What's a "good" volunteer for you? + Helpful guidelines

Contributing
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[quote=“piranna, post:9, topic:10984”]
Wow, even tutoring via Skype, you are really dedicated :open_mouth:_
So in this case, you don’t kick once they are in your team even if it takes you too much time to edit. You prefer to help people in improving their subbing than having a quicker subbing, less editing. Are you doing it alone ? Or your friends are helping you ? Do you think that a minimum of 1 person teaching is enough in a team of 10 persons with 50% of it who needs tutoring ? How many students can a tutor have ?[/quote]_

For the moment, only 3 people out of about 15 or so have asked for tutoring. I don’t know what I’ll do if more start asking for it. I’ll probably not do it for all episodes, but I’ll alternate between them. (How many can one have? Well it totally depends on one’s time, right? )
To the others, I send feedback with the most glaring mistakes and why and how. Which takes much more time than skype, because I also send them links with the grammar or the translation of a word or the meaning of a word.
This whole thing has been started very recently, because frankly I got fed up of seeing the same mistakes again and again.
And I do have a sheet of guidelines I post to everyone at the start of the job. The main contents are always the same, but there are differences from drama to drama. I encourage them to copy paste it to a Notepad text document and have it open when they subtitle. But I suspect some of them have never read it, because they keep doing these things wrong.

When I’ll kick someone out?
It depends, whether it’s a short or a long drama. If it’s shortish, about 16 episodes, I tend to leave the person until the end and then never work with her again (yes, I have lists!!!)
There was a case in a 50-episode series where I was editor but not moderator, with a person who was beyond help; not only that, but I caught her repeatedly using Google translate for whole sentences (I have a nose for it). I pleaded with the moderator to kick her out, as she was making me waste lots of time for correction. The moderator hesitated, then at the end she sent her a very polite letter saying she was not on time for these last few episodes and moreover she has been making mistakes, and “I’m leaving the decision to you”. If it was a bluff, it was a very risky one!. Then the subtitler, very offended and hurt, left by herself. I assure you that letter - I saw it - was the blandest, most polite thing in the world. If I were here I wouldn’t have left her the chance to not leave.
How do I pick them? What is more important to me is not knowledge of English but knowledge of the target language.
English should be good, but the target language should be excellent.

The reason I am willing to dedicate time and effort to bettering those who do know the languages moderately well is not because I’m a philanthropist, but because there are not so many excellent subtitlers, so we cannot be really picky.
I don’t “prefer” helping people to completing the job quickly and well. My ideal would be, in a group of 6 (5 others and me) to have 4 very good ones and 2 in training. More than 2 and it becomes tiring for me.
Yes, I am willing to help a medium subtitler who has the willingness to become a good one. This will naturally give me a lot of satisfaction. But it’s not my job to teach them English if they are really beginners. Nor is it my job to teach them Italian or Greek (their mothertongue), just because when they went to elementary school they were playing with their Barbie under the desk or throwing paper balls with love messages instead of listening to the grammar lesson.
I want to build a trusted group of people whom I will call again and again knowing that with them my job will be easy. This doesn’t mean I won’t take a beginner, if I see they are good. As I said, as long as it’s only one or two in a team, it’s all right.
If there isn’t any previous job for me to check, then I may ask for a trial piece.
I was asked to do a trial piece when I first came here, by klaudiotta, and I didn’t mind at all, although I’ve been a professional translator and editor for most of my adult life, which is quite a lot. The moderator has every right to ask for that: this is the internet, I can say I’m the Pope, it doesn’t mean people have to believe me, right?

[quote]irmar:

Someone who has enough self-awareness and knows their own limitations.

I have a question : does it also apply to moderator ? Because moderators has many projects at the same time. Is it better to respect our own limitations or to accept an extra project because the CM trusts us as moderator ? Which one do you choose ?[/quote]

Either as a translator or as a moderator, one shouldn’t be greedy and accept/ask for too many projects. I’ve seen moderators being very sloppy because of that, both as subtitlers and as editors. They don’t have the time to check the translations of their subtitlers. I strongly disapprove this. They seem to think that a moderator’s job is only to find the team, assign each person their piece and when everything is finished close the episode. Thus you see that moderators have 10-20 projects going on at a time. Even if you don’t do anything else all day than be on viki, you cannot manage so many! On some of them they even translate, but not take the trouble to check their translation and leave typos! [/quote]

[quote]irmar:
2) Someone willing to put in the extra effort to do the work as well as possible, without sloppiness.

