Welcome AstralGhost, the translator of Fishing the Myriad Heavens to join Qidian

I would say 块 is more like "bucks" as it is not the name of an actual currency like dollar or yuan. Perhaps 块 is being used as an actual currency name in your novel, I don't know.

Also take a look at this handy chart if you change your mind about keeping other units in pinyin: https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/glossary/wuxia-xianxia-xuanhuan-terms/#units

Personally, I use tael for 兩 and catty for 斤 because they are well-established terms in Chinese novel translation (such as translations for the classics like Water Margin 水滸傳).

Welcome to the translation community @AstralGhost ! If you ever need any translation help, you can ask me anytime here or on the Wuxiaworld Discord server. I'm always there.

 

:O you help him even when he works for other people? That's really nice

 

Yeah, why not? The translators don't make Qidian's policies. We're all translators, after all. Aren't we all of us in this community for novels?

 

@Guan Zhong

Thank you for this. I wasn't aware of all this before, so I'll take the reader's advice, look into it, and correct some of the terms.

 

No problem! It's not wrong to leave them in pinyin. Up to you. For me, I used to leave it in pinyin too when I first started, but then I changed my mind about it. Cause you and I, we can read those terms and get the flavor because we know Chinese and we know how to pronounce it. But everyone else (most readers) don't know how to pronounce Chinese. So every pinyin word is just another foreign word they can't pronounce, so how can the flavor come through? That's my thinking on it.

 

Thanks, you've been a great help! I really appreciate all the feedbacks from everyone, as well as the well wishes amidst all the chaos.

 

@Its Michael Well we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Listing past PR f*ck-ups as proof that QI is on it's last breath is ridiculous. It's like you saying 'You had an X-Ray, you're definitely going to get cancer, you'll be dead in 6 months.' Well, not every person who's ever had an X-Ray is going to get cancer, some might, but not all. It's the same as this PR bullshit. Some companies have been sunk by this kind of stuff, not all; wtf major company hasn't had truckloads of lawsuits thrown at them and still managed to stay afloat. Granted, the information age is changing the game a bit as even the most insignificant things can count as news these days, but the headlines 'Wuxiaworld defamed by Qidian International' is quite possibly the worst headline in the history of news as the average reader has no idea who the f*ck either of them are.

Yes, companies have been ruined by seemingly insignificant acts many times in the past. But also how many times haven't companies been ruined by seemingly insignificant PR scandals and managed to remain afloat? It's a roll of the dice whether or not some PR kerfuffle will ruin a company or not, I am firmly of the opinion that this WW 'scandal' is not nearly enough to drown QI.

THEY'RE BACKED BY TENCENT FOR GOD'S SAKE!

I guess we're both going to have to wait and see to see what happens.

Edit: Honestly, after thinking about it. Investing in Tencent right now seems like a really good idea before QI really takes off.

 

Not only is QI unlikely to drown but also rather likely to thrive considering their deep pockets and the people's want and desire for the content as very well evidenced by the intense reactions people gave or the hate QI is getting after all .

In a poker game when only 2 players are left its usually the big stack who wins there is a reason for that they have larger capacity for withstanding shocks or challenges or draw downs and with QI's deep pockets and considering they are in it for the long haul they can go along for 2 years without making a cent in their international site and still survive and add to that that it is highly unlikely that they will be boycotted for that long even by the most ardent supporters it may be slow but the readers are gonna read once they have finished reading on other sites and have nothing else to read and many tantalizing free novels and content are there(agreed that they may not talk about it but) it's gonna happen whether anyone likes it or not.

Good idea on the shares but are we able to buy the shares in the shanghai exchange there may be lot of regulations in doing so or I may be tempted to do so as well.

PS:Anyone thinking that this controversy will end QI is living in a pipe dream they are VERY well capitalized for that to happen.

 

Pretty sure Tencent is globally traded. Riot and Epic Games are also part of their subsidiaries.

 

Alright time to execute a position trading plan.

 

Seems like a smart investment. Although I have absolutely no idea what their other subsidiaries do, Riot and Chinese Reading are only 2 of like.. 30. The rest are all Chinese ones that I have no information on. Wish I knew about them 5 years ago. Could have made a killing.

