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So, I'm currently going through the CSS Foundations course...which is being retired on March 3rd, updated and re-tooled into other modules and what have you...

...I was doing this Code Challenge for CSS Transitions wherein the code for a transition was only working one way...and not the way the challenge was coded to give a correct answer for (the Code Challenge preview functionality versus the actual submit functionality). I tested it in Codepen, a Workspace...and SublimeText2. It worked my way and not in the way that I eventually, through trial and error, figured out the question was wanting it written out (...the right way, as it turns out).

So, I wrote a very obnoxious negative feedback...counseling the powers-that-be that 'you're only going to confuse a student by demanding and only giving credit for a literal, incorrect answer that doesn't function instead of an answer that does function...is clearly working right in the preview testing environment.'

...and after I was done and the adrenaline had subsided, I noticed that magically...in Codepen, the "incorrect" code that the question had been wanting that hadn't worked for ten straight minutes...suddenly was working perfectly.

...and I felt about this big:.

Turns out...it's a Chrome 40 bug for Windows users that affects CSS transitions and animations (perhaps other things).

To their credit, the Treehouse crew has yet to dock me for being an [redacted]

It's actually refreshing to hear someone else mention this. I've been raising this issue when I can, even signing up to QA a course in order to make a difference. What I've learned is that the captions are the product of a third-party vendor Treehouse uses.

It's a real bummer having to slog through each video and apply brain power to correcting the material before using it to learn the actual subject. And I can't imagine actually being a deaf student in need of this accessibility feature. I'm hoping this is on a "big list of things Treehouse hopes to implement in the future," but I actually think the percentage of people bringing this up must be so low that it ranks somewhere at the bottom of the To-Do list - or (from a business perspective), the cost of captioning with this particular vendor, whoever it is, is so cheap that it's hard to pass up for a relatively 'low-priority' problem.

Want to start a captioning business? :)

One of these days, I'll be able to stop dreaming of writing these correction scripts and I'll just figure out how to do it. I swear to you...I'm going to write an award-winning Grammar Nazi app and win the Internet.

Hi Jess Sanders and Matt Varner

Thanks for bringing this up. I'll relay this to the team. As Matt pointed out, we use another service to create the transcriptions, so we will bring this to their attention as well.

It would be very helpful for me if you could list some of the videos that have the biggest problems. Feel free to email me at dave@teamtreehouse.com

Matt Varner & Jess Sanders

That's interesting and I had never experienced that as I've never had to use them and unlike Jess up there, I watch them all with the sound (I don't watch them elsewhere other than home so... ), and therefore have never even once seen a video with the captions.

It's funny that you said "want to start a captioning business?" because I know there are several freelance captioning businesses out there where you can sign up and caption random videos of your choosing that are in their database and "up for grabs" for a $/min fee that you get paid upon completion.

But what made me chuckle was, I was thinking that with the ridiculously copious amount of notes that I wind up taking when watching the videos, and the fact that they teach you how to create captioning files in the HTML Audio & Video deep dive, that I probably could have perfectly captioned about 100 different courses by now.

I download all the videos and write scripts to call up various playlists to allow for manual control of playback(slow down, speed up as well as skip back 5 sec, 10 sec, 30 sec, etc...) so actually doing this wouldn't be a problem.

In fact, I'd be willing to do that if there were some mutually beneficial agreement. It would offer some added benefit to the student because if you're typing every single word that will force you to pay attention to every little detail and double check by re-watching the video. Which is nearly what I do anyway lol. But the extra time consumption in making sure the files are written correctly and everything is lined up would warrant some bonus incentives.

Think about it staffers... offer discounts to those who might be willing to do such a thing as create captioning files of the videos they watch. or even just side freelance employment to a core group of users for either creating captioning for new courses moving forward as well as correcting ones that already exist. Wouldn't hurt as that's something that could go on a student resume.

Dibs on first spot though ;)

Cheers,

Huck -

Argh! I wish I had anticipated needing comparisons when I first started archiving my study notes.

My Google Drive is full of course notes...but it's not in a suitable format for this issue. I made a teeny tiny script to bunch up the strings from the SRT transcript file after exporting it without the timecodes (using a third-party editor), but then I personally edit them...and I don't think anyone except for me would find this useful.

For the node.js course I helped QA, I included some captions corrections...but it was so time-consuming, I couldn't get to all the videos.

I admit, I don't have the perfect way of doing it, so I first go through my normal routine (already time-consuming)...and then try to offer corrections in an SRT file-like form by comparing what my corrections look like in my notes document versus what they would look like in a corrected captions file. Perhaps ironically, I'm trying to learn Python right now to resolve the time overhead I have for this whole note-taking process, but it's a little like trying to get a chicken before you have the egg.

I will keep your email handy, though, Dave...and (going forward) hopefully help track it better.

HA! I'm with you, Huckleberry. "...and MY axe!" That playlist stuff sounds intriguing.

I guess I'm just naive. I would have thought that when shooting the course videos, the instructor would just follow a script...and that script would then be captioned, rather than introducing an error vector like having a non-subject matter expert interpret your words.