That's a good point. Private Equity is a fairly broad umbrella term that encompasses a variety of investment strategies and business models.
The type of Private Equity that most here are referring to is the type that buys up existing businesses, squeezes as much money as possible out of them, and throws their desecrated corpses in the gutter. These "investors" are a blight on society, this activity should be criminalized, they should be in prison.
But there are a lot of well-meaning investors who do great things for society that also get stuck with the same label.
Just like crows! People hate crows even though they play a valuable role in ecosystems.
I would argue that moribund businesses who maintain a competitive moat but are otherwise extremely unproductive and inefficient are the real blight on society. If PE firms can liquidate those businesses and open up the market while freeing up capital for more productive investment then I fully support them.
I would love to hear some counterexamples though. Productive and innovative businesses with really solid fundamentals (balance sheets) that were acquired and dismantled by PE.
> Productive and innovative businesses with really solid fundamentals (balance sheets) that were acquired and dismantled by PE.
You have way too much (unneeded) limiting qualifications. In Netherlands PE have bought loads of companies, then put the acquisition price as a loan on the balance sheet. Plus then sold the assets, made the company then lease those assets. Then those companies often went bankrupt as the leasing prices increased crazily.
> I would argue that moribund businesses who maintain a competitive moat but are otherwise extremely unproductive and inefficient are the real blight on society.
The companies I've cited weren't "extremely unproductive and inefficient". Businesses can be profitable and healthy without all the qualifications you think they need.
Weren't they losing money for years on all-you-can-eat seafood specials [1]?
It's not uncommon in the fast food business to be breaking even or losing money on all aspects of the business while the true value of the company, its real estate portfolio, steadily grows. The fact that investors decided they wanted to cash out should be a surprise to no one.
> The type of Private Equity that most here are referring to is the type that buys up existing businesses, squeezes as much money as possible out of them, and throws their desecrated corpses in the gutter.
And this type of PE represents a very small minority of what is actually considered "Private Equity". The vast majority of PE deals are about growth. This small minority of asset stripping PE groups gets the most headlines though.
Of course it's bad. It's new. But it won't always be either of those things. I think "bad" is relative assessment and based on a build-up of knowledge, often over decades.
Electrical plugs and stairs are "good" only because that knowledge has been discovered and has been regulated. Expecting a tool to be literally and metaphorically fool-proof immediately upon discovery strikes me as pretty disingenuous.
In the case of AI, the most anti-AI crowd are often vehement with their fingers in their ears saying "it's not good and never will be, and shouldn't exist." To be fair, the pro-AI crowd are often raving as if all the kinks had already been worked out.
What about it? There simply isn't any information format that's both perfectly accessible and reproduces what you're seeing with perfect fidelity. In the happy path you can make the important parts match, but almost by definition, when someone's reporting an issue it's because what they "should" see and what they are seeing don't align.
There are many accessibility issues with using a screenshot of text instead of text directly:
- displaying a white background image of text when I'm using dark mode;
- using a small font to a user with a visual imparement or on a high DPI display;
- using a colour scheme with low contrast, or colours that are indistinguishable for people with a form of colour blindness;
- using a font that is difficult to read for someone with dislexia;
- etc.
And others have mentioned not being able to search for the text within the image, or select/highlight the text (useful for copying a function name, link, or term in the text, or for keeping track of where you are when reading).
Well, that's not the scenario relevant to the article and not a scenario I encounter much these days. I'm not a designer or a front end dev anymore so I rarely encounter a situation where "perfect fidelity" is relevant to me.
I'm biased, but I can't help but feel like chances are, if the screenshot is text, the content of the text is important, not the visual aspects.
99% of the time I get a screenshot these days, it's people sending me screenshots of text logs or code, and almost always cropped in a way that eliminates any context anyway. Give me plain text or give me death.
In some cases visuals are important, and in other cases, they're not. Hence why I said "chances are" and declared my bias rather than using absolutist language. However, somewhat ironically, you chopped off that part of my reply. I find it odd you chose to respond the way you did, but I digress.
I also carefully indicated my every day interactions with screenshots do not align with those requirements.
Of course there are situations where visual aspects are critical. I'm not disputing that. I'm stating my _preferences_ and my _opinion_ that situation is exceptional.
I'm not really able to understand the finer details but I think I picked up enough to get the broad strokes.
Really though, all I needed to see was the phrase "jump on a quick call" to form an irrationally strong opinion. That phrase instantly warms my entire body with rage.
It wasn't mentioned in other replies, but "jump on a quick call" also means very strongly "let's move to a place with no public record and private participation where nobody else can join in".
Then later, if it comes up again, they can just say "well we discussed this in a call previously and decided it was best to do it anyway" cutting off discussion and not presenting the reasoning.
Exactly, never accept a switch to a private place when you're trying to gather attention on public matters. It could and it will be used against you later on.
I’m not sure those who speak like that are equipped to understand how offensive their words and tone can be.
It suggests a decision can be reversed with a quick call, which questions one’s choices or conviction. As if to suggest the choice was made without considerable thought and care. It’s such an unserious tone to a moment that’s very serious to the other.
I think it's because it's almost never accompanied by "we may have fucked up, please help us understand how to fix it now and in the future".
It's almost always (like this time) "I'm sorry you feel that way, please spend more of your free time<EOF>", and sometimes (like this time) "[we're doing it anyway but maybe we'll make some changes]".
It feels insulting because it is insulting. The decision has been made, they just want to not feel bad about you being insulted.
Changing the medium to a private conversation also means not committing to any decision publicly for as long as possible. It feels like damage control and protecting your own image (the person posting with respect to their company) as opposed to addressing the real issue promptly and transparently.
Another reason in context of public forums is that it's dismissive of any concerns or questions raised: If a call would be sufficient, that implies they think that nobody else cares.
At some point, "quick calls" are used for discussions that they don't want a trace of.
So, even in the best "sorry we screwed up" scenario, the quick call covers their butt and let them leeway to backtrack as needed. That's also part of why we viscerally react to opaque meetings IMHO.
> As if to suggest the choice was made without considerable thought and care.
I guess it acts as a mirror of sorts though, because that's precisely how this decision appears to have been made in the first place. But it's clear that whoever represents Mozilla there is already assuming the fault lies with the person that just got kicked.
> It suggests a decision can be reversed with a quick call
Oh no, both parties understand that the call isn't open to the possibility of changing the decision, it's just to manage the emotions of the person who's being run over by it.
I used the "lets jump on a quick call" tactic once at work. Other party rejected it; they said they've made their position clear and didn't need to say anything more.
I was impressed. They actually did make their position clear, and in public, whereas I was trying to smooth things over in private. Me trying to influence and cajole behind the scenes was insult to the risk they took by putting themselves out there.
It's commendable you took the opportunity to reflect and learn from that experience. Great work, and thanks for having the integrity to share that experience with others.
