Memories

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Mystes
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Memories

Post by Mystes »

Post your memories of BT. Like, what was it like when you joined, what improved, what changed, etc...

EDIT:

Somtimes, pictures mean more than words.
Spoiler! :
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EDIT2: A great memory from our dear translator Ping:
Spoiler! :
Seeing as how the end of the month will be the time when I first joined the Index translations, let me reminisce how much I changed as a translator.

September 2009-November 2009: Coming into B-T, I was brash, young, naive, thought that translations would just be about placing text in google translate, get the results and sieve through things. My first choice was to go for Spice and Wolf, but seeing that they had 4 completed volumes there, I ended up going for Shana then. I was wondering how hard it would be, since so many people were complaining about it, so this stupid me actually jumped foolishly into Shana (right when my A levels were around the corner, to boot)

This was the first ever post I made on B-T:
Teh_ping wrote:I'll like to be involved in this project as well. Would be willing to act as either a translator, or editor, or both. Username on main page is the same as the one used in the forum.

One question here, if I want to carry out translation work here and all the vacancies are filled up (becoz ShadowZeroHeart said 2 translators per volume), would it be all right if I start on a new volume?
From this page: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=2252&start=75 (PS: Note that Sharramon nearly ended up working on this series, and went on to work on SAO instead, so that was kinda funny.)

Yeah, so this naive guy thought he could balance things out here and there, thinking that he could do 1 chapter in 1 week then, until things dragged on and on and on. I nearly gave up in October since my exams were around the corner, so I told myself that 'hey, you better make sure you finish the job'. After my exams, I spent time juggling part-time work and translating, and really started to doubt my own skills all around since I was wondering when the heck would we have active editors. I tried my best to keep it readable at least, but up till now, I still have no confidence about my accuracy in the translations.

December 2009 to February 2010. I was working on and on with volume 7 of Shana, and wondered when would things end. I started to train myself with time trials to make myself go faster, making it like a game somehow. And so I toiled, toiled and toiled until volume 7 was complete, and thought to myself, 'hey, that wasn't so bad, maybe I can finish the series!'. Thus, I started working on volume 8. Two days later, Shana was shut down (temporarily, as it turned out), so I was a little devastated, to say the least (I think SZH, Vaelis, Oni, TLG and the other translators back then could still remember that I was practically shouting through text in our PMs on the closures). I wondered if I should have quit the place since nothing much really caught my attention, until a friend of mine asked me if I could help translate Index. Being a conservative Anglican here, I was more or less against translating Index because of the supposed negative portrayal of Christians in the story (well, mostly the Roman Catholics), but I decided to give it a shot since I had practically nothing much to lose. During then, I returned back to AS after a 5 month hiatus, using that place as my update corner to the rest of the guys. However, I wasn't really that into translating back then as I was committing to only about 30-60 minutes a day, which would be about 3-5kb a day. I was still working back then, part-time cashier, in fact.

March 2010 to June 2010. I got my A levels results then, and for my standards, I really underperformed, so I took it out on the rest of volume 7 (which was why some of you were wondering why there was a 45% update on chapter 3 back then). I was pretty much keeping all the anger inside me, only to take it out on text (that can't argue back anyway). And then, volume 9 was finished in April, and before I could finish Volume 10, National Service called. A lot of things pretty much happened in camp, so I'll save the details, but when I finally got hospitalized, I was through a zombie-like phase when I just couldn't think at all. I felt dead back then, so I went back to translating (again). This was the time when I accquianted myself with Baka Test, which would be my favorite series to work on because there's such motivation called 'fun' to keep me going, but back to that later.

July 2010 to October 2010. Someone (I think it was Wilfriback) said that it would be fun if season 2 volumes could be completely translated. Challenge accepted. It was tough in July as I had to work my way back from injuries and work, which ended up with quite a few things here and there. I started on Baka Test volume 2, then finished Index 8 and 11. This was the time when I started to get really cynical about translating for free because everyone expects us to provide, when it's the other way around, i.e. the readers are held at ransom instead of the translators. Most of them were about how slow translations were, which I was like 'what?' But anyway, managed to finish 7-11 before season 2 aired back then.

November 2010 to March 2011: Things were going really badly in army back then, and then I had lots of other issues to deal with. It was obvious that I couldn't do things alone on the Index translations, so I prayed to God for another translator, and js06 appeared, so I guess you can call him 'god-sent' (I am serious when I say this). Again, Infinite Stratos was a request that was made, and I actually only intended to work on one chapter before disappearing back to Index because I thought that it would be well supported. (We knew how that turned out, so I'll like to thank my fellow translators kira0802 and kuroishinigami for helping out, together with the other editors like hayate from kibito4life, perfect chaos, zero and the rest). I actually wanted to work on the first 6 volumes before continuing on because it would be weird not to read things in order, but since Index 1 pretty much covered things at least somewhat adequately, I left that at the bottom of the chain and continued to focus more on my other stuff.

March 2011 to now: Started to be more dedicated to translating, 3 hours or so at times. Started to take more projects, including the poll project where the first poll had 30k votes...looks like I have to cut a few projects here and there somewhere soon...

Yeah, so I went from a somewhat jumpy glory-hunter to a very systematic person working on each series. I ended up learning how to organize a schedule for myself for the first time when I added Baka Test to the list, and it got even more crazy from there on. Also, I became somewhat cynical over readers, namely how many would take for granted (and it's not like I translated the series for them because I liked them or that I felt pity for them--in a somewhat tsundere like fashion). However, I would occasionally tell off readers at times when I feel that they stepped over the line, mainly because I'm somewhat idealistic in thinking that I can drill this into their heads. Now, I have no idea how much mileage I still have, or when I would retire (most likely, soon after Lare), but I will at least make sure I finish my projects here before moving on.
Kira0802

#campione at rizon for some #campione discussions~~ And other stuffs.
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ainsoph9
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Re: Memories

Post by ainsoph9 »

kira, you ask too much of people. I can hardly remember last week, much less a long time before that. My goal of becoming a goldfish is getting closer.
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ben1234
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Re: Memories

Post by ben1234 »

I remember abusing my mod powers on the IRC channel...
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ainsoph9
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Re: Memories

Post by ainsoph9 »

You abandoned the IRC channel? Deserters should be shot. :twisted:
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Mystes
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Re: Memories

Post by Mystes »

I'm sure you have wonderful memories about CDZ, ainsoph. :D
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ainsoph9
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Re: Memories

Post by ainsoph9 »

What? About staying up way past my bedtime foolishly posting here. :roll: Yeah, that is a wonderful memory. :roll:
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TheGiftedMonkey
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Re: Memories

Post by TheGiftedMonkey »

I remember joining B-T years and years ago. I had just broken up with a girl I had been dating for 4 years. Went on an anime bender, found Haruhi, then found B-T shortly after. Joined the forum while I was at the airport waiting for my flight back to NY for Christmas. Joining was a decently big milestone in my life.
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Mystes
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Re: Memories

Post by Mystes »

If you said this to some unknown guy, he would probably say that you were over-depressed.

When I joined in, I remember that Seitokai no Ichizon wasn't a project yet. Neither were IS, Itsuten and many others.
Kira0802

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Re: Memories

Post by ben1234 »

When I joined, I didn't even know BT translated novels and to this day I still haven't read anything yet

Though that'll probably change soon once I try that awesome Bakareader app
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ainsoph9
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Re: Memories

Post by ainsoph9 »

There is an app for this site for what?
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Re: Memories

Post by ben1234 »

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Mystes
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Re: Memories

Post by Mystes »

ainsoph9 wrote:There is an app for this site for what?
Ainsoph, you're an overager, aren't you? Why don't you share your memories of the members who went AWOL.
Kira0802

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Re: Memories

Post by ben1234 »

I remember Guest_lol who I saw a few weeks ago at a local supermarket
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Mystes
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Re: Memories

Post by Mystes »

ben1234 wrote:I remember Guest_lol who I saw a few weeks ago at a local supermarket
...in a supermarket...?

You know him in real life???
Kira0802

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ainsoph9
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Re: Memories

Post by ainsoph9 »

That is part of the forum that I rarely visit. Got a problem with that? Huh?! *puts on a yakuza face*
kira0802 wrote:
ainsoph9 wrote:There is an app for this site for what?
Ainsoph, you're an overager, aren't you? Why don't you share your memories of the members who went AWOL.
I remember when a certain person could not decide on a name.
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