It's times like these that you realize those time traveling reincarnators would be so absurdly OP it's a joke. I sometimes feel that even if I was a time traveling reincarnator, not much would change even after I went back, but at the same time I think about how easy investing in facebook/microsoft/apple etc. early on would be and you'd pretty much be set for life. No need to prepare with an absurd skill set.

 

@craBebe I'd invest in everything suggested there:
http://www.businessinsider.com/goog...panies-that-have-done-better-2016-8/#amazon-1

Monster Beverage for sure.

 

Eh. I dunno about Apple. Seems like a sinking ship to me. Unless they have a major game changer, Iphone 74 isn't going to help them very much.

 

@craBebe But if I was a time traveling reincarnator, I would still invest in them before the ship sink. Buy it back when they are cheap, and sell at heir highest. For the present, it depends on how Apple can reinvent themselves and produce new trends instead of capitalizing on old stuff Steve Jobs popularize.

Edit: I read an article about Apple venture into the self-driving cars business. And it's possible it's not what we think and Apple aim was not building cars, but to implement their IOS into future cars.

 

Well I probably would get scolded for my reponse but so be it. Listen I NEVER SAID THEY GONNA BE DESTROYED NOR THEY WOULD CEASE TO EXIST OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT I just summarized how they would mark lose of profits because of this stunt and NO ONE is immune to such backslash. I really don't care what you "understand" from my comments because apparently I didn't said any shit like that - you are trying to push it on me. I'm responsible for what I wrote not what you "understood".

Second thing - roots in TENCENT doesn't mean a shit in PR situation. Jesus seriously HOW you can't comprehend such simple things. You are trying to state TENCENT can do anything about public opinion? Please englighten me WHAT perks comes from it in this situation - obviously opinion about how QI acted and what they done would change when Tencent would be mentioned - yes? You are just like kid who forgot to do homework and trying to state "but my daddy is a manager!" - it doesn't mean a shit because it's unrelated matter. ONLY thing Tencent can help with is ordering Q to send more funds towards QI in order to pay for advertising and whitening public image - but I think Q doesn't even need Tencent to chose to do so - do they?.

There is 48 companies under Tencent - in the past my own company had dealings with them as well. Surprise - I previously said nobody would be able to intimitade me using Tencent name simply because I know they wouldn't even act in this case - international chinese novels market isn't such a big deal for them and they have their own dealings to finalize now. That's the reason why I mentioned how QI have basic agreement with Amazon now and how they can be stopped in their track for a while. Their expansion on West is going on every front possible since few years ago and if you really think Tencent would prioritize market not even being 1% of their potential income of all fronts they are expanding now - damn you are naive. The only upper echelons which would get involved if the worst scenario would happen would be Q ones. If Tencent would be really interested to strike full force on such tiny fraction of money instead focusing on deals amounting already billions in profits it would be really hilarious. They have their targets but it doesn't mean someone from Tencent would even look this way - their time is worth a lot more than such fraction of their whole possible profits. Usually if children company screw something - they are the ones to clean the mess. Unless this mess would reach body of main company - they wouldn't act. I will simplify it for you - in every country there is police force and army. Do you ever saw in normal democratic country military forces used as mere police officers? Unless there is huge dangers army wouldn't get dispatched. Even if Q would lose 10,20 milions - it doesn't matter, even if all fans hate QI now - for Tencent it doesn't matter. For them what's important are end results - and it's responsibility of QI upper echelons to reach their target. That's why QI representative lose his reasoning and start slandering WW - because they are under pressure and aren't used to be on worse position than their partner in dealings. Usually timespan for such things is 2-3 years. During this time they need to start generating profits otherwise most QI executives would lose job and at China they wouldn't find next one because wild card from Tencent is rather deadly.

Backslash from this whole situation is wider than you think - many people are reading NUF - and now not all of them are novel fans - some are employees doing researches regarding QI claims. You think WHY suddenly QI started to be so active? Because they have been made aware of this.

Anyway do you ever heard about PROXIMA BETA PTE.LIMITED? This Tencent deal alone is worth more than QI would bring in within next 3 years. (well to be honest this game isn't bad).

I'm always talking from rational point of view - QI wouldn't dissapear but it doesn't mean they don't hurt themselves badly now. To be honest in my opinion it's a huge gamble on their part - how high their potential profits would be if they wouldn't do such a thing we will never know. I know for certain they wouldn't get a single pence from my 40k pounds yearly which I spend on books and things related to them.

