Linguistic Team International Forum

How I see it:
You are using concepts no matter if they are appropriate or not. You take these concepts so serious, that you are just calling on them again and again. That's like you have to fill out a blank and then hand it in at the civil service, a government agency, respectively. There you start wondering, how they can take their own process seriously. This is what I mean with bureaucracy.

A way out of it might be the following:
1 . For talking with persons who are relatively new: Before answering them, read and understand the whole thread. Look, what the person asking is coming from by reading their other threads. This way you make sure, you don't give them the same information for the 50th time. I know, that will take longer, but it ensures you are giving useful information. Nobody has any benefit from large threads where they can find the same information again and again. And if the person is talking about subtitles, you should watch the subtitles first. To still make the person feel good, you can write: "I'm now looking into it and are responding after I looked at it which will take approximately two days." So the person knows, that there will be an answer soon and doesn't think he/she is completely alone while you are investigating the case.

2. Considering the special case here, we should be more careful that there are not two videos which are the same with a different transcription or at least should name one of them "obsolete" or something which everyone understands. A check for that should be done, everytime somebody works on anything related to that video. If there is a problem encountered, investigate the case. If nobody, who was involved before, answers within two weeks you just rename the one video obsolete, which you think is the obsolete one.

3. When there are not very many people active in the community, it might be more effective to change the approach. Somebody who knows its stuff should work with somebody who is new. And when the old guy says "It's done" then there should not be another proofreading stage. Of course you need to trust the old guy and he should have the heart to do so and not stick to the old process, just because it's the process.

If you strictly hold on to the several proofreading stages it might take several years until the subtitles or a transcription are online for a specific video.
I hope you are with me, when I say, that we want to inform as many people as possible in a reasonable time while taking care of the quality. I might state, that every day more than 80,000 people die of unnecessary causes like air pollution, hunger, tobacco, aids, alcohol, polluted water, suicide, ... I looked carefully into that case. If you don't believe me, I request you to investigate it for your own.
By knowing that, could you still believe in a system which makes the work slow and ineffective?

4. Referring to the German subtitle section, I am able to tell you, that the several proofreading stages do not work in the way you think they do. There are several subtitles, where I was the LAST proofreader and needed to change about 70% of the sentences, including strange translations, wrong grammar and so on.
The quality of a transcript or subtitle depends much more on the individuals who are doing them than how many are working on them. So if you know somebody, who is able to work on his own and produces good quality (which needs to be stated by an old guy first), let him do that work and don't put a spoke in his or her wheel.

5. The guys which are the best in their native language should do the first and the last stage. In between that you can put other guys (if there are others, not like right now in the German section) to look for minor changes necessary. So they still feel, they are doing something useful. If a guy with less skills does the first step, his work often is obsolete to a large extent. Keep in mind, that the English language might be easier than others, because there are less rules (I'm aware of). German, Russian, French, ... are for example highly complex languages with far more rules. Maybe you know what I mean if you speak some of them and English. I don't know right now, how I could explain it in a better way.

6. To find out which guys are the best, you need to look at the work they have done before. If somebody does a transcript and there are only 3 minor changes necessary by the guys after him, he might be the guy who does the first and last step. That way the people working on a transcript or subtitles can find out together, who is best suited for the first and last step. You might communicate that, when new people arrive. Also a person who just arrived some days here in the forum should be at least once put in between two guys that have experience and so they are able to asses the skills of the new member. That way, the new member does not feel lost and starts learning from the older guys right on the first day.

7. Why the best native speaker has to do the last step again? To ensure, there were no mistakes added by the people in between. I don't say, that somebody does that by purpose, but they might not know any better. So the last guy can tell them, what mistakes they did and they will know this new relevant information for the future.

To put it in a nutshell:
This approach needs only two people working together for releasing a transcription or subtitle. If someday there are more people than we need, they are put in between and just increase the quality further. I suggest that always the same two people work together for several months: At least one of them should have high language skills. When new people arrive we might form new teams as stated before.

