Minami-ke 29

Man, you need to chillax, seriously.

Ginny, keep up the good work! Also if you need help to put Minami-ke with Bakayarou out fast let me know, anything to out this crybaby.

To cry, cry me a river
Cry me a river-er
Cry me a river
Cry me a river-er, yea yea

I know that they say
That some things are better left unsaid
It wasn’t like you only talked to him and you know it
(Don’t act like you don’t know it)
All of these things people told me
Keep messing with my head
(Messing with my head)
You should’ve picked honesty
Then you may not have blown it
(Yea..)

If by that editor you meant me, I didn't get anything from you in ages, in fact you made a joint with mbt and didn't contacted me ever after.

This sounds just ridiculous, crabsong, seriously...

I seriously don't understand this thing called 'stealing projects.' If someone else does a better or faster job than you, isn't that good for competition, and good for the reader? If I put out one release of every series on the planet, and then don't release anything for months, if someone else picks ANYTHING up, is that stealing?

This dogma irks me. I'm used to a thing called a free market economy in which companies can compete on price, time to market, and quality. Since scanslations are free, it comes down to the second and third. If you can't compete, get out of the game.

The first post could have been expressed in a better way but the sentiment remains! It's a huge kick in the teeth to have something like that happen so I know how you feel crabsong ;)

It's not like it was once this game.. that being said making the files publically available is a good idea. But, the fanbase may not be big enough for you to attract editors. I'll send you a pm with some ideas.

@Nagumo - Sorry if it irks you but that's just how the scanlation scene used to be.. organised and well mannered honour amongst thieves or an assasins code if you will. Things now are a mess... loads of dropped and unscanlated project. Unyet every group just wants to do whats popular asap.. too many Mcdonalds scanlators and no fine cuisine!

*shrug*

Perhaps you should assemble some people and create a Politburo to oversee who produces what scans, tovarisch. Fact is that I as a consumer of scanslations *like* it when many groups are working on projects. And if having competition dissuades some teams, then really, they don't love the project to begin with and probably would've dropped it eventually regardless.

'It's the way it used to be' is not a real defense of anything. There 'used to be' lots of really primitive things - slavery in the US, droit de seigneur in feudal Europe, wives being burned alive on their husbands' funeral pyres in India. And you know what? The fact that these are gone or going is called progress. Welcome to the future.

To love a series is to work on it from scratch or after it's been dropped when there is no guaranteed fanbase and still put loads of time into it and build up that non existent fandom. Once you have put that much into a project someone else working on it and then having your downloads fall by a whole lot can feel very depressing. A scanlator always knows that most people are leechers anyway, but the few thanks and the download numbers help you to know your work is being appreciated anyway. If someone takes away all of those things then it's demoralising, like nobody honestly valued your effort.

There are maaaaaaaaany projects that could be awesome and are in need of scanlating just look at the translator recruitment or scanlator recruitment section. The idea of the scanlation community is to bring manga to people that they would otherwise not get to see! When people work on already scanlated series that's not being done. Competition also isn't healthy for the scanlators that's not what it should be about and neither is speed. Honestly, it just creates competition and really scanlators are the only people who can appreciate how hard other scanlators should work. That's why that sort of code was there so that the community supported each other as opposed to competed against each other. It also encourages more and more leechers to not care about quality and also puts them as more important as the scanlators.

It's easy to not know how it feels if you have never built something up from very little or if you are the one getting all the downloads.

This is what the economists call a 'low barrier to entry.' If you cannot preserve your competitive advantage through quality, you deserve to get overtaken! It's the invisible hand at work.

If you could quote the section of my post, which your last comment was a reference to it would be very helpful! At the moment I don't see a connection to most of the points I made (I'm tired havent slept in an insane amout of time so I could've missed something obvious).

Your comment was about starting and building up a series from the ground up, and that's a good thing, that's where innovation comes from. But if there is no barrier to entry, whether that be a strong brand (e.g. Coca-Cola), intellectual property defenses (which clearly don't work in this case), etc., then it's only natural that once someone has a popular product, another group is going to come in and make something similar or try to take over market share. But you don't see, for instance, Japflap being pushed out of their UltraHQ niche, do you? Because the cost/benefit for newcomers in trying to dethrone them is entirely too high for the amount of credit they would get. As for this:


Competition also isn't healthy for the scanlators that's not what it should be about and neither is speed.


This is entirely subjective. You are making an argument from the position of a scanslator, and I can understand that. But the fact is that if scanslators do their work for other scanslators, then they are missing the point. The market, the readers, the leechers, want both quality and speed, and different groups want them in different balances. Basic marketing says, find your market and serve it. If nobody else is, then it's blue water.