It seems like someone who has no awareness of the problem, who wants to learn more about the problem, and the fastest way for both parties is over the phone ASAP rather than through a bunch of emails.
When software goes wrong, you need as much information as possible to figure it how to fix it.
>I'm sorry for how you and the Japanese community feel about the MT workflow that we just recently introduced. Would you be interested to hop on a call with us to talk about this further? We want to make sure we trully understand what you're struggling with.
- No apology
- No "we stopped the bot for now"
"We're sorry for how you feel" is enterprise for "we think you're whining". Maybe not what the person meant but how anyone is going to read it.
The original sin here is Mozilla just enabling this without any input from the active translation community.
This isn't a new problem, loads of Japanese translations from tech companies have been garbage for a while. People sticking things into machine translation, translators missing context so having absolutely nothing to go on. Circle CI, when they announced their Japan office, put out a statement that was _clearly_ written in English first, then translated without any effort of localization. Plenty of UIs just have "wrong text" in actions. etc etc.
Anyways the point is just that one side of this relationship here clearly cares about the problem way less, and _even when presented with that fact_, does not even pretend to be actually sorry for the damage they are causing.
"We're sorry for how you feel" is enterprise for "we think you're whining".
Anyways the point is just that one side of this relationship here clearly cares about the problem way less, and _even when presented with that fact_, does not even pretend to be actually sorry for the damage they are causing.
This is just a single initial reply from a "community support manager" in Indonesia. It's not from the Mozilla CEO or the leader of the project. They surely don't have the power to stop the bot. But what they can do is find it more over a call, and then who to escalate it to. Then maybe it does get turned off before it's fixed or changed.
You seem to be confusing someone in customer support with someone who holds power over entire projects. I don't understand how you think a customer support person should be able to just turn off software across the globe in response to a single short message on a forum with few details.
Huh, if you click through their link the person responding is also a "sumo administrator" and it's "sumobot" causing the issues. It seems entirely likely they are personally directly responsible for it.
Regardless they are representing the company. If they aren't the right person to respond - they should not have responded and kicked it up the chain/over the fence to the right person - instead of responding by offering to waste the complainants time on a call with someone you are asserting is not the right person to be handling this. Supposing you are correct about their position, it makes their response far worse, not better.
"SUMO" = SUpport.MOzilla.org. It's the name for the entire Mozilla support organization; everybody involved in the linked discussion is in this organization. It doesn't seem like this person is related to the bot. They are a "Locale Leader" for Indonesia, which is the same position this poster is resigning from (but for Japan). They seem to be peers.
So I'm a complete outsider, but they do not appear to be in the same position as the poster. They are marked as "Mozilla Staff" and "SUMO Administrator" (amongst many other things), neither of which the complainant is marked as.
It is true both they and the person they are responding to are marked as "SUMO Locale Leaders"... but it seems rather clear from the context that is not the role they are inhabiting in their (non) apology and request for a "quick call" with the complainant.
The language they use is certainly not the language a peer would be expected to use either.
Thanks for that info--I think you're right and I'm wrong. I didn't see the group memberships before but now I see that the replier is far more involved in SUMO. I had only seen that they were both locale leaders and that the replier was a staff member from the tag on the post.
CS comms are tricky, I agree! You have to reply to stuff, often before you have any form of full picture. Just think you gotta be careful then, and the message they posted was not good on that front.
I do get what you're saying, and it's not like I think the CSM should be fired for the message. I just think it's bad comms.
Here are some alternative choices:
- post nothing, figure out more internally (community support is also about vouching for people!)
- post something more personal like "Thank you for posting this. I'm looking into who is working on this bot to get this information in front of them". Perhaps not allowed by Mozilla's policies
- Do some DMing (again, more personal, allowing for something direct)
But to your point... it's one person's message, and on both sides these are likely people where English isn't their native language. I'm assuming that community support managers are paid roles at mozilla, but maybe not.
And like... yeah, at one point you go into whatever company chat and you start barking up the chain. That's the work
They are the person who announced the bot would be rolled out. If the person who announced the rollout isn't either the leader of the project or someone who can push for changes to it, then that's already totally against the community.
Second, this "community support forum" isn't just a corporate help desk. It's a forum for community supporters of Mozilla, an open source organisation for which community contributions are hugely important. Mozilla can't just fuck over parts of it's community and expect that to be business as usual.
It is well known passive aggressive corporate phrase to shut people up. Who it is used by is largely irrelevant, it almost always means the same thing.
It's also well-known language from product managers and UX researchers trying to gather data to improve their product. And well-known language from customer support people trying to gather more information in order to escalate to the right people who can help.
Your knee-jerk cynicism saddens me. If someone doesn't want to help, they generally just ignore. They generally don't suggest hopping on a call ASAP. When they want to call you is when they're taking it seriously.
> It's also well-known language from product managers and UX researchers trying to gather data to improve their product. And well-known language from customer support people trying to gather more information in order to escalate to the right people who can help.
No it is not. The particular phrasing that was used I have never seen used in any other way than to be dismissive towards people.
> Your knee-jerk cynicism saddens me.
My cynicism isn't knee jerk, My cynicism stems from roughly 20 years working as a developer, being in and observing the industry.
> If someone doesn't want to help, they generally just ignore. They generally don't suggest hopping on a call ASAP. When they want to call you is when they're taking it seriously.
Not if it gets noticed and talked about on forums. It is then used as damage control.
If you're never seen it used to be helpful, I don't know that to tell you. I have, all the time, and it seems entirely normal and unremarkable.
> My cynicism stems from roughly 20 years working as a developer
That saddens me. It seems like you've worked at some rough places, I'm sorry. But they're not all like that, and I wish you could see that.
> Not if it gets noticed and talked about on forums. It is then used as damage control.
I don't see how it's going to work as damage control. Can you explain how? Either it helps resolve things (good), or it doesn't and people keep complaining in the thread. I don't see any scenario where it controls damage. Damage control is things like locking a thread or shadowbanning. Not offering to call.
I'm really sorry you see everything through such a cynical lens.
> If you're never seen it used to be helpful, I don't know that to tell you. I have, all the time, and it seems entirely normal and unremarkable.
I suspect that you didn't understand the subtext of the conversation. If you aren't used to dealing with it, you will take the comment on face value, if you are like me that had to deal with it most of my life, you won't.
> That saddens me. It seems like you've worked at some rough places, I'm sorry. But they're not all like that, and I wish you could see that.
I got paid well enough. I prefer to be a gun for hire and deal with the reality. I actually prefer these environments, I can assume everyone around me is a snake.
> I don't see how it's going to work as damage control. Can you explain how? Either it helps resolve things (good), or it doesn't and people keep complaining in the thread. I don't see any scenario where it controls damage. Damage control is things like locking a thread or shadowbanning. Not offering to call.
I am sure other people have explained this to you. However it is extremely simple.
1) Feign concern. This fools enough people so it gets quieted down.
2) Call up, pretend to care, person calms down as they feel like things are being addressed.
