MACHINE TRANSLATION NOTICE!

[zenzop]

it's nice to see that everybody is working on improving quality. Definitely a step in the right direction.

[ossan]

We are having two problems in the Japanesee subtitles.
One is that machine translations are being uploaded by anonymous uploaders.
Fortulnately many users post a comment notufying others that it is a machine translation.

The second problem is that we have a user, previously logging in as gangfan and now gang2fan who posts obnoxious comments
against people to warn others that a sutitle is a machine trtanslations. This user needs to be banned as soon as possible for his repeated and continuous behavior.

Is there a Moderator who can help?

[scooby007]

Firstly, I suggest you apply to be admin for that section here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1996&start=195#p44510

I was certain we had a Japanese admin, but he must have left/retired.
If you do choose to become admin, general guidance and rules will be sent to you and you can moderate the Japanese section.
It's best we have a native speaker.

Secondly, we don't ban users just like that without giving them a warning first. As the Japanese section doesn't have an admin at the moment, he's probably as upset as you are about the machine translations, just doesn't/can't express himself amicably.

The Japanese section doesn't seem that busy with the amount of uploads coming in, so can't imagine it would be a difficult job for you, as long as you have an hour to spare and to check it every couple of days.

Do consider joining and helping the community.

PS: Can't find a user by that name, must have deleted his account. User search is case-sensitive.

[ossan]

Thank you for your response. Firstly, I misspelled that user's name, it is gan2fan, formerly ganfan.
Also he is not upset at those who upload M/Ts. He is attacking those who post warnings that it is a M/T.
This user has a history of obnoxious behavior.
I looked at that link and while I could probably swing it time wise, I don't know if I have uploaded enough subs.
I did several when we went into a semi-lockdown here in Japan last year.But haven;t done any this year, I think.
Anyway, thank you very much for your attention.

[scooby007]

The fact is you’ve been a member for over 8 years. Higher upload count is normally for newer users to avoid giving admin powers to someone who may misuse it.

Just apply, explain lack of uploads and put a link to this thread with your post stating I sent you and I’m sure it’ll workout.

Or contact smallbrother by PM. He’ll take care of it. And give you access to admin guide topics.

Good luck

[ossan]

Thank you very much.

[DatDudeCee]

QUESTION: What LANGUAGE or LANGUAGES are the MOST REQUESTED Languages on Opensubs??? I'm looking for the One, or Few (maybe a LIST of) Languages that get REQUESTED the most..or Language Requests that don't get filled often. Lately I've decided to really give back to the site so I've been on an "Upload FRENZY" LOL. I figured the best way help the site is by uploading "First" and "Improved" Subs wherever I can. Even if a word is outta place, or the Grammer is fucked up..Native speakers of other Languages will be more MOTIVATED to apply those Minor corrections to an already existing sub file... instead of having to Translate and Upload an ENTIRE File of Subs (which is basically what I do). I'm a Native English speaker (Only Language) so I rely HEAVILY on Machine-AI for sub translation to AND from other Languages...and improve what I can by Proofreading the English version. So I'm looking for the Languages that DONT get translated often (and/or Requested Often) and perhaps fill a niche of some sort. Sorry this is so long...Thanks in Advance.

[SmallBrother]

Thank you very much for your positive thinking and your intentions to "give back to the site".

However, I am afraid that making and uploading machine translations will not fulfill your intentions. On the contrary, downloaders will be frustrated and disappointed by the poor linguistical and technical quality. Native speakers will not be very motivated to correct those poor subtitles, since it is not a very rewarding task and/or very time consuming. And machine translations demotivate human subtitlers, because machine translations are always sooner and thus 'stealing away' most of the downloads.

Please refer to what I wrote on your profile page and maybe for some more understanding, translate the topic I wrote in Dutch on "The seven traps for the beginning subtitler".

