Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-14908162-20180130171542

Hello everyone,

This is something that's been on my mind for quite some time, and since a lot more people have started talking about it recently, I felt the need to address it. Somewhere in 2017 YouTube added the ability for users other than the publisher of the video to add translations in closed captions. While this is a good thing in many aspects that I won't discuss as they aren't relevant, it's quite troublesome when it comes to the translations on this wiki. It's been an (apparently unwritten) rule that if a translation is on an official upload, it's an "official" translation. Before this system was introduced to YouTube it meant that either the producer themselves made the translation or that the producer asked someone to make the translation for them, in which case the translation really would be an official one. However with the new system this is not the case anymore, as anyone can add a translation. Because of this a lot of translations that we normally wouldn't accept due to too many mistakes have ended up on the wiki. Therefore I propose to only name a translation "official" when the producer themselves made it or when the producer asked someone to make it and it can be verified that they did (for example when in the description it mentions: English translation by NAME. An exception would be when it says "Caption author (English) NAME" for quite obvious reasons). As with all big changes, I'd like to have a vote just to make sure that a majority is on board: What should official translations be? Only translations by the producer themselves or otherwise approved by the producer. If it's on an official upload (even if someone else than the author added it with closed captions).

In case this new change will be accepted, I want to address something else as well. I personally think that we should also have some kind of message to notify visitors/editors that either the translation is by the author, or that the translation on the video is not accepted (or both). I hope this will prevent people from re-adding removed translation with too many mistakes and that it will clear things up a bit. I made some really simple templates for either choice. Please do suggest improvements as these are still really basic and quite crude.

Here's another poll where you can vote on the templates. Should we have a template for official translations/closed captions? Yes, both. Yes, but only to indicate official translations. Yes, but only to indicate translations added via closed captions which aren't to be added. No.

Lastly, it might be nice to sort pages with these templates into a category. For example: "Pages with Official English Translations" and "Pages with Prohibited Closed Captions on the Official YouTube Upload". This could come in handy when editing. Please feel free to suggest other names for the categories.

Should the pages with a template be added to a category? Yes, both. Yes, but only for the template that indicates official translations. Yes, but only for the template that indicates translations added via closed cations which aren't to be added. No.

If you have any other suggestions regarding this or other comments, please leave them here.

Thank you for reading this message. Have a nice day =).

Amandelen (talk) 17:15, January 30, 2018 (UTC) 