There are people who don’t even look for unknown words in your team despite your rules ? I am surprised.[/quote]

Oh dear! Why are you surprised? You don’t know about human nature?

I don’t really know how to make a google sheet, it must be easy, I just never happened to learn. I do try to avoid Google, except for youtube.
That’s why I copy-paste a document from my PC and give it to all subtitles.
It contains

  • the character’s names, their transliteration for Greek (for Italian we leave them as they are) and who they are and their relationship to each other, to whom they speak with “you” and to whom with “thou” (in English it is not obvious, they only use you for everybody, whereas in my languages there are two different forms of address),
  • reference links to dictionaries etc…
  • terms which shouldn’t be translated (oppa, onni, onee-chan etc…),
  • general guidelines (for instance: never leave any English words untranslated, always put a space after a dialogue dash, don’t put breaks when it’s the same speaker etc…)
  • some grammar points
  • the OST lyric translations.

I was thinking I should use a google document that can be updated, but of course you still have to notify everyone that you have updated it. I’ll look into it.

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No one counted the subbers. Just a subjective estimate.

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Not the subbers, the 3000 corrections…

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oh my profile. I subbed 3000+ on that show.

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Ask Piranna or any of the French mods or editors for a look. It is so pretty.

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I think you are jumping the gun :slight_smile:

  • I said clearly “will try to stay” as they are or we are volunteers we cannot force or will not force them.
  • As a moderator one can least hope, that volunteers will have a sense of commitment, I think someone mentioned this here already"sensibility"
  • I said about the “awol” newbies I’d think twice about them NOT that I won’t consider them or won’t take any new newbies!
  • I clearly stated I like to give to anyone a chance…
    At last of course it’s up to every person what he/she wants or does and how responsible he/she wants to be and I never “preach” that to my team.
    I listed points of a good subber one would wish, of course Im thinking from the point of view of “sensibility” as it is a nice thing to see projects completed :wink:
    It’s even disappointing that I have to ellaborate the said already. :disappointed_relieved:

P.S. Ive have introduced many new volunteers to subbing and the know how on viki, I spent endless hours in writing and answering questions and wrote recommendations.

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The French moderators I have met didn’t ask to pass a test to join a team. They just see recent contributions, no test.
How is your test ? What do you ask ? What’s the level of your test ? How many segments or sentences ? Can you explain more ? Is it representative ? Do you think you can fail the test because of the particularity of the test but doing good subbing ? With your results at this test, do you think you would have passed it ?
Maybe others can try to implement this test. It’s another good idea for helping recruiting people.

But, well, when I hear the word “test”, I’m a little taken aback. It reminds me of school. I would think 2 before involving myself. Do you think it makes people give up before passing the test because in their head, they might think that they are not up for the task, or think that if it’s like school, it might be not as fun as it might be initially ? They might be thinking, oh a test, will I still continue and pass the test on second thought ? I think the concept of a “test” like everywhere can discourage people just thinking about having to pass it.

But if they failed the test, what do you do ? What do they do ? Do they think that they can’t translate on any dramas because I think what you demand, it’s what other English teams demand, about the same level no ? So do they give up on volunteering because of 1 time failure at this test ? I’m just curious about it. I want to see if we can do it too.

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You speak to them ? You also use Skype or other application to do a “first test” ? Which one do you use ? :smiley:
It’s a good idea !

Oh I wouldn’t dare to translate if I haven’t studied it at school xd You’re brave.
Have you ever been asked to pass a test to join a Kor-Eng team ?

Personnally, my teammates and I have some problem with commas, sometimes English subbers put it everywhere, we are lost with so many commas. I thought that breathing was common for all languages, I can tell you that in French, we don’t have so many commas, so finally, what we do is to adapt it in French and not relying on commas of English subbing… Also, some recurrent words can’t be translated in our native idiom like “definitively”, sometimes, I just have to cut it out of my sentence. There are others words I think but I just forget them now.