[DatDudeCee]

Machine Translations have come A LOOONG WAY since THIS Forum post was opened Years ago. It's 2022 as of THIS post...and GOOGLE IS NO LONGER THE LEADER IN MACHINE/AUTO TRANSLATIONS anymore. And creating and/or "fixing" an already posted sub will ALWAYS be less time consuming than creating a whole new one from scratch. BTW...Fun Fact: Subtitle CREATION/TRANSCRIPTION Software is WAAAAY BEHIND Machine TRANSLATION AI. I've checked. Most of the Uploaders and Admin usually Download the Mainstream and Popular stuff from other sites. There are a lot of good shows that don't hit Mainstream that are left UNSUBBED or SHIT-Subbed for this reason. To give a specific, personal example...When I got to the Mocro Maffia section of Opensubs, it had really bad dutch machine translated subs that were LITERALLY MISSING half the Episodes dialog. I spent hours Machine Translating, fixing grammar and context, and getting the ENTIRE 3rd and 4th season Mocro Maffia (and few other movie) subs together. Admittedly, the first copies had a few mistakes in NUMBERING... (I'm still beginner status) but I was really getting better at fixing errors and I presented a solid, understandable, and Enjoyable Subtitle that got HUNDREDS of Downloads. I literally made the site BETTER with my Subs bruh. The Subs that I created were BETTER than what was there...on a series that's Popular, but NONE of the Admins and Main Uploaders really made time to sub. Why wasn't there a clause in this No Machine Translation RULE to protect my subs even tho they were a DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT to what was there. And to add insult to insult.....the CRAPPY HALF EPISODE SUBS ARE STILL THERE!!! Me and SmallBrother are going to continue to disagree on this Topic. I WILL however, respect the rules and not post any more of my "Corrected and Edited Machine Translation" subs on OpenSubs. I have posted them on another popular site but I really feel both ME And Opensubs missed out on a Great Opportunity to produce some great quality subs together. Opensubs is literally the BEST sub site on the Web so I'm a little upset this didn't work out. This wasn't meant to inflame any anger...so please take this as a simple Plea to change and/or amend the Rule. Thanks

[scooby007]

After a discussion with oss and SB a few years ago, I'm under the impression that AI translations are now allowed only if they meet the following criteria:

1: It is not for a movie or TV series that is pretty popular and that will have a close to retail/verbatim standard subtitle soon anyway.
2: The translation isn't complete jibber-jabber rubbish. In other words, when checking from "show preview" the text makes no coherent sense at all.
3: Some attempt has been made to clean the subtitle as best as possible.
4: Clearly marked/uploaded as a machine translation with comments stating it is and such.

So for example, I saw a single and only subtitle yesterday for a movie that was uploaded 10 years ago and only had around 300 downloads. For that type of movie I would reluctantly allow an AI translation that meets the above minimum standards.
For the upcoming "The Batman" movie, I wouldn't allow it.

Unfortunately, for some foreign shows, even platforms such as Netflix these days has subtitles that are different to the audio being spoken.

So speak to SB in PM and if above terms can be met, he may allow it. He said machine translations put off actual translators, but actual translators in my opinion ain't going to be wasting their time translating series subs that aren't popular or in demand anyway. Highly unlikely.

I want to be clear, I am still not a fan of AI translations and may still choose to "shoot on sight" any AI translated sub that doesn't meet the above criteria as a minimum, but may also be forgiving and allow it for those movies/series that would never have subs for them.

There is no guarantee that any admin would be happy with a machine translation and they still have the right to remove them. As is their discretion.
Thank you for understanding.

[SmallBrother]

@DatDudeCee:

I am sorry, but pretty much all your arguments are either irrelevant or already discussed. One more time, I will try to make some things clear.

1. I agree that translating machines have improved a lot. But "improved" is relative. Still I see many 'twisted' sentences or even completely wrong translations. Obviously this happens more easily with sentences being split into multiple sequences, which is typical for subtitles. On top of that, the translation of a machine will never be as good as a human translation. Think about it: a machine translation will not be able to understand context, will not be able to watch the video, etc. So it will not know if "you" is singular, plural or the polite form. It will not know if "I'm fine" means "I'm not ill" or "I don't want another drink".

