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"Claude Almansi started a topic 3 months ago (2013-04-18) Feedback situation on this Help forum boards: Your suggestions to make Amara great ... Out of the so far 50 posts in this "Your suggestions to make Amara great" board, which is the only board where Amara staff can label posts to indicate the progress of suggestions, only 7 have received such feedback labels, of which 3 are wrong and one I can't check: A. Wrongly labeled "Implemented": 1 Add a feature that imports Youtube machine Auto Captions directly into Amara for editing. It still impossible to import YouTube autocaptions directly. B. Wrongly labeled "Planned": 2 Restore the Send a message link in users' profiles. The link has been restored 2 months ago, but the request to change the label made then in a comment has been ignored. Independent subtitle sets for each video. It's now been possible to again differently time subtitles for a video C. (Hopefully) correctly labeled "Planned": 3 Representing each volunteer's work. Give more info about the implications of team settings choices. Reliable history of revisions. D. ? "Planned": 1 Allow us to save & exit "approve"-tasks. (I don't know whether it's been implemented or not, because I don't do such tasks). So that's 3, perhaps 4 suggestions out of 50 that got a hopefully correct developers' feedback, out of 50, on the only board - out of the four boards of this forum - that enables such feedback: a tiny proportion. Situation on the other boards: Updates and News ... 5 announcements, most recent one - Localization of Amara Website updates put on hold - in January: no reply to question asked in comment, no update as to how long this localization will remain on hold. Amara Questions ... 70 questions. No reply from Amara Staff to the ca 18 questions asked after the end of February 2013 Help me, please! ... 76 topics. No reply from Amara Staff after the end of February 2013, except for an April 1st, 2013 comment in t

No reply. Since April 18, 2013, there have been replies to 2 forum topics from PCF Support: - Mami Kawade's "My subtitles are gone" http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/24667 June 29, 2013 (3 PCF Support replies) - Zikoinak's "New editor: translating existing subtitles" - http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/26493 - July 15, 2013 (one PCF Support reply)

"In some video pages where the video language had been selected before the June 29, 2013 upgrade of the Amara software, this selection has been deleted after (by?) this upgrade. " I only listed 29 instances drom 2 sources because I got bored, but I pointed to other sources likely to yield heaps more of other videos where the video language got unselected"

"56 Suggestions for features in Amara, changes in the documentation, suggestions for new articles and much more [Suggestions can be tagged:] Recent Popular Planned In Progress Deferred Implemented Not Taken"

A) Out of presently 56 users' suggestions, only 7 have been tagged by Amara Staff, of which 3 erroneously and one perhaps erroneously: 1 Add a feature that imports Youtube machine Auto Captions directly into Amara for editing http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/9560 : "Implemented" erroneous. 2 Restore the Send a message link in users' profiles http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/10250 : "Planned" erroneous (should be "Implemented") 3 Representing each volunteer's work http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/8513 "Planned" (correct, but some news would be welcome) 4 Give more info about the implications of team settings choices http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/9095 "Planned" (correct, but some news would be welcome) 5 Independent subtitle sets for each video http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/8897 - "Planned" erroneous: this has been implemented. 6 Reliable history of revisions http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/8896 - "Planned" (correct, but some news would be welcome) 7 Allow us to save & exit "approve"-tasks http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/8857 "Planned" (perhaps erroneous: it seems to have been implemented) -> Amara staff should review the topics of this board and tag them correctly. B) Due to the overall lack of official response on the support forum, some users have started using this board not for suggestions, but presumably in the hope that it would get more attention than the other ones from Amara staff. See: - Edit doesn't works anymore http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/25695 by Veroneblack - Why did you remove so many subtitles ? + BETA new editor http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/24682 by Veroneblack Such topics should be replied to by Amara staff, then moved to the proper bard.

