Crowdsourcing: subtitles for foreigners

[Loïc PEREZ]

Hi everyone !
First of all, thank you Syn and Papa Gates for creating this amazing website (I keep this short but I could write pages).
I create this little topic just to talk about subtitles.
I am French and I had the chance to learn a bit of English at school. So fortunately, I can understand the explanations of the videos.
However, some of my friends from France and other European countries would like to be part of the “family” (community wasn’t strong enough) but they can’t understand half of what is explained.
I think language should not be a barrier to learning how to play the guitar. By that, I mean that considering the quality of the content which is given here, it’s too bad that not everybody can enjoy it.
I know the emphasis that the Gates put on community and crowdsourcing and stuff.
That’s why I thought it could be great if those here who are at least bilingual could give a helping hand by writing down the translation of the explanations.
There could ba a process of approval by other people or something in order to make sure that the translation is good.
It could make this thing grow even bigger and become a worldwide reference!
Moreover, it could be another way to help and a way to improve this (already awesome) website.
Do you think it’s a good idea?
It might become an actual feature if I’m not the only one who think that.

 

[idssdi]

Ooh that annoying Pretty good idea actually! Ik personally can only help with english to dutch and dutch to english but still a good idea!

 

[idssdi]

Annoying should be ‘is a’. The autocorrect on my phone can be really annoying

 

[Billie M]

This is a great idea!! I’m willing to help on the French translations
It is an issue in Canada as well. I know there’s people who would really love this school but they wouldn’t be able to understand more than half of the things said in the videos.
We all know this is only the 2nd day and this is all very exciting! There’s so much to learn.
But being an engineer student, I can’t help but think about upcoming difficulties that might come with a great idea. That doesn’t mean there isn’t solutions!!!
If you want to add subtitles that’s great, there are more people learning and more people can therefore become part of the community which means more people can help others and more can help them.
Difficulties: –Like Papa Gates and Syn pointed out yesterday, there’s no toleration for bullying and stuff. And you know, there isn’t a universal language for bullies, if it was the case there would be no problem and probably world peace.
-And like Loïc pointed out here, someone will have to make sure the translations are accurate.
Solutions: -The website team is going to need professional translators who can, first off translate the videos and/or verify the accuracy of the translations made by the community (if the community helps on the translation part).
-The team is also going to need people to keep an eye for bullies who don’t speak english. Right now they seem to be doing just fine with only english so far. So if the school adds one language translations at a time, I think this could go really well and it’d be easier to manage that having let’s say 5 languages addition all at once.
Overall this is a great idea, I really hope this will become a nice addition to the school

 

[Loïc PEREZ]

Thank you both for answering and being supportive.
The website team is going to need professional translators who can, first off translate the videos and/or verify the accuracy of the translations made by the community
I’m not sure that there is a real need for professional translators though. I mean, I’m convinced someone can become trustable after being active and helpful to other people for a certain amount of time. However, there could be as I said a system of approval by other “trustable” bilinguals in order to prevent bullying. That could save a lot of money and be viable if a lot of people participate.
The team is also going to need people to keep an eye for bullies who don’t speak english.
There’s actually already an auto-regulation of this problem! I mean: what prevent me from creating a post to insult people in French? The answer is: be reported by other people that can read French. I don’t think there is already a team of moderators of some kind of sort who check all the posts. You see what I mean? I think this community has a way better heart than all the other that already exist. You can see in the posts that people want to honestly help each other and learn from each other.
That’s the reason why I think it’s possible to give the possibility for the community to help by sharing the way they would translate a video.

 

[Billie M]

I see your point and I agree with you
I’ve spent a lot of time on Youtube and still do, so that’s where my remarks come from. The translations on YT videos most of the time are horrible and if you’ve been in a comments section on YT you’d know it ain’t pretty sometimes.
But like you’ve said, it’s different here. Everybody is so nice and helpful and always ready to geek out about guitars and their favourite bands. I think I just got scared for a second that this website could become like YouTube… Some YT communities are great but I think you’ll agree with me that some are…a bit different to say the least.
En tout cas, I agree with you, the community could definitely help out.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

That’s a great idea. Yeah, I think the most active people here should be able to get some kind of permission to make subtitles if they decide to do that. I’m happy to translate the lessons to croatian