Improving BT Quality Discussion

[krytyk]

Well, after reading few pages and putting in my opinions we have more or less concluded:

I. Problems.
1. BT doesn't have enough staff to run TLC projects.
2. BT needs more editors, especially highly dedicated ones, and better translator-editor cooperation.
3. Any kind of certification of TLs or Editors will lead to decrease of their total amount of contributors, and possibly change how BT works (less than an open community, more like a group).

These three are main barriers to adding any restrictive types of certifications.

II. Possible directions.
1. Adding a "High quality" stamp mark to series that match certain standards, distinguishing a series.
2. Look for a way to improve editor and translator contributions quality.
3. "Qualified Editors/Translators" idea.
4. Make harsher requirements for teasers to become full projects.
5. A big editor recruitment action.

Both reasonably voiced problems and possible directions above.

Now, I'll refrain from criticizing any and all possible directions, because it does not matter whatsoever, people always push their own idea and will not, ever consider that they might be wrong. Thus, I'll leave it to your own judgement, and mostly judgement of senior members~.

Just one thing though, if you're against an idea or you want to propose one and want to be taken seriously, don't make two-sentences long posts, because most of these are not worth reading. State your mind, and logically say out what are pros, or cons of the discussed proposal. Take example from Cloud who - I'm despite mostly against his ideas - however he does his best is breaking everything down and providing a lot of information about of information in all of his posts. It may be harsh but there's a lot of posts that do not add anything to discussion.

[castor212]

Many series need editor/TLC to change translation from japan-style subject-object-verb to subject-verb-object.

Just my 2 cents.

[obsidian pegasus]

II. Possible directions.
1. Adding a "High quality" stamp mark to series that match certain standards, distinguishing a series.
2. Look for a way to improve editor and translator contributions quality.

SO in order for this to stop being a discussion and eventually a lost cause, we need a translator working on a series to volunteer their work and to be a guinea pig for seeing how this plays out on a small scale before trying it on a large scale. Otherwise, this will never move from the discussion stage.

[siddhantuchil]

Wouldn't it be possible for B-T to screen the people who want to translate a particular series . B-T can ask them to translate on the spot a difficult paragraph . The person who can translate the best will be selected .


Mod:BT has no screening process. People just get to work straight away.

[Tay Yi Jiang]

Oh yeah, what about the different language translations like French? Do we also need tests for these?

[Misogi]

Oh yeah, what about the different language translations like French? Do we also need tests for these?

There are no admission tests in the French section of BT. But we do care about quality.

Therefore, we have a bunch of useful tools for translators and editors: two help pages about translation and wiki mastery, a thread for translation issues, and a facultative test per year (which is pretty difficult, obviously).

At least, it's better than before, when there was none of them. Still, it'd be difficult to change our admission policy, due to time and manpower issues.

[lollipops8]

i think that the current website is very good already , i am pretty satisfied with it overall.
However, perhaps we could re-consider Gold quality translators as they are pretty hard to find, perhaps medium or high-medium quality would be preferable?
I think it's fine as long as they don't make mistakes that might bring down the original attractiveness of the author and affect the book.

[obsidian pegasus]

I think it's fine as long as they don't make mistakes that might bring down the original attractiveness of the author and affect the book.

For clarifications sake, what are these mistakes that bring down the original lure of the light novel? examples? (I might be making some without realizing it and would like to know what these black things are).

[IlkatSumil]

For clarifications sake, what are these mistakes that bring down the original lure of the light novel? examples?

lollipops8 may have other ideas, but two mistakes that come to mind for me are translating humor or irony too literally and making all the characters sound the same. It's hard to preserve the author's tone and give characters unique voices, but those elements are a major part of what makes light novels light novels.

[Mystes]

Oh yeah, what about the different language translations like French? Do we also need tests for these?

Misogi actually did one, if I remember correctly. Forgot if it was a test or a proficiency check though lol

[victorrama]

Tay Yi, There's just too many series to cover.
And it's hard to control the quality since it's a wiki. Unless the page is locked so only a group of selected people can edit or translate...

For Indonesian at least, while theres's lots of new 'translator' coming, some of them are bad or using g trans. So me and some of the seniors 'hunt' this kind of TLion down.

For BT to be able to improve it's quality, I think the only way is when people actually care for quality and project leader or anyone check the TLion. There's strength in number...

[Camboro]

So I'm pretty new to this site, so not really sure how things work around here, but since the topic is quality control, I'd like to suggest that before someone starts a project, they must first submit a request and provide a sample translation to the.... I guess someone with some influence (sorry, don't know what the term would be)... and they can deem whether or not it is of acceptable quality, and this isn't to make the quality outstanding, but it should filter out the bad ones.
I understand from what I read that this may be difficult to accomplish since it appears that there's a shortage of staff here, but if there are a few volunteers that could spare a few hours a week, it shouldn't be too hard since they'll just read about a page per project. Of course these volunteers would have to be fluent in both the original language and english

[raffreddato]

Yeah, quality is important, but I am afraid we are too worried for this.
Like 'krytyk' said above, Baka Tsuki for now is an open community, a wiki, not a close translation group. This is one of the principal reasons I love this group:if you like a light novel and you want to translate it in your language (English or alternative ones), you ask permission to an admin, then you can. Hence, it's only natural that some translations are badder than others, because not all the translators share the same abilities. I think you shall only check translations that are very very bad, then make a list and some other can retranslate them.
Maybe it's an idealistic opinion, I don't know very well how translators' communities work, but I think that having an open community is better that worrying about reputation. However, these are only my personal thoughts.

[hamdesal]

Maybe add a Completed/On-going tab on the side bar ^^

[heartless14]

I don't really know how did this discussion have gone
And i don't really know if i have rights to give my opinion actually this is my first post
So the problem is Poor Translation
We have translator that maybe is poor in english grammars
but we don't have any choice since we don't have many translators right?

So why don't we have a titled member as Translators helper?
after the translator finish translating a novel
get a number of checker first to conduct a poll to tell if it has a good quality tranlation or not
then if it's not
Get a helper to finish the translation

now the only downfall of this suggestion is that it is time consuming
and need more manpower..
the good thing is that even if the helper can't understand japanese
as long as he is good in english grammar
he can help the translation projects right?