"Claude Almansi started a topic 15 days ago (2013-07-14) In some video pages where the video language had been selected before the June 29, 2013 upgrade of the Amara software, this selection has been deleted after (by?) this upgrade. Example http://www.amara.org/en/videos/rVHqxPbw8m90/info/importare-un-file-opml-in-bloglines/ . [Note: this is the same video mentioned in the The URLs of several subtitle sets have changed. Another aftershock of the June 29, 2013 upgrade? topic, because its subtitles have been affected by this change of URL. The issue with its language selection was also pointed out to me by luciab] When I started the original Italian subtitles for this video on May 24, 2013, I selected Italian as the language of the video. This selection was still working when awemaze translated these Italian subtitles into English , French and German on May 25, 2013. But when I checked it on July 12, 2013, because of luciab's comment on my blog, the language selection had been deleted. And it's still deleted now. Consequences: The player in http://www.amara.org/en/videos/rVHqxPbw8m90/info/importare-un-file-opml-in-bloglines/ , which should show the Amara Italian subtitles with "Italian subtitles" preselected in the droplist below it, now doesn't show Amara subtitles and the droplist says "Select Language. See attached novideolanguage_mainplayer.jpg . Only the YouTube subtitles (in red in the attachment) show, not the Amara subtitles. When the Create a new translation! link below the player is clicked, the dialog box requests that the video language be selected and t

Several links to affected video pages, in the rest of the topic and in comments.

"Jules Rincon started a topic 7 months ago (2012-12-28) Starting Jan. 2, we will activate the amara.org domain. Customers can adjust the Amara base URL from universalsubtitles.org to amara.org at that time. On Jan. 10, we will start redirecting all traffic from the universalsubtitles.org domain to amara.org. If you're using our API, please either be sure that your clients will follow redirects, or update your base URL from www.universalsubtitles.org to www.amara.org."

No comments on that topic, so apparently OK.

"Hi, again I have a problem here. Thanks to Amara support, my subtitles once gone after the maintenance were restored and after that I could add some new subtitles to the video I had been working on. That's ok, but when I got back from a couple of days' trip and tried to add new subtitles again, I realized I had to "type whatever I hear". I mean, when I started to translate this video, I translated what the speaker says from English subtitles to Japanese subtitles as I usally do, but now, I have to translate what I hear in the video directly to Japanese. Why is this happening? Does this have something to do with the maintenance? Can anybody help me? " Mami Kawade is member of the TED team and this is about subtitles of a TED team video. I pointed her to Dharma Lee's "I am translating talks, but appears the transcribing system" topic on the same issue in the TED help forum, to which PCF Support (Margarita Shamraeva) replied to use the new editor to get a translation interface. Mami Kawade re-replied she'd done that, but had problems getting the 2 transcripts showing subtitles for the same moment in the video. In the TED support, apart from PCF Support's answer, a how-to about the new editor was added to the Solutions section: http://ted-support.amara.org/support/solutions/articles/107527-the-transcript-is-missing-when-i-resume-my-translation No reply from Amara staff on the general help forum and no tutorial added in the general help solutions section 2013-07-15. Mami Kawade reposted the description of the issue with the new editor on the TED help in http://ted-support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/25107 2013-07-15

In http://ted-support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/25107 , PCF Support explained: "There is a small lock icon at the bottom of the left column. If you unlock it, then you can scroll each list of subtitles independently from each other and align them as you wish."

"tatjana jevdjic started a topic 4 months ago - 2013-04-04 I took to revise translation in enlish http://www.amara.org/en/videos/G6nGLoj4LJPJ/info/conserving-our-spectacular-vulnerable-coral-reefs-joshua-drew/ Amara added it to my tasks, but I could not enter in and edit. The message was something like "Sorry you are not allowed..". The problem is that Amara shouldn't permit me to take it in the first place. I would suggest that you make visible when you click on a name of translator all the files he is presently working on Amara, instead of searching members. Best Tatjana"

No reply. This topic is about a task in a TED team video.

"Veroneblack 2013-07-09 (ongoing discussion) Half of the time when I submit my subtitles the loading still thinking during hours. I can download the subtitles but I can't send it back to the same video. Editing is not working anymore This is happening to me and few other people since your big upgrate, everything was fine before. Here is an example : http://www.amara.org/fr/videos/MctiWJgOXCyL/info/kid-cudi-going-to-the-ceremony-produced-by-wzrd/#video Plus : 'Rollback' seems to be down as well" Following comments: me: rollback didn't work for me either. Verone: http://www.amara.org/fr/videos/Xd7tj3biEGM1/info/skylar-grey-feat-angel-haze-shit-man-dont-look-down/ not even editable from scratch me: able to edit Verone's subs from the subtitle page and to make them incomplete again, so that he could edit them from the main page. Incoherence of this graying out subs marked complete in the main page droplist, while they can still be edited from the subtitle pages. 2013-07-14 Verone: asked me to edit and save the French subs of http://www.amara.org/fr/videos/ASpv6drn0LEm/info/king-los-love-you-down-becoming-king/ 2013-07-15 It worked for me, from the subtitle page

Presently in the Your suggestions to make Amara great board. Amara staff should reply to this topic, then move it to another board: Help me, please, or I have a question.

