How to tackle an Approval

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Revision as of 16:52, 18 February 2014 by Isiliel (talk | contribs)
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What is the job of an approver?

Approval is the last task before publishing, so the approver (Language Coordinator) has to verify the translation quality and correct any remaining mistakes. If the transcript or translation was poorly reviewed, the approver should return the task back with instructions on how to tackle a review.


How to approve a task:

Watch the talk and pause every time something looks strange or you don't manage to read the subtitles in the time given. Fix and shorten. See this article for tips on compressing subtitles.

Make sure each line is within the proper number of characters. Check how to break lines, here.

Do a sweep for common mistakes in meaning, grammar and spelling, obvious lines that are too long and things that sound unnatural in your language.

Check if Title, Speaker Name and Description were properly translated. When approving TEDxTalks, make sure the title structure is correct and the description only contains a brief description of the talk.

How to select tasks for approval:

Mix old tasks and new tasks If there is a long queue of approval tasks waiting, try to mix working on some of the oldest tasks and some of the ones done recently. If you only focus on the tasks waiting the longest, new volunteers won’t get the feedback necessary not to make some mistakes in their future work. At the same time, if you only focus on the newest tasks, volunteers who have been waiting for their work to see the light of day may lose the motivation necessary to keep working on new tasks, and they may be less likely to go back and implement your suggestions if a long time has passed since they last worked on the given task.


Share resources with the translators:

We have a variety of general resources on how to prepare subtitles, that you can share with the translators to help them improve their work.

  1. How to tackle a translation
  2. How to tackle a transcript
  3. How to tackle a review
  4. How to break lines
  5. Sound Subtitling Guidelines
  6. Tutorials

Some languages have their own translated guides. You can write your own guides in your language, and share on OTPedia and your language group.