Group items tagged

"James Bruce started a topic 9 months ago I see American Sign Language in the list, could we get a few more sign languages added such as BSL - British Sign Language, International Sign Language, Auslan - Australian Sign Language etc? Thanks, James "

Comments: other requested sign languages: French Sign Language Irish Sign Language Israeli Sign Language Discussion on how to implement a truthful definition of sign languages as video language.

"Different users are requesting the possibility of including other sign languages (we currently have ASL) because signing is radically different per language or region. Furthering complexity is that sign languages are not equivalent to spoken languages: While Spanish may cover most of Latin America, most every Spanish speaking country has it's own particular sign language. How could we allow the option for users to identify original language of video as a specific sign language? Would we need to add all languages on the list to Amara?"

"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.

"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"

"Sorin started a topic 6 months ago (2013-02-08) Moldovan? There is no Moldovan language! Only Stalin believed that. Or ordered that. Moldavian is just a dialect of Romanian. It is just Romanian, how many times do we have to teach you? Adding that to the language lists is stupid, like adding the American language. It's not even "Moldovan", the way you try to spell it, but "Moldovenească". Instead, you are ignoring the Aromanian language, which IS considered a separate language, although very close to Romanian. Do your homework."

"Mauricio Navarro Miranda started a topic 3 months ago (2013-04-28) Hi everyone! We wish to request new languages to be available in amara. We're localizing some Mozilla's videos into indigenous languages. Here you can see the list of indigenous languages we're requesting: http://www.mozilla-mexico.org/firefox-en-lenguas-indigenas/ And, the list: ctu yua nci ncj tsz oto tar hus toj tzh tzo hch yaq zam cak qvi Thanks!"

No reply so far. About Mauricio Navarro Miranda, see http://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2012/06/01/awesome-l10n-contributor-mauricio-navarro-miranda/ .

"Rodrigo started a topic 4 months ago (2013-03-26) Dear, When I try to search for a video to subtitle, in the "with" filter, could be an option that I could choose the language that has not been choosen to be subtitled. For example: I translate to Brazilian Portuguese, so I want to filter the videos that are not subtitled in my language. I need it to show me the videos that are not subtitled in my language, to make it easier to me, to search directly the videos not subtitled in Brazilian Portuguese. Regards, Rodrigo."

No reply. In a way, this is what the suggestions of team Dashboards attempt to do from the opposite perspective, but Rodrigo is speaking of videos in general, not just teams' - and the Dashboard suggestions don't work.

"Buzbee at Amara started a topic a day ago (2013-08-06) I can think of a few things that would improve search for captioners. I'd like the videos to be sorted into types. There are certain types of videos I prefer to caption. Probably it's the same for everyone. You have to listen to it several times before the work is done, so it might as well be something you like, right? There are certain videos I couldn't get through, by the same token. And sometimes 200 of those seem to be uploaded all at once. (From the same place.) Doesn't matter which so I will leave that vague. Aside from being able to search categories I would also like to be able to search: Videos which need English captions (can substitute language of choice there; right now can only search for videos which HAVE a given language - or which have no languages - but the latter often has incomplete captions and I prefer not to step on any toes) Videos which have been uploaded - that day, that week, that hour, etc. Videos from favorited channels (captioner can pick 'favorite channels') Videos from favorited topics (this can include a musical artist, key word for title, etc.) Videos by length - this can make a difference if the captioner is tired or hasn't much time that day. Or may be looking for a long project by the same token. Anyone have other ideas for improving search? Making it more efficient? Please specify if the idea is for benefit of Captioners or Viewers. (Both are important, I just think it's important to keep the two searches separate, since there are different needs.)"

"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.

"András Fuchs started a topic 6 months ago (2013-02-20) My team of translators often finds itself in a situation when the original transcript is out of sync, missing, misspelled or shows something other than what the speaker said. Sometimes we fix the English subtitle as well, but then the other subtitles in different languages which are already started (or finished) might have problems. It would be great to combine the subtitle versioning feature (planned to implement) with subtitle rating and/or approval. Amara should limit the translators in a way, that nobody could start a language specific subtitle until the original transcript is 100% finished and approved by let's say at least 3 independent users (or even native speakers). I think this step would increase the quality of the subtitles greatly."

Dean's rely: "... We've thought some about the idea of requiring a translation to be complete, before allowing translations to be based from it. However, in certain cases it is better to allow translation directly from the dialogue in a video. For example, during the Arab spring, we had a number of politically sensitive videos which were done in spoken Arabic - for the translators, speed was the most important thing, so needing to wait for an Arabic transcript, before they could translate into English, would have been a major disadvantage. We are working towards a simplified system for peer review that will first appear on teams and later become available for every video. ..." Mine: mentioned problem with autocaptions in the - now deleted - Coursera team.

