhaps I missed something out…

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oh hey. we get so little respect here they removed the volunteer leaderboard completely this morning.

Gee, thanks viki.

Let’s see. boxes and boxes…and really it’s just ugly as hell.

so let’s review. new cover page for the web site…no credit to the volunteers except a LINK that hangs up if you click on it…wow.

CD, HD

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I think you have to scroll down, the volunteer leaderboard is down there.

wasn’t just now. maybe there are different versions or something?

what i have is big blocky boxes now - different from what was up yesterday.

main page. no leaderboard. when you find the one small note about volunteers - it takes you to the page where you join the volunteers and nothing else.

if you click on the title “top volunteers this week” it takes you to VOLUNTEER FINDER? NO WAY. THIS is not funny.

you get the opening scroll of hwarang etc.

then 8 USA boxes - what’s trending here.

then their “picks for me”. ha. yeah pick the ones I CM, again as usual plus the usual ones they are promoting…

right. this is a brand new page and the VOLUNTEER LEADER BOARD IS COMPLETELY GONE OFF THE FRONT PAGE.

CD, HD

Sorry, I might misunderstand what you just said.
I have this Viki main page, do you have the same? And when I click on volunteers from this Top, I can see their profile like before.

NOPE! I have a DIFFERENT FRONT PAGE!

no people’s icons on there.

coming soon, then “top volunteers” but when I click on that title I get the volunteer finder and NO PICTURES of top volunteers, none shown. there are clearly different versions of this page.

I’m in USA. Maybe you have a different one?

yours shows the top 10 = fine but seriously? down the page and barely there. way to acknowledge the hard work.

this new page is lousy. you have to scroll more, the information is poorly boxed in there - and it really is clunky.

there must be different versions of this thing out. :frowning:

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Oh, maybe you have to wait a little. I live in France but it’s kinda strange that in the USA, it’s slower to make this update because you have Viki offices in the USA, people working there whereas I don’t have. I think that Viki staff still need to have an updated main page.
In the main page, I have many boxes too:
1)Drama ads
2)Trending in France
3)Top picks for you
4)Recommended clips for you
5)Viki picks
6)Fan collections
7)Newly added episodes
8)Currently on air
9)Coming soon
10)Top volunteers this week
11) Latest news
12)Explore the world
13)Featured networks

That’s a lot for a main page xd It’s even more sections than a shopping website xd

Thanks guys, I was so irritated I couldn’t really formulate a comprehensive response, but I feel my arsenal is full now. :slight_smile:

I already have the Viki certificate and I’m a bit past the point where someone would question my Office Suite proficiency for a job, but you never know where life takes you, so…

What we do is international projects, whether people like it or not. Different cultures, backgrounds, languages and time zones. And for on-air projects, they are also time-sensitive. And we use specific tools that require training. We do projects for free, in a multi-cultural environment, with the aim to promote different languages and cultures. Sounds like volunteering to me.

And there is a whole community to support you when the worth of what we do is questioned. I feel better now. :grinning:

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same boxes but no volunteer icons and no way to get to them.

if you click on top volunteers, it takes you to VOLUNTEER FINDER.

if you click on the link below, to the community page where you learn how to volunteer.

Clearly someone has a different page now for possibly EU? vs USA?

sigh. USA apparently the volunteers weren’t important enough to put up or what…wow. volunteer finder is the second most useless thing besides the project finder!

CD, HD

I think I have at last accepted that we are an afterthought for Viki, so it doesn’t even bother me that much any more… Every time the page design changes, it is more about the customers. And still I have in “recommended”, front and center, series that I never, ever plan to watch, like Boys over Flowers, still I can’t get rid of them. There’s no “Not interested” button.

I wish there were even a slight mention of the volunteer teams at the top of the page, even if the leaderboards are way down there. And the drop-down menu that says “Community” is not enough. Something like a banner, saying “all your favorite content, segmented and subtitled by our wonderful community of volunteers”. But that will never happen.

I have Viki listed as volunteer work on my resume. Why wouldn’t this be volunteer work? We work and we do it for free. The only difference is that it’s not the usual kind of volunteer job.

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I will ask without shame: could you tell me how you have phrased it? Your contributions are about 100 times more than mine, but still… :flushed:

recommended for me? ha. 2 I CM AT. One I’ve seen 11 times…Nirvana in Fire…fine. I can watch it 12 times, no problem.

Others I have seen already entirely while logged in. Then they usually try to push well,hwarang or whatever. (laughing) Or I get all of Hu Ge’s works, again, fine. It’s not like I am that well, malleable to take their suggestions to heart… :slight_smile: or more accurately to mind and thus click and mindlessly follow their desired course of action. :slight_smile:

The clips? again, haven’t clicked on any since I got here. Don’t plan to.

The collections? uh yeah, whatever lol.

So they don’t respect the volunteers again. After all I’ve heard since I started volunteering here, it’s not new. I guess though the EU page shows them, the USA page does not.

Since I can’t get an answer on questions I ask them about dramas I would like to have here and CM, and I can’t get the things repaired to do the work here, well, it’s about not being heard and answered much of the time. I do most of my work before a certain point of the evening when I suspect they roll out the newest “innovations” and the tools get buggy. We have our reasons for helping here, even if they are not respected and we personally don’t exactly feel the LOVE.

As long as the mountains are green…their attitude will continue.

GeNie of the Lamp POOF!

It is volunteer work. However, to people who do not do volunteer work unless it is for a promotion/election/photoshoot, our contributions don’t count, because they are no headlines material

If MSF and firefighters say that they count on and beg for little things like volunteer reading to blind children, then I’m sure the Viki community work counts for something.

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First few scroll downs:



Bottom of the page:



The volunteers are at the bottom. Looks like we are the foundation :wink:

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I don’t care about their recommendations, it’s just they take up so much space. :slight_smile:

At least it seems in Europe each country has a slightly different main page …