But your question was if we were seeing an increase in such stories, and I brought up an issue which could make more stories seem to be like this than there actually are.
eh, i think the time frame we're lookin at is the larger point, rather than how many are caught up to raw. aside from an occassional few that picked up a rather new novel that barely has over 20 chapters in the first place, and/or is in danger of getting dropped by author, there's a much greater number of novels that've been started only to have their translator mysteriously vanish for long periods of time. i think there's more that never come back than those that try to desperately cling to their novels and get off the bare minimum of a chapter every 2-3 months (i can only think of 2 that i've personally read and have since dropped due to their attitude), but compared to ones that're actually caught up, there's not that many simply because most are web novels that get written faster than they can be translated and sometimes not even MTLs can keep up with that pace, if they wanna maintain at least some level of editing. light novels,however, are a different matter altogether.
I do not understand the whole point, most novels I read have releases at about 1 chapter per month or slower, and if they were dropped, chances are nobody would be translating them. You seem to be raising a non-existent issue to me, some translators are fast because they live of it, others translate as a hobby, so they do it only when they have time. Seems pretty logical to me that someone that translates on their free time would do things once a month and those that live of it would make releases once per day. I also don't get the point of toxic translators... Is it toxic to deliver content for people to read for free? This one point just confused me.
I assume you don't realize that those translators who release 10-20 chapters a month while asking for commissions every chapter are the very same people who fed the growth of bad aggregators. I also assume that you weren't here for the past decade of fan translations of novels. We have always been doing things this way. For over a decade. Then comes a bunch of guys translating xianxia, making profit off work they don't own and releasing a chapter every couple of days, raising the expectations of readers and suddenly we're the ones wrong? Listen here. We do this because we love the stories we translate. We do not make money off the authors' work. We have no right to make money off the author's work. We are not here for the money, we are here because we love the stories. And you're saying we are toxic? Look at the days of IRC. Look at the days of SPCnet. Look at the days of Re: Translations. You'd be blessed if there's a release for that particular title in a month. We don't make money off fan translation, period. We have our own jobs, our own sense of ethics. It's those for-profit guys who ruined everything by making profit off fan-translation. Those are NOT fan translation! Those are FOR PROFIT translations. Don't compare those guys with us, okay? Don't judge us by their standard. Now, for the record, I do agree that those who bit off more than they can chew should've let off some titles to focus on what they can cope with. But just because they deliver once a month doesn't make them slow. It makes it a hobby.
i might be wrong, but it looks like he's saying if it's the same person doing 2+ different novels, and giving one all his love and attention, while another gets shoved in a corner and only brought into the light so they can keep its active status, then they're doing a disservice to the novel by holding onto it like that. not that he's comparing two different translators' speed.
An expensive hobby I might add, due to one or all of the following 1 Possible time to earn job income forgone to translate 2 Paying for original raws 3 Under appreciation and even abuse received. Personally my group is a for profit translation, so you guys are free to bash me.
Oh, is that so? I thought he was making a point that all translators are the same and that some translators are lazier than others. If your point is correct then I may have jumped the gun a little. Well, at least the stories you translated didn't come from me. I would be pissed if the titles I suggested were taken by for profit translators, which just happened like a week ago and made me extremely angry my hands were shaking until I went to sleep. Because I actually asked for permission to translate that title in my broken Japanese. I didn't say no money was involved, but it was my reputation among authors in syosetu that was smeared in mud. If that guy was in front of me at the time I found out he was machine translating the title I mentioned while asking for donations, there wouldn't have been enough bowls to hold his blood. If you have permission to make money off it, then you're a commissioned translator, nothing's wrong with that. I myself am a real world freelance translator for big companies and shady underground organizations. It's just that you can't call yourself a fan translator anymore.
I couldn't have summed up what I'm trying to say any better than that. I'm mad at translators who hold onto projects they're obviously tired of, i wont name names but I've seen multiple novels being obviously pushed off while 1 novel is getting 10+ chapters a month. Now to reply to the rest of the other replies, I value translators whether they're doing it as a hobby or as a job. If a person wants to translate multiple stories, go for it. But 1 story shouldn't get all of the attention, at this point I feel like some translators are translating other stories only as an advertisement of themselves and the story they actually care about. Especially when they do 1 chapter a month and then say somewhere on the release "Go read ____". By toxic I mean translators who "claim" stories, those who say they're working on stories and yet obviously aren't. So when someone comes along and picks up the story the old translator badmouths the new translator. Again this is in relation to the above where its obvious that they're putting it off on purpose and not because of their actual translation speed nor their irl situation leading to them not being able to translate. I hope this clarifies. If there are any other questions about what I'm talking about please just ask.
i don't think we can really impose. the only person who has the right to do that would be the author. otherwise, everybody is free to translate whatever and how often they want. i think that if the translator is not paying it much attention compared to his/her other works, anybody should be able to pick up the story as long as they let the other translator know and if its okay to start from where they left off. otherwise they can always start from the first chapter. i think the key is just to communicate, be courteous and respectful as you do so. its not just what you say but how you say it. with regards to learning a new language, why not? not only would you be free to read any novel your heart desires, you can also improve your memory, be able to communicate whenever you travel to that country and boost your resume. you don't have to study all three at the same time. pick one, i would suggest learning chinese but its up to you. just don't expect to be able to read after a month. if you're consistent you might be able to do so after a year or two. but that's better than waiting for months or even years. you can't really control what other people do or how they behave but learning a language is something that you can actually do. that's what i'm doing too. i'm using chinesepod and pleco. for korean, you can check talk to me in korean. don't know about japanese. there's a lot of resources out there. but the best one is the one that you actually use.
I disagree about one point though: only the author can decide, communities can self monitor like the movie industry use to do in the States before the government came in... It probably is still self monitored. If they are no rules then anarchy will ensue. I imagine 20 translators picking up ISSTH because it's so popular. All starting from the beginning instead of picking new stories. It will suffocate the community. Rules are important like what NUF is trying to do with the 3 months minimum etc. Doesn't make it perfect but it's better than saying it's up to the author. I doubt TJSS cares to reply to fan translators or the Japanese college student/author who is too busy to check emails from someone that would appear as a scam since they don't have a similar community there
The community can make guidelines, rules, suggestions, recommendations but I don't think it has the full authority to impose or set limitations especially for fan translations. To use your example, if there are 20 translators working on ISSTH which does not really make sense in real life but let's just say that's the case, under what authority can the community impose limitations and how would it go about implementing them? How would they choose from the 20 translators? based on quality? first come first served basis? who gets to judge? Ultimately, the power is given to the reader/consumer. you have the right to choose who to patronize. only the author has the authority to impose limitations on their work. because it is rightfully theirs. if they choose to delegate a certain translator to do it and receive royalties i believe they have the capacity to ban others from translating as much as allowed by law. right now, most don't really mind others translating their work with or without permission. so yeah, as a community, we can monitor, make recommendations, but i don't think we have the right to prohibit anybody from translating whatever they want, more so dictating how often they should update. but we're certainly free to rant about it.
I disagree, you underestimate the power of a community. There is a reason companies hate unions. Divided we fall, together we conquer. EDIT: I didn't read your entire post before replying. You are mistaking one point, readers here are not paying customers (if you ignore donations). So single readers don't have buying power. NUF is already doing all that I said, blacklisting translators, not putting them on their feed, NUFers bashing poor quality translators etc. It is like a translator review If 20 translators pick up ISSTH, readers won't decide themselves, the NUF community will. You will see threads asking which translator is better and then the mods will most likely get involved and the best translator gets to be on NU