For note from translator : sometimes, I have to add it because even for I, I don’t know what it is about. It can be a location, a famous brand in an Asian country, an English expression, an Asian expression. Sometimes, English quotations don’t have their equivalent in French. Sometimes it’s an Asian quotation that we just don’t understand and we can’t find the meaning. Also, I don’t think that all viewers have a past with watching dramas so they don’t understand some words.

An other matter for me, it’s the sequence of tenses in English, I think I have to review this lesson because I often found the use of “could, would”, future, present perfect strange while reading English subbings. Maybe, it’s normal that it’s not the same tenses. I have to review it. So I just depend on my French sequence of tenses with subordonate clauses. I don’t rely on English tenses for subordate clauses.

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You speak to them ? You also use Skype or other application to do a “first test” ? Which one do you use ?

  • I meant that I sent messages to them on Viki, lol.

Have you ever been asked to pass a test to join a Kor-Eng team ?

  • Nope. The CM/moderator usually know that I have good intentions about subbing, so they just add me to the team.

I’ve learned French for 3 years, and their grammar and tenses are indeed quite different. The language is also different. For example, in English we say, “I am ___ years old,” but in French it is, “J’ai ___ ans,” which also translates to “I have ___ years.” Lol.

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2 sentences. That’s it! Not my test, one of the chief’s tests.
Level is uh… 40% subber and the other is about… 70%+ fluency (if you look things up) if not this requires close to 100% if you choose not to look things up.

I’m not sure if it’s representative. Chief has worked over 275 K drama. YES! I almost half failed. I did not get the easier sentence down into nice English.
I got feedback. She said I had flying colors for the hard seg but for the easy seg good on accuracy but the English is awkward.

I think it’s an excellent method for showing subbers what we require. You use your ears. It’s relatively easy Korean the first seg. The trick is that it’s annoying to put into proper English structure. It is called “a short audition.” Oh yes that has happened before. On a show where the chief was not comfortable with evaluating a person’s Korean, I just passed on the test. One subtitler said she was not ready. We use our ears all of us so we are VERY VERY VERY VERY flexible in terms of subtitling. Aside from one subtitler, every single subtitler I have ever worked with only subtitles what they know to the best of their ability. We mishear all the time ex:
I heard: I know you got with that woman (I heard have/get so I wrote indulge to shove the NC-17 connotation)
Actually: I know you were with her.
I misheard (together and to have (gachi vs. gatda). It was a screaming seg. Hard to hear a bit.

Aside from…2? People the subbers all don’t have particularly good hearing. We are very very accommodating on this front. I’ve noticed a correlation between fluency and hearing ability. Still there is one non-subber who has excellent hearing. She helps me hear things at times too. For this reason… it does not make sense to have as strict rules as some non-English teams. I heard one mistake you’re out… I sometimes brute force my subtitles so I don’t put in as much effort to making it beautiful. I weigh whether it is better to sub more vs. go back and make the english pretty when I have english editors to clean up. One project at one point had max 7 rounds of edits done…I thought my time was better spent translating accurately.

We don’t demand anything really. If you follow directions we work with you. I have never asked anyone to leave personally. The real “test” is the show itself. When subbers realize their obstacle is harder than they anticipate… the subbing numbers drop for example a realiable subber who is about 70-80% fluent in a harder show can sub maybe 40%? and then he leaves.

It’s a balancing act too because… on harder shows if it’s too hard people run away and then…I am sad and alone :frowning: Personally without the dictionary I am at worst a high-80s% fluent subtitler and best 95+%
But I have bad hearing => constantly at the dictionary. My lowest finishing percentage with dictionary was 89% in a part by myself and highest of course 100%.

We take everyone all the time. Anyone who can deal with the subbing (hearing and translating) and who can follow directions is welcome. I am most annoyed by people whom I feed the vocabulary to after combing through medical documents in two languages and they do not use them… or they know has come up multiple episodes and are not new yet insist on subbing the wrong term the whole series. <= these things waste my time.

If we were ever to look for only subbers who can always do the hardest of subtitles, we’d be left with not many subtitlers. I can count the number of 90-100% subtitlers with my hands.

I guess it is a bit arbitrary. At the end of the day…you are faced with can you or can you not do it. It is not an unambiguous thing. We don’t take any nonsense and it is clear to all parties whether you can or cannot.

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For my team, we do our edition notes for everyone and in these notes, we tell them which lessons to look in our google sheet since we have made a central document so we don’t have to look in many sources. It can be disturbing and makes us lose time and people might don’t want to see 10 links :wink:. We put some time to do our lessons, updating them if we see other mistakes appearing. Which could be a great help, is to communicate in live with them, I did one lesson, one of my friend didn’t understand it really well, so via Google chat, we just talked about it, she could ask questions and have answers right away. It’s more practical for everyone to talk directly than sending emails, waiting for answer, forgetting, sending again because they still don’t understand… too much time wasted.:tired_face:

The French teams that I have worked with have 2 docs : 1 general guideline for newcomers + 1 google sheet (logbook of the drama)

When a newcomer is accepted in a team, we sent him our approval and at the same time the general guideline for newcomers (4 pages), here’s the link but it’s in French, I can’t subtitle it in English for you since I am not the owner of this work https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cMgf_hP8hS7NcGlTgtaLZ_DPObeebFABEblpYeJ3U48/pub.
It explains in summary :

  • All positions in a team : cm, moderator, editors, subbers / segmenters : only them are allowed to segment
  • How to enter a team : look on volunteers wall, send a pm to the moderator, wait for his approval to begin to sub…
  • To read and follow instructions of the moderator in the google sheet if one exists.
  • To wait for the “GO” of the English team to sub 1 ep
  • When we enter the subtitle editor, what do we have to look, the language setting…
  • Rules in subbing : don’t use google translator, punctuation rules, don’t correct parts of someone else, it’s the role of the editor
  • A scheme to explain the steps from the drama release > Segmentation > Subbing + Edition by English Team > GO > Subbing by French Team > Edition by French Editor.

So we ask in our message : to read this guideline for newcomers + click on the link of the googlesheet of the drama + we ask them to read the google sheet because it will explain in details the own team rules and things related to the drama (characters, vocabulary, progress in subbing…). After they read the sheet, they can begin to sub.
For me, the best way is : send guidline for newcomers to read + link google sheet + connect automatically on Google chat where moderator and other teammates are already connected in.
That way, we can greet each other, talk a little about the person and ourselves and then I just explain how the sheet works to the newcomer for each tab of the google sheet : he can ask questions and have answers immediately while navigating with me from tab number 1 to tab number 11 of the sheet. I did it once, it took me 1 hour but at least, I am sure that the newcomer knows how to use the tool we give him and it will be for a lifetime, everywhere in French teams, the sheets have the same pattern so no need to explain it again. After my explanation, he reads the gsheet with the details since I just make a debriefing for him. And after with this knowledge, he can sub. I have to explain him how the fishpole works to fish otherwise, just giving him the fishpole would be like not giving it all.

I can make an improvised English version of this google sheet just to show you the tools we give in a French team. I don’t mind at all. Just wait 1 or 2 days, I will do my own sheet.

I think it’s the same method many French moderators use : open the document while translating. The difference is 1 team = 1 google sheet. We work at the same time on the same document. That’s a really good point to collaborate in the same doc because if something changes, updates… How do you do it ? Do you send the update doc to everyone and everyone deletes the old version and keep the new one ?
And the Googlechat is incredible, I just love to talk with my teammates.
Since Viki doesn’t provide us enough tools to do a collaborative work, we just have to find another communication medium. And it works for us so no complaining among teammates. We understand its usefullness.

I have one question : do you ask the person to not use google translator after your discovery and tell her to try subbing without it ?

How many subbers are there in a team in your language generally ? For us, it’s generally about 10 on dramas of +/- 40 episodes, for 28 episodes, it would be the same amount or half of it, depends on how many subbers are interested, how many episodes, how many are released a week… So can your ideal group work for more than 40 episodes, 2 episodes released a day ? Are they all here each week ? For how many episodes is your ideal group ? I think that it can work for 28 episodes :slight_smile:, but more I have doubts :disappointed_relieved:

When you need more people for a drama with many episodes to sub, or released fastly, you might have to recruit more people who make more mistakes (I don’t include people who can’t speak, read it to be understandable for the natives), with the number increasing, it’s hard to manage them individually and as a whole team. I felt it in edition. It’s hard for us to find people having the standards we seek to be editors and people who want to be editors and have the time, so although the team has increased in subbers, it hasn’t in editors, we have 1 editor (the moderator), if we are lucky, we have 2. But it’s hard to find more. So more parts to edit to the same persons but with more mistakes to correct knowing that the moderator is also an editor, it’s more work for him. We have problems between choosing a little group with competent subbers and 1/2 in training (but a slower pace) or big heterogeneous group to sub faster (but problems with edition).

Sure if it’s like learning a new language, much vocab, I think it’s not the goal of this website to be a complete teacher. You have to talk it, to write it to be understandable beforehand to pretend to the position of a subber.
Yes, it’s not your job to teach them their mothertongue if they have studied it since childhood in school. But my friend for example has learnt Italian, she wasn’t talking, nor writing French for almost 2 years so it’s normal to forget some French rules. Just a reminder was enough for her to sub correctly. Another example, it’s when you go study abroad, you don’t talk or write in your mothertongue in general, I have people who forgot words, expressions. But just a few lessons could make it right.

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2nd PART of my answer, I reach the limit :hushed:

[quote=“irmar, post:21, topic:10984”]
Either as a translator or as a moderator, one shouldn’t be greedy and accept/ask for too many projects. I’ve seen moderators being very sloppy because of that, both as subtitlers and as editors. They don’t have the time to check the translations of their subtitlers. I strongly disapprove this. They seem to think that a moderator’s job is only to find the team, assign each person their piece and when everything is finished close the episode. Thus you see that moderators have 10-20 projects going on at a time. Even if you don’t do anything else all day than be on viki, you cannot manage so many! On some of them they even translate, but not take the trouble to check their translation and leave typos! [/quote]

They surely know that they can’t manage all of these projects. Some do it for fame, some do it to help genuinely because the CM can’t find the right person to do the job, can’t trust… . So question : is it really help ? What could possibly happen to the drama if the moderator accept it or refuse it ?
I heard that moderators who work with a CM on a project, can become the moderators for the next project of the same CM but without knowing it. So if it happened to you, what would you do ?

:blush: Because they must know that the editor will see it, so they don’t know the consequences of it ?
And so do you think it’s a good idea to stop edit his part and asking them to do it again where there are no efforts made ?

Same we have 2 ways of translating “you”.
We have the same contents than yours, I will show you the google sheet as soon as it will be finished.
With google doc, you don’t have to notify people, they can see it in the history of the docs, or navigating easily between the tabs to see modifications or you can add a tab to discuss about it. You can learn how to make a googlesheet on youtube tutorial of less than 5min. It’s just like excel. I was a noob in using sheets, now it gets better, I assure you, it’s really easy but it takes time to do it at first but since the pattern is the same for all your next dramas, it’s just a copy paste afterwards. Just ask me if you have problem with using it, I can help you :smile:

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Oh sorry, my bad. I read it too fast :confused: I skipped “try” and other words, I will pay more attention. I can’t concentrate as I usually do nowadays. So I’m sorry if you had to repeat your words.
I understand your pov now (at least xd). I think that people who post here are dedicated in what they are doing, someone who isn’t dedicated won’t talk here, no ?
Have you introduced other volunteers who speak other languages to subbing ?
Recommendations ? What’s that ?

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Can I know how they know of your good intentions at the beginning ?

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Bonjour freefall :joy:, ah enfin je peux parler en français, je suis pas habituée à parler en anglais et faire du Fr > Eng.

Oui je le traduis aussi comme ça mais parfois, on le voit tellement partout que c’est impossible de placer des “certainement, sans doute, sûrement” dans une même scène qui dure 3 min xd

Ah non les phrases sans subordonnées, ça va. Mais quand y a des subordonnées, je vois pas le lien avec le français, du coup je le fais en me basant sur les règles fr de concordance des temps dans les subordonnées et pas suivant le temps du verbe anglais (t’as le cas avec des phrases avec des si par exemple ou dès que)

Pourquoi je dois te pardonner ton français ? Il est très bien pour moi, faut pas s’excuser voyons xd
Discutez-en ensemble, faut regarder son édition pour voir ce que qui a été corrigé, ça dépend du % de fautes que tu trouves acceptable, moi je trouve que moins de 30 % de correction, c’est bien, en tous cas ce n’est pas acceptable si plus de la moitié a été corrigée.

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I was watching a drama, and the subtitles were coming a bit slow for me and other viewers, so I decided to help subtitle the drama. I told the CM something like, “I just want to help subtitle the episode(s) until the main subbers are online.” She then added me.

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Did you ever think I was sketchy because I kept talking to you in English… I even asked to be mod at the 3,000 sub mark :joy:

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@freefall No! We had already spoke in Vietnamese before, and I looked at your subs, so I knew you were going to do fine. We always speak in English because of me, lol… I’m too lazy to hold and drag each letter for all the accents. :joy:

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I don’t understand what you mean. You have 1 easy and 1 hard sentence to sub. OK. But what’s 40 % subber ? I don’t understand this part and after. A level in percentage ? Do you mean the proportion of correct subbing ?
2 sentences ? Oh, I thought it was more, like 15 at least xd How can we be judged with 2 sentences ? I mean if you just have bad luck and some words you don’t know.

I understand more of your own difficulties. I didn’t know that you could mishear all the time. I wonder if you are so flexible in terms of subtitling, can I also be more flexible in my subs ? Sometimes, I don’t want to change my sentence because it’s what the eng sub is saying, although I can think of a more common way to say it in French. If I had known your subtitles were Very, very, very flexible, I wonder if I can have a tiny more freedom to adapt the sentence in my language.

Yea, I worked with a French team where there were 2 moderators on it : one who can understand the Asian language so she edits first basing on what she can hear, basing on the meaning, if the sentence conveys the right meaning and the other moderator edits after her for all grammar, conjugation, syntax… They make a great pair, they complement each other since the other has a strong suit that the other doesn’t have.

Who said one mistake and you are out ? I am happy not being in this team, can we sub with so much pressure ? Who want to be part of a team like that ? Many people will dislike them. Where is the fun part ? I might have to read it I don’t know how many times to be sure of 0 mistake. That’s the stupidest rule I have never heard of. The one who has fix it, I’m waiting to see their subs if it’s in French. No one does 0 error non stop. We are human, not robot. If people don’t understand this, well don’t listen to stupid people who can’t even make the difference between mankind and robot. Just tell them to get lost.
For me, having about 30 % of sentences which is corrected, it’s good enough, about 30 segments / 100, it’s good. But having more than 50 edited / 100 segments, there’s a problem. If we don’t see the numbers going down, I think we must “threat” the person to be kicked with a warning PM. Maybe, they will get serious to keep their position, if not, we did warn him.

How can you do 7 rounds of edits ? Where do you have so many editors ? xd Incredible. I have to tell my teammates about all I have learned here. We have 1 editor (in the best case 2).

So does he leave on his own free will ? No one pressures him ? And what do you think of the fact that they leave because their fluency has dropped by half ? What would you want to tell them ?

Wow, you must take more than 1h to do this :scream: I see that you’re really serious about your work but people don’t give as much you give them. The same suggestion I have earlier is : if they are asked to do it again with the right words, do you think it’s a good solution ?

Yes, it’s not much. I wonder how you do it with hard dramas.

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Ex de subordonnées ? Oula bon trouvons des ex avec des subordonnées avec SI : Vu que j’ai donné du mien pour faire ces exemples, je te laisse essayer, je te donne en même temps un moyen de t’entraîner :slight_smile:
“Si je mange avec toi, tu me (laisser) tranquille ?”
“S’il a pris les parapluies avec lui, on (être) sauvé !”
“Si nous pouvions le faire, nous l’ (avoir) fait.”
“Si vous m’aviez écouté, elle (rentrer) à la maison.”

Subordonnée avec “après que” :
“Il est sorti après que nous (arriver).”

Subordonnée de condition :
“Je le ferai à condition que tu le (faire).”

ETC y en a plein d’autres…

Oh bah dis donc tu gardes même une copie, c’est du sérieux xd
Euh ouai je sais pas si le google sheet est aussi beau que tu le dis hein, j’ai l’impression que c’est de l’art en entendant les gens en parler.