Cheers and Dismay at New YouTube CrowdSourced Captioning

We knew it was coming. Crowdsourced captioning for YouTube! Would we finally be able to stop the begging for captions on YouTube or at least reduce it sharply? Doesn't look like it! Here is why:

According to the new support page "Contributing subtitles and closed captions" on YouTube, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623,  YES, people can create captions for YouTube videos. BUT, the channels have to be voluntarily participating!

 Expand that "+" and you get a list of who is participating currently.

What is the problem with this? The problem is that word "Participating." Unless a channel is participating - voluntarily - there won't be any crowd sourced captioning. If they are participating, and if they have enabled this feature for the video, you will see this when you select the CC icon (if the CC icon is turned on at all). Otherwise, you won't see this.

So, cheers to YouTube for providing another option for increasing captioning on YouTube. Dismay because of the requirement that channels be participating in order to have the crowd sourced captions. Which means the begging has to continue. Only it will now have the newly added plea, "Could you participate in the YouTube Crowdsourced Captioning option?"

Join Caption Action 2

Join Caption Action 2 on Facebook!