Here are some facts from working with Qidian (Noodletown)

What has Qidian done to piss us off, you ask?

Do you really not know? Look I respect your work, and I am thankful for it. But Qidian is indeed in the wrong here. You mentioned the advantages you received from Qidian, and ignored all other points. For eg the point where Qidian started all this mess.
You may be getting bored of translating GDN and sold it to Qidian, which you would have done so for free gladly, but do all translators are supposed to act like this?

Not everyone is bored to just give up on something they have been working on for ages.

You say that contract mentioned in WW post is ancient and news of the old. I wonder then why are you not sharing with us your new contract?

 

dunno, not a member and not interested in applying membership.

 

Yeah, I don't understand all the hatred either... They seem to pay a reasonable amount, which is pretty nice.

In the end, work is work, work gives money, and when money is involved, nothing is as simple as it was before... WW probably has some issues because it might lose money if they accept the terms from Qidian.

I think the main reason Qidian got so much hatred is because they didn't have tact though, WW does have a strong fanbase, so they should've been more careful when making a public announcement.

 

Moarrr Hail The King !!!

 

you know, I don't doubt there's a lot of truth in this.

But your argument feels sort of hollow when basic logic tells us 1. You are also under an NDA, and 2. By posting this, you are definitely breaching that NDA.

The only way you could do so, is if Qidian is allowing you to.

Even if everything you say is the unvarnished truth, from your perspective, it still reeks pretty badly.

....but then, so does Ren, so I guess it balances out?

 

I'll contest point number 4.

In most "developed", or "developing" countries, there are provisions in laws to protect every form of employment (for both employers and employees), even if they're classified as "private contractors". However, QI is capitalizing a lot on naivity of "wannabe profit translators", and also possibly (let me emphasize the word possibly) bypassing certain mandatory employment rules.

For example; certain countries, even when employed as contractors, must have insurance paid for by the employer, especially for protection against occupational hazards.

In translation (at least working with typing devices), there are such occupational hazards. As far as I know, QI has not even adhered to any.



I'll also contest number #5.
Just because your standards are "lower", does that mean the readers' standards must be low as well? In your own words,

I would just respectfully say, the moment people start voting with the wallet, it doesn't matter if you are the translator or not. IF there are better translation, even if they are pirate, or charged slightly higher, people would read that. Just because you have standards as low as Google translate, or Qi (your employer), doesn't mean readers are at ransom to pay for low quality. Again, voting with wallet applies. Its that simple. Sure, you can walk off with the USD40 per chapter, but there are already others who earn far more per chapter (in average). You may want to think for yourself why. But since you're already satisfied with that USD40 per chapter, I don't think you'll want to think too much.

I wanted to hit the post reply button, then again when I read at #3, .. LOL

You're saying that the survival of the community is based on translators and editors alone eh?
Well, you can have the godlike translators and editors, but shit won't fly if people don't buy. Especially when its paywalled. You can have be the best translator, and have the best editors. But when the story you translates gets 1 stars, and with all the negative comments (with or without paywall), and with no readers to even read it, let's see how that "community" survives. I'm thinking you're spouting based on the fact that the community is still new, and there will be fresh blood to take advantage of. But if everyone in the community decides to put 1 star for all your efforts, (or negatives if possible), I'll like to see how you "survive". After all, its a transaction. Willing buyer, willing seller. else why retarded translations like Wuxiadreams', and Novelsaga's (TTNH come to mind) can still survive? Because there are readers that are willing to lower their standards, and its still free. Paywall it, and with that shitty translations, fans or no fans, you're going to get lesser "fresh blood".

And just a sign off:
I don't know how much Qidian paid you for this post (because apparently, there are now translators that are slowly showing up and singing praises like "halleluyah Qidian", so I'm noticing a trend here), apart from paying you for your "bad" translations (as you've claimed that its so bad that xxxyyyzzz) but, yeah. If you're saying its free, it ain't. QI's app is a dataminer. QI's website also logs user (so there's something being taken from the users). Completely free? bollocks.

 

you mentioned contracts. so i have a question. do you and ww have the exact same contract so you know why a falling out truly happened and not just "i feel ww is trying to get more money" nonsense?

 

sinking this 40$ per chapter in my mind....

in my country its 1$ per hour... labor work.
thats entry level...
needs... 40 hrs to achieve....

my god.
i need to be a translator!