For me it seems like whole conversation is pointless because you have been thinking I said something I didn't and you keep trying to prove me wrong. My offer still stands - if you really have a way to avoid in 100% and backslash from any PR disaster I would employ you straight away.

@craBebe and @MadHatter if you really are considering an investments in your case a lot better thing is speculation on cryptocurrencies than trading stock - no matter what company we are talking about. With volume you would be able to buy any stock purchase would mean years to notice bigger profits - on cryptos you can do it within one day. If you would reincarnate the best thing you can do is start to mining btc straight after it have been introducted. Without any costs you would be millionaire now. Even now people are speculating on cryptocurrency markets and generating massive profits - for example https://poloniex.com/exchange#usdt_eth

@YunsmoothChe - 100% agree - it's funny how people tried to attack me for something I never said


>Editing to fix some mistakes in spelling

 

This is the only argument I've been trying to make this entire time and the only reason I brought up Tencent. Obviously all bad PR will hurt their profits to some extent or another, there are 500 or so people on this forum who have sworn off any and all Qidian related anything. I firmly believe that moneybags marketing can easily overcome whatever PR black eye they've managed to get as a result of this entire situation.

Any of the potential audience an internet marketing campaign might generate strikes me as:
A) Infinitely more profitable than their current audience
B) Most likely their target audience to begin with
C) Completely unrelated to anything that's currently being said

Just looking at the way people start absorbing new internet products, they don't do massive amounts of research beforehand. They consume the product(in this case, read the novel), find out whether they like it not, and then decide to delve deeper (such as joining forums and the communities surrounding them.) I can't see how any of the potential new readers QI stands to obtain would be affected by this current situation at all. They might find out about it... months after they start reading and decide they want to join a forum to talk about the novels they've been reading, but at that point this argument will have been completely buried and very few people will even care anymore.

The only reason I brought up Tencent was just to say that they have a giant financial backing that is willing to invest the requisite funds towards marketing, not that they could wave their magic mega-corp wand and make bad PR disappear(although throwing money at things never hurt.) I'm also aware that if QI even began to start involving the higher ups in this a lot of people would start losing their jobs as this is such an insignificant event that Tencent shouldn't even be involved.

If that forum WW stunt on QI's part was meant to boost short term earnings then whoever's idea that was is a colossal moron and deserves to lose his job. I would imagine they probably realized WW got the better end of the stick on something and they had no real way of backing out so made an extremely stupid decision to try and deal with the problem. But that extremely stupid deal was only in regards to 20 novels. Qidian has a library of 8 million(yes, most of which are complete and utter trash), but at the end of the day they're the ones with the novel mine, and in the long run will be just fine.

I suppose in a world where everything is based on quarterly profits this is disastrous for the current head of QI, but that just means someone is losing their job, not that QI is sunk.

I feel like the vast majority of the boycotting has little to do with their scumbaggery towards WW, and more because people don't want to pay for shit. It seems like most people are indignant over the idea of a paywall, and less over a single QI post.

Although I think we can both agree that post on QI's part was exceptionally stupid. I have no idea which dumbass felt that doing that was a good idea as WW pretty much unanimously has a pretty damn stellar reputation. Pretty big whiff on their part.

Apparently we've both been having our own arguments about completely different things.

 

There's a place for translators to hangout? (Interested)

 

Well yes, there's a discord server for TLs. I'll pm you

 

Especially since Ren had to make it clear - several times - that he based his entire contract with Reading on 'oral promises', at which any lawyer will fall down laughing. So, no PR flack at all, just a small bunch of buthurt early adopters who will lose their crack unless they pay through the nose for it. Like me. : (
I bet within a year, the QI paywall price will be >$0.50 per chapter and DMCA takedowns will be flyin'. RIP WW, CD was a wonderful job.

 

That's not true at all. Your evidence?
You should read this comment from Ren, in reply to someone who said something similar to you:

Where exactly has he repeatedly said that the "entire contract" was based on oral promises? Because it seems that he's actually been saying just the opposite.

Ren himself is a former mid-ranking diplomat, do you really think he'd be stupid enough to sign a contract so bad that it'd make a lawyer "fall down laughing"?