How Would You Fix The Translation Scene?

Sustainability has always been an ongoing thing within this community.  A part of me feels, life will find a way.  Heck, I was just a reader about a year ago. But I decided to pick up translating, for a project which had been dead for a while (Or had the irregular updates/ multiple drops)  There may be a point where, many translators have an exodus again.  But at the same time, we will see a wave of new translators (hopefully with editors too)

Okay that's enough of my reflection on that. As for improvements for our lull in people translating.  I mentioned it in a few threads a while back, that the readers need to provide constructive feedback.

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Rather than calling the work a shit translation and berating the translator. Just inform them (if they have comments section) what does not make sense, what doesn't flow right. Think about all the translations as school projects, and help that person with their homework.

In this community, we like to refer to our works as "Projects", because that's what they are. Think about it this way, for lone wolf translators or One-man army types, they work on this project all by themselves and put in a lot of effort (or think that they do).  And when they are done, they post it for the public community.

The community is like a teacher, grading every detail of the work. So when its good, everyone gives it a passing grade and sometimes positive comments.  But when the work is not so good, the teacher (public) just gives a bad grade and berates them.  This is an instant de-motivator for any fledgling translator.

+=+ So my suggestion again is for the reader, to provide constructive feedback, assist the translator on improving their craft. Helping a translator, will also motivate them to keep on going. Because why would one keep translating if there are people who don't appreciate your work. 

I can see all those as valid points. 

It’s not regulation as much as increased visibility for the reader. Some do it as a passionate hobby. Some do it to see if they can make extra money. Then you have whole companies devoted to it like wuxiaworld. Again, translator have their circumstances. Issues with original slow updates and other things are a factor. But it’s not about regulation. Everyone is free to do as they see fit. Personally, I don’t think the translation scene is broken to begin with. Like many things it is what it is, positive and improvement opportunities. Just like you translate for passion, others read for passion. Offering additional info and stats to readers doesn’t take away from translators, it would just further incentivize those who are consistent. And if you do a chapter once every 3 months, that’s fine. Readers would just know that’s the rate. Also, if you choose to start translating 10 novels but drop each one, that’s fine. Readers would just know the habit based on the stat. However, suffice it to say you don’t agree with those options. And that’s also fine. 

O_O This would be bribery of a nufferment official! 

I think suggestions for improvement does not mean we are disparaging current efforts.
There is a difference between saying it is completely broken vs fixing tiny problems and seeking improvements 

It still is? Oo I don't read anything on there anymore XD Luckily the ones i read weren't picked up by them, yet. 

Why is that? 

This is like the constant cause for drama for some groups. Learned from the drama (actually, it applies to real-world publishing)   that the only one who has the authority to complain and put down everything is the publisher or the author. groups can translate and scan but they don't have legal rights per se. I have a popcorn ready when fans of a group attack or send hate ot a third party or another translator. I mean, those groups don't really own anything. at all.

[/QUOTE] God, leechers these days thinking they deserve free stuff quickly and regularly. This isn't our bread and butter. We do this for free because e we want to share from the goodness of our hearts. Freeloaders have no right to demand anything. Learn the language if you want it to go faster.[/QUOTE]

Or learn the virtue of patience. If they want a title so badly, learn the language and get yourself a foreign currency in your Paypal. I have some titles I really want and would go as far as to support the author if possible. It shows that some fans are really entitled and in reality, that attitude is shit. They aren't helping anyone. They don't buy and support the author, nor they extend help other fans to translate or do extra stuff. Many people enjoy demanding and sometimes, it's interesting to see and discontinue the title just to see the meltdown.

To add, those stupid people who reupload the scans in their social media. Seriously, these people are shooting everyone just to get their fix of followers. I hope their accounts get reported and people who actually care could really be vigilant for these attention whores. 

On the completion rate sites with multiple translators may get shot in the foot or people such as Chamber where he had to go off on military service and so he let all the series at the time go and anyone could pick them up. (I believe at the time he had 4 ongoing series.) Which would mean it would have to have user input which sadly will always have problems. It does not account for how long they picked up the series for, if they translate one or two chapters then drop it cause no traction or some such it's pretty reasonable period and people shouldn't be to interested/invested so they definitely shouldn't be penalised for it and which would be another reason for user input to be necessary.Next ongoing series would require to be exempted from this especially for things like Martial God Asura which really should show the dedication of the translation group.Finally on the rate thing some novels are 10 to 20 times longer then others and some groups only publish the full light novels rather then chapter bits so this really praises those whom do short chapters and web novels and punishes those that do full novel releases hence again you would likely have to have user input.

All in all this would require a highly dedicated group to run to judge that users aren't editing it for stupid reasons such as not liking the group *Cough* Qidian *Cough* as well as to make sure that a group doesn't edit them to reflect better on themselves. 

Poor MTL dressed up as translation.  The good novels don't get translated because they're marked as completed in NU but what's actually listed there is unreadable MTL.  There should be a functionality on NU to mark these novels as MTL to separate it from the others. 

We need to lock up translators in dungeons and make them translate faster  

Joking! (though we all know its what we all leechers really think)

Is there anything really lacking? I mean sure, there are some things we can all quibble with, but even with all the flaws I think things are going fine as-is. 

Dont we already have too many BL?
Tencent owns Qidian. That is impossible even for Facebook to do