Suggestions [2016]

Do you have a fully fleshed idea that you think Baka-Tsuki should adopt? Post it here.

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rxls
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Suggestions [2016]

Post by rxls »

First of all I would like to thank every translator/staff member/editor that brought to life this community. Before the upcoming executive council I would like to make the following suggestions:

01. Main page -> "251 projects in 27 different languages".
For obvious reasons it would be better to keep a low profile and avoid mentioning the size of the wiki. After all the complete/active projects are less than 90.

02. Easier Navigation
Main Projects (i)
Linked Projects (ii)
Hiatus Projects (iii)
Teaser Projects

i) A B C ... Z [Completed]. It would be better all the completed projects to be moved either on the start or the end of the page
ii) Move all the linked projects (not partially linked like "kino no tabi") to Linked Projects and ask for a new mod to keep them up-to-date.
iii) Move all projects with less than 15% done to Hiatus. There is no point abandoned projects like Rental Magica/PuiPui to stay on the main page.

03. DMCA/License
The last two years around 200Volumes were taken down (~35% of BT). Since the reasons for DMCA can vary (automatic bot/license in an alternate language etc) I believe that after the recent server changes the council must take some drastic decisions. One of the best options would be as follow
i) After receiving a DMCA the project will be temporary abandoned
ii) Six months later if there isn't any kind of announcement about an official English release the project will be re-installed in the "DMCA Projects" that would be visible ONLY to registered members.
iii) One year later the project will be re-installed in the main page with a notice Like: "This project will be abandoned with the announcement of the official English release"
iv) Licensed Projects -> RIP

04. Editing
Since many projects are vandalized by the abuse of free editing (check Rokujouma and the latest edits from Maou) it would be better to enact more strict rules, and allow edits only from translators/editors/project staff.

ps. I have also noticed many broken links (mainly from illustrations) in various projects (Ore no Kanojo, Omae etc) . It would be nice if there was a mod to check them.
Cthaeh
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Re: Suggestions [2016]

Post by Cthaeh »

2iii
I agree the organization for project activity could be improved. In theory there already is something like a Hiatus category, in that things are split between "Active," "Idle," and "Stalled", and also that some of the most regularly updated projects are included in the "Regularly Updated" section of the sidebar. However, the main problem with any tracking system is that needs to be kept up to date. BT doesn't really have a strict organization structure, so it's not like there's a pool of moderators sitting around that someone in charge, whoever that would be, can just assign to keep it updated. Someone could volunteer, or recruit a volunteer, however, things that require constant upkeep from a single person run the risk of falling out of use once that one person leaves or can't keep up with it anymore.

Not to say it isn't a good idea, or that it's not worth doing at all, but it's just something to keep in mind in terms of the details.

4 + ps
Editing has the same issue in that there's not a bunch of people sitting around just waiting to be assigned to patrol every edit on the wiki. In general, the system is supposed to be that people who notice incorrect edits to fix them or start a discussion about controversial edits. Ideally there'd be people motivated (editors and/or translators) for each project who'd do this, but not everyone is motivated to police what they're working on. That often doesn't work, but I don't know that it's really an issue that can be directly fixed with a policy (other than removing opening editing, which would be a huge change in how BT works).

3
Just be mindful that not everyone is going to agree on DMCA issues, one way or the other. I imagine there's a significant fraction who'd prefer something along the lines of your proposal, but there's also a significant fraction that'd disagree with it. From the admin forum discussions that occurred at the time, things went along with the fraction that'd likely disagree with restoring DMCAd pages, so I'm not personally expecting any immediate changes there. Also the opinion/preference of the server host would be a pretty important factor in this issue.
rxls
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Re: Suggestions [2016]

Post by rxls »

Thanks Cthaeh for your reply. All the suggestions I made were based on particular factors. The most important is that with its current form BT is slowly dying. If the staff doesn't take some drastic measures with the next DMCA all the major projects will be abandoned. The following are some facts:

01. The last two years ~200 Volumes were taken down. Its ironic how the publishers used all your efforts to advertise their product and then DMCA the most active projects (completed or up-to-date)
02. Many active translators abandoned BT and either started their own blog or quit translating (Riki, krytyk, bakapervent, Teh Ping, ServingCatsandDogs, larethian, Dreyakis, Chaos etc)
03. As we speak BT has less than 10 active translators.
04. Sites appeared that take advantage of BT abandoned projects and make profit through ads/donations.

Until now, BT was walking in a grey area. Unfortunately as LN became more popular, the publishers decided to change their attitude towards fansubs in order to increase their profits. The irony is that they turned to this method instead of attracting new costumers by increasing the quality of their releases. Apart from that its idiotic to send to death no-licensed material .I'm talking as a costumer which have already bought more that 50 manga/LN tiltes (300+ volumes) from various English publishers.

Personally I would like to see BT becoming a private community and re-installing all the previous projects but I doubt you'll be consistent with it. However keep in mind that in the near future, as the publishers becoming more aggressive we'll either resort to such tactics (centralized private sites or decentralized blogs with solitary titles) or the fansub community will reach its end. For now you could also consider creating a private clone of BT (different domain/host) that would host all the "licenced/DMCA" projects.