Yes, the community has supported itself and had something of an honor among thieves. But this is purely arbitrary, and frankly honor among thieves should really mean that scanslators who take up a project commit to carrying it along and then handing it off to someone else when they can't release at a reasonable rate. You don't see people from Manga-Rain or Toriyama-World complaining that people stole Bleach, Soul Eater, and Naruto from them... because they never 'owned' them. They did a fantastic job of being the forebears of all the groups that scanslate these manga now, and once they had done the hard work of building the fanbase, they let others roll with it.

The fact is, if you really care about the 'community' you have to recognize that the readers are 90+% of the 'community.' And therefore doing what's best for the community is doing what's best for the readers, and that is releasing a consistently good product at a reasonable rate of speed. If you can't do this then you have no right to complain; even if you can, if someone tries to do it better, whether they succeed or fail, they are well within their rights to do so if it means they are trying to bring the fans a better product.

I've been reading this handwavy sort of dogma for some time now, and nobody has ever come up with a sensible defense for it. So long as you are not stealing the actual work people have done: non-public raws, translations, or cleans, then I fail to see the problem - and frankly the people who whine about it the most are the people who release the least; and I think this last point really gets to the bottom of it.

If anyone thinks they 'own' a project, nothing is stopping them from going balls to the wall, releasing great chapters, and blowing any competitors out of the water. Whining should be reserved for the playground and the Hague.

As an aside, I cannot even begin to tell you how surprised I am that this is a rational discussion. This must be a MH first.

Comparing the old way of scanlations to slavery. Hahaha. Wow. Just... wow.

And therefore doing what's best for the community is doing what's best for the readers, and that is releasing a consistently good product at a reasonable rate of speed. If you can't do this then you have no right to complain; even if you can, if someone tries to do it better, whether they succeed or fail, they are well within their rights to do so if it means they are trying to bring the fans a better product.

I'd say the competition is an insult to the readers. In competing to see who can release the fastest, scanlators are constantly lowering their quality - of the script (how many speed scan groups use good proofreaders and QCers?), of the editing... heck, even of their respect for the readers, to show that they care enough to give the readers a good product. The competition essentially reduces the readers to animals who jump on the first thing they read like it's the best.

If speed scanlators DID release chapters of good quality, it'd be another story. The fact is that they almost always don't, and that's why it's such an insult to everyone else, particularly the scanlators who put so much hard work into something to make it as good as they possibly can. Yes, it's within their rights to put out crap. Is it honourable? No. That's always been an ideal quality in people, and it still is, even if speed scanlators are sacrificing everything just to get their product out first - in your analogy to capitalism, the money. And when you emphasize quantity over quality, you get a shitty society. It won't be that way forever.

Comparing the old way of scanlations to slavery. Hahaha. Wow. Just... wow.

Reading comprehension is key... I'm pointing out via reductio ad absurdam that old=better is a specious argument.

Reading comprehension is key... I'm pointing out via reductio ad absurdam that old=better is a specious argument.

Right, but you're still bringing up slavery as a way to show how new-age scanlations are better. That's a hilarious comparison if I've ever seen one.

I'd say the competition is an insult to the readers. In competing to see who can release the fastest, scanlators are constantly lowering their quality - of the script (how many speed scan groups use good proofreaders and QCers?), of the editing... heck, even of their respect for the readers, to show that they care enough to give the readers a good product. The competition essentially reduces the readers to animals who jump on the first thing they read like it's the best.

If speed scanlators DID release chapters of good quality, it'd be another story. The fact is that they almost always don't, and that's why it's such an insult to everyone else, particularly the scanlators who put so much hard work into something to make it as good as they possibly can. Yes, it's within their rights to put out crap. Is it honourable? No. That's always been an ideal quality in people, and it still is, even if speed scanlators are sacrificing everything just to get their product out first - in your analogy to capitalism, the money. And when you emphasize quantity over quality, you get a shitty society. It won't be that way forever.

No, in my analogy to capitalism, speed to market. There are always those consumers who are early adopters, who want the newest or fastest thing, regardless of whether it's very good or not (electric cars and the first generation iPhone come to mind). Personally I don't do my work for these people, because they wouldn't know quality if it bit them in the ass. People who read subpar speed releases are a particular type of consumer, and if you think that it's an 'insult' to them to release quickly, you clearly don't know your market.

Also, your whole argument is based on a straw man -- perhaps there are groups that use crappy scripts and bad cleans; Bakayarou is not one of those, which just goes to show you are painting with too broad a brush (it's not a speed group). You are attacking an imaginary target! We're not even talking about speed groups, but groups in general picking up projects that other groups have. What if they're picking it up because the existing ones are awful? Or only come out once every eight weeks for a weekly series?

My favorite part has to be this, though:

The competition essentially reduces the readers to animals who jump on the first thing they read like it's the best.

What if the first also happens to be the best? What if it's within 5% of the best? 10% at what point does it become palatable to you? The fact is, it doesn't matter - you (as an individual) cannot define by fiat what is good and what is bad for readers. We have a little thing called 'choice.' And you know what? If speed groups and pandering works, then more power to them! Give the people what they want! If they're particular enough to care about the difference, then they'll wait around for the HQ. So who's the one insulting the readers?

Nobody's individual opinion matters more than anyone else's, and appeal to emotion and some unfounded concept of 'honor' in defense of groups who release slowly or not at all 'owning' a project is entirely untenable as an argument. If there is a rational and sound argument as to why groups should be allowed to starve the market because they think they're better than their readers, I'd love to hear it.

In short - no blood, no foul, and may the best groups win.
[hr]
Right, but you're still bringing up slavery as a way to show how new-age scanlations are better. That's a hilarious comparison if I've ever seen one.

Hey, whatever works. Subtlety doesn't register with these internet toughguys.

Please guys, cool it. No bashing or flaming of other groups here.
This thread is locked for now.

While everyone has brought in good points and what not, the topic is out of hand because the goal that the person is after is a bit off.

Competition is a good thing, it'll bring out more releases rather than letting a project die. If you feel like you can do the manga better in speed or quality, why not? I'm sure there will be people out there that appreciate your work.

With that said just focus on one thing, pleasing the people :) since... that's what you're doing it for, right?

The topic will be unlocked if you want to further this discussion do so via PMs ^^;;

While everyone has brought in good points and what not, the topic is out of hand because the goal that the person is after is a bit off.

Competition is a good thing, it'll bring out more releases rather than letting a project die. If you feel like you can do the manga better in speed or quality, why not? I'm sure there will be people out there that appreciate your work.

With that said just focus on one thing, pleasing the people :) since... that's what you're doing it for, right?

The topic will be unlocked if you want to further this discussion do so via PMs ^^;;


I don' think anyone enjoyed this thread more than or as much as i did :)

Pleasing the people?.. haha, yeah something like that!

Anyway as to respect the lukewarmness if anybody has a a valid response to my reasons as to why the "dogma" of not working on something actively scanlated is a good one and a code worth respecting please pm me.

1) I believe scanlators give to the manga community series that they would not normally get. If a series is already being scanlated it's already being brought to people's attention unless the scans are crazy slow! It seems silly to me when on every manga forum there are threads like which dropped or unscalated series would you like to see people work on, or things like the translator or scanlator recruitment section or even scroll through any raw blog! So much manga out there waiting to be worked on that need to be made known, isn't that what we should be doing?

2)People are saying that competiton is good, please somebody show me one competiton where bad blood or overly competitive edges dont show up? In the end it just leads to bad blood between groups and people end up like the opener here. They feel as though people are just trying to shut them down and take their fans and so they want to do the same thing. It means that we as scanlators can't even support each other because of competition.

3) Isn't it just two or three or even 4 times the amount of time spent on a chapter than need be. So in this case someone from Baka(I forget.. is it Bakaryou?) translated a chapter that had already been translated. Clearly from the opening post superb scans would have been willing to do a joint and were in need of editors. Shouldn't that have been the first option? Isn't the doubled up work time wasting?

4)Comparing it to economics is silly because this is for free and as for the above reasons I don't believe scanlations is about competing for markets or hostile take overs. By promoting the idea of competition it's placing the scanlators below the leechers and making it seem as though our purpose is to provide them with a service and nothing else. Shouldn't things be more mutually beneficial? The hiercahy at the moment seems to be translators as gods, leechers as priests, scanlators as temple prostitutes and then right at the bottom you have true manga fans like the widow who donated two coins of little value.

Again, the best way for me to try and get someone to give me valid responses was to post here but please only pm me!

Edit: As I would have had "the last word" in this thread. If anybody chooses to pm me to further the discussion and you do express good opinions I will happily post here to say my opinion has been changed. I'm not too stubborn to admit I'm wrong or anything like that I like to have informed opinions based on as much knowledge as possible.

Yes, ahah! That!

That's what you say when you don't quite understand what's going on in a conversation. Or "it's crazy...it's crazy..."

Really? Invisible hands? I wish I had invisible hands.

I got quite the debate going on for an outrageous post I made. No one took it as a joke like I did?