2. But even if the translation would be perfect, subtitling is not only translating. It also importantly involves technical aspects. Although translating machines have evolved in translating, they still don't have a clue about subtitling. It's a beginners mistake to think that a good translation means a good subtitle.

3. Hundreds of downloads doesn't mean the subs are good. Maybe it means that hundreds of people were disappointed.

4. Your Dutch subs for The Outfit had several 'bad' markings and several 'upset' comments, within only a few hours in the early morning (NL time). Trust me, that doesn't happen a lot and only with pretty good reasons.

5. As appeared later, a (pretty good) human subtitler (not to be confused with translator!) was already busy with making subs for The Outfit. Thank god I removed your machine translation on sight, otherwise the majority of the downloads would have gone to the poor quality machine translation, instead of to the high quality human subtitles, and so frustrating this human subtitler big time, if not driving him to completely give up finishing his work.

6. You are saying in a topic in the Dutch section "Of course I would only suggest doing this for the "Not-So-Popular" movies and TV Series that don't get a lot of buzz as the Skilled Uploaders/Transcribers usually dont bother with those." Then why are you uploading for The Outfit, which is pretty recent and pretty popular?

7. If you are a beginner, and you never made a good full subtitle from scratch, how can you know that correcting a machine translation is faster? I did both, and ironically, I found that fixing up a machine translation to high quality, meaning following all subtitling guidelines, DOES take more time. On top of that, it is very likely that some left-overs are still overseen. In other words: fixing up a machine translation a little bit will leave you with poor quality. Fixing it up to the max will cost MORE time and be of a LESSER result.

8. The argument that 'first version' machine translated subtitles can be corrected doesn't make sense. Within that same logic, you could upload subs with only the first half of the movie and stating it's easier and faster to add the second half instead of making the entire subs. The idea is that downloaders can use the subtitles provided to watch a movie or tv-show, NOT to provide a work-in-progress medium.

Etc. etc.

So yes, I am afraid we will continue to disagree.


@Scooby007:

First of all, I don't remember things as you describe in your four criteria. I do remember machine translations are officially banned site-wide, but the final decision to delete or not would be left to the individual admin. See the first post of this topic.

2: The translation isn't complete jibber-jabber rubbish. In other words, when checking from "show preview" the text makes no coherent sense at all.

The problem with this is that "complete jibber-jabber rubbish" is pretty subjective. On top of that, translation machines HAVE evolved pretty much, so it will never anymore be "complete jibber-jabber rubbish" like it used to be. In that sense the evolution of translation machines is a disadvantage, because a quick look at the preview will not so easily anymore point out a machine translation, but actually watching the whole movie or tv-show WILL. So this 'preview-method' cannot and should not be one of the criteria.

3: Some attempt has been made to clean the subtitle as best as possible.

It is impossible to draw this line. What is "some attempt" and "as best as possible"? Is it enough if someone removes all the "ah" and "hm-mm" and song lyrics? And if someone spends 20 hours on fixing things up, the subs may be close to perfect. Is it then still a machine translation?

He said machine translations put off actual translators, but actual translators in my opinion ain't going to be wasting their time translating series subs that aren't popular or in demand anyway. Highly unlikely.

I know for a fact that some subtitlers WILL and HAVE put time and energy in subtitling old or not very popular movies and tv-shows. I am one of them and I know a couple more. That being said, of course my statement is valid much more for popular and recent movies and tv-shows. I know in the Dutch section a couple of (very good) subtitlers who went flying up the wall, because a (fixed up) machine translation was uploaded while they were not even half way with subtitling the same movie. Some subtitlers literally gave up on translating their favorite tv-show.

While I am not a great fan of machine translations at all, I must admit that I have allowed (fixed up) machine translations for oldies, assuming a decent subtitle will never come.

Ironically, most machine translations which are uploaded are for very recent, very popular movies and tv-shows. Actually, this is how I recognize the latest blockbusters

[DatDudeCee]

@SmallBrother
You actually PROVED MY POINT bringing up that Dutch Sub. The ONLY reason I made that Dutch Sub was because I was actually searching the "Requests" Section and saw, for The Outfit, there were 10 users requesting that movie in the Dutch language. I found it quite Odd as it was a new and VERY Popular movie so I figured: "hell...if noone created a Dutch Sub for it by now...then perhaps I'll create the first one which will motivate someone to improve mine". So I did...I stated it was a FIRST COPY Machine Translation and that I wasn't a native Dutch speaker IN the actual subs and encouraged ANYONE who could write Dutch to repair it. What I did was took the bulk of the work out of a professional translators hands and basically opened it up for ANYONE who could write Dutch to correct and repair errors in Grammar, Sentence Structure, and Context, etc. SmallBrother expects PERFECTION out of every sub created here. While you CAN expect that for the Popular Productions that get all the Uploaders attention...You SHOULDN'T expect that for the less-known or lesser marketed movies that don't get a lot of buzz. We ARE NOT arguing if Machine Translations are AS GOOD or Better than Human translations (you seem to keep bringing the argument there). This argument is more of a "What do you do when you have a Movie/TV Series You wanna see with either NO SUBS..SHIT SUBS..Subbed in another Language, etc". You would tell us to just LEAVE IT BE...instead of at least TRYING a Machine Translation so SOMETHING quality is up on the Board.

[mikegold]

I wanna say that long time ago, and now my thought become true, that's awesome.

[arcchancellor]

@DatDudeCee

1. You don't have to SHOUT. We can also read normal writing quite well.

2.

What I did was took the bulk of the work out of a professional translators hands and basically opened it up for ANYONE who could write Dutch to correct and repair errors in Grammar, Sentence Structure, and Context, etc.

Even though you may think so, this is not something for which a medal should be awarded.
99% of all users do not make any improvements to such subs. They use the bad subs as they are and curse about it and we have "rotten apples" in the can and thus lower the quality level.

3.

SmallBrother expects PERFECTION out of every sub created here. While you CAN expect that for the Popular Productions that get all the Uploaders attention...You SHOULDN'T expect that for the less-known or lesser marketed movies that don't get a lot of buzz.

Yes, he/we do, and that's exactly what we expect. And why not?
How to explain the thought behind it to you? I don't know.

4.

...instead of at least TRYING a Machine Translation so SOMETHING quality is up on the Board.

Right. Something...
And this is how it begins to go downhill.
Those who are satisfied even with poorer quality can be happy with it.
If a user wants to, he can machine translate and use the subs for himself, but not upload them to the site.
Peroid.

@mikegold

I wanna say that long time ago, and now my thought become true, that's awesome.

Yes, that's nice. However, SB has already explained this very well several times.

[SmallBrother]

@DatDudeCee:

I don't see how I proved your point with "The Outfit". The English subs are available since April 7. A decent human translation takes on rough average at least 15 hours. Given the fact that many people have a full time job and family and friends to give their attention and time before doing their hobby in left-over time, it's not reasonable to expect any custom translation to become available within less than five days - that's when you uploaded your machine translation. Once again, actually this is a great example how a poor machine translation can seriously frustrate a good human translation on the short term and significantly reduce overall quality of subtitles and number of custom translators on the long term.

Neither do I see what makes you say I expect perfection. I consider half of the Dutch subtitles only mediocre and far below my personal standards. But I let them be, for the sake of all the people who are happy and satisfied with it and to stimulate the people who are making subtitles by themselves(!) I don't expect perfection, but I reject machine translated trash. That's not the same.

I am sorry to say, but it seems like you don't have a clue whatsoever about what it takes to make a subtitle, what is "quality", what is and what is not happening on the site and what people want. Yet you are and remain convinced your idea is a great idea and you don't want to hear anything else. I am willing to discuss anything with anybody, and so I have done also here, but slowly slowly it feels like I am wasting my time.

Please do not upload machine translations. Anybody who is satisfied enough with MT (Machine Translations) made by AI (Artificial Incompetent), can make them within one or two minutes.