What do you like/dislike while subbing, editing, segging, moderating, managing? ❤💔

[piranna]

Hey!

I’m out of ideas right now xd But I can tell my impressions on what I experienced (some others might have the same/different impressions on each role they take Share with us your impressions!)

Moderating:
“administrative work”:
-receiving PM from volunteers who want to join, explaining how the team will function on this project (general and specific rules), answering when recruiting: repetitive words, sometimes trying hard to find how to say things with people you don’t know
-answering questions
-being the person people are turning to when there’s a problem, questions. I can feel like I’m the “after-sale services” or I’m a “FAQ” person (which I can understand but sometimes, it can be boring and tiring to explain things, time consuming when all you want to do is translating)

cover page when you don’t know any designer and because I’m a newbie in designing cover pages and I like to see cover pages but not to make them (time consuming)

formality: people can talk to you differently, being on this role brings some distance with others because they treat you differently. Hard to know real feelings and feedbacks from our moderation, maybe afraid to ask questions or to tell us things that they want to try, what they don’t like etc…

discover new experiences on Viki
make you organize things better
accomplishment feeling when you see that you are a little more experienced, that you can answer to one lambda problem whereas before you couldn’t, more confident
I really like seeing people progress thanks to something that you answered when they had questions on a particular thing, something where you help them
meeting new people from the same country or meeting some acquaintances again!

CM:
“administrative work”:
it’s worst than moderating xd especially when your project is on the Project finder, you’ll receive a lot more PMs to join, it’s really good that people are interested in the channel and want to help, but then you have to direct people to the right moderator or to explain rules again and again (and most of the time, it’s newcomers who go the Project finder and send a prewritten message so it’s easy to tell that you have to explain more)

formality: same as moderating
Because I prefer to have a participative management where we collaborate together, having feedbacks so the channel is the product of everyone’s participation. I like to take into account other people thoughts because I’m not perfect and might forget things, consider things only from my perspective which can be limited so I like to hear about other opinions if it’s constructive and benefit to the channel (but I can understand that people prefer to have a more directive management because it’s easier and faster to take decisions)

more tasks to do if team is incomplete or a few on the team & feeling quite lonely and busy & “convenient” reason for the channel progress but nor convenient for you xd
Lack of moderators: CM will do if it’s a language he can and it’s a role that can’t be left out without anyone
Lack of segmenters: CM will do xd
Lack of subbers: CM will do if it’s in a language he can
Lack of editors: CM will do if it’s in a language he can
So you can have more than just CM job to do not because you want to take it all, but because if the holes are not filled in and no more help comes, wonder how the channel can progress xd Or because, it would ask more work, coordination, waste of time if it’s not you who take up the role.

same as moderating, if no more because it can ask a lot more organisation when we take more than just CM position and feeling really good when the channel is progressing.

meeting new people from other countries and work together! (when I’m only a translator for a drama, I don’t really have the opportunity to talk with other language moderators and subtitlers)

form new moderators from subtitlers:
In my case it’s because at first, I don’t know much my team, who will be here or not, so for the channel, I like to give away moderations to people who prove themselves on the channel (coming regurlaly, asking questions, seriousness, showing some commitment to the channel because they are interested) like a type of “thank you gift for their efforts until there” (so it’s like a reverse function where instead of choosing your moderators first, you chose them after a while after seeing what they did on the channel).
And I like to see that after giving them new tasks, they become more motivated, more responsible because of these new responsabilities and making them discover new things as I discovered new things too (but I don’t like explaining administrative things, but I like the result xd)
Important precision: it was not a drama but a trendsetter channel and if it was a drama, I really don’t believe I can function the same way because of time >> Trendsetter channel/ deserted channel can be good ground to form new moderators with more relaxing time for them to learn some basic things that moderators do in general. Maybe for a little taste of what moderating can be to broaden your experiences and to help you decide if you want to continue on the path of moderating on dramas

---

Conclusion: I’m not fond of moderating, managing XD I still repeat myself on this xd I should stop!

What about your impressions?

[xomachi]

Okay, just a bit.

Editing, just all of it

Tedious is the way I would describe it. I like subbing, but I guess I don’t like refining the subs. As an editor, I feel like you’re always cross-checking to make sure that terms are consistent, that sentences flow, that this is accurate and that has the right tone. I’m not a perfectionist and I don’t like having to fixate on getting things “just right,” which is what I think a good editor has to do. At most, I think I could proofread subs for spelling.

