Improving BT Quality Discussion

[pudding321]

1). If we "vote" on accepting a project, if it gets "rejected", would the translator get demotivated? It's kind of like a statement/evaluation of translation skill, except it's mandatory.

2). Who's voting? If it's readers voting, I pretty much guarantee you that every single one will get voted in. XD Also, under what guidelines would the deciding people decide from? I mean, if we're talking accuracy, not all of us have the source material for a novel.

First, only members should be able to vote.

Second, there are three approaches to the poll. The first approach is to let the poll be hanging around forever until it meets the lowest number of votes needed for it to be passed. The second approach is to hold a poll with a voting deadline, probably a few weeks. If we're talking about the first approach, almost any project would receive enough supporting votes at the end of the day. But for the second approach, I don't think we have enough active members around the clock to give a check for a project.The third approach is to prepare tests for those who want to apply as a voter, which sounds good to me, but we don't have that many contributors willing to do that much at the moment.

Third, most readers are not aware of the teaser section. The search function in baka tsuki is not that effective, and projects that don't pass a 'popularity poll' will certainly be left out eventually.

Fourth, if our poll is not aiming for popularity, what are we aiming for? I believe this is still being argued over, and everyone do have their own criteria. Again, we shouldn't be giving marks for a translation. And if we do have a group (something like a nomination committee) that is dedicated to voting projects, they will have to come up with the criteria.

Edit: To prevent judging translation skills, 'the nomination committee' should agree on reason(s) that the project is rejected. I think it's fair for a project to at least reach an acceptable level. Whether the project is passed or not, it does not receive a grade, nor does the committee award, praise, or congratulate the contributor in any form.

[ldyrdy]

Second, there are three approaches for the poll. The first approach is to let the poll be hanging around forever until it meets the lowest number of votes needed for it to be passed. The second approach is to hold a poll with a voting deadline, probably a few weeks. If we're talking about the first approach, almost any project would receive enough supporting votes at the end of the day. But for the second approach, I don't think we have enough active members around the clock to give a check for a project.The third approach is to prepare tests for those who want to apply as a voter, which sounds good to me, but we don't have that much contributors willing to do that much at the moment.

Fourth, if our poll is not aiming for popularity, what are we aiming for? I believe this is still being argued over, and everyone do have their own criteria. Again, we shouldn't be giving marks for a translation. And if we do have a group (something like a nomination committee) that is dedicated to voting projects, they will have to come up with the criteria.

for the second points, I think it will be a whole new problem.. getting trough a lot of step to be released will hinder the motivation of some translator.. not only it takes some time to reach the reader... also there's not enough people around that are willing to give some time to contribute, because we know some of us is really busy irl...

for the fourth point, since when it's all based on the popularity? we're going to have a problem when translators feel that their work is not appreciated.. how do you feel if you have translated a project and it is not well received by the audience? most of the time, these translator may ended up stops to do a translation...

after all, we're talking about how to improve the quality of the works but we didn't even care about the translator, editor, and TLC... they also have something to do and can only spend some times in the spare time.. they didn't get paid to do it aren't they?

so, asking for more when they already offer us a lot more than we could get is dangerous...

that's just what i think tough...

[pudding321]

for the second points, I think it will be a whole new problem.. getting trough a lot of step to be released will hinder the motivation of some translator.. not only it takes some time to reach the reader... also there's not enough people around that are willing to give some time to contribute, because we know some of us is really busy irl...

for the fourth point, since when it's all based on the popularity? we're going to have a problem when translators feel that their work is not appreciated.. how do you feel if you have translated a project and it is not well received by the audience? most of the time, these translator may ended up stops to do a translation...

after all, we're talking about how to improve the quality of the works but we didn't even care about the translator, editor, and TLC... they also have something to do and can only spend some times in the spare time.. they didn't get paid to do it aren't they?

so, asking for more when they already offer us a lot more than we could get is dangerous...

that's just what i think tough...

The time needed to reach the readers will be fairly the same. Those interested need only to enter the teaser section. The only problem may be that readers are not aware of the teaser section.

(Most translators, I believe, are well aware that the popularity of the series has little to no relation to their translating capabilities. If they don't know this much, they should refrain from uploading their translations at the start. Baka Tsuki includes the number of views on every page and the moment a person uploads his or her translation, that person is subject to this problem. What I'm bringing up is the drawback in the first two ways of polling.)

[jonathanasdf]

voting for projects won't work. Would need to assume there's enough people who have read the source material to be able to vote effectively... when I started date a live, nobody knew what it was, so it definitely wouldn't have been able to pass any kind of voting barrier. Same with no game no life, when I started it there was pretty much nobody who had heard of it..

[jonathanasdf]

also I personally think there shouldn't be a need to clean up any kind of stopped translations or to hide them in a corner somewhere. It's fine to end up having a huge teasers section, I don't see a problem with that. As long as the approved projects are high quality.

