A community where translators are beyond reproach and treated like gods is destined to die. The so called leechers are just as important as translators. You are underestimating their value. Without leechers to stroke their egos many translators would have quit. Like I previously said, I am not a fan translator and I am not trying to be one. Ads were not invented for fan translators. Neither was Patreon. The community has changed. All I see is people afraid of change.
Umm, aren't you just side-stepping the issue here? This is not about your way of handling translations. You are right, the scene has changed a lot. The rise of Patreon among translators and the increasing amount of MTL translations is something that has happened in the recent years. I won't judge whether that's a good or bad development. Certainly in the past, when those things didn't exist, translators were treated like "gods," but that time has passed long ago. Actually I don't condemn your method of hiring freeter translators to do the work for you. I don't even care whether you credit them for their work on your site or not, as it's not my business. Also I don't care whether you split your chapters into 10 or 100 pages to boost ad revenue. After all I don't visit your site, thus I don't have to read through it. But why do you feel the need to poach series from other translators that have translated their novel(s) for years? There are literally thousands of novels out there no one has touched. Of course not all of them are great works, but there are definitely many hidden gems among them. Just look at "To Be a Power in the Shadows!" which is a novel that has been translated since March this year. And now it's no. 1 on the monthly rankings for JP novels. And I'm sure there are plenty other novels like this out there. Also, there are hundreds of dropped projects that you can freely pick up at any time. The beef we fan translators have with you is not about your ways of handling your translations, but you taking projects that have been running for a long time just because they are popular and thus will boost your ad revenue. If you just picked up novels that are dropped (3+ months no new chapter) or totally new novels, no one, and I mean that literally, no one would actually mind. After all there's so many novels up for taking that it it's kind of retarded to even fight over any specific ones. ;-) I don't think that's too much of a request. After all, even if you hired a few hundreds more freeter translators, you still wouldn't be able to cover all the available novels anyway, so why not cooperate with us fan translators and stick to a simple rule of 3-months-no-touch policy? ^^ Greetings, Shasu
Bullshit, I am translator for Open Source Project in Translatewiki.net, Wikimedia project (such as Wikipedia) and Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), who work without profit in mind (non-profit) without fans to stroke our egos for more than 5 years, Do you ever see us quitting just because ego and money? Your words are insult to free translator like us. Also prongjiisan, thank you for showing me this thread in the discord. I seriously thought only sites like Qidian can do dishonest job, now you change my mind, even individual translator can do same shit....
I think there have been many points had been pointed out in these 9 long pages. Spoiler: My Opinion about Commercialization of the Translation of the RAW Freely Available Japanese Webnovels However, perhaps the 'commercial' approach is actually not that correct. I can only speak of Japanese translation, so please take it with a grain of salt. First of all, the source of the many Japanese webnovel fantranslation is available for free in Syosetu. You can access the RAW freely without any need for registration. Until now, there had been more than thousands of titles of amateur novels/stories from numerous writers (who perhaps will be the next hit LN writers). The story is there, waiting for you to be read, FOR FREE. However, there is a BIG BIG BIG Problem! You, my friend, can't read the moonrunes! How, terrible! What a disaster! Luckily, my friend, I was (please note the past tense) had a huge free time (this is when I am still a semi-NEET), and I have enough basic Japanese grammar (enough to play and understand JRPG's story). Although my English is rather...... bad (is not an overstatement)...... I am willing to translate the story that I like int English, so you, the English-speaking/reading weaboos, can read and like it too! Since it was originally available for free, then you can read it for free too!!! Ads-free!!! Should you pay me? Not really, I do it because I had a free time (notice the past tense), bored, didn't have a social life (notice the present tense), and I want to share something. I can't really ask you guys to pay for the translation since: the story is not mine, I don't have any commercial rights or agreements with the author and Syosetu, and I doubt my poor amateur translation is worth the bucks you will be showering to me. TLDR: The RAW source is FREE, so can we really justify paying for it, when we don't have a license/proprietary rights for commercial purposes to it? Especially, if the version we translate is the LN. There will be a major can of whoopass if the LN happens to be picked up by a publisher. Unless, we do the proper J-Novel Cafe way, who pioneered official e-translation of Japanese Isekai LNs (who wouldn't be picked up by big publishers unless they have anime/manga adaptation), I don't dare to ask for money for a translation. But please do give me money to buy LNs .
tl:dr Multiple generation of bigots talk to each other = 9 pages of this thread It was a decent popcorn
I swear it's a cafe... I mean I can't possibly visit a club right??? After all the club has a lot of people in it! *agoraphobia intensifies*
Anyways, I am interested in what Wuji will do in the future. I wonder if he realize what kind of community he is actually creating and whether he can manage the community. (Well right now the answer is obviously nope) I don't care about his site anymore, but I am worried in what kind of mark will he leave in history. Also, for someone who put Christian as his title, he is surprisingly not carrying much Christian values from it. I don't see it anyways, not sure about the others. Maybe it's just a title without meaning for him. As one of the mod said, this all happened not due to one person but multiple party and it all mix up into this drama we are all watching live. What's the point of this random post? I just feel like talking random stuff without meme-ing like my above post.
just one question for @Wujigege... did you ask for permission from the author to publish his translated novel???
Indeed, Ai-chan stopped bothering to comment about wujigege's activity. As long as he doesn't proclaim that what he's doing is right and illegal for-profit translation is right and must happen or making money out of stuff they have no rights to is good and is how fan-translation should go, Ai-chan doesn't care what he does. Ai-chan knows he's been poaching translations, but that's not Ai-chan's problem. If the translators themselves don't lash out at him, there is no issue. These poaching problems have been ongoing for at least a year, with the worst being probably Wuxiadream or something of that name. It's also one of the reasons why Ai-chan isn't interested in translating web novels anymore. Ai-chan has permission to translate webnovels for non-profit granted by the authors themselves. But if Ai-chan translates, then it will catch the attention of for-profit translators. And when Ai-chan is busy with real life, for-profits will grab that title and make money from its popularity. That would make Ai-chan's promise with the author become trash, because it would prove that Ai-chan couldn't uphold the promise of translating without making money from it. It doesn't matter that it isn't Ai-chan who break the promise, a promise is a promise, and Ai-chan has no control over what others do. He won't uphold Christian morals despite calling himself a Christian, therefore, arguing with him is pointless. Arguing just makes unnecessary grief. As long as he doesn't proclaim that what he's doing is good and great, Ai-chan will keep quiet.
Thanks for post Ai-Chan. For me the problem isn't translation poaching, the problem is with guro when wujigege send that Rude Email. OFC I won't stop, either @Wujigege obey me or I will do anything in my capabilities to bring him down.