3) Do nothing.
4) It gets forgotten about, person that initially instigated complaint doesn't bother following up.
> I'm really sorry you see everything through such a cynical lens.
I don't see everything through a cynical lens. I see communications of this type as cynically because they have almost always been disingenuous.
> I suspect that you didn't understand the subtext of the conversation.
I suspect you're inventing a subtext that simply isn't there.
> I actually prefer these environments, I can assume everyone around me is a snake.
Again, I'm really sorry. That's a very, very sad thing.
> I am sure other people have explained this to you. However it is extremely simple.
This process you're describing doesn't make any sense. People who are quitting a volunteer position don't get fooled. They're not going to feel like things are being addressed if they aren't. They tend not to forget, but rather tell others, write long blog posts, share them on social media, etc. If the phone call doesn't try to address things but just ignores them in a call, it only adds fuel to the fire. It wouldn't be a good strategy.
> I see communications of this type as cynically because they have almost always been disingenuous.
And I'm sorry. If you think an offer to delve into a complaint over the phone to get more information is a cynical ploy, I really am sorry. It seems like there's nothing that could convince you someone is really trying to help, because of the lens you're choosing to interpret everything through. And because of the lens you've chosen, it seems self-reinforcing, which makes it extra-sad.
> I suspect you're inventing a subtext that simply isn't there.
No I am not. I don't appreciate being gas-lite about this.
How this office politik is used is covered in blogs, covered on YouTube. My parents, friends and colleagues are aware of it. Maybe you need to open your eyes.
> Again, I'm really sorry. That's a very, very sad thing.
Stop apologising, I find it patronising and insincere, even if that isn't your intention.
BTW. I've done the best work under those circumstances, I got paid a lot and it made me HTFU, which helps with personal growth.
> This process you're describing doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense. You are assuming they care if the get a small amount of negative press about it. They don't.
This will be forgotten about within a week, even by most people commenting even here.
> And I'm sorry. If you think an offer to delve into a complaint over the phone to get more information is a cynical ploy, I really am sorry. It seems like there's nothing that could convince you someone is really trying to help, because of the lens you're choosing to interpret everything through. And because of the lens you've chosen, it seems self-reinforcing, which makes it extra-sad.
Firstly. Speaking to me like this is quite honestly patronising. I am quite capable of doing value free analysis.
Secondly, The sort of language people are complaining about almost always been used as a way to deflect valid criticism back on person making the critique. Almost always for disingenuous reasons. Feigning concern about my cynicism doesn't change that fact.
In any event I am tired of being patronised by you.
>>> I suspect that you didn't understand the subtext of the conversation.
>> I suspect you're inventing a subtext that simply isn't there.
> No I am not. I don't appreciate being gas-lite about this.
It's not gaslighting to simply disagree. So please don't throw around accusations like that. Subtext is by definition open to interpretation.
I wasn't trying to be patronizing, and I certainly wasn't "feigning concern". Again, that's the response of a cynic who refuses to believe that sincerity and good intentions are possible. But you are making it clear you don't want to continue the conversation so that's fine.
I did previous work on a product where there was intended to be a message in many languages saying “call XXX for help in (language name)” but they’d obviously used “English” in the text to be translated as several of the translations into Asian languages literally said to call the number for help in English. I raised this and got nobody to care.
From my read, the software didn't go wrong. It did exactly what they intended it to -- machine translations replaced handwritten translations provided by community volunteers. Seems like a pretty big middle finger to those volunteers.
The lead realized that Mozilla doesn't care about their opinion (they did this without discussing with them) nor do they care about the work they were doing (by replacing their work with machine translations). A "quick call" doesn't solve this.
Those are a huge number of assumptions you're making, absolutely none of which are in the post.
Generally speaking, orgs aren't trying to replace high-quality human translations with lower-quality machine translations. They are often trying to put machine translations in where there are no translations, though. Getting the balance right requires fine-tuning. And fine-tuning requires a quick call to start to better understand the issues in more detail.
Companies are absolutely falling over themselves to replace high quality human translations with lower quality machine translation. I’m not sure how a hacker news poster could miss this trend.
A hacker news poster is very likely to consume the original English text and never encounter anything else, regardless of whether it's human-translated or not. Just like the people who make these decisions in the first place
> Generally speaking, orgs aren't trying to replace high-quality human translations with lower-quality machine translations.
How would you handle updates to an article? Would you blindly replace all existing translations or would you notify the maintainers and wait for them to get around to it?
I wouldn't be surprised if orgs blindly opted for the first, which also means that a single spelling correction would be enough to overwrite days of work.
Hence why I said "from my read". This is how I view the situation, and why the lead is reacting the way they are.
> They are often trying to put machine translations in where there are no translations, though.
And at what point are all of the translations done by machines and the work the community is doing no longer needed? At the very least, the nature of their work will change and I think they're not interested in participating anymore.
(Unlike GP) I don't actually have a problem with your assumptions. They seem likely to me. But I still have a problem with the whole sentiment of, uh, people on your side of the discussion.
Let's just assume it is how you say it is. (The only assumption I am not willing to make is that people at Mozilla are already convinced it was a bad idea after all.) What in your opinion would be the right move now, after they rolled this bullshit auto-translator out and pissed off a lot of people in the community, including a major contributor for the last 20 years? Surely they could just ignore him and go on with this auto-translation initiative (BTW, thay don't even have to worry about whatever he wants to "prohibit" to do with his translations, because he waived off his rights by posting them). Would it be better than trying to set up a call and discuss things, try to find some compromise, gather a number of recommendations she may then pass onto people working on the auto-translator initiative (because surely this Kiki person, whoever she is, is not the sole person responsible for this and cannot magically just fix the situation)?
I'm not sure if just this individual is upset, or if he's speaking on behalf of the entire community he's the leader of.
I think it's clear that Mozilla wants machine translation to take a bigger role in producing localized content, and this new process will be a large shift in the way things have been done. I think it's fair for Mozilla to do this, but I also think it's fair for the maintainer to be upset with this decision and no longer want to volunteer his time to clean up slop.
The initial response feels premature and tone deaf which is why people are irked by it.
Given that Mozilla "shot first" so to speak, the onus is on them to take action first e.g. disable the bot, revert changes to articles, etc. Only after doing this can discussion on a path forward happen.
There is no such person as "Mozilla". There is Kiki, a "Support Community Manager", probably a relatively low-level worker (but it doesn't matter much if she is actually has some weight in the organization). So, you are Kiki. You just saw that message. What do you do now? Just ignore it? Do not respond anything and immediately call the CEO and try to convince him/her that he/she must order to disable that auto-translation bot, without even trying to gather more information? No onuses and stuff, what are your actions, exactly?
Because a lot of people in this thread are whin… ahem, expressing their discontent with Mozilla, as we all usually do, but I've yet to see anybody to propose anything realistic at all, let alone better than ask an offended community member for a call and at least to try to talk it through and establish what could be some actionable steps to remedy the situation.