Recruiting a team / sending messages

With recruiting, it might be because there’s not really a good system in place. I feel like I always have to scavenge around to put a team together. (Admittedly, I’m sometimes a bit envious of users with tight groups who always help each other out.) There are some people who are really good at marketing / selling their channels, and I am not one of them.

Sending messages goes along with that a bit. I think I’m generally polite in my correspondences, but sometimes I feel like I have to “inject” some upbeat cheer or else I’ll come off somewhat unfriendly

The calming nature of segmenting

Hands down, what I enjoy the most is segmenting. Foregoing any technical issues, it’s easy and relaxing. I sort of move on autopilot when I’m active as a segmenter. When I’m interested in the plot, I pay a bit more attention, but I don’t have to stretch out my brain cells or anything. I’m almost always up for segmenting (on dramas and movies).

Having discussions when subbing

In my experience, subbers will drop in and out, working when they’re free, and there’s not much in the way of interactions between the team members. But, I’ve previously worked on a team or two where there would always be a handful of subbers working at the same time, and it’s really nice. There’s some chatting, and then there’s people to consult, and go back and forth with, on things you’re unsure of. That’s when it really feels like a collaborative project.

[anamaria_13_392]

Well my case I have only a subber or transcriber and actually learning segment things that i like the subtitle i learn new vocabulary in english, practice english but recently i can saw that some subtitles in english are bad is more difficult for understand, you can’t left segments for transcribing the next day because many times other person writing and come abusers. (dramas off-air)
with the segment I can educate my ear in much leagues but yes i happen the same that @xomachi i not perfectionist

[irmar]

MODERATING
Things I don’t like

• I hate it when the CM is snobbish and aloof. I feel stifled.

• I hate it when there are moderators of very popular languages with 30+ subbers who are snobbish and arrogant and consider all other languages unimportant just because they are numerically less represented.
• I get frustrated at hoarding moderators who ask for the place before the drama even has a title, and don’t leave an opening for other people. Whenever you hear of a new channel being approved and you go to its page, immediately their name will be there. Nowadays I don’t even bother looking. If you haven’t asked for moderation muuuuch before the channel is approved, there is no chance.
• It’s a bit boring to hunt for subtitlers, go through pages and pages of recent contributions, update my Word document with comments on each of them so I don’t forget etc. But it has to be done, because the ones I know many not always be available, or they may drop out of viki one day.
• I get frustrated when my team is not responsible, when they disappear without a notice, when they don’t look again at their translation, when they arrogantly refuse feedback and sulk because they are all-knowing and how dare anybody correct them, when they insist on something without having looked it up, whereas I have done 30 minutes’ research before saying “it is like that”.
• I feel bad when I don’t like the drama (nowadays it can only happen on on-air dramas). It saddens me to work on something I don’t even enjoy watching.
• I hate it when I don’t understand the level of formality between characters and I have to choose blindly, and when there are office ranks/titles which are so difficult to translate in my languages. Medical terms are OK, because you eventually will find them, there always is an equivalent.
• When there is a bad translator and I have to give feedback, I feel shy and I feel bad for her. I try to be as diplomatic and gentle as possible, but feedback should be accurate to be useful, so no matter how politely you put it, you know that it won’t go down well.
• It exasperates me when there are two or three mistakes on every subtitle, it takes forever to edit.
  Things I like
• Administrative work - getting to decide on a good team, so that the result is as near excellence as possible
• Finding ways to make the job better and easier. I have compiled a whole set of new guidelines, and a new method of workflow - and I had the satisfaction of seeing this method adopted by others as well. I am refining this in every show, adding to it, changing the wording etc., as I test it with different teams in different dramas.
• Preparing the Google doc with all the character names, OST, vocabulary, useful stuff etc, putting pretty colours, one for each episode. Since @piranna opened up for me the world of Google docs used to administrate teams, my life has become much easier.
• Translating all the front page and cover page stuff. I don’t slavishly translate, though, but I look on the web to find more info and if I have seen the drama (or while I’m watching it) if there is an error, I correct it. I also read reviews and sometimes include a sentence or two from them.
• I love, love being the one who has to reply to subber questions, find out difficult stuff which subbers cannot. I like the idea that I am helping them learn new things. And to do this, I often have to do research, which results in my learning new things as well. If I am unable to find a solution that satisfies me, I put the question out and all team members discuss it, brainstorming for ideas until we find the right term.
• Interacting with the English team on Team Notes, asking questions and learning stuff from them, which I then pass on to my own team.
• The excitement of completing an on-air episode on time.
• Editing. Seeing a mediocre translation turn into a polished, flowing thing, as natural as possible, yet somehow elegant whenever fitting, is a deep pleasure. Of course, this is a mixed pleasure. Sometimes it gets irritating to see stupid mistakes. I always try to have people on the team who do good translations, so that I also have the pleasure of skimming through their work without having to correct anything for long stretches. Aaaah, this is so relaxing when it happens.
• I’m blissfully happy when I delete offensive timed comments, or those whining about subs.
• My greatest happiness is when I see someone who started as an average/mediocre subber who slowly blossoms with feedback and Skype sessions, and in each drama she becomes better and better, until she becomes one of my best. This is the most rewarding thing of all.

