Update: I now got the following Amara notifications:
"Great news! Maggie S has just started a Spanish translation of your video PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V"
(Dec 25, 2012 at 12:14 AM [CET])
and:
"Spanish subtitles to video PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V were changed by Maggie S. These changes went live immediately. 0% of the timing was changed. "
(Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 12:16 AM [CET]: about restoring the Spanish description)
Thanks, Maggie, but how come your interventions don't show in the revisions???
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Revisions 3 and 4 of the Spanish subs have now been removed and Carlos Solis' subtitles (revision 2) show again. Thanks. However, such interventions should leave a trace in the history of revisions, not be done "ex machina".
And please really fix the cause of the issue, A reliable history of revisions, where you can roll back a subtitle set without risking to destroy it and other ones is indispensable for collaborative work.
But the main thing, for the time being, is that Carlos Solis' subtitles are back. Thanks again and merry Christmas!
UpUpdate: Now I got it: you deleted all revisions of the Spanish subs, then reuploaded Carlo Solis' revisions 0 and 1 which must still have been floating around somewhere on the server, but attributing them to
him. Hence their new URLs and dates, and hence
"Maggie S edited Spanish subtitles for PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V 1 day ago"
and
"Maggie S started Spanish subtitles for PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V 1 day ago" in the Activity subpage for the whole video.
So if subtitle revisions that apparently get emptied by the above-described glitch are actually still somewhere on the server, then until you fix that glitch, could we please have a new sticky thread in this help forum, entitled "Reply here to request the restoration of subtitle tracks that got emptied after a roll back or an upload" (kind of symmetrical to the existing "STICKY Reply here to request to Delete a video or Remove subtitles" thread)?
Thanks in advance,
Claude
Claude Almansi
What happened
Yesterday, javipino (profile archived in http://www.webcitation.org/6D7efxIOP) edited the Spanish subtitles for the PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V video, creating revision 2.
Four hours later, Richard Gresswell checked javapino's new version and as it was vulgar, attempted to revert to the former revision 1 by Carlos Solis.
Effects on the Spanish subtitles
(see the history of revisions of the Spanish subtitles and attached Gangmam_SP_rev.jpg screenshot)
Effects on the other subtitles
(see the Activities page for the video, and attached dated Gangnam_activity.jpg screenshot)
The Korean and Chinese, Traditional subtitles were not affected. However, besides what the Amara software did to the Spanish subs, for all other subs - English, British, Esperanto, Spanish, Persian, Finnish, French, Ido, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese) the Amara software:
Possibly related issues
There are two threads on this help forum about possibly related issues:
However, what now happened with the subtitles for the Gangnam Style video seems far more severe, as it also affected the history of revisions of subtitles that were NOT translated from the ones where the rollback was attempted.
What I expected
I expected that when Richard Gresswell attempted to roll back to revision 1 of the Spanish subtitles, the Amara software would do just that (i.e. without totally mucking up these Spanish subtitles and mucking up the former revisions of 10 other sets of subtitles).
What I wish the Amara Developers to do
On vandalism
javapino's vandalizing of the Spanish subs for the Gangnam Style video is the first occurrence of deliberate vandalism I've seen since I joined Universal Subtitles (now Amara) on Nov. 17, 2010, and I've been using the platform quite a bit. True, the Gangnam Style video, with over 1,025,010,130 views as I write this, is a tempting target for vandals.
However, I fear that the new possibility to have Amara subtitles directly published on YouTube originals, offered in users' Account subpage under "Sync subtitles", might incite more vandalism too, though fortunately, there was no such automatic YT publication for the Gangnam Style video.
But take Jules Rincón's Lionesses Chowtime YouTube video, of which she used a screenshot to illustrate the credit in the subtitles and the link to the http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/fUl6I618bxNf/info/lionesses-chow-time in the description produced by this sync'ing in the Syncing to YouTube tutorial. Darren Bridenbeck's Amara French subtitles, which were automatically transfered to the YouTube video, are an avowed and good-humored "fake translation".
Yet what if some people chose to avail themselves of the link to the Amara page in the description to make rude fake translations that would appear on YT? Unless Jules were watching all subtitles for the Amara version like a hawk 24/7, some such potential rude translations might well appear in the YouTube version until she detects them.
(there are other problematic aspects in this "sync to YouTube" feature, but I'll describe them in another post - update: see Misgivings about and dabbling with the "Sync subtitles" feature (Account page)).
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