Dear WarinW,
I am admin of the Dutch section of OpenSubtitles. I simply hate racism, so I will take any accusation of such very seriously.
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Here are my findings about your subtitles:
● Your disabled subs can still be downloaded here:
https://dl.opensubtitles.org/en/downloa ... 1957855649
● I compared your subs to
all nine subtitles currently available. For several reasons (I will spare you the details) I concluded that you have been using
https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtit ... t-shots-en as source to make your adaptations.
● Comparing these two subs, I found difference like:
• Dee → D
Agreed, "Dee" is not consistent with the use of "J", "T" and "T.C.". But I do not consider this a mistake or misspelling. The guy mixing with turntables in the discotheque is a DeeJay or a DJ... Abbreviation versus phonetic.
• $1 20,000 surveillance van → $120,000 surveillance van
Definitely an OCR error and your correction is correct.
• Det. Freamon → Det. Freeman
According to IMDb Clark Peters is the actor playing "Detective Lester Freamon", not Freeman. No character is called "Freeman". This change didn't make it better, but worse.
• dwarves → dwarfs
I think both are correct.
• llello → jello
"Llello" is Hispanic-origin slang for cocain. In other subs it's written as "yeyo" and 'on the street' aka yayo, llell, llallo and llelo. I haven't found any reference to "jello" as you used. But even if there is, I don't think this is better than "llello". It even may be worse, because the double L ("ll") in Spanish is pronounced as something like in between "dj" en "j". If you choose for more phonetic instead of more Spanish writing, then why only replace the first "ll" and not the second?
• Removing dashes, like
hand-to-hands → hand to hands
weak-ass shit → weak ass shit
congratu-fucking-lations → congratufuckinglations
My knowledge of English grammar is not good enough to know if this is a case of right and wrong, but in Dutch in these cases dashes may be added. But okay, you get the benefit of the doubt.
• Bumfuck → Bum-fuck
Why ADD a dash here? It refers to a hypothetical city in Europe, which could be both. Not a correction of a mistake, at most a personal preference.
• Minor detail: you first line starts with a negative time code (-00:00:00,167). Basically, this is a syntax error. No big drama and easy to fix, but it is not how it should be.
Last but not least:
• You have removed ALL dialogue hyphens (dashes). For example, your line #15 should be:
-Fuck, I said put the basket down!
-Easy girl, chill.
This is a very significant difference and one of the basics of subtitle guidelines. Dialogues MUST use hyphens.
● I have not found this existing subtitle to be
"LOADED with spelling errors" as you claim. Also, I have not found anything being
"a better version of black street slang". Also, I have not seen any
"context decisions which were missing" at all.
Looking at my above examples, I have seen
- very few actual corrections (120,000 → 1 20,000)
- some differences which are only marginal (hand-to-hands → hand to hands)
- very few differences making things worse (Freamon → Freeman)
- a huge significant worsening by removing the dialogue dashes.
● Your end result is very close to the already existing subs
https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtit ... t-shots-en
Besides the text part as explained above, there is only a small difference in timing: approx. 170 ms at the start and approx. 70 ms at the end. This is not enough to justify a separate upload. Besides, you don't state a specific release name, you only write
"The Wire Season 2 Episode 3" so it's impossible to find out anything about synchronisation being better or not.
True, it's not a 100% duplicate, but a so-called "semi-duplicate", which are about as unwanted.
My conclusion:
- Your version of the subs are not added value - on the contrary. The missing dialogue dashes are the main reason.
- Even WITH correct dialogues dashes, the differences are too marginal, to justify an upload, update or deletion of other subs.
- Your subtitles were removed for a valid reason.
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My opinion about the interaction between mrtinkles and you:
● If subs are removed, a clear reason should be given. I agree with you that
"Use existing subtitle: https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtit ... t-shots-en" is not clear. Personally, I would have said:
"Inferior semi-duplicate of https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtit ... t-shots-en"
● Despite the above, this does not justify your immediate comment
"Mr Tinkles is an A-Hole who disabled my IMPROVED SUB. His has SEVERAL SPELLING ERRORS. Only an idiot would attempt to cancel something BETTER than his version."
Calling names is a universal no-go. Simple. See also the forum rules at the top of each page:
"Profanity or any kind of insolent behavior to other members (regardless of rank) will not be tolerated." In your case, I would have written to mrtinkles:
"Why didn you disable my subs?"
Besides, you are referring to "his" subs, but none of the subs are made or uploaded by mrtinkles.
● Your account was set to read-only for this reason (profanity, NOT just for "protesting"). Mrtinkles COULD have done something else (a warning or a question
"why am I an A-hole and an idiot and what makes you think your subs are an improvement?" but then again, also YOU could have done something else. Maybe you remember the sandbox, 60 years ago:
"He started!"
● I have no idea if mrtinkles is white, black, yellow or green. In fact, I don't care. But I have no indication whatsoever that his decision was made on racist grounds. On the contrary,
your (ungrounded and found false) assumption that it was a racist act is in my humble opinion a kind of racism.
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A small reaction to some you said:
● Deleting subtitles is not
"playing Adolf Hitler". It is one of the tasks of admins on OpenSubtitles to delete subtitles and to change the status of any user to their own discretion. Be advised that you are a guest in someone else's private house and the admins are the hosts. If you don't like the house rules or the hosts, nobody forces you to be active on OpenSubtitles.
● It's not very reasonable to expect admins to get two second opinions before setting someone's account to read-only already in general, but especially not after being called an A-hole and an idiot. It is not very likely that a reasonable and adult conversation will happen after that.
And to finish off:
Please allow me to demonstrate the manly behaviour which is
appropriate in this circumstance:
Gee, mrtinkles if my behavior offended you in any way, you have my sincerest apology.
I hope that in the future you and I can work together to make opensubtitles.org an even better website.
See . . .
that wasn't so hard.
It's rather sad to see that someone (of your age) first spends several terabytes on (multiple, personal) attacks, (ungrounded) accusations and (false) claims and then finishes off with a (cynical) apology - and saying
it wasn't so hard.
Actually, it looks like it was pretty damn hard.
To use your own words
Perhaps you should take a break.