"Jules Rincon started a topic 9 months ago (2012-10-23) A special thanks for all the wonderful Amara community volunteer captioners, translators, subtitlers, promoters and sharers who joined us in the live broadcast. We'd love to get more feedback about the new Amara platform mockups we shared on the October 23rd, 2012 Townhall. The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXj9Qcneo_s&feature=plcp With Communication Access Realtime Transcription (CART) provided by Jason Bradley from bradleyreporting.com (Thank you so much Jason and Michael!) The slides with the mockups of the new Amara look are here: goo.gl/gPdZe IMPORTANT INFO Before adding more ideas: This forum is an "idea" forum. Every separate post can be voted up or down (and discussed), we can also track the progress of the ideas, to see which ones will be implemented and see how they are progressing. We suggest: Post one idea per topic. Add really descriptive titles. Vote ideas up instead of duplicating, feel free to expand through replies."

So far it is not possible to track the progress of the ideas submitted by users in this board, due to lack of - and lackadaisical - tagging of posts by Amara staff. However, this could be corrected if developers start reviewing the submitted suggestions, and this could help them in applying UXD to further changes they make to the software.

"Claude Almansi started a topic 9 months ago (2012-11-10) Mystery meat navigation where links are hidden and only appear when you mouse over them may be esthetically tempting for designers, but it's a pain for users in general and it excludes users with motor and sight disabilities, as well as those using mobile devices. So please replace such hidden, mouse-over only links by their former directly visible version. Two examples (but there might be more): "Decline task" in videos added to teams who enforce workflowed tasks Actions bottom-right of messages in Amara messaging. Update Nov. 14: the screenshot in the How can I decline a task page in the Amara teams part of the Solutions section here still shows the directly visible version of the "Decline" button"

No Amara reply Comment: See your own How compatible is Amara with Dragon NaturallySpeaking? FAQ - http://support.universalsubtitles.org/solution/articles/49647-how-compatible-is-amara-with-dragon-naturallyspeaking-

"Veroneblack started a topic a month ago (2013-06-29) Firstly, since your last update we lost so many susbtitles. http://www.amara.org/fr/videos/z4f1iVSassHe/info/michael-jackson-smooth-criminal-michael-jacksons-vision/ http://www.amara.org/fr/videos/5JBdZuQlcVBj/info/kendrick-lamar-ft-rza-ronald-regan-era/#video ... Hundreds of them. ___________________ Secondly, I tried your new beta, here is what I think : Subtitling will be a lot slower because we can't adjust subtitles on the timeline (holding left click). Today I spend around 10min to moderate a 5min video (To check if every subtitles can be read easily), with your beta it will be around 1h We lost the 'Re-play last 4s' button as well, 're-play last subtitles' will be a big waste of time to undertstand where we are every time we click on it. And a last thing : 'Tabulation' was so much easier to do play/pause than 'shift+space'. Specialy when you're doing it 100 times per videos. (and so much more convenient to use with 're play last 4s' button 'shift+tab')"

I refered Veroneblack to "My subtitles are gone" for the deleted subs, and added his remarks about time codes etc in the new editor, in the https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApuzSw0MoY82dDlPYnB3cUlwQlNJV2VVWS1XSy1DSWc#gid=0 spreadsheet linked to in Let's try the new subtitle editor and report about it http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/23464 . Amara staff should reply about the new editor, then move the topic to another board (Amara questions?)

"Jules Rincon started a topic 7 months ago (2012-12-20) We're excited to share with you the infrastructure upgrades, as well as the new team dashboard and user profiles. We have some under-the-hood improvements around the corner that will make way for the new editor and streamlined workflow system. Team dashboard New team landing page will direct users towards tasks (or untranslated/uncaptioned videos, if workflows are off), based on their personal language settings. Shows user's active tasks at top, and will generally help people find relevant subtitling jobs for any team, even if most of the recent videos have been subtitled. Updated user dashboard and profiles Users can now see all the activity they've done over time, plus have a nicer layout with larger user avatar (image) and list of videos they've added to Amara. Updated message area Users can now see more details for inbox + sent messages, plus can mark all messages as read. In the coming weeks, we're about to have a bunch of new automated testing functionality come online, which will speed up our test/release process even more. We'll keep you posted!"

1. Team dashboard suggestions remain unusable due to language settings being made even cruder than they were during the Dashboard preview. See "Preview of Amara Team Dashboard" http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/9105 , last comment; "Scrap the team dashboard page" http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/10229 2. Users' profiles: the content of the main (activity) tab has been disrupted by the June 29, 2013 update in many users profiles. This doesn't mean that this topic should be updated, but a new official "Updates and News" topic should be created about the June 29, 2013 upgrade, and the issues with team dashboards and activity in users' profiles should be addressed.

"Anne H started a topic 3 hours ago (2013-07-28) Hi! I'm part of a volunteer team translating the Crash Course subtitles, and just noticed that in several of our videos both the original subtitles and the translations are randomly missing spaces that were there before (for example: http://www.amara.org/en/videos/owRxJImTTlI1/en/77200/ (0:07, 0:16 etc.)). Is this a known bug that can be fixed, or do we have to re-proofread our subtitles and press space a lot?"

I crosslinked to: - "What happened to all the LINE BREAKS within subtitles? They're all gone now. Does it have to do with the upgrade?" http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/25104 and -"Video language selection deleted after (by?) the June 29, 2013 upgrade" http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/26382 (also relevant for the video mentioned by Anne H. And I suggested leaving things as they are on Amara as the banged-together words don't really hamper translation, and as the YT subtitled remained unafected, thanks to the YT channel not being connected to Amara.

"Claude Almansi started a topic 10 minutes ago (2013-07-30) Proposals for the elimination of theses paradoxes and issues The paradoxes and issues described above could be eliminated by an approach to deletions directly based on copyright law and Amara's Terms of Service: A) Proposal for the deletion of subtitles: The only persons allowed to delete - or entitled to request the deletion of - a set of subtitles must be its author and the right holder on the video. As per Amara's Terms of Service, section 5: the author of the subtitles cannot delete them if the deletion would also delete or mess up the work of other people (co-subtitlers, people who have translated the subtitle set). Team admins / owners can only prevent subtitlers from deleting subtitles they made for the team's videos, but only if this is explicitly specified in the team's description. B) Proposal for the deletion of Amara video pages The only persons allowed to delete - or entitled to request the deletion of - an Amara video page must be the person who created it and the right holder on the video that streams in it. As per Amara's Terms of Service, section 5: the creator of the page cannot delete it if other people have already started to create subtitles for the video that streams in it, unless s/he is also the right holder on the video. Could Amara developers create software rules that would allow users to delete their subtitles and the video pages they've created, with the restrictions explained in these two proposals? A 3. (the restriction in favor of team owners/admins) might be a bit of a headache, technically. But it should be feasible by adding something to the /settings/permissions/ page of teams AND by making these permissions settings automatically viewable by all."

"Jules Rincon started a topic 9 months ago (2012-10-25 October 25th: Yesterday, we made a significant update to Amara, including a number of bug fixes and a new infrastructure setup that makes Amara much more robust in case of AWS failures. As part of the update, we re-index all the videos in the system. Last night during the update we had a few video indexing issues, which may have made it seem like videos disappeared from your team. We attempted to repair this last night, but need to make some additional changes before the repair is complete."

Example of how issues caused by an upgrade should be announced in the Updates and News board of the help forum. A similar announcement should be made about the issues caused by the June 29, 2013 upgrade: - Disappeared subtitles and subtitle revisions (solved) - Slow server -> Bad Gateway (perhaps solved) - Disappeared video language setting in Amara video pages - Problem with viewing subtitles in player - Subtitle editing problems - Legacy translation editor replaced by Legacy transcription editor - Deleted line breaks etc: the post could be marked "in progress" so as to accomodate new issues.

"Jules Rincon started a topic 9 months ago (2012-11-01) Hello! You may have heard us mention that we were expecting to do a few hours of planned downtime for a database migration, and that time has arrived. When - The Amara service will be temporarily paused at 8pm EDT tonight (Nov 1st). We expect the service will be back up in 1.5 - 2 hours, but our designated window is from 8pm EDT - midnight EDT. Why - This downtime is for a database migration that will increase the accuracy of subtitles. We're really excited to get these underlying components improved-once they're all complete, it will pave the way for many more visible changes to Amara!"