 

Frankly, I don't care about anything (I also don't know what happened, and I can't understand about anything), as long as it's free to read, I don't care

 

lol, idk man, these guys r rich with a big budget. They own 97% of the traffic for online novels (excluding porn) and they've been around for years, so they probably got a big fat savings account

 

@noodletowntranslated You say that WW wants to make more or almost same amount of money without paying for copyrighted material but what about Qidian's post of asking them to turn over the remaining 20 novels which they have licensed as well??? We all know that this is just a PR exercise by those guys to improve their abysmal standing with the readers.
1. They have stopped licensing their novels now.
2. They are not allowing Fan Translators to translate at their own site and are instead insisting that they move to theirs.
3. They are crushing all competition, even going back on agreements and contracts.
3 is MY lucky number so, I will stop it here.

All this points to paywalls coming very soon no matter how much you try to sugarcoat it or try to bury it. I have given up on QI and this post isn't even 1% close to being 1% close to being 1% close to being 1% close to thinking otherwise.

BTW when they released that post, I was halfway through applying for a editing post there but instantly deleted my application on seeing it. In my opinion, a company that doesn't honour its contracts is doomed anyway.

This is just my opinion. Others' may differ.

EDIT: It is not that I do not want to pay at all but I will never waste my money on QI. Better spend it sponsoring other TL'ers.

 

accusing this n that honestly i dont know what to say any more....just waitin for the end result...

 

First of all, I'm happy for you that you apparently found a job that you like, even if even you yourself view your translation quality as being terrible. That being said, you should really reconsider spreading lies on behalf of Qidian. Wuxiaworld has paid very, very significant sums of money to Qidian for authorizations, and while I cannot disclose the exact amount due to NDA, I caj tell you that it is far more than ten times as much the amount you got for your old chapters.

The lowest market rate for decent professional translators is around $0.11 for a professional Chinese to English translator, which for a 3000 word chapter comes out as around $330 USD. Even if we give a big discount of 50% for volume work, that still comes out to being $165 per chapter. I'm happy for you if you feel you are satisfied with $40 a chapter for the quality of the work you provide, but as someone who has translated professionally, I can tell you that this amount isn't even close to what he value of my work is, or that of the translators on Wuxiaworld

 

Oooh someone getting an extra pay check this month. XD

 

Don't care
Won't care

Hell out of here....

 

1) so they bought your 200 chapters for $4000 - that's $20 per chapter which is half of what they're supposedly paying you to translate now, good for you!
2) is it $35-$40 or is it $40? Even so, you might be translating for the money but that doesn't mean every single translator is you.
3) you're right, survival of this community does depend on the translators and editors but it's apparent the GIGANTIC difference between qidian translators/editors and WW translators and editors, nuff said there! and even if WW is more representative of china's private style, we like it better then qidian for a myriad of reasons just so you know.
4) dude, again not everything is about money! some people just don't like the confinement of their contracts, heck you cant even have your own personal opinion about the 'thing' you're working for!
5) Oh, so if i want quality, how much should i have to pay for a single chapter? what $100 is enough? I got a pamphlet translated by a professional online translation group from Turkish to English, 3 pages approx. 1000 words and that cost me $50. This translation was used for an actual business, distributed to customer coming and going from an office.
6) WW's claim is in self defense and they probably only have an old contract because qidian was beginning it's backstabbing plans from the very beginning. Way to have some hind sight mate *thumbs up*
7) No it doesn't seem sketchy what so ever because as @rwxwuxiaworld has mentioned NUMEROUS times, not just once of twice, WW invites translators not novels. The translators choose which novel they wish to translate. WW doesn't need to 'ensure' that it'll still make money like the 'old days' because they know that regardless, even if those qidian novels get removed, the fans will still flock to their site because of their stellar reputation as well as the trust they've built up with the fan base. And yet AGAIN this is not about money dude so stop trying to bring money into every other point you're trying to make.
8) YET AGAIN you are mentioning money. Yeah they're free now but for how long? Besides, that $10 million so called investment, even if it does come, is even less a tenth of 'a hair from nine oxen' from Tencet which as you probably know is qidians mother company. Anyway, what the hell kind of opinion can you even have about qidian? aren't you under contract? I'm sure you can't even say you're honest opinion even if you're life depended on it lol
conclusion) 7 is actually recognized worldwide as a lucky number so i wonder what connotations exist due to that . If you want any more of my opinions or the views of the readers then i will reply.

 

lol. im not getting paid jack for saying this. and yes i can talk sht bout qidian all i want. They fcked up, i dont get why they would make this public and drag the readers into this. someone from Qidian is probably getting fired

 

This is another lie. Wuxiaworld has never approached you or request GDN join you. Why are you now lying on Qidians behalf?

 

Learn Chinese for 5 years...

 

How do we know you weren't paid to make this thread?