> What in your opinion would be the right move now, after they rolled this bullshit auto-translator out and pissed off a lot of people in the community
In Japan? Sincere appology followed by resignation.
No, the Japanese absolutely do not set up a call to discuss things after you've scerwed and disrespected them. They respectfully give you the cold shoulder.
Mozilla should not be surprised if their market share dwindles in Japan after this.
> Would it be better than trying to set up a call and discuss things, try to find some compromise
Are you serious? First, make a decision without consulting anyone, foist it on people that don't want it, then 'try to find a compromise'? If you care about people, you consult them before you make a decision, not after they've been burnt by it.
There many, many translating teams. When they designed this, it would be normal to consult with some of them. Not every single one. Maybe they sent some plans to every team and many of the teams never read them. Maybe the plans were hard to understand.
People aren't perfect. Setting up a call to discuss things is how you start to fix things.
and actually understanding their contributors would require a lot more than a fucking "quick call"
that's the problem. stop thinking about the org and think about the person. these are volunteers who feel taken advantage of, being met with corporate jargon
fly out and take him to dinner if you actually give a shit. or write a check. a "quick call" is so insulting
A quick call is a courteous first step. The other person might not have time for a long call, so you want to show you're respecting their time. Then you follow it up with a longer meeting with the relevant engineer and manager, etc. "Taking someone to dinner" is not the first step here. The way to show you care is by trying to understand the situation before anything else.
No, a quick call is not a courteous first step when someone tells you that you've destroyed 20 years of their work and they no longer want to have anything to do with you.
Suggesting that such an offence can be resolved by a "quick call" is extraordinarily disrespectful. A courteous first step would have been to apologise profusely, revert the damage that the bot did, and ask to set up a call to discuss what it might take to re-enable it in the future.
This is NOT the leader of the new transition tool! This is just a customer service manager in Indonesia who is trying to gather more information.
The steps that you describe might well be taken after the "quick call" gathers more information and figures out the people to escalate it to.
You are being entirely unreasonable in what you are demanding. This isn't a response from the Mozilla CEO. This is sometime in customer service, responding to a short post in a forum. Their response is entirely appropriate as a first step.
If she doesn't have responsibility for this, she just shouldn't respond. The transition team should have responded. Or, she could have responded with "I'm contacting the transition team leader to escalate your issues as soon as possible" or similar. There is absolutely no excuse for responding to someone who has announced that they are quitting over very explicit grievances with "let's hop on a call to get some details". If ever there is a time to escalate, it is this.
To escalate, you need to have a better idea of the issues to know who to escalate to. Plus this is turning into a personal issue (quitting) so a forum isn't appropriate for that part. Asking to talk on the phone is a perfectly reasonable, appropriate, and sensitive way to find out more and figure out how to most helpfully address things. A phone call is the first step in escalation. I honestly don't understand your negative read here. Things don't get 100% addressed immediately in a single exchange. Communication is a back and forth process and this is an entirely appropriate initial response from a customer service manager.
The way to show you care is by having a meeting of the minds before you shove your changes in their face. The fact that the deployment was done carelessly demonstrates disregard.
I doubt "take them out to dinner" is the right solution in this situation, but any attempt at redressal must understand the above point and acknowledge it publicly.
"Ask for forgiveness rather than permission" is far from universally true, and carries massive cultural baggage. You cannot operate within that framework and expect all humans to cooperate with you.
It is absolutely insulting. The manager/administrator doesn't apologise, but instead is "sorry for how you and the Japanese community feel". They are dismissive of the concerns as just a "quick call" is proposed, in a short response to a detailed message.
Had I been thrown in this situation:
"Dear Marsf,
I'm sorry that sumobot was introduced to the Japanese SUMO community without consultation. I have disabled it, and the development team are working to undo the changes it has made. We will revert articles to how they were on 21 October. Contributions made since then by the Japanese community could be retained in the staging system, where they can be approved or rejected. Please let me know whether you would like this, or would prefer them to be discarded returning the whole system to the 21 October.
We very much appreciate the Japanese SUMO community's contributions and your work as locale leader, and we hope it can continue. Sumobot will remain disabled on the Japanese translation. If, with some changes, it could be useful to you, we can discuss that here, or schedule a meeting if you prefer.
Thank you"
In this exact situation, before sending I'd check it with my Japanese colleague.
The thing about English language is that, just like Japanese, it's highly contextual and has different constructs for expressing different level of respect. The problem is, English speakers are completely unaware of this, so either they get it right based on intuition, or they fuck up. In this case, the guy used "I'm your superior and you'll do what I say" mode, while the appropriate mode would've been "oh shit I'm sorry how do I fix this".
But he fairly in depth described the problem and his reasoning for why it is a problem. There's nothing really to "jump on a quick call" about without actually first addressing the issues. Plus it just sounds, for lack of a better term, retarded. First off, in comparison to basically any other communication, calls aren't quick. Much less the one that you have to schedule around time zones. Calls require focused attention which if you are used to multi-tasking are a huge drain. Secondly I don't really feel like going too deep, but the use of the verb jump is like a bludgeon to the frontal lobe of anyone that's had to spend time listening to buzzword heavy C-suite speeches when they could have been doing their actual work.
Quite. "We may have made a mistake, would you be open to discuss this with us either through email or a call at your preference?" would work a lot better in this setting.
> But he fairly in depth described the problem and his reasoning for why it is a problem. There's nothing really to "jump on a quick call" about without actually first addressing the issues.
No, he didn't. I'll repeat a comment I made elsewhere:
The problems are nowhere near actionable. A lot more information is needed.
E.g. literally the first bullet: "It doesn't follow our translation guidelines". OK -- where are those guidelines? Is there a way to get it to follow them, like another commenter says works? Does the person need help following the process for that? Or is there a bug? Etc.
These are the things a call can clarify. It's the necessary first step, so why are people complaining?
> Calls require focused attention which if you are used to multi-tasking are a huge drain.
Solving important problems requires focused attention. Which is why you get on calls to solve them when they're urgent and important, and not something that can be multitasked.
I think you misunderstood what people are taking issue with. You explain that this matter is complicated and non-trivial - and yes, that’s exactly the point!
People don’t have a problem with real-time communication via audio or video in general. They have a problem with the suggestion that it’s a trivial issue that can be easily fixed by "jumping on a quick call."
The point about there being a "fairly in-depth" description of the issues isn’t that there’s nothing more to discuss - fixing those issues would obviously require talking through the specifics. The point is that this is a real problem that requires action and commitment, so suggesting it’s a non-issue that can be clarified with “a quick call” comes off as dismissive and unproductive, whether that’s intentional or not.
"Let's hop on a quick call so we can truly understand what you're struggling with".
The response doesn't acknowledge the severity of the problem at all and the wording of "what you're struggling with" suggests that the original poster is somehow at fault (or too dumb) for "struggling" with Mozilla's terrible decisions.