To cry, cry me a river
Cry me a river-er
Cry me a river
Cry me a river-er, yea yea

I know that they say
That some things are better left unsaid
It wasn’t like you only talked to him and you know it
(Don’t act like you don’t know it)
All of these things people told me
Keep messing with my head
(Messing with my head)
You should’ve picked honesty
Then you may not have blown it
(Yea..)

I have a song too, it's called "Epiphany"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1muWt0vho

This sounds just ridiculous, crabsong, seriously...

It was supposed to. Come on, my name is crabsong how can you take me seriously

Apologies for the delay, real life called for a bit. I was going to PM, but I doubt I'm the only one following this thread. Since you presented your case clearly, I'll rebut, then respond in kind.


1) I believe scanlators give to the manga community series that they would not normally get. If a series is already being scanlated it's already being brought to people's attention unless the scans are crazy slow! It seems silly to me when on every manga forum there are threads like which dropped or unscalated series would you like to see people work on, or things like the translator or scanlator recruitment section or even scroll through any raw blog! So much manga out there waiting to be worked on that need to be made known, isn't that what we should be doing?


1a. You are treating manga as a fungible resource, as equivalent and interchangeable. The fact is that some gets scanslated and some does not, and that reflects, in large part, the fact that some are more interesting than others.

1b. If scanslators give the manga community series that they would not usually get, then the 'truest' scanslators would move on to other totally unknown projects once another group swept in to compete. This statement is a farce. Scanslators scanlsate because they love particular series.


2)People are saying that competiton is good, please somebody show me one competiton where bad blood or overly competitive edges dont show up? In the end it just leads to bad blood between groups and people end up like the opener here. They feel as though people are just trying to shut them down and take their fans and so they want to do the same thing. It means that we as scanlators can't even support each other because of competition.


2a. How about Japflap and, well, everyone? Maybe Eagle is just a great guy, but I have not once seen any conflict between them and anyone except in cases where someone steals their cleans (and THAT is unacceptable to anyone.)

2b. How does this mean we cannot support each other as scanslators? You say this as a matter of course, but your argument doesn't support it. Yes, it's likely that groups working on the same project wouldn't cooperate, but that doesn't mean that symbiosis doesn't exist with other groups. For instance, Binktopia (for whom I translate) shares staff with at least three other groups with no problems at all.


3) Isn't it just two or three or even 4 times the amount of time spent on a chapter than need be. So in this case someone from Baka(I forget.. is it Bakaryou?) translated a chapter that had already been translated. Clearly from the opening post superb scans would have been willing to do a joint and were in need of editors. Shouldn't that have been the first option? Isn't the doubled up work time wasting?


3. Now you are treating people's work as a fungible resource, the classical socialist mistake. The fact is that there is a difference both in the speed and quality of people's work. For example, I translate Soul Eater, among other projects. There are other Soul Eater scripts out there, but I keep doing them because I frankly believe that my scripts are superior. Is this 'time wasting?' No, I don't think so, because the product I want (an HQ script) is not available. An LQ script is not the same product as an HQ script, and an LQ scan is not the same product as an HQ scan. Some people don't care, some people do. But they're not equivalent by any means. So in short, no, it's not time wasting.


4)Comparing it to economics is silly because this is for free and as for the above reasons I don't believe scanlations is about competing for markets or hostile take overs. By promoting the idea of competition it's placing the scanlators below the leechers and making it seem as though our purpose is to provide them with a service and nothing else. Shouldn't things be more mutually beneficial? The hiercahy at the moment seems to be translators as gods, leechers as priests, scanlators as temple prostitutes and then right at the bottom you have true manga fans like the widow who donated two coins of little value.


4a. Here is where you hit a huge minefield. Firstly, economics is not about money, it is about value, or to be more precise, the allocation of scarce resources for maximal utility. I don't think anyone would disagree with the idea that scanslations have some value, if not price -- if this weren't the case, then nobody would be having these ridiculous blood feuds over them. To say that economics is about money is a grade school definition, and ignores, for instance, barter cultures in which all the same rules apply.

4b. You say that the system should be mutually beneficial between scanslators and readers, but fail to indicate how. The fact is that scanslators do their work, and readers thank them. That's the way it's always been. We do it because we love the series, and because people appreciate it. That's the economics of it. So what are you suggesting? That readers should do projects for the scanslators? Indicate, please, in concrete terms how you see a 'mutual benefit' system working above and beyond what I've just said.

4c. I don't understand why people feel the need to make Bible references in arguments. You see, I am a theologian by training and I find it all faintly ridiculous. Let us take this analogy to its logical conclusion. The 'true manga fans' are the widow and her mites. So then you, pointing out their value, are Jesus, right? Declaring that this offering is more satