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Misleading message on private teams' videos and other pages when viewed by non members

 In the Removing subtitles or videos thread, Grzegorz Pietrucha requested the removal of two subtitle sets from the http://www.amara.org/pl/videos/DbHzglP39wNz/info/lap-film-33-modul-12-odnajdz-siebie/ video.


When I opened the link, the page said: "We're sorry - the page you are trying to access does not exist."


So I checked his profile page and found that he had indeed been recently editing subtitles for that video, and that he is member of a private team. Hence the surmise that the video has in fact been added to that team and that I got that message because I'm not a member there. 


However, I only happen to know that this can be the real meaning of the message because I've got the same one for  pages of other private teams I AM member of when I tried to access them without signing in.


It would be clearer and more truthful if, in such cases, the message read: "This is a page of a private team. Only members can view it."


Update:


I've now found a GitHub ticket that seems pertinent: When not logged in, email link takes you to "you cannot see this video" page. From its comments:


"From: Margarita Shamraeva
(..) AFAIK, we have public videos, moderated videos (which display a message about being moderated by a particular team), and private videos claimed by private teams (which display a 404 Not Found page). It was a requirement for private videos do display 404, since the idea was to provide 100% stealthiness to outsiders, as if this video did not exist on our site."


Mmm yes, except that:

  • Private team members' public Amara profiles have links to the team's private videos they're subtitling;
  • Sometimes, as Grzegorz Pietrucha did in the above-mentioned example, they link to one of these private team's private videos on this public help forum.

So the stealthiness is not 100% anyway: the first thing I did when I saw the "This page doesn't exist" message for the video mentioned by Grzegorz Pietrucha was to check his profile activity and team membership, to see if the video really didn't exist or if it were private. And other people might open a private team member's profile because s/he has also subtitled a public video and they want to message him/her about the subtitles. Etc.

So I maintain my proposal: in such cases, the private team's (video) page should display: "This is a page of a private team. Only members can view it.".





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