As for the removal of the open editing if I were a translator I wouldn't be against it. Apart from some obvious grammatical errors, what's the point of random edits that change the meaning of a sentence by people that have no idea what the original text says.
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cloudii
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Re: Suggestions [2016]

Post by cloudii »

Hello rxis! Thanks for making all these suggestions!
rxis wrote:Until now, BT was walking in a grey area. Unfortunately as LN became more popular, the publishers decided to change their attitude towards fansubs in order to increase their profits. The irony is that they turned to this method instead of attracting new costumers by increasing the quality of their releases. Apart from that its idiotic to send to death no-licensed material .I'm talking as a costumer which have already bought more that 50 manga/LN tiltes (300+ volumes) from various English publishers.

Personally I would like to see BT becoming a private community and re-installing all the previous projects but I doubt you'll be consistent with it. However keep in mind that in the near future, as the publishers becoming more aggressive we'll either resort to such tactics (centralized private sites or decentralized blogs with solitary titles) or the fansub community will reach its end. For now you could also consider creating a private clone of BT (different domain/host) that would host all the "licenced/DMCA" projects.
I think you bring valid points about series that receive DMCAs that never see an English release of any kind. When the original Project Abandoning Procedures were conceived by Teh Ping, it was never anticipated that the Japanese publishers themselves would be sending DMCAs. In this sense, we never had any formal set of procedures to undergo except the precedent that the server owner (thelastguardian) would tell us to take down the series (e.g. Haruhi, Spice and Wolf). In fact, thelastguardian backed out of supporting us due to the many DMCAs he was receiving on our behalf, which forced us to look for a new server owner just this year. As it currently stands, Lery (the new server owner) has expressed to us a desire to continue responding to DMCAs as we have in the past.

Why not look for a server owner willing to ignore the Japanese DMCAs? -- many people have asked me this.

As Cthaeh mentioned, DMCAs are a very contentious topic. When this topic was brought up several months ago, a substantial number of notable active translators/staff/members were vehemently against the idea of it. A number of them threatened to leave and have their translations taken down from Baka-Tsuki. There was a bit of raging because of the disagreement and some of them left anyways and never came back. While I won't name any names, by my reckoning, Baka-Tsuki as it currently stands would legitimately break from the exodus of contributors with strong feelings about ethics should the DMCA policy be loosened. Anecdotally speaking, more of BT's contributor base (which I differentiate from the reader base) has strong feelings about translation ethics than not.

I think you are correct that the only viable option would be the creation some other hosting site with its own rules. Apart from logistical difficulties (which are substantial), I do not think Baka-Tsuki would not be affiliated with such a site though, given the history of our community/culture our contributors have created. I personally would not support sponsoring it through Baka-Tsuki.

I do emphasize with your alarm about the future of the fantranslation community (at this rate); though at this point, I don't exactly share your prognosis. English publishers will never be able to license everything (obscure old translations will always be safe). Japanese publishers can't DMCA everything, and even if they do, there will always be people persistent enough to pick up their tent and start anew somewhere else (e.g. some smaller Wordpress site), and if there isn't enough people, it means too many translators/groups in our subculture are serious about translation ethics. The increasing trend of Wordpressization of light novel translations, in my opinion, stems largely from the sense that Baka-Tsuki is "unsafe" -- the notion that one is more likely to receive a DMCA for an aggregator-hosted series than a small wordpress site. Nanodesu Translations stopped hosting their translations on BT (changed everything to links) because of reasons related to this. There are many reasons why translators prefer to have their own wordpress over using Baka-Tsuki as a host, and it's not just about DMCAs.
rxis wrote: As for the removal of the open editing if I were a translator I wouldn't be against it. Apart from some obvious grammatical errors, what's the point of random edits that change the meaning of a sentence by people that have no idea what the original text says.
It is actually physically impossible (MediaWiki programming/structure/design) to securely restrict editing to only members trusted by a translator. This was something that I've thought about extensively before, and the only way to achieve this kind of result is to move away from MediaWiki (and develop an entirely new site/CMS with its own logic).
Twitter: @cloudiirain | BT Userpage | OreShura Translator | Biblia Editor (@HereticLNT) | Clockwork Editor (@HereticLNT)
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Lunar Vitae
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Re: Suggestions [2016]

Post by Lunar Vitae »

rxls wrote:First of all I would like to thank every translator/staff member/editor that brought to life this community. Before the upcoming executive council I would like to make the following suggestions:

02. Easier Navigation
Main Projects (i)
Linked Projects (ii)
Hiatus Projects (iii)
Teaser Projects
I had an opinion for DMCA issues and editing, but they've been addressed already. Instead, I'll toss some change in this barrel. I personally don't like the term "hiatus" to describe anything other than what is on hiatus. It carries a different meaning and connotation to something that is "idle," or "stalled." Even between the two; when seeing a status such as those, there is no question as to what is going on. If I were to see hiatus, I would think that the project would resume soon.

Ok, ok. To expand on the editing front, I think that it is really up to the project editors (official or volunteer) to keep an eye on things. I peek at the recent changes log to see if anything's been done to what I'm working on, but if the community asks, I'll take note of what the other edits are.
Feel free to contact me here, on Discord (#5703), or on the wiki (Leviticus)!

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