Division of Labor

[Randrye]

Merry Christmas, everyone. I finally got the subtitles for The Division up, and appropriately, I think it's time to talk about division of labor on subtitling Ross's Game Dungeon.

 

My apologies to everyone for falling so far behind; I finished subbing last year's Christmas episode barely in time for Ross to release this year's Christmas episode. Huge props to Erasmus for picking up some of the slack with the Killing Time subtitles.

 

And that's what I'd like to discuss here. As much as I enjoy making these subtitles it's not fair to people who'd like to work on them, or the viewers that use them, to wait for me to get around to it. So here's what I propose:

 

Right now I'm working on Mage Knight Apocalypse, and expect to have it done in a couple of weeks, call it January 9 (could potentially have it done by New Years but, you know, track record).  I suggest anyone who wants to subtitle an episode say so in a post, name the episode they want to do and state a reasonable deadline. Each user can only work on one episode at a time, and if the deadline lapses, someone else can put up their hand and take over. 

 

This will allow more people to contribute to the subtitles while avoiding work duplication - and the horrible feeling of working on a set of subs for hours only to trash it because someone else's got posted first - and most importantly, get subtitles done faster. What does everyone think?

[danielsangeo]

I fully support this idea.  Subtitling takes a lot of work and time (I should know!), and I would like to take the opportunity to send kudos to everyone who is subtitling the videos now in my stead.  I would also like to apologize that I am not doing the Game Dungeon or "information heavy" videos anymore because I just don't have the time to devote to them anymore, and prostrate myself at the feet of those who are doing them now.  Thank you!  Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

 

In keeping with this great idea, I am going to re-announce that I will be still be doing the English subtitles for any Freeman's Mind, Civil Protection, or other more plot-driven side videos such as "Stranger in Need" or "Galaxy Gulp".  If there are smaller projects, such as "the Sequel to the Halo Video" or blooper reels, I'll do those as well (in English).  Information meaty episodes like Game Dungeon, Dead Game News, etc., I'll leave for someone else to do.

 

I am also trying to keep up with adding the subtitles others produce in any language to place onto the videos.  I don't want to fall down on that again.

 

Thank you again!

Edited December 26, 2022 by danielsangeo (see edit history)

[kerdios]

I would go even further and suggest you segment each episode into 5-15 minute segments , so that way each person can work on specific areas and you'll be able to perform parallel work

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

I strongly recommend the use of a collaborative caption writing program, such as the excellent Captionfy. It is ideal for what you describe. See here. Copy video URL, paste into Captionfy, start off auto-generated captions, and save as collaborative captions. Then, simply write the time left off in Caption Details, and the next interested party can contribute as much as they want before letting the next party continue.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Erasmus Roterodamnsus (see edit history)

[Randrye]

Alright, let's try the two systems in parallel.

I've set up a collaborative Captionfy caption for Conquest Earth here: https://www.captionfy.com/editor/youtube/Pc9e6Y5jzPI?caption=63aa7adf5c6e5ee6a7172d5e. 

 

I'll admit I'm a little leery of Captionfy because 1) it's open to everyone on Captionfy, and 2) I... just don't want to use their subtitle editor. I've got SubtitleEdit customised to the level of muscle memory and I'm not in a hurry to give it up. If we get good collaborative workflow going it'd be worth it but... it'd be a wrench. 

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

Good news: You can upload subtitles to Captionfy as well. So you don't have to compromise. Simply download the existing captions from Captionfy, work on the file in Subtitle Edit, and when your "shift" is done, click the upload button in the editor, and the next person can A) Continue to work on it from there in the editor, or B) Download it, continue working on it outside the editor, and upload it back into Captionfy. And previous versions remain available for download in case of unwanted spam.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Erasmus Roterodamnsus (see edit history)

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

For the record I'm working on Fahrenheit.