This is the kind of reply you'd get if you contacted Dell tech support because your computer is not turning on.
I assume it didn't. I can't imagine it's not versioned.
> The response doesn't acknowledge the severity of the problem at all
Offering to escalate to a phone call immediately seems to acknowledge the severity to me. Not really sure what you want here. The person came in with complaints, the response is to dig into them over the phone. That's ideal.
> the wording of "what you're struggling with" suggests that the original poster is somehow at fault (or too dumb) for "struggling" with Mozilla's terrible decisions.
This is a bizarre interpretation. I read it as validating that the person is having a rough time. There is zero indication of whose fault it is, or that it has anything to do with intelligence. That's coming from you, not the text. The fact that you are reading empathetic wording as an insult to someone's intelligence baffles me.
If I take the time to organize my thoughts and present them, I want the person to whom I'm presenting them to attempt to respond.
If I failed to make myself clear, at a minimum, presenting me with a list of things needing clarification is helpful for me to take the time to prepare.
"Hop on a call" is to me almost always shorthand for "I don't respect the issue enough to attempt to organize my thoughts ahead of time, but I'll ramble about it and let you pick my brain." Or in the most malicious cases, the other party is seeking plausible deniability.
In my experience it's not that way 100% of the time, but it's damn close.
> the fastest way for both parties is over the phone ASAP rather than through a bunch of emails
I don't disagree with your statement, but I read the sentence:
"Would you be interested to hop on a call with us to talk about this further?" with a similar gross reaction as the OP comment did.
Reading that in response to Marsf's original message of airing grievances and feelings of disrespect towards his work felt entirely tone-deaf and corporate in nature. Especially in context of this being in response to the Japanese team, where Japanese business communication norms are often at odds with the American standard.
You might think that this method of communication is inefficient, but the heart of the matter seems that the Japanese team finds the very emphasis on efficiency as disrespectful when it comes at the cost of the human element of respect.
> felt entirely tone-deaf and corporate in nature. Especially in context of this being in response to the Japanese team
The person is a "Support Community Manager" in Indonesia if you click on their link. They're not the CEO of Mozilla who is supposed to be an expert in intercultural communication. I think you're being kind of harsh on someone who is presumably not high-level and just trying to do their job and get more information to be helpful.
> The person is a "Support Community Manager" in Indonesia if you click on their link. They're not the CEO of Mozilla who is supposed to be an expert in intercultural communication.
This is completely backwards. The CEO is not expected to manage intercultural communication. You know whose job that is? The community manager.
The community manager for Indonesia wouldn't be expected to manage communication with Japan, but managing local contributors is absolutely a job for the community manager and not the CEO.
> This is completely backwards. The CEO is not expected to manage intercultural communication. You know whose job that is? The community manager.
Sorry, you're wrong. Intercultural communication is very much a core skill for the CEO of a global organization. They're expected to know how to communicate appropriately so some international deal doesn't get torpedoed due to a faux pas.
> The community manager for Indonesia wouldn't be expected to manage communication with Japan
Even if not a high level, then s/he had to learn that style of communication from peers in the corp, and the tone is set by managers. It's entirely OK to blame someone who has title “Manager”.
The style of communication seems perfectly fine to me. It's acknowledging there's a problem, apologizing as much as they can before they have the real facts, and offering to communicate over the phone to figure out what's really going on. I honestly don't know what more you want from someone who is a customer service manager. Not the leader of the team who built the translation product.
The problem is, its false to insist that the manager does not have real facts. The facts have been stated by OP in the first post in the thread, and while the statement can be true or false, it's not like it's not there. The responder should have listened and evaluated this, possibly with consultation with PM of the feature, and just by this response we can assume s/he just didn't listen.
Moreover, OP chose the very thread as the venue, and attempting to switch it to a different, intransparent one is a disservice to the community. Community is very important context of this message, and the response seems to validate the proposition that it's really the end of it, per the subject of the thread.
"quick call?" in corporatespeak means "I believe our disagreement to be a minor misunderstanding that can be clarified in a few minutes of conversation"
In a company you should never ever "quick call" someone (especially on a group forum) who has presented a genuine list of grievances against whatever you're doing, unless you're subtly trying to pull rank to override those grievances.
You're right. I misquoted, and that was an error on my part. While I regret the error, I don't feel the word "quick" really changes the sentiment too much. It certainly doesn't change my visceral response.
I am fascinated by the nuanced opinions people have about word choice. What phrase would you use to ask someone to discuss a matter, but which you feel would be more appropriate for this kind of situation?
My guess would be the anger comes from implication that is a possible solution at all. This type of “hop on a call” request is not usually actually designed to “truly understand what you're struggling with.” (words from the post)
Instead it is usually a PR tactic. The goal of the call requester is to get your acquiescence. Most people are less likely to be confrontational and stand up for themselves when presented with a human - voice, video, or in person. So, the context of a call makes it much more likely for marsf to backpedal from their strongly presented opinion without gaining anything.
This is a common sleazy sales tactic. The stereotypical overly aggressive car salesman would much rather speak to you in person than via email even though the same information can be conveyed. It is also used in PR and HR situations to grind out dissenters, so it comes off in this context as corporate and impersonal.
> The stereotypical overly aggressive car salesman would much rather speak to you in person than via email even though the same information can be conveyed.
There might be an element of personality there. I was texting with a real estate agent (for apartment rental, not purchase) in China once, when he decided that as long as we were talking he might as well call me. He didn't bother mentioning this to me beforehand.
Of course, all I could do was hang up on him. It's not like I could understand what he said. And I don't think that was especially difficult to foresee.
So he wasted some time and seriously annoyed me in the most predictable way possible. Why? Not for any reason specific to the situation. Maybe there's emphatic training somewhere that says "always call". Or maybe the type of people who become salesmen have a deep, deep instinct to call.
I've been a typical IT person for a very long time. In the last few years, I got into contact with salespeople, by being basically a sales engineer.
And I've learned that there is a reason to make a call besides the publicity aspect: A call (and I mean call with voice and possibly video) forces immediacy. It puts both parties on the spot. Or rather just the party being called, because hopefully the caller did prepare for the call. Also, this immediacy enables rash and uninformed decisions, whereas asynchronous communications enable more deliberation and research. In sales, you don't want deliberation. You want to get this over quick and easy. And if you've dealt with a long long email chain that goes back and forth quibbling over minutiae, a call can reduce this kind of indecisiveness and inhibition.
So I see this whole thing as insulting in even more ways: A "quick" call means that it is an unprepared one. Also emphasized by the lack of real topic or agenda beyond what the original post already stated. No way forward for the other party that is possible to prepare for. No prior chain of communications, so if the call is really the first reaction in the first short email, this means "you are unimportant, I don't want to waste time, let's get this over with".
