Difference between revisions of "When to send a task back"

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Sending back is one of the mentoring tools at your disposal. You should send back subtitles in order to show the volunteer how they can improve their subtitles on their own, and to allow them to learn the skills you wish to impart by practicing them while still having the opportunity to get further feedback from you before they try them out on a new task. Here is some advice on when to send a task back, when not to send it back and instead do the edits on your own, and when to make exceptions in this regard when mentoring a beginner.

To send back or not to send back – general rules

Here, you'll find some general advice about when to send back and when not to send back tasks. Other sections in this article will deal with specific advice for when to send back transcripts and when to send back translations, but some considerations are the same for both types of tasks.

Mistakes v.s. errors

Mistakes are occasional slip ups – someone usually knows how to do something the right way, but failed to do so in this instance. An example of a mistake would be someone using "there" instead of "their" in one subtitle, but using "their" properly everywhere else. Errors reveal that someone's understanding of something is incorrect: they more-or-less consistently apply an incorrect rule. An example of an error would be someone always using the spelling "there" instead of "their" (the incorrect rule that the volunteer sticks to would be "the third-person possessive adjective is spelled 'there'"), or someone using "there" instead of "their" more than once (which may indicate that they don't understand the difference in spelling).

Do not send back over mistakes. Instead, fix them on your own, and point out only the important ones in your feedback (where you're not sure whether this was really a mistake or an error, but it wasn't frequent enough to be an error). Do send back over errors if you feel that by using your feedback and instructions, the volunteer will be able to fix at least most of them in their work. You can make exceptions, usually for beginners whom you don't want to overwhelm with too much work.

Don't overwhelm total beginners

The OTP Learning Series tutorials are a great way for beginners to pick up the basics

When you are mentoring a beginner, especially if it's their first task, send back a little less often than with more experienced volunteers. Sending back is still OK, however, lower the threshold of what is considered reason enough to send back. If there are 10 reading speed issues in an 18-minute talk, but you can see the volunteer made sure to avoid such issues in other subtitles, with an experienced volunteer, you might send the task back (knowing that they have the skills to fix the issues but missed these subtitles), but with a total beginner, you may consider fixing this on your own and explaining what you did and how you made your edits. You can also point out that normally, you would send the task back and ask the volunteer to fix these on their own, but because this is their first task, you instead wanted to show them how to do it so they avoid it in the future. If there are multiple errors, you can of course send things back even with a total beginner, with ample feedback explaining how to fix the issues and avoid them in the future.

Don't overwhelm yourself – don't fix too much on your own

Sending a task back with instructions is a crucial mentoring tool. You would be doing your mentee a disservice if you did all the work for them and did not allow them to practice your instructions under your supervision. Remember that nobody expects you to do all the work on your own, and that you are not responsible for the quality of the volunteers' work – you can only do your best to give them the skills that will allow them to get better at subtitling.

Fix some, send back for other issues

Never send a task back without making any edits. One exception would be a missing translation of the title and / or description. However normally, you should at least make changes in the first 10-15% of the talk, in order to show examples of the edits you want the mentee to make based on your feedback. You can also choose to fix only the mistakes, and leave fixing the errors to the volunteer. For example, if there are multiple reading speed issues in the translation you are reviewing, you can go over it and fix everything else, e.g. punctuation and grammar, and then send the task back with feedback explaining how to fix the errors.

Zero tolerance: When it is always OK to send back

It's always OK to send a task back in the following cases: The title and / or description have not been translated Some of the subtitles have not been translated The mentee has completely ignored the feedback you left when you sent the task back previously

To send back or not to send back: Transcripts vs. translations

This section contains advice specific to working with transcription tasks as compared to translation tasks. It is impossible to provide an exhaustive list of situations where a task should be sent back or not, but there are some general indications for both transcripts and translations that are easy to follow.

Transcripts

When reviewing or approving transcripts, you'll be focusing more on the technical aspects of subtitling. With the right feedback and instruction, the skills necessary to master the technical aspects of subtitling are generally easier to learn than a lot of the skills used in translation, so you may find yourself sending back transcripts a little more often than translation tasks.

In your feedback on technical issues, consider linking to one of the many translated versions of this sheet

When to send back

  • When there are too many reading speed issues (explain how to fix them and give examples)
  • Multiple length issues: not all the lines are broken, subtitles are too long
  • Multiple spelling issues that can be detected by a spellchecker (instruct the volunteer on how to install a spellchecker)

When to consider NOT sending back to total beginners

  • The ends and beginnings of sentences are merged (point out a lot of examples, but consider doing this for the beginner, as fixing this may be overwhelming)
  • Imperfect synchronization of the subtitles with the talk (even if you do decide to send it back to a beginner, try to fix at least half on your own)

When not to send back

  • The spelling of proper names: Do the research, fix the misspellings, and share research strategies and as well as sources for the spelling you found
  • Dangling broken-off phrases that need to be polished off (e.g. "I wanted to -- I have an example")
  • Mistakes in the formatting of the title and description (unless the given volunteer is a repeat offender)

Translations

Some skills that are necessary in translation can only be learned with enough experience, and it may be difficult to impart them when collaborating on just one task. Still, even in translation, there are multiple things that a volunteer can learn quickly by implementing the feedback you gave them on sending back a task.

When to send back

  • When there are too many reading speed issues (explain how to fix them and give examples)
  • Multiple length issues: not all the lines are broken, subtitles are too long
  • Multiple spelling issues that can be detected by a spellchecker (instruct the volunteer on how to install a spellchecker)
  • The title and / or description are not translated
  • Units of measurement are not converted from imperial to metric or vice versa, where necessary
  • Terminology has not been looked up but instead, the translator came up with their own translations (only if this is frequent; in your feedback, list and locate the original terms that need to be researched)
  • A grammatical or punctuation error that reappears but can be explained using instructions that are easy to follow (e.g. "for the third-person plural possessive adjective, use 'their' not 'there'")
As mentors and quality-checkers, reviewers play a very important role in empowering their language community

When to consider NOT sending back to total beginners

  • Terminology has not been looked up but instead, the translator frequently came up with their own translations
  • Units of measurement are not converted from imperial to metric or vice versa, where necessary

When not to send back

  • The style/grammar is overly influenced by the original language: Improve the translation and use a lot of feedback and instruction to alert the translator to where they must be more careful in their next translation. Sending back is difficult because it's hard to explain how to correct such stylistic issues with just a bit of feedback.
  • Incorrect formatting of sound representation (e.g. square brackets instead of parentheses)
  • The spelling of proper names: Do the research, fix the misspellings, and share research strategies and as well as sources for the spelling you found
  • Incorrect formatting of sound representation (e.g. square brackets instead of parentheses)
  • Mistakes in the formatting of the title and description (unless the given volunteer is a repeat offender)

Sending a task back into the pool

On Amara, you can send a task back and then reassign it to "None" ("----") to take it away from the currently assigned contributor. This feature should be used very rarely, mostly when a volunteer asks you to help them get rid of a task that they took by accident.

Do not send a task back into the pool because you feel the mentee has done a bad job. If you suspect someone won't be able to deal with the necessary improvements (e.g. it was their first review and they only fixed punctuation, none of the huge technical errors), still send the task back to them with instructions as usual, however, also note that if they don't feel up to working on this task, it's OK, and you can free it up so that other users can take it. If the user notifies you that is what they want to do, make sure to indicate what else they could work on instead (e.g. if they are struggling with reviewing subtitles, thank them for their effort and encourage them to focus on translating and / or transcribing instead).

Also, do not send back review tasks back into the pool just because the reviewer had not submitted 90 minutes of subtitled talks before attempting to review someone else's work. Some people are capable of reviewing much earlier, so always check to make sure the review is not at least OK enough. If the reviewer had not made any changes, you can send the task back into the pool, but always include a polite and encouraging explanation of why you are sending the task back, as well as guidelines on where the given user can focus to gain the necessary experience before attempting to review again (how they can find short talks, where they can find reviewing guidelines, etc.).

Related resources

OTPedia articles:

Tutorials: