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Regarding Translations

VenomElite

VenomElite

VS Battles
Retired
1,092
919
There seems to be a problem here that needs to be addressed, that in spite of the rules for requesting translations, we still get requests that are either:

A. Too long

B. Not important (doesn't relate to character statistics for a verse that's on the wiki already).

C. Something a machine translator could easily handle in a few seconds.

Now before you think I'm just complaining about this, realize that so far, on a thread with 100+ replies, every request has been a Japanese to English request except one which was a Vietnamese to English request by Sera that Lady Alice translated. Recently Sera (out of the kidness of her heart) decided to translate about 12 scans for the Dragon Quest revisions which resulted in five hours of translating....all for nothing, as when she tried to post her reply it didn't send, just disappeared. Now with even more stuff needing to be translated, do you understand the amount of frustration that would cause?

I'd really appreciate staff input on how to handle this. I just think something needs to change on how we handle translation requests since the thread is ignored by most staff other than Antvasima, Sera, and myself.
 
"Now before you think I'm just complaining about this, realize that so far, on a thread with 100+ replies, every request has been a Japanese to English request except one which was a Vietnamese to English request by Sera that Lady Alice translated."

What exactly is the relevance there?
 
Means our jap speaking members are being hit with 99% of the translation work.

Perhaps we give a limit to how much is allowed to be translated at a given time, like say, a few sentences, a paragraph, a page, or something.

That, and outright ban translation requests with no relevance to profile revisions.
 
@Ven

Well, I would have helped if I could, but at the time of the thread's creation I was only going to be useful for Latin (which is nigh-useless except for getting the context of fancy attack names).

I'm going to try and be more active on it now that I can read hiragana and katakana, but my abilities are still limited at best.
 
@Ever

Ven and Sera are the only ones translating, so he has the right to complain about something. There has never been a request for another language other than Japanese except one made by Sera.
 
@Baki

But what are you suggesting? More users just happen to want translations from Japanese to English, as it's probably our most popular language in terms of pages it has (As in, Japanese verses).
 
@Tsubaki

Well, the problem is two-fold.

The fact that there's so much stuff on this site with its basis in Japan is one half of the problem, since localizations frequently modify and/or cut out content if they ever get overseas. Hence the constant clamoring for translations. The only other languages I've really seen on the wiki are Portuguese and some Spanish here and there, and we've got people like Matt on those.

The other half of the problem is the fact that you guys are the most fluent Japanese speakers on the wiki and that no one seems to be working on trying to pick up Japanese extensively (hence my trip to Japan to start learning the basics at least).

Also, not to be rude, but you guys are all perfectly free to just take a break and say "no, I don't want to translate this right now." since participation is voluntary. If you want to do that, then please do so. We don't want to burn you all out.
 
The Everlasting said:
@Baki

But what are you suggesting? More users just happen to want translations from Japanese to English, as it's probably our most popular language in terms of pages it has (As in, Japanese verses).
Click to expand...
Part of it may have to do with America and Japan being some of the highest distributors of electronic entertainment.
 
@Ever

I know that.

@Reppuzan

Not quite. Do you relize some requests go ignored? That's us saying we won't do it (or can't).
 
That's not the point. The type of request isn't an issue, the amount of requests isn't an issue. Is the fact that we need to simply organize it better somehow.

Are any of you gonna ask DarkLK to translate a page of Russian text? I don't think so.

Translating is not as simple as you people think it is.
 
@Ven

"Are any of you gonna ask DarkLK to translate a page of Russian text? I don't think so."

So? Again, why does it matter that most of the translation requests are Japanese?
 
You guys are literally not obligated in any way to fulfill every translation request, at least not at a rapid pace.

Besides, what do you suggest we do? Tell people to get stuff in other languages translated?
 
Well, I have already written in the first post that only brief relevant excerpts of text are allowed. I am not sure what else that I should do beyond that... although linking to a good machine translation program might be an idea.

However, the translators could simply say no whenever the requests are too long, or not important for our statistics scaling work here in the wiki.
 
@Ven

I do agree with Gemmy's measures though. It's unfair to have all of this additional work shoved upon you all.
 
The Everlasting said:
You guys are literally not obligated in any way to fulfill every translation request, at least not at a rapid pace.

Besides, what do you suggest we do? Tell people to get stuff in other languages translated?
Click to expand...
We don't fulfill every request. Once more, if a request is ignored. It's been ignored on purpose. I made that clear on the thread itself. Hell, only three of us are even translating. Sera, Tsubaki, and myself and Sera does the most requests with help from Baki.
 
Well, I am very open for revising the first post instructions, if you wish. I just do not know what else that I should say.
 
The Everlasting said:
@Ven

Yes, but why are you complaining about the majority of the translations being Japanese?
Click to expand...
I'm not. I said before anyone thinks I'm complaining, to understand Sera has done 90% of the translating.
 
Well, I greatly appreciate all of your help.
 
Why would you ignore a request instead of straight up saying no?

Because I made it clear already that if a request goes ignored, that means I can't do it.
 
VenomElite said:
Why would you ignore a request instead of straight up saying no?
Click to expand...
Because I made it clear already that if a request goes ignored, that means I can't do it.

That doesn't make sense. If you ignore something, it could very much mean that you haven't seen it. Is it such a hassle to say no or I can't do it?
 
Tsubaki said she's gonna handle any lengthy requests as a blog (so what happened to Sera, doesn't happen to her).

And don't keep targeting Ven, this thread is more so about Sera since she cracked under pressure from translating for too long.

We aren't translators. Only Tsubaki is.
 
VenomElite said:
Why would you ignore a request instead of straight up saying no?
Click to expand...
Because I made it clear already that if a request goes ignored, that means I can't do it.

That is very backwards logic. Just saying "no, I can't/won't translate that" gets your point across far better.
 
Ignorning a person's request as a "no" instead of saying just "no" and the reasons with it is pretty rude, IMO. You'd be better off just telling them "no" directly. You won't leave them with confusion on why they were ignored, and you won't leave them with room to theorize if you ignored them because you forgot about their existence and so on. Because when you try to think of reasons why your paragraph of Japanese folklore was skipped for a sentence from a cute anime girl demigod of the same language, you could probably list a giant number of things as to why.

The first thing that pops into my head isn't "Oh, they're not doing it."

Not saying a word about it whilst you still going on with not doing it regardless will still leave them with the thought that you will do it unless you say no directly. Not doing it is, again, pretty rude to do in practice.
 
It might be best to always write the translations in a word processor first, then save them, and then copy and paste them into the wiki, either as blogs or as posts, because the blogs are just as glitchy as the rest of Wikia.
 
As for explicitly saying no, maybe it is a cultural difference between Eastern and Western societies? We come from all over the world to visit this wiki after all (Which is part of the reason why being polite is so important. It is the only way for people who are very different to properly get along).
 
You have nothing to be sorry about.

And besides, if such requests are proving too much, why not just give up on some or all of them altogether? Can be for a time, can be indefinite, the choice is yours and other translators. It's not mandatory.

I don't think this is a cultural thing, but if it is, please make it clear so we can understand and approach this better.
 
For your information, I have done 98% of the translating. Including the thread, my message wall, on chat, and on Hangouts. Excuse me if I'm not mean spirited enough to always say no. Especially when the request comes from a friend. Eventually, if you say "no" enough that person might think its personal or whatever. I have said no before many times, more than I can count. I've been doing this for five months now, you really think I never said no before?
 
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