[quote=“piranna, post:1, topic:15246”]
it can be boring and tiring to explain things, time consuming when all you want to do is translating
[/quote] Then it seems you don’t particularly like being a moderator, but you prefer being a subber?

MANAGING

• I like the feeling of power/responsibility in making the overall aesthetic decisions for the drama or film. I usually reserve to me the role of English moderator/editor as well, so I compile the Team Notes and General Guidelines.

• I like it that I can correct bad segments and delete them freely.

• I don’t like it when I have to choose Other Language moderators in languages I don’t know. It’s a difficult choice because I cannot really know whether they are good or not. I can only judge
  their politeness and correctness in interactions with me, and their capability in gathering a team, managing it so that it delivers the subtitles on time and it completes the drama. But it stresses me that I have no way of knowing about their actual knowledge of the language and editing capacity.

• It saddens me that I have no power to delete stupid and useless comments on the pages.

• If I were CM of a new channel I would hate to have to spam people asking them to help with asking for the license.

[anamaria_13_392]

Oh is excellent that you take one moment of your time for explain the people.

[moreenke]

Moderating :

• Gosh, I so can relate for the cover page. I can spend so much time watching people covers and be amazed by it but them when I have to do one, I’m just desperate because I don’t anything about it so they always end looking lame if I do them myself. Luckily there is nice poeple like page designers !

• Be the “FAQ” person ! You couldn’t have said it better ! Honestly, I’m someone who doesn’t mind explaining & repeating herself but sometimes it’s simply tiring. Either because I don’t know how to explain in another way what I said because the person still didn’t get it or just because it ain’t easy to be the one who have to answer and coordinate everything. Not that you were not expecting it when you took the moderation but well that doesn’t make it easier, lol.

• make a team ! First step and one of the hardest to me ! How to ask people to join you ? Then explaining all the rules to all work well together and be efficient. Some people do not listen or pay attention to what you say so the translation will be done correctly, and in such moment I feel like I’m turning into a police guard, and I don’t like that. Or have team members that disappear without a word. When you’re not many and you sending message to the concerned persons but have no answer, it’s very frustating, especially when you’re not many in the team.

• Formality : like you said, Pi, it brings distance ! I’m always worried to don’t be open enough, that people would feel like they cannot turn to me and such so even when I want to change things I always ask everyone opinion but when you see people not choosing and option and just saying, I will go with what you decide, I greatly feel the distance ! I feel like I’m imposing myself while we’re a team.

• Take on a drama I end up not liking. I truly feel bad because well, got to do what must be done. But things seems very slow and you’re not enjoying what you’re working on.

• Meet & converse with people ! Though it asks more efforts, I like to have more newbies in my team. Sometimes I go onto project where the mod do not tell us much about the rules or things work, so even if I’m not the best at explaining stuff, as a moderator when I have people that are new in translating I’m quite beyond them. I like when they ask things (that I didn’t already explain, lol) because it means they are interested or when later I see they’re on other projects or ask me if i don’t have other projects they can participate in ! I feel like, they did like their first experience.

• Make docs for the team. I like that, I find it fun. Translate the OST, put on the characters chart and stuff.

Subbing :

• Lack of communication ! I was talking about formalities when moderating and as a subber, sometimes you do feel like you can’t voice your opinion because you might be mistaken or even when you do, you’re not listen. Like there is no feedback or reply to what you said.

• Lack of Moderation ! Some people are just there to send message telling you to translate, done. I can’t stand that ! They do not help much with the characters relations between them, the vocabulary and just the basic that make that at least all our translations seems coherent all together. And eventually, a subber ended having to do everything out of frustation and because someone must do it !

• Ghost Moderator. I sadly encounter a few a couple of time. There is nothing worst than a moderator who just disappear without notice. You just end up being lost and discouraged.

• Bossy Mods. That moment when you work with people who don’t accept a single suggestion and feels like their words are law no to be discussed. Horrible !

• Like moderating, meeting & conversing with people ! Meet new ones, finding old ones ! This is by far my favorite reason. I met incredible people from all around the world.

• Learn a new things. I’m a French subber, thanks to translating, I’m so much better in english. But I also end up learning a few words in different languages like korean or chinese. And not only languages but a variety of things because of what I had to translate. In other words, I feel like my general knowledge improved a lot !

Editing :

• things I shouldn’t have to correct. Sometimes, I just see such translations, they don’t even make sense ! For me, be an editor is not remake the subs of someone else. I don’t like that, I have so much other stuff to focus on when I review the subs !

• editing itself. As weird as it can be, because it asks a lot of time and attention, but I like that. It helped me getting to know my own language so much more !

Here are all my pros & cons about everything I already tried. I don’t segment, actually I’m scared to try, don’t know why. I feel like it’s too complicated for me and I’m too scared to make mistakes when it’s something where you need to be very accurate. Then, I have never been a CM and I’m not willing too, lol. Way too much for me. I rarely become Mod, so CM, no. I’m always amazed by CM, because I can barely imagine the load of work it implies. Being a mod is not easy so being the like the mod of plenty different mods, OMG ! Hats off !

[sophie2you]

Administrative work

LOL you like administrative work?!?!

I love making great translations. Would you like to work as an English moderator (flagging bad comments and deleting bad Timed Comments) on my show (Sister is Alive) where I am co-CM? I also feel like TC needs to be cleansed of all the horrible comments. Of course if you are happy to oblige, Greek moderator spot is always open for you.

@irmar Now that I have received a channel…I am daunted by how to recruit not only good language moderators but which ones are needed!!! For now I have sent a confirmation pm. I hope they will respond.

@angelight313_168 I do hope all teams use TD. It is messy, but there is the hide button. I am notorious for leaving scribbles here and there, but I go back and organize them before I exit the show for the day or whatever. I think communicating can improve all our subtitles.

[irmar]

LOL you like administrative work?!?!

See, it takes all sorts of people to make a world - and a team - and it’s lovely that it is so. In a family who cooks a chicken, how perfect it is if the husband loves the legs (drumsticks), the wife likes the breast and the children like the wings?

I do hope all teams use TD. It is messy, but there is the hide button.

Wait, wait! Which hide button? Potential precious information here. Would you mind explaining? I just went to a TD and I couldn’t find anything like “sort by language” or “hide all languages except…”

[sophie2you]

You know the downward arrow thing next to each TD post? You can click it and then under block there is the hide function. It hides all the conversation nested under the post too.

It helps with the scrolling. @leenlee91 taught me that trick.

[irmar]

Aaahhh… You have to do this under every single post. Well, it’s better than nothing, actually quite good right now because usually Spanish and French posts are all gathered under one post. But if all language teams were to start using TD it would be a real mess. In some popular shows you would have to do the hide thingie for 20 languages.
If you ask me, I prefer it to be only for the English team, and all moderators of other languages.

BTW, which show are you referring to? I just had a look at your profile so I wouldn’t have to ask, but I saw you are CM in Defendant and in Sister is Alive you are moderator.

[sophie2you]

I think it should be used for notes pertinent to all teams. Hmm… I wonder if there is a way of hiding all the progress reports.

Yes I use the hide for exactly that function! Sister Alive is co-CM while Defendant I am English mod.

[irmar]

I think it should be used for notes pertinent to all teams.

Notes is one thing, discussion is another. But even Notes. Imagine ALL languages putting their own notes! You’d have to scroll down interminably every time, it would be tiresome.
A Google doc or spreadsheet has everything a team needs in one place, with easy to reach tabs for status and communication, character names, OST, useful word list and other things like Korean food, school system, corporate titles and family relationship terms as well as a grammar refresher.
I’m sure you have seen some. Here is an example.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S6AKkW1KGg5V6OQATLXs7sxTaR9KrdDJmfk2eByXAz0/edit?usp=sharing.

[sophie2you]

Oh Wanda I meant for all languages! There are things that simply do not exist in English like ça. This is it form of you. We do not have that in English.

Thanks to observant moderators we catch things like this: “If I am not a resident, you are nothing.” What resident? Resident Alien?? or The old forks here need blah blah.

Yes, we fall asleep at the wheel. Good editors are always needed and not enough to go around. Literally we are out of TEs. I had to stop myself from editing one show in particular because I didn’t have time. I was also forced on it.

“She never bothered to show her fact (face)” is another example. If anything is weird, please do pm the chief editor of the channel. I have also shuttled viewers to editors too!

For DBS I am done up to 10.2. So with the kidnapping victim relieving scene I have no idea what you are talking about.

[sophie2you]

You are watching ahead of me. See if you like the subtitles before ep 10. I went through every single part of the drama before from 1-10.2

[irmar]

So with the kidnapping victim relieving scene I have no idea what you are talking about.

It was the cop visiting a victim at the hospital.
I thought “You endured it well” was a kind, positive and encouraging thing to say to the traumatized girl.
The way I perceived it, it means “you went through a lot and yet you kept going, you didn’t collapse, you showed mental stamina, so here you are now, basically unharmed, and from now on you’ll be all right”. The cop and the viewers don’t know whether she really did show mental stamina, and whether she’ll really be all right, but it was something to soothe her.

[sophie2you]

I am wondering because I edited them AFTER the team released it. I need to do a PM to all mods, but the timing is all in TD.

[ajumma2]

I am not watching that drama, but I think I can totally picture a scene where a cop is visiting a victim and say, “You endured well.” Like irmar says, it is a word of consolation and encouragement and it doesn’t sound strange at all in Korean. So rather than changing it to “You were strong,” which is what is implied when he said “You endured well,” I can understand why the subber translated it literally. It doesn’t sound strange to me in English, but maybe because I know Korean. But it looks like irmar, who is not Korean, seems to also get that sentence in English. Also, I’m sure there are English editors for that drama and if they hadn’t changed it, it probably didn’t sound too awkward to them, either.

Having said that, if it sounds really strange in Spanish or any other language, you should definitely change it in your language to convey the meaning correctly and make it flow better.

[irmar]

Now, I would love for you to tell me, is there any other way to tell a crime victim an encouraging word besides ‘‘you endured well?’’ and I mean in Korean.

It would be helpful if you told us, in English, what you would consider more compassionate - taking into account that he is not a friend or family member. I’m trying to think of alternative ways but right now my mind is stuck.
“You showed great courage. Now it’s over.” Something like that? But “great courage” is too much. It would imply she actually did something to confront the kidnapper. We saw that she and the others mostly just sat there and cried or screamed, and the policeman knew nothing about it because he wasn’t watching the drama.

I think it is also a cultural thing. I remember when there was a serious earthquake or something, many years ago, in Japan. They showed the victims in the news. If they were Greek or Italian (and I suppose, Spanish and Latin American too, as we share more or less the same type of behaviour) you would hear them crying, shouting, at least talking loudly, either anxious or angry or whatever, complaining about the government’s tardiness in providing shelter and food, freely showing their emotional turmoil. But those Japanese people just sat there at the border of the road, composedly and even smiled politely at the reporters. Although they had lost all their belongings and some of them their loved ones. I remember it to this day, such was the deep impression it made on me.
I have come to understand that East Asian culture puts a high value on being stoic, enduring with dignity. And that’s why the verb to “endure” might have a greater impact and importance on them than it has for us. Like a badge of honour or something.

That’s just a feeling I have, nothing scientific! And, of course, it’s our job to translate this feeling into our own language, by changing this verb if needs be.

[ajumma2]

Hi angel,
There are many different ways of consoling people, but not always with words. I have limited time this week, but if you can give me the exact scene timing, I could take a look some time this week.

[ajumma2]

You seem to understand East Asian culture well.