"Claude Almansi started a topic 5 months ago (2013-03-15) It would be nice if there were a search tool for subtitlers' profiles, on the model of the one for videos in the Watch page or in teams' video page, but with different criteria. I.e. something like: Search box: "Search subtitlers" 1st filtering criterion: "who have made subtitles from (droplist of languages)" 2nd filtering criterion: "into (droplist of languages)" 3rd filtering criterion: "covering more than (droplist with > and some duration values) minutes of video." This way, people who need subtitles for a given video could view various members' profiles fitting the chosen criteria, check some of their work, then contact them - also for paid subtitling. I take it our subtitling activity produces the data corresponding to these criteria, somewhere in the Amara server? In the unlikely case of privacy issues with this proposal, having one's profile included in such a search tool could be made opt-in."

No reply.

"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.

"Jules Rincon started a topic 6 months ago (2013-01-18) For any users signed up to transifex (to assist in translating the website into different languages): Unfortunately, due to the major improvements being currently made to the software (what we call DMR), updates to the localized versions of Amara have been temporarily put on hold. They will be resumed when this major renovation is over. We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

The original language file has not been updated on Transifex after that announcement, and no translations made since has been pushed to the website. It might make more sense to only update the original file when the new editor replaces the legacy editors. However, an official update of this help topic is needed now.

"Antony Brand started a topic 5 months ago (2013-02-26) I am a teacher and learner of languages including a number of non-latin scripts (ie. not abcde...) I excitedly entered my first subtitle track for a song (in its original script) which is Bengali (Bangla) together with an English translation. http://www.amara.org/en/videos/gas6mX5g1uWU/info/hrid-majhare-anusheh-anadil/ I ended making my Bengali track with the original script on the top line and made a line break to show the pronounciation on the bottom line but this solution was anglocentric. This gives undue weight to English/Latin script and excludes the possibility of transcribing into other scripts.. How much more powerful would it be to have transcriptions of videos in multiple scripts for people all around the world. If implemented it could be so so useful for: Koreans learning English Japanese studying German Russians singing Sanskrit Urdu speakers beginning Chinese in fact anyone anywhere needing to get their head around using a new script. Is this of interest to anyone else?"

rereading my comment: maybe I didn't understand the 1st topic.

"Buzbee at Amara started a topic a day ago (2013-08-06) I would love it if I were able to create a sort of 'watch list' or favorites list. A 'Save til later' list, if you will. Slogging through page after page in the "Watch" list, to try to find ones with 0 languages including no incomplete captions - seems the best way to find ones that someone put here, but which haven't had any work done on them yet. The downside of that, is, there are also many many pages to slog through...As I browse to see which one I will caption next, I run across several "maybes." It would be great to be able to bookmark those "maybe" videos, to come back to later on. For one thing I might be in different moods different times - wanting to caption music one day, a lecture the next, something silly the day after that...etc. But (being able to make a favorites/saved list on my account page would) also simply save time and would make sure I can find the videos again easily. It is too unwieldy to type a list elsewhere, and my computer bookmarks are a mess already, without adding more literal (computer) bookmarks. A saved list or favorites list, right here on this site, would be great. (This could of course be very handy for viewers also - not only for captioners.) I should add, this would not imply that the person has "dibs" on that video - that is a separate issue. If anything it would decrease competition since each person would have several videos handy that they can work on. Thoughts?"

"Sorin started a topic 6 months ago (2013-02-08 ) The font you chose might look nice, but it's bad for people who want to learn languages, because SMALL-L is like BIG-I. That generates confusion. "

"Ezar Soeparman started a topic 15 hours ago (2013-07-28) Hi, I just recently found out about this site and as I was watching, I somehow couldn't load the English subtitle when it said that it is complete. But when I try the Greek one, it loads very quickly but the thing is, I don't speak Greek! I was watching Fatmagul episode 26 part 2 and the subtitle never loads. I waited for hours on end and it wouldn't load. But the Greek one only took five seconds. Episode 26 part 2 cannot. Episode 27 part 1 and 2 cannot. (it kept going back to turkish when I have already clicked the english one.) Episode 28 part 1 and 2 cannot aswell. Please tell me. My internet connection is quick enough to fully load the video so it's impossible that it isn't quick enough to load the subtitle. Thank you."

Related to Eri Pançi's "My subtitles doesn't open or noone subtitles doens't open??!! :(((" - http://support.amara.org/support/discussions/topics/28007 ? But in Eri's examples, there had been no subtitles in the defined video language, and when I started them, it became possible to select and display the other existing subtitles. Whereas in the one video I perhaps identified from Ezar's "Episode 27 part 1" description - http://www.amara.org/videos/1JeMDQ7uLtr4/info/fatmagulun-sucu-ne-27bolum-part-1/ - there are subtitles in the defined video language, Turkish, and the issue only affects English, British subtitles: the other subtitle sets can be selected and displayed. I've asked Ezar to give the URLs for the other videos he mentions.

"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.

"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.

"This video shows how to type a transcript in Amara's Subtitle Editor. [Subtitled in:] English original Chinese, Traditional French Indonesian Italian Portuguese, Brazilian incomplete Russian Spanish "

Subtitles can be downloaded in various formats from the page of their language