Also, in many cultures (I've only had to deal with European ones, so no idea if this really applies to the rest of the world), setting a stage is important. There is a cultural meaning to CC-ing a manager, to inviting more people than necessary to a meeting, or to do things publically or in private. A bigger stage formalizes things, gives importance, emphasizes seriousness. A smaller, private stage can mean the opposite: you might want the other party so safe face, because what you are going to tell more informally them is that they fucked up. You might want to get them to agree to something they could not easily agree to in public. Announcing publically, that there should be a private meeting is the worst of all kinds: Basically, this signals to the public that this person fucked up and is getting scolded, more serious than a totally private scolding, less serious than a totally public one. Why else would you widely announce a private meeting invite?
I don't know if the resignation in the original article is really a final resignation or rather some kind of cultural signal. I've seen that kind of drama used as means to an end, just think of the stereotypical italian lovers' discussion where both are short of throwing each other off the balcony, just to get very friendly a minute later. But in any case, whether it is deliberate drama or a genuine resignation, the necessary reaction has to be similar: You need to treat it as if it were a real resignation publically and respond with all the usual platitudes that they are very valuable, you are so sorry to see them go and you'd do almost anything to keep them. Then you privately meet in private and find out which one it is, and maybe fix things. It is a dance, and you have to do the right steps. If you don't know the right ones, at least think hard (you have the time, it is email) on how not to step on any toes. The Mozilla people failed in that...
I think the complaint people are voicing in the HN thread is fairly straightforward, but it's being phrased in many different ways because the concept isn't viewed positively in American culture: Kiki, in her attempt to respond, has used an inappropriate level of linguistic formality.
More specifically, she's used a level of formality below what would be appropriate for most communication between strangers. Someone speaking in an official capacity (almost anywhere) who went much more informal than that would be at serious risk of getting fired. There's a similar effect to what was complained about in this meme tweet: https://xcancel.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594
> Can websites please stop the trend of giving error messages that are like "OOPSIE WOOPSIE!! Uwu We made a fucky wucky!! A wittle fucko boingo! The code monkeys at our headquarters are working VEWY HAWD to fix this!"
Forced cheerfulness and fictional intimacy are a bad call as a response to "after having 20 years of contributions overridden without warning, we can no longer work with you". That's true regardless of whether the complaint is meant as a dramatic opener to a negotiation or as a severing of relations.
It was this exact part of the conversation that touched me negatively too. marsf expresses some very valid criticism that, instead of being publicly addressed, is being handled by "let's discuss it privately". This always means that they don't want to discuss, they just want to shut you down.
I don’t think so. Working in tech with many busy people, I say “hop on a call”, but only in “let’s sync live, it’ll be faster” situations.
This stuck out to me as rude. I would never say that to someone on my team who expressed serious concerns, far less than this person quitting after years of dedication.
I would offer an apology, explanation, and follow up questions to understand more in public, then say I’m happy to set up time to talk privately if they would like to or feel more comfortable.
In my experience, and in my feeling as someone reading such things, you need to tone-match. The resignation message was somewhat formal, structured and serious in tone. Replying in such an informal tone means that you are not taking things seriously, which is insulting. Even more so because that informal answer is public.
I'm tone-deaf by culture and by personality. I often make those kinds of mistakes. But a public resignation like this is a brightly flashing warning light saying: "this needs a serious formal answer".
What about the reply in the link indicates to you that the person has empathy for marsf’s complaints and is willing to change anything at Mozilla in response to them?
For the reasons I stated above, the response comes off as faking understanding to manage a PR issue rather than genuine empathy and possible negotiation, but I am often wrong about many things.
'We're sorry you feel this way' implies that this is the fault of the person that feels that way, not of the party that made them feel that way. Given the very clear message this was entirely uncalled for. This is not the kind of feeling that goes away by being talked down to like that, it might go away after a reversal of a very bad policy decision and a very sincere apology about a mistake that was made and even then the damage is severe enough that I would not be surprised if the person that was slighted decided to stick to their decision.
Asking someone to "hop on a call" is phrasing you use with someone you are close with, not someone whose work you've just destroyed and is no longer interested in a relationship with you.
The fact that the preceding apology was absolutely awful does not help. "I'm sorry for how you feel" is wrong, since nobody asked them to react to "feelings" but the clearly delineated problems with the automation that Mozilla rolled out.
Asking to discuss something like this over synchronous voice comms is basically asking to go off the record and handle things privately. Sometimes that's appropriate, but if that's what the correspondant wanted they would have asked for it.
These three things combine to tell anyone who is paying attention that this is damage control, not meaningful engagement, and it's offensive to act this way toward someone who has put this much time into your project.
It’s really not a word choice thing (though it’s definitely the favorite word choice of orgs who are committed to not doing anything about it).
It’s that the complaint is descriptive on 5 or so actual problems and a couple of impacts that stem from them and the response doesn’t address any of them, it just looks like an attempt to take this issue out of the public space.
I suspect GP has had negative experiences with that specific phrase, "hop on a [quick] call", hence their "irrational rage". I also hate seeing that phrase at work:
1. "Hop" and "quick" suggests very simple matters, so to text-based people like me it doesn't really make sense why we wouldn't be able to resolve this matter asynchronously over text.
1b. Alternatively, the matter isn't actually trivial, so we should've had a proper meeting with other stakeholders instead of the caller debating me solo in a "quick" call.
2. I'm in the middle of something important or just hit my stride, and the caller is completely derailing my train of thought instead of just scheduling a meeting.
2b. The worst outcome is when I agree to "hop on", but the caller has gone AFK within 5 minutes of sending their invitation, so I'm just quietly seething by myself in the call.
3. The caller and I can't understand each other's accents so I'm trying to accommodate for the both of us by communicating through text, and I find it difficult to bring this incompatibility up without getting fired. I also had a caller who always whispered at his laptop mic so I had to turn up the subwoofers to have a chance of understanding him.
But we should point out that "quick" doesn't exist in Kiki's message. I think that goes back to point #1 about how the specific word "hop" can imply that the issue is trivial. Or maybe we're all going insane over unnecessary ad-hoc meetings.
Unrelated: I hate to appear anti-remote work, but I've noticed that remote workers tend to send more of these ad-hoc invitations, even more than getting tapped on the shoulder in the office. Are you all doing well out there?
It appears we're kindred spirits. I identify with every one of your points.
I'd add the following at an even higher priority than those you shared:
0. Folks whose first, and often only, reply to text comms is "quick call?" are often just unwilling/unable to organize their own thoughts and instead seek to offload the cognitive load by "talking through" the issue which just results in unproductive and circular discussions.
> Unrelated: I hate to appear anti-remote work, but I've noticed that remote workers tend to send more of these ad-hoc invitations, even more than getting tapped on the shoulder in the office. Are you all doing well out there?
I chortled at this! I have made the same observation and I have the same question.
With regards to your last point - in-person, you have more opportunities to connect with people at times that they're clearly not in the middle of something. Whether that's at the coffee machine, or right after a meeting, or just by reading their body language to see if they're concentrating.
When you're remote, you don't have that context, so everything you need from somebody has to be either scheduled (with the overhead and delay that entails), or potentially randomizing. When you need 5 minutes of somebody's time, it can be hard to do that in a respectful way. (Personally, I do try to do a "do you have some time today that we could talk about X," and try to handle stuff over text with coworkers who prefer text.)
In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45831614 jack1243star pointed out the possibility that English might not be Kiki's first language and they perhaps even have used ChatGPT to make the comment sound more polite.
The right thing to do is undo what you did and then ask to talk about it. There is nothing the person can say to make up for the destructive effects they took.
> What phrase would you use to ask someone to discuss a matter, but which you feel would be more appropriate for this kind of situation?
The only thing to ask for here are some clarifications and expanded explanations so that the original text does not get misunderstood. If the Mozilla representative does see such potential points he can perfectly ask for them publicly.
I mean, almost anything would be better. But here's my swing:
> I'm so sorry about this. We definitely screwed up here and want to
> fix things. We want to chat to you in a call if you're able?
> We will stop changing things, issue a moratorium on AI while we
> figure things out. You and communities like yours are central to
> our entire existence and purpose at Mozilla.
There is nothing you can do, because you already traded away the community for your AI project and money. The same corpo goons who don't see anything past their slop projects are the one who use the "jump on a quick call" lingo
I always read "call?" as, "I won't bother trying to understand what you took the time to present, can you craft a tailored summary for me, then intepret my own ramblings and figure our how to apply that to what you are saying?"
In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45831614 jack1243star pointed out the possibility that English might not be Kiki's first language and they perhaps even have used ChatGPT to make the comment sound more polite.
Making a comment sound more polite should be done by addressing the other person correctly and respectfully, and making sure that you are actually responding to the issues that have been raised. When whatever you wrote is so completely offensive and disrespectful, asking ChatGPT to make it sound more polite will undoubtedly make it worse. Like writing "Sorry, not sorry", when the content of your message clearly conveys that you're "Not sorry". It only adds to the disdain of your original message, putting even more emphasis on the fact that you are wasting the recipients time and patience while refusing to show any remorse.
Yeah it’s a strange request. No acknowledgment or even indication that the other person understands the issues raised.
And they’re happy to eat up more of that person’s time, probably ask them to explain all over again. Also it seems they don’t think it is worth a long call… just a quick one.
I think a phone call can be better for resolving a conflict because it allows a more rapid back and forth, you can adapt in real time to how the other person is responding. If someone gets upset about some word choice like here, you can quickly say "I'm sorry I didn't mean it like that" and get back to the actual topic over how the work should be organized instead of some superficial detail.
In the end it may boil down to some strong hatred for AI, this seems to be very common recently and "I prohibit to use all my translation as learning data for SUMO bot and AIs" certainly points that way. If that is the root cause then it may be impossible to resolve to the satisfaction of both sides.
Yes I agree with all that and for the record, I was being a bit cheeky.
Personally, I think it's dogma that belongs in the bin, rather than ideology.
I can't really say it's based on anything empirical, but to me, ideology is almost meant to be critically analyzed where as dogma is based on strict acceptance.
I'd summarize my feelings by saying ideology is presented whereas dogma is dictated, if that makes any sense.
I love that and it does make sense to me, thanks for sharing.
Dogma is what you follow blindly and don’t question, whereas ideology while still rigid you can examine and shape according to your own personal values.
As someone who doesn't watch anime, this article reminds me of when a coworker sends a screenshot with zero context and says something like "is this supposed to be like this?" Maybe it's a spectrum thing, but I find it beyond lazy and insulting.
In the article, there's zero explanation of what the actual issue is, at least in the first few paragraphs. It just seems to say the subtitles are bad with some examples and puts the burden on the reader to determine why.
Is the issue the subtitle's location on the screen ? Contrast or font? Quality of translations? Again, it's probably a spectrum thing, but without any context I find it overwhelming and overstimulating.
The article is just long, and rambly, clearly from someone on the inside of the issue, not targeting complete outsiders.
The gist of it is this: Subtitles were a huge part of anime culture.
1. Subtitles were great at one point. Demonstration is this video: https://daiz.moe/content/crunchyroll/klk-underwater-1.mp4 The English subtitles are so well integrated, that they feel like they are part of the original scene. But actually, they are added in post!
In these times, great subtitles were done by a vibrant, legally grey, dedicated subculture. Subtitling, at this point, is about craftsmanship, and appreciation of culture. Anime at this point is a niche, even though becoming more and more popular in the West.
Anime at this point is mainstream in the West. This is the corporate version of the same, where subtitling is seen as a problem to be solved as cheaply as possible. The culture around it seems to be dissolved, as the subtitles are now determined by corporate issues, not craftsmen, or connoisseurs.
Well... the very first paragraph of the article does say with highlighting how "the presentation quality for translations of on-screen text has taken a total nosedive". And then it shows visual examples of the new bad quality and gives comparison screenshots demonstrating good quality shortly after.
A small suggestion: ask a friend of yours who don't regularly watch anime to read your article for 20 seconds, and see if they can explain what it is about.
I spent quite some hours on CR, yet it was maybe until 30 seconds later before I realized what the "nosedive" refers to exactly. In fact, I kept thinking "quality" refers to "translation quality" and I was puzzled I could not see obvious issues.
It doesn't need to be that. Anyone given side-by-side screenshots without additional contexts should immediately tell you what's happening, and I've read lots of blog posts like that.
More specifically, the article provides 4 bad screenshots at fitst. I actually went through 3 of them. I kind of guessed what you meant but wasn't sure. Then there is another gallery of good ones. Why? Just provide good vs bad at the top, explicitly explain what's the expectation, and if needed, provide more examples. That'll be 200% better than this.
I made some revisions to the start of the article in order to make things more clear to the layman unfamiliar with anime and subtitling. Hopefully that clears things up!
The addition does indeed provide the clarity I sought. For reasons I won't bore you with, I truly could not discern what the issue was. Every one of my hunches was wong.
Hopefully you can see I was disappointed because it was something I wanted to care about, I just wasn't sure what it actually was I was supposed to care about.
I appreciate your openness to feedback, and I think the article is better for it.
The article says there's a nosedive. But by what standard(s)? See the questions I already posted in my original response.
Both the "good" and "bad" quality examples contain subtitles with no discernible difference. All examples contain legible subtitles. So where's the "nosedive"?
There's clearly some anime-specific context and nuance that is NOT communicated with context-less screencaps.
Perhaps the article wasn't written for someone unfamiliar with anime, and I'm not meant to understand, but it would be helpful to have the difference explained. Not to mention the improved accessibility for screen readers or folks with sensory processing issues like myself. At a minimum, marking up the image would be helpful. Circle things. Arrows. Help me understand, don't drop me into unfamiliar territory and leave me to guess.
The difference is that when there is text on the original video material, in the good examples the translations are positioned in the proximity of the original texts, and styled similarly, which makes it easier to understand what is translation of what, and generally improves immersion.
In the bad examples, the translations for the texts are mixed with the lines the characters are speaking, which makes it harder to follow.
Basically they are intending to limit their own options of how subtitles can be displayed. The limit of not being able to position multiple subtitles at specific position is the biggest thing imo. To go with the first screenshots the post has:
For the first it is translating the info box on the left and just adding it above its dialog subtitles. This has a few problems.
First the text overlaps the text in the box, not the worst thing here but that can sometimes make things hard to read and imo doesn't look good.
Third with two dialogs to translate (like tv in background plus people in foreground) you could probably better indicate where what is coming from with the ability to position it.
I agree, I didn't see that much of a difference between the good quality and bad quality examples. Is it the fonts, or the translation, or the placement of the text?
Thanks for the response. I was feeling a little crazy. The rest of responses to my comment so far are either dismissive or don't seem to understand what I was trying to communicate, but you seem to have the same issue I have.
The article definitely could be improved. I kind of guessed what the author to say at the beginning, but it was not really clear until much later. Had the author shown a side-by-side comparison at the beginning, it would have helped.
I think that was the intent, but my point was that even a side-by-side isn't worth much to someone truly clueless who doesn't know what to look for.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, it's extremely difficult for me to determine which of those thousand words are applicable, and without guidance introduces a ton of noise.
I cannot imagine how much more difficult of life you make yourself with this kind of reaction to someone writing extensively on an article nobody forced - much less even asked - you to read.
Did you mean to imply autistism-driven sensory overload is something I'm choosing in interpersonal communication?
I did not mean the article was lazy, I meant that specifically about hypothetical co workers.
The article was at the time reminiscent of said hypothetical co workers, but not at all the same thing. My wording was charged, but not really unclear. The first paragraph is about one subject and the second paragraph was about another.
No need for an apology. I certainly could have been clearer. In any case I could use more empathy for my fellow humans who lack communication skills, so your point is still valid.
I also grew up where 90% of TV was subtitled (Finland, where, incidentally, the author of the article is from too), but I find the "good" anime subtitles better – for the simple reason that they make it easier to see which translation corresponds to which text.
Note that anime has generally more text on the screen that many western shows, so I think subtitling practices of some subtitle-heavy western countries, while informed and proven by time, don't necessarily represent optimal practices for anime.
But I think you are correct about the subtitle preferences of anime fans. The "general wisdom" of audiovisual translations is that great translations manage to convey the important point very succinctly, and a professional translator knows how to shave off the fluff to achieve subtitles that are quick to read and "fade in the background" in the sense that you don't even realize that you are reading them.
Ultimately what one would really want is not better subtitles but a localized version with on screen text replacement by overlay. The kanjis would simply disappear. A lot of shows were successfully translated and localized in the 80's and 90's in various countries, there is no reason we couldn't do that anymore. The only reasons they aren't doing it anymore is cost reduction.
In what way? They both have subtitles. The issue with "quality" is not clear to at least me, and I'm guessing that's because I don't watch crunchyroll or much anime.
"...I find it beyond lazy and insulting." Using the words "lazy" and "insulting" in this way sounds rude, insulting, entitled and arrogant.
They are very negative words and it is rude to use them when referring to someone else's work or things similar to that work.
TFA is certainly not lazy (and it's very obvious to an NT that a LOT of effort went into it).
We should ideally all be producing content in an accessible way when possible. But doing so is difficult and is a learned skill set.
Making things accessible to NDs can be difficult because normal written English heavily utilizes things that NDs can be unable to intuitively process.
There is also often a trade-off involved in making work accessible. Aesthetically specifically, artistically generally, or in terms of brevity or convenience to others.
Your inability to read the context clues and process the visual information is your inability to do something. A thing that the vast majority of people can do. TFA clearly wasn't intended as insulting and your interpretation of it as insulting is unfortunate.
Your very specific needs are not the needs of the vast majority of people who are reading it. If you cannot see the difference in subtitles between the two sets of examples and tell that one is bad, then you are not the main target audience.
The new generation of subtitles are bland and poorly integrated with the context.
Previous subtitles were attractive and well integrated, with colours, typefaces, orientations and locations picked to best suit the content. Everything (including background signs) are translated with attention paid to details.
The article uses a lot of visual examples to explain this. It is written in a way that is intuitive and easy to digest for most people. I can literally skim this and understand it.
If you wished to write your comment in a way that wasn't rude to the OP, you could provide the same important information without using negative language:
"I am autistic and don't watch anime. I've read the first few paragraphs and I'm finding it overwhelming and overstimulating to precisely identify the problem.
What is the exact issue? The subtitle's location on the screen? Contrast or font? Quality of translations?"
Relevant parts of TFA that explain are:
>...translations for dialogue and on-screen text aren’t even separated to different sides of the screen – everything is just bunched up together at either the top or the bottom. Lots of on-screen text is even left straight up untranslated.
>The amount of it varies from series to series, but almost every anime out there makes use of on-screen text at one point or another, with some featuring downright ridiculous amounts of signs (what on-screen text is called for short). With all this on-screen text, it is also very common for there to be text visible on the screen potentially in multiple positions, even when characters are speaking.
>At bare minimum, when subtitling anime, you should be able to do overlaps (multiple lines of text on the screen at the same time) and positioning (the ability to freely place subtitles anywhere on the screen).
>Overlaps and positioning are really just the bare necessities for dealing with on-screen text in anime though – ideally, you should also be able to use different fonts, colors, animate text in various ways, etc. Making use of all these possibilities is an art unto itself, and this art of on-screen text localization is commonly referred to as typesetting. Typesetting is important even when dubbing anime, as all that on-screen text is going to be there in the video all the same!
>[Crunchyroll started] mangling subtitles with typesetting into something compatible with the awful subtitling standards of the general streaming services [Netflix and Amazon Prime].
Seems like you were so quick to jump to the defense of the author (who likely doesn't need your white knighting) you completely misunderstood or are misrepresenting what I said was lazy and insulting which was the hypothetical coworker example, and NOT the article itself.
With that in mind, I don't have the energy to read the rest of your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and I'm sorry if my phrasing wasn't clear. I'm sure it's a great article, and I meant in no way to insult the author.
I'm just not equipped to gather much meaning from it the way the information is presented.
Dude no offense but they just read what you wrote. Maybe it isn't what you intended to write but you can't blame them for not reading your mind. Applying "beyond lazy and insulting." to coworker and article is the normal interpretation.
It likely doesn't account for the evolving definition of what a "close" friend actually is.
Just because Jack and Jill know a bunch of details about each others' lives owing to facebook updates or group chats, that doesn't necessarily mean they share a strong connection, at least not in the traditional sense. But I suspect they might still feel a certain connection and belonging to each other.
It used to require frequent, active, quality communication to know someone well. Now it just requires a few clicks.
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