I hope I didn't sound arrogant in some ears or offended anyone, I just tried to state it clearly. When answering to this, please refer to the numbers I used.

After talking about those suggestions, we should make a separate thread or document for it, where the concrete approach is stated in a short and easy manner for everyone. I will do it, if you want me to. But first I want to know, how you are thinking about it and why.
If then a new person arrives, the first guy who meets him/her gives him/her the link of that thread ONCE! Everyone of the old guys should be informed about that procedure, when we are done.

Lizard, can you teach me the system so I can help answer people's questions better, and solve problems?

@lizardman (Please, may someone tell me, how the name reference in this forum works? I have no idea ...)

And write it down somewhere, where I am able to read it too.

I'm not getting mad at you or something. At least how I see it, I'm not Ego-driven, but really want to improve the process for the means of all. But if you tell me so, I probably was a bit too direct and need to work on that. And of course I did not fully understand your processes myself. But that's why we are talking about it. My information about that mainly comes from my personal experiences in the past weeks and Sue's lecture about the Linguistic Team, which I want to translate into German in the near future. Hopefully franky is able to tell me more specifics soon.

I want the subtitles online in a reasonable time, because I think, the videos are essential for the life of many people, as the information was for me. That's why I did them first. It does make sense somehow.

I will look into your post and give my thoughts more specifically on the weekend, when I have time to do it. Thank you for answering.

Ok, I had a talk with franky yesterday to ensure, I did understand the process. I will answer your questions now as precise as I can.
Make sure to read the whole text first, because some of your questions might be answered later in it.

1. People, who are finding their way to this forum may like to help changing the world and understood some parts of the ideas of the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project. However, they were brought up in a different way. With "make people feel good" I was referring to the fact, that we do not want to kill motivation by not answering. Because if somebody doesn't know what to do, he will probably look somewhere else and go on with something else. I'm not talking for all people, but the majority coming out of our current system.
Answers, that have no new content are worthless and might also kill the motivation of some people. Answering them without research often does not help that and might be counterproductive. That was all, I wanted to state with that point.
You feel, that you have too much questions to answer and not enough people that answer them. That's a valid point, but nevertheless answers just for the sake of answering do not benefit anyone. That's a reason more to do an overview of the most important points, so you just need to post one link, where the most common questions of newbies are explained. I myself would be glad to answer questions of people who arrive in the German section. Sadly enough, there are none for now. At least that enables me to do more subtitles.

2. I'm just suggesting that whoever starts a subtitle or transcript checks for duplicates first. We do not need a separate entity which looks for duplicates the whole day. This will take only a few seconds for a person who is motivated to work anyway.

3. I see it the same way you do. If there are enough competent volunteers, that's a great system and it will give birth to some good transcripts and subtitles. And the system I was recommending will look the same as yours, when there are enough volunteers in it. However, there are not enough volunteers right now (speaking for the German section). So it is necessary to adapt to the current situation while working on changing it. I'm not proposing less proofreading without regard for the quality, but to change the process, if the volunteers are good enough. Deciding if we do so, is a team decision as you also stated. It's great, if you work to get more people on board. I for myself will go on doing subtitles while you are doing so. So when the new people arrive, they don't find a forum which is completely on hold. I am only telling you, what I experienced when arriving. There were too many projects in an uncompleted stage, because there were no volunteers anymore. Franky and I are still working to finish them. It's great, if you are working in teams, which are able to adapt to the specific situation. But that's not the case in every team.