[ShadowySin]

also I personally think there shouldn't be a need to clean up any kind of stopped translations or to hide them in a corner somewhere. It's fine to end up having a huge teasers section, I don't see a problem with that. As long as the approved projects are high quality.

I agree. Since the issue most people have is the poor translations, we should only have those of high quality displayed in the main page. Those of sub-par standard can be placed in the teasers section. This way, those who do not mind reading lousier translations are still able to do so while the standard of BT is maintained. In order to ensure that the ones displayed are of high quality, maybe the admins can conduct a check every month. Those who want their translations to be displayed on the main page can submit a copy of their translation to the admins and let them make the decision. This way, people still get to read a wide variety of translations yet we do not compromise on quality.

[xenocross]

I would like to offer a slightly different perspective

Problem:
1. Not enough good translator and editor in BT. Project get mediocre quality.
2. Good translator and editor go to other translator blog, because of many reasons. Maybe for recognition, different format, better method of working, etc.

My solution to this problem, is to cooperate with this other blog. If you know, one of my contribution is about mediating between RoyalRoad and B-T to host the Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. LMS got one project page in BT, but it links to the external site. This way noone get any loss and everyone gain. BT got more novel, and the translator blog also got hit by reader.

Of course this can't be the only solution. You may want to implement that stamp or vote to improve BT's own translation. But I always think that it is not a bad idea to make BT as a kind of hub where all LN gather. You can imagine it like one stop site for any LN. If a reader want to read something, he simply just need to visit BT and select from our collection. There he can read the synopsis and completion rate. When he want to read, the translation may be ours, or may link to external site where the LN is hosted.

In this way, even if translator and editor go to other sites, and produce good quality translation there, BT still can take a benefit. Of course certain courtesy is needed. You may only host their translation after they agree.

This already happening with heretic-translation partially, right? You just need to expand and reach to more different groups. Encourage them to make membership and link their own project in BT. The variety and numbers of translation in BT can expand with this

I offer this as one solution, but it can't solve all, only alleviate the problem in some way.
About the stamp/vote things, it may be good to have a form of competition. Like, "A translation of the month" award.
You may want to select a translator/editor for his/her contribution at that month. The jury should be the high ranking member (whatever that means). The criteria can be anything from sheer volume of work, to the beautiful choice of words, or as appreciation of taking unknown novel, or the difficulty of the original language. Or the speed of translation, or dedication throughout the years, or ......

yeah you get it. Basically, no stress, no pressure, only award.
And get the winning translator's work be featured in the front page, as "work of the (last) month"

[decemdies]

I like how cloud's idea would show recognition for an editor's work. They seriously don't get enough recognition. However, in regards to improving the quality of translations, there should be a simpler way to do it. Instead of having an entire system to do all this, wouldn't it be better to have a culture that encourages new translators to improve their translation quality.

By this, I ask:
-How should we approach new translators who are eager to start translating but have lackthe skill to do it?
-How should we also encourage existing translators who aren't confident in their skill to improve the translation quality?
-How should we encourage the communication between translator and editor?

*If you're lazy to read, just read the bolded messages. These are my proposals.

1&2) I believe new translators mostly consist of very eager people who are willing to put a lot of time and effort into translating. The problem is that after starting the translation process, most new translators soon recognize how difficult it is to translate. It is during this realization that they see how high the workload is, which really discourages them from continuing to work on their project. So, wouldn't it be great if we have a culture of helping out new translators? Like say, the moment a person is accepted into the project translators group, senior members of the group would send a pm and say:
Hi there. Do you need help in improving your Japanese? We recognize that you are very eager to start translating but we also know that translating can be a tough job. If you need any help, just pm us back.

If the new translator affirms that he/she wants to improve their skills, then the senior member will recommend them a good japanese dictionary whether it's offline or online like goo jisho, and direct them to a forum(We should also create/ direct translators to a forum where they can ask senior translators to aid them in clarifying translations.) anytime they need to clarify some of the translations.

Of course, I understand that each project is supposed to have their own forum for discussing translations but when you have a new translator who decides to start a new project or decide to translate a chapter from existing projects, it can be very helpful to have somebody to just reference to. This is more true if the new project or the existing project does not have an editor. To prevent them from cluttering that specific forum, we should encourage them to discuss any problems in translating within their own projects first before they seek help from seniors.

But anyways, what i'm trying to say here is we should improve the relationship between new, junior and senior translators to help each other out. We should encourage the use of private messages to communicate problems with the work between members. However, this proposal would only work if senior translators are willing to take the time to answer all the menial questions of their juniors. What i'm proposing here is sort of a senior guiding junior process.

3)Translation is a 2-fold process. Translation consists of first recognizing the meaning of the source then, turning your understanding of the source into words. Usually the second part of translation is difficult because some of us do not know how to succinctly use words. This second part eats up a lot of time occasionally. So I think that instead of translating the entire chapter then asking the editor to edit the words, it would be best to involve the editor in the translation process. We can probably do this by 'spamming' the editors(Sorry editors!) with a lot of specific requests on certain sentences that seem hard to express.