Only bookmarking this announcement, because there should have been a similar official announcement about the June 29, 2013 upgrade: all users knew was that Amara was not available while it was taking place, and that a lot of recent subtitles and subtitle revisions weren't showing any longer when it was done. Moreover, if unavailability due to an upgrade is not officially announced, it is difficult for users to know if the unavailability is due to an upgrade or ust to the server maxxing out (see "Bad Gateway" pages after the June 29, 2013 upgrade). Such official announcements should be made for each future system upgrade.

"Eri Pançi started a topic 3 days ago (2013-07-26) Hi there, I have a problem. I see that some subtitles that I've added just doesn't open. Or some other videos that I've subtitled doens't open any language. :(((((( Here are the link for some of the videos, because all videos from this TV Show don't open subtitles: http://www.amara.org/en/videos/eadM5d5NKwu1/info/kuzey-guney-121912/ Doesn't open any of the languages! or http://www.amara.org/en/videos/WNxDhEwkSrEv/info/kuzey-guney-51bolum/ Sorry for my bad Englisht sometimes. Thank you! "

The impossibility to display subtitles in the video described by Eri seems to disappear when subtitles are started in the defined video language. I asked Eri to leave alone a couple of these videos so that developers can examine them, but I'm not sure he understood. See also Ezar Soeparman's "Why won't the English subtitle work for Fatmagul episode 26 part 2 and many more." - http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/28098 and my comment.

"Claude Almansi started a topic 6 months ago (2013-02-10) Granted: "nick3 changed primary url from http://vimeo.com/39734142 to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2IJb1YnAmQ - 2 days, 22 hours ago [as I'm writing this]" for the video embedded in the home page of Amara.org. But http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2IJb1YnAmQ , in spite of its changed YouTube title, is still the "Learn about Universal Subtitles" video that was added to YouTube on on Oct 9, 2010, and hence to then Universal Subtitles four days later. As a result, the info on how the subtitling interface works and about accepted video formats - from 0:32 to 1:14, i.e. more than half the video - is now misleadingly obsolete. True, changing the title of the YouTube video means you don't have to bang an Amara thumbnail on the video anymore, but it changes nothing to the fact that this is a video about how Universal Subtitles was in 2010."

My comment: "However, it's interesting to see that there is NO automatic syncing between the YouTube channel [ http://www.youtube.com/user/friendlyandfun/videos ] for this video and Amara subtitles."

"Claude Almansi started a topic 2 months ago (2013-06-14) [Update July 2, 2013: the original title of this discussion, as posted mid-June 2013, was: "Let's beta-test the imminent new subtitle editor before it is released". In fact, on June 6 Dean Jansen had announced it's release for "in the next week or so", then on June 14 he wrote that the new editor was "still very much in beta, [...] still under heavy development", mentioning "necessary confirmation tests and modifications to ensure a smooth transition". (...) I suggest that questions about how the editor works be added in comments to this thread. But for reporting possible bugs and issues I made a Google Drive form , whose replies go into a spreadsheet that can be viewed, downloaded and commented on by anyone who has the link (no sign in required). This way Amara developers too should be able to download it e.g. as .csv file and reuse the data in whatever beta-testing program they are using on their own. It is important that we actual subtitlers beta-test innovations to the Amara software, because developers, not being subtitlers themselves, cannot properly assess the impact of some changes they make: see the Team moderation: let's learn together from the Friday 13 team thread."

Google Drive form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1x_akD-_fBW4aRPoJq4jyG07OQ5GAGYdZxEjbgTogaXI/viewform Google Drive spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApuzSw0MoY82dDlPYnB3cUlwQlNJV2VVWS1XSy1DSWc#gid=0 Forum topic about the Friday 13 team: http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/5241

"Zikoinak started a topic 13 days ago (2013-07-15) Hello Amara developers, Thank you for you great work. I do often translate subtitles in Amara. I find it difficult to do in the new editor. The upper part of the screen is fully occupied by the video and the keyboard instructions. I suggest that you enable hiding this upper part, so that the two columns of the text are more visible."

Reply from PCF support