4. I am sorry, if you are annoyed by my use of old language. Until there is a new one and I am sure, that everyone who I'm talking to understands it, I will use it. Right now, I need to use the old language and need to say "you think" to state, that you have experienced certain things and want to give the information, which you extrapolated from them to make the point clear as it looks to you with your background. If you don't "think" that this whole topic is worth debating, I would like to know, why you are giving your point on that then. We have no studies or surveys done (correct me, if there are some), which we can refer to, which way is better. So that way we can only state, that our experiences differ and suggest a change to try a new approach locally, which may work better.
Nobody considers, that his proofreading should be the last. It is a team decision, whoever is best suited to do the first and last proofreading. That's all I'm saying. So we do not really differ there.
If we work on a project until nobody sees any mistake anymore, I can ensure you, that there will never be a release of a German subtitle as long as I am here. That probably sounds highly egocentric in your ears, but let me explain it. Some of you might experienced the following phenomenon: No matter how often you proofread a text, you will always find some minor mistakes. Obviously that depends on your language skills. We all are no robots that are able to find all mistakes in a given amount of proofreading stages. We will always overlook something, which we might find at the next stage. We will acquire new skills by doing so. That way there will be more mistakes visible next time.
Yes, we were just talking at cross purposes. It's clearer now and we see it the same way. And the way you describe it is exactly the way franky and I work. We are using references of German language rules (The Duden is the common German reference - perhaps comparable to the Oxford Dictionary in English.) when we change something in the most cases, to show clearly why a sentence has to be changed.

5. I read the information at the destination of your link. And I can say, that I gladly understood all of that (at least how I am able to sense it myself ) while working with franky. Nevertheless, it was a good link to ensure that.
To the obsolete work of people with less language skills: If you with a higher language skill are doing the first transcript you just need to hear and write down. Of course, you think of what you will write, before you do it. There is not a big difference if another guy with less language skills does that and you correct him, because his information helps you understanding, what is said. You have a point there and I completely agree with that.
I was referring to subtitles. If somebody with less language skills translates a transcript into German, you need to find out first, what he meant and need to look, if this fits to the English transcript. You also need to ensure, that he did not just translate it literally but translated it logically, so the sense is preserved and it is a sentence that somebody would say that way in German. So by looking at a translation with many mistakes it makes the work you are doing harder in a way. It would be much easier, if the guy with the higher language skills does the first translation, because the people after him just need to say okay or do minor changes, but need not to change every second sentence completely and correct the spelling in the other ones. That is wasting people's resources. It wastes the resources of the guy with less language skills, because many sentences of him are not used. Also it wastes the resources of the guy with higher language skills, because he needs to find out, what the first translator was thinking and wanted to say instead of just translating it himself.

6. You are a lucky guy, because we are doing exactly that for the past weeks. I would not recommend anything without trying at least the important parts first. That would be very stupid.

7. Great. If we would write it down somewhere, so the next people arriving know that from the start, this would be the way to go.

Quoted

- Give me feedback about my answers.

Done

Quoted

- Seek further information on what remains unclear.

I don't see anything unclear right now.

Quoted

- Test your ideas for improvements, come here with results (this is more long-term).

Already working on it for some time.

Quoted

- If you find some of my (scattered) suggestions for how things can be improved meaningful, seek information on how to help out with them (this is also more long-term).

I honestly have no idea what you want to tell me with this sentence. Could you explain it in other words? Especially I do not understand the last part with "help out with them".

Hopefully my answer made some more things clear. I would like to stay in contact, when anything is still unclear and I will come back, when we tested the workaround for few people long enough. If you want to know of the reasonable quality I'm always talking about, just wait for my correction suggestions of the English transcript for Future by Design. :P
And please don't take everything too serious. There might be some strange humor hidden somewhere, which you could interpret as Ego-driven again. We are all here to have fun and do something, which we think is the right thing to do.

Hey, Ossi, about 1. I think what you are looking for can be located here Questions And Answers Revised And Sorted By Subject, For Consultation.

Thank you Christos. You are really the first guy, who sends me this link. When you are new, you don't understand the forum structure, so I didn't find it myself.
It is much to read, so I will look into it later, but I appreciate your help.

Well, I found it chaotic at first, but as you experiment with it, you can find what's more important for you and favorite it so you are notified about any updates. Let's remember that this is a global team, and it is normal for the forum to look big at first. I always say to the newcomers "feel free to explore the forum, and experiment with it".

