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Answerman - Why Don't Simulcast Subtitles Get Corrected?

I was impressed by the source too since not even my interviewing buds knew anything about it, but his/her commentary no matter how etiquette or poor is pointless to me because of the articles that write his/her opinion.

Seems like that's your close-mindedness showing then. What a shame for you.

I wouldn't pretend to be an expert here, but I remember there was some big argument about DRM in HTML5, with the pro-DRM group eventually winning this fight, so it's not like there is no copy-protection in HTML5. So, in my laic view of things, it should not matter which copy-protection you implement, should it?

I don't follow fansubbing much any more, but my sense is that only rip-off groups like Horrible are speed subbing in English nowadays. What few fansubbing groups remain hold themselves to a higher standard and take longer as a result. In the past I could wait for weeks and sometimes months to get a fansubbed version of an arcane show like Oh! Edo Rocket or Hyouge Mono. Reliable subbing groups tried to get their shows out in the same week as it aired in Japan if there was sufficient demand.

I wouldn't pretend to be an expert here, but I remember there was some big argument about DRM in HTML5, with the pro-DRM group eventually winning this fight, so it's not like there is no copy-protection in HTML5. So, in my laic view of things, it should not matter which copy-protection you implement, should it?

Flawed subtitles are an interesting quandary.

If you know enough about the show, or enough Japanese, to know the subtitle is wrong, then you probably don't need to be watching it with subtitles, so the flaws should not matter too much.

And if you desperately NEED those subs to enjoy the show at all, then you probably don't know enough to notice the flaws, in which case they should not matter too much.

Either way, life goes on.

I'm not getting payed for this, I don't know who you are so I can't warp it into something that can fit your own, "nitpicky." Standard, I'm not making a video and this forum is a legit niche sub culture with groups that already have their own entitled opinions. You say it like I'll swoon over the masses if I just make fancy grammar changes. And I bet you wouldn't change your mind either in this mosh pit of a site no matter how constructed the user's sentences are. Why do it then, you might ask? Because it's still better than doing nothing at all.

Here's a couple fun facts:

- Crunchyroll has at least around 150 on-site employees in San Franscisco, one of the most expensive places on Earth to live (and obviously the pay grades need to be high enough for people to actually be able to live there so they can work on-site).
- Meanwhile, basically all the subtitling staff is remote contractors, and they're paid in essentially peanuts. A translator only gets $80 per episode flat, regardless of how long or complicated the script is. (Timers get $20 per episode, and considering that a good timer can do an episode in 30 minutes, this means a translator would need to produce a script in mere 2 hours in order to have an equal hourly wage to a timer. More likely their hourly wage is going to be worse, though.)

So it's not that Crunchyroll wouldn't have money, it's just that they don't seem to be particularly interested in investing any of it into improving just, you know, their main product. After all, it's not like the legal consumers have a choice anyway with licenses being primarily exclusive :^)

The point is that you are not in a position to criticize someone else's English translations if you create errors in English usage yourself that you didn't identify.
Hence, your arguments about perfect or near-perfect English cannot be taken seriously if you don't hold your own English to the same standard. Otherwise, you look like a hypocrite.

Nor will I spend over five sentences criticizing you putting a comma over, "hence." When the sentence flows better putting it after, "seriously." Or ask/state why you/I weren't/was taught to add commas before quotations? It's a waste of time.

It's not as easy as CR just deciding to pay their sub contractors more.

Translation and subtitle work is usually "recouped" from the royalties that licensors pay to the Japanese companies. In other words, paying the subcontractors more doesn't cost CR money, it costs the Japanese rights holder's money.
After all, the rights to the translations end up with them, not Crunchyroll.
In fact, CR having probably the cheapest way of producing simulcast subs is a plus for them when it comes to licensing negotiations.

Commas are only added before quotation marks when introducing a quotation with words like "She said," "She whispered," etc., or when splitting the quotation when attributing the person. Furthermore, using a comma after "Hence" is perfectly valid...so, if you'd attempted to "correct" them over their perfect use of the English language, you would've been wrong, once again. I'm beginning to sense a theme.
Also, you just implied that it would take you an hour to type a few sentences correctly...

Also, you just implied that it would take you an hour to type a few sentences correctly...

So what happens when there's no more ex-fansubbers to work on the scripts? You get people who don't have the same kind of passion for their work and who will without a doubt turn in consistently mediocre or even outright poor work. And at that point, bad simulcast scripts will no longer be an exception - they'll be the default. Worst of all, it's going to be a slow decline so the average person probably wouldn't realize it was happening until it was too late.

I really hope things won't turn out as badly as I'm predicting here, but the amount of complaints about shoddy simulcast scripts seem to have only gone up with time... not to mention the fact that this column exists in the first place!

thanks. However, using air quotes implies something someone said in the first place. How is that any different other than this being used for books following a narrative or to start a new paragraph when someone talks or mentions past dialogue? And their period before starting their new sentence with Hence is enough time for a space to catch a breath. No one naturally says it like, "*space*Hence*space*Queue line". While something like, "However." Is reasonable to me since its 3 syllables. This isn't about correcting people. Hell, they were suggestions. It's about how wasteful it is to judge or mention about grammar when we're supposed to argue about our points within the topic. Not how we write them.

...

Just post. Not, "correctly post." Each individual can have their own obstacle from pulling what they think out've their minds to place on a page. Time is one of them. And then after that I need to go through my books and word software to correct em? Nah. More anime and skype chats are waiting for me lol