News Official HJC Hiatus

Announcing it here as well, since I've been fully aware of the discussions going on. I'll be ghosting this thread, so don't be surprised if you see responses.

Readers, as many of you have noticed (and vocalized), the translation of HJC has become increasingly sporadic over the past few months. After repeated failed attempts to reach out to Zen, and a discussion about this with the other translators, I'm forced to announce that HJC is going on an official (but hopefully brief) pause as we cut Zen off from posting on Wuxiaworld and look for a new translator to take his place. Any donors to HJC's unfinished queue who provide proof that they donated to the current HJC queue can send us an email, and I'll refund you out of my own account. Alternately, if you so choose we will roll over the queue once we find a new translator. We invite interested, responsible translators with a solid track record to reach out to us regarding this project.

Your complaints have been noticed from the very start, and the reason I have been silent and haven't had much to say is primarily because I know as much as you regarding the status of Zen... which is to say nothing. Over the past two to three months, we have repeatedly tried and failed to get in touch with Zen, including multiple emails to multiple accounts he has used, Skype messages, and more. Unfortunately, Zen has been completely unresponsive; the only reason I even know that he's okay is that he's still posting two or three chapters a month.

To be honest, I'm extremely uncomfortable with this decision, which is why I delayed it for so long despite the many (MANY) complaints that I've read and winced at. Putting aside the fact that Zen's been with us for over two years, many of the actions that I have taken over the years such as negotiating and paying for authorizations for Wuxiaworld were meant to help and protect the translators who worked on these projects. I am pretty much as pro-translator as it gets, and it really sticks in my craw that I now have to forcefully intervene. Unfortunately, I've completely exhausted all tools available to me, and we are at (and probably past) the point where responsibility to readers and to the project itself outweighs my responsibility to the translator.

Since we began, every single translator who joined Wuxiaworld knows that Wuxiaworld stands for both speed and quality; we started off with a quasi-official standard of at least three regular chapters a week (which is what I was doing for Coiling Dragon at the time) before even considering donations, and as time has gone up we've upped that to 5-7 chapters per week for new people (the old-timers are 'grandfathered in'). While everyone takes breaks from time to time, communication is an absolute must, and unfortunately there's been zero communication with the readers or us for months. As a result... I wish Zen nothing but the best, thank him for his two years of translation, and genuinely hope he's doing well, but we're going to have to move on.

On a related note; I also realized that the translation for The Grandmaster Strategist by Tannheuser has also been on hiatus for quite some time now. Tann actually has been in intermittent contact with us, and several times has told me that he actually has a few chapters ready to go that needs editing. Unfortunately, getting back into the translating groove has been a bit difficult for him, but I'll keep nudging him and hopefully we'll see this novel be brought to completion.

Thanks as always for being readers and supporters, and hopefully we'll have HJC back up sooner rather than later!

 

rip Zen

 

Shame about Zen but it's good to see an official response
Thank you for your work.

 

Zen was a good translator before what happened to him ?

 

*sigh*

 

Well damn...

 

I wasn't aware something was going on as I've not read HJC for a long while. Hopefully it continues when I return to reading it in the future~

 

Finally an update on TGS

 

Shame about Zen.
Thx for the heads up.
Ideally Zen comes back from whatever is troubling him, otherwise I hope HJC gets a new translator again soon.

 

Finally I've been stalking this awesome novel for more than a year now hoping I would be able to binge read it once it will be finished which unfortunately if we followed the pace of zen would take at least 2 more years...
I'm happy that xiao lai the translator of Skyfire Avenue managed to translate more chapters than he used to. HJC and SA are the last 2 novels on WW that I am waiting to be finished so I can binge read them. Hopefully I won't have to wait another 2 more years for that to happen. Thanks rwx for helping that happen. Although I am following zen and his translation ever since the first 30 chapters of HJC and I respect and appreciate him for bringing up to light and sharing with us this amazing novel because of him and his slow pace I had to mtl it and spoiled all the fun of the story. That's why I have to wait for it to end so I can read it all again in one go!

 

Since you'll be ghosting, I'll just write about something which I deem important, which is mentioned here with Zen as well, which is communication. Sadly, many teams on WW have started communicating and informing us less and less about delay and hiatus in chapters. Example Zen here, and in less severe cases but still, alyschu and some others. I'll just take her as an example since i was especially disappointed with Monarch of Evernight, because I really enjoyed the setting. Chapters didn't come out for over a month, and no communication whatsoever.. neither did they answer to questions.. Would be nice if you tried briefing everyone once again about how important it is to the readers to know whats going on. It doesnt even take 5 minutes to tell us about the situation and reason for delay, which should be mandatory imo.

 

I hope this situation will not cause too much drama...
I like Zen's translation... But I suppose it's very difficult to translate so many chapters to keep up with the donations...

Donations can be a good thing to support translators...
But sometimes I think donations put so much pressure on translators that they just collapse...
It seems the same thing happened to He-man with Upgrade specialist in Another world...

 

many good novel starting to have slow or random update the end is near

 

Life happened.

 

Did donators throw too much money at Zen and end up killing him?

 

Sorry, but bullshit. Recently he didnt do sponsoreds anyway, and should a translator see he can't cope with a certain amount of releases then he should simply close queue till he can manage to deliver again.. no excuse for that, they aren't children after all, they should be able to take care of themselves

 

Just have to wait for another translator with similar pace translating as Zen will replace his position.

 

it had to happen

 

Any news about korean novels?