If we(as in the entire BT community) could encourage this culture, there should be a spike in translation quality.

[cloudii]

It's interesting to see how this discussion has evolved. Let me just summarize the three main popular threads:

1). The Tsuki-chan Challenge (optional), which would put a stamp of quality on projects that excel from "High Quality", and require participants to track the editing status of chapters.

2). The Increase-the-Full-Project-Requirements Proposal (mandatory), which would require teasers to be reviewed in some form before becoming a Full Project.

3). Try to encourage translators/editors to become better by providing them with resources, and in the process try to make communication easier within a Project Team.

So far the conversation seems to be stemming in one or the other direction. Do people favor one, two, all? Are they compatible or merge-able in any way? When Oni/TLG come back to this conversation, I want to be able to digest and summarize the main popular branches that have popped out of this thread.

This is my personal opinion, but I don't like the "community appreciation stamp" idea that's been coming up on the Facebook group a lot ...It's honestly only a measure of popularity. I appreciate that readers want to give their appreciation in such a means, but this kind of acknowledgement honestly doesn't have anything to do with quality or the goals of this conversation. Baka-Tsuki translators translate what they want, popular or not. Popularity should have no role in this discussion at all.

FYI, in the Administrative Forum, there's already a thread discussing changes to the sidebar. Most of us agree there's current way too much stuff on the sidebar... we're approaching 125+ projects, you know? People suggested moving around the currently stalled translations into different menus, but that's quite a lot of work for the Custodial Staff on the Wiki.

I personally favor a small sidebar, PLUS a complete project listing page (including teasers), PLUS a teasers category. (PLUS a Main Page revamp, but that's a different thread)

In my opinion, things really should only be added to the sidebar when a full volume is translated. The current one chapter minimum is way too little. That's the reason why the sidebar is so overpopulated. A translator comes and translates one chapter, then disappears. If there's at least one volume translated, even if the translator is gone, at least there's something sizeable and complete to read. Individual volumes are supposed to be self-contained as stories, you know?

As such, I actually personally think all the stalled projects that have less than a minimum number of chapters translated moved back to the teasers section. I think we have at least 90+ items on the sidebar, and that's almost ridiculous.

EDIT: I didn't read dec's post before I finished mine, but I really really really like that idea too. BT needs to build a culture, and that's something great. Of course, that kind of proactive behavior really puts the weight upon existing senior translators, and not all of us have that much time. But it's a really nice thought to have. <3

EDIT2:

But I always think that it is not a bad idea to make BT as a kind of hub where all LN gather. You can imagine it like one stop site for any LN. If a reader want to read something, he simply just need to visit BT and select from our collection. There he can read the synopsis and completion rate. When he want to read, the translation may be ours, or may link to external site where the LN is hosted.

NanoDesu and Heretic both do this. They voluntarily post links of their translations on BT. <3

But yeah, that's pretty much my vision for BT. My vision for BT is a one-stop location where any reader can find any and all unlicensed English (or X language) Light Novel translations on the internet. The fact that we function as a hub is precisely why we're so big, and why BT is such a player in the English Light Novel reading community.

Some of our very dedicated staff already try to reach out to external translations when we learn about their existence. We ask if we can have permission to link out to their site (aka: making a hosted translation).

So in short, this is implemented already. XD

[jonathanasdf]

I think we probably are all in agreement of BT being a hub for all translations. After all, it is a wiki, so if someone wants to edit the wiki to point to their own project page off site, and the site doesn't violate any of our principles such as requiring people to pay to read or stuff like that, they should be allowed to do that.

[Guest]

Will you guys take a look at what we think at the facebook page of BT?

[Misogi]

You can post it on the forum, you'll get a quicker answer that way.

[patrick6562]

Sounds like a decent plan to me.
Although most of the time little grammatical errors don't bother me (unless it's just impossible to understand what's going on), but having it cleaned up would be nice.

[CheeseRays]

I think most of their suggestions is good. I don't really come across to grammatical errors that much but when I do I just mostly connect the dots to try and make sense out of it. I cant really think of any good suggestions right now since most of my ideas are like posted now so whatever you guys decide, I trust it'll be for the better.

PS: for the one in-charge of Haganai, keep up the good work and please keep it coming. Forever waiting for updates That goes for all other editors and tl's too

[ryjael32]

okay.. so from what I've read in this thread..it looks like we want to BT to pursue quality translations.

My honest opinions is, if we are to pursue this, many translators would be harmed in this change. As already said, they joined BT and started translating with their own efforts and free time. Whatever we say, there will always be people who are sensitive or would not listen to criticism and the likes. If we are willing to lose them for the sake of quality is a decision we will eventually encounter.

It would be also nice to create a specific criteria and standards that must be followed by the translators and editors before releasing a project.

...and also about the editors, we should really need to find more. If this plan is to be done, the number of people who would implement it should not just be a handful.

It'll also be nice to hear the opinion of more people here, especially editors and the translators.