Quoted from "lizardman"

I think you make a valid point as well. I have a question that I would be very interested to hear your answer to. Why do you think that in a team that is a few years old, a new person can come and be disappointed by the answers he/she gets? Why is this happening even after a few years of existing of the team?

I would say that there is not enough structure in the team. That means, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. You all have the intention to help, but that's not enough. I'm proposing the possible workaround again: There should be one direct overview link which explains the main procedure in the forum for newcomers in an easy to understand manner. This means no long text, just right to the point the most important information. After this information, it is stated how to go on and who to talk to first. There could also be further links proposed at the end, referring to Questions And Answers Revised And Sorted By Subject, For Consultation for example. But this question and answer section is too much to start with and goes too fast into detail without giving a brief overview.

This overview link should be provided by whoever answers the first Email of a newcomer (usually Sue?). First we have to create this overview. That's what I'm telling all the time. When do we start? What do you think is the most important information, a newcomer should get? 1. Brief explanation of the forum structure, 2. How a translation and subtitle cycle works, 3. Main used programs 4. Who to talk to next, 5. Links to additional sources
It's time for your suggestions. The more concrete you get, the better! I don't know what information to find on the new website you were talking about and how this is related exactly. Nevertheless the web master might be happy, if we create the content first and he just has to put it online. So I see no problem in doing it now.

Quoted from "lizardman"

By the way, do you know about our bi-weekly voice meetings?

Yes, I know about them, but I'm still too shy to join.

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To whoever reads this:
I'm currently working on a web tool which automatically creates srt-files out of a Titanpad (maybe I will add support for other text platforms in the future), so that it can be uploaded to DotSub directly after this. My idea was to save one step and nobody needs to paste the changes done in the Titanpad line by line into DotSub or a srt-file by hand. That may save a big amount of time for the proofreaders. It will only be necessary to upload the srt-file to DotSub created by the tool and nothing else. The core functionality is already working locally on my computer. Is someone able to provide a server that supports PHP, where we can upload this tool, when it is finished (this will take about a week more, if I am motivated to work on it, because I know it will be used)? The best would be embedding it into the forum in some way. We will test it out in the German team first. If it works good for us, we will then propose to use it on an international level.

To show it to you, I added two screenshots. The second screenshot shows, what happens after clicking on "senden" (means "submit" in English, the submit button text changes with the language on your computer right now). As example I used a Titanpad for about the first 10 minutes of Future by Design. There are time codes, English text, German text and German explanations in the Titanpad. Using some simple marks in the text, the web tool understands the Titanpad. If you want to know it more exactly, look here: http://titanpad.com/FBD1

Quoted from "lizardman"

If it was as easy as getting together and writing up something, it would have already been done; we've done this many times. But years of experience taught us better. Hence the approach with the website.

So I will just wait for it. There are enough things to do instead.

Quoted from "lizardman"

The server on which this forum is located runs php 5.3. If that fulfills your tool's requirements, we can put it on the server so that it's available for everyone. If you like this idea, can you get in touch with me via skype (I'm metal_owns there)?

Amazing, that would do it and I was hoping that exactly this is possible. I already added you in Skype and will tell you, when the core functionality is completely integrated. Minor changes could be done after it was tested in the real environment by different users.

In order to test it locally, do you know any DotSub Video with transcription and subtitles in any language (no problem if I don't speak it), where time codes with milliseconds are used? Of course it should be accessible for me too. I know, that the use of milliseconds in DotSub is possible, but did not find any Video until now that fulfills these requirements. In addition it would be really amazing, if the Video is longer than 1 hour, but that's not necessary, just would help to test it further.

Quoted from "lizardman"

And I'd love to meet with you on one of our meetings. It's fun, you should definitely come. Besides, shyness is so boring.

The time will come. I was just joking around a bit, with some flavor of truth in it. We will talk in a meeting in the near future, when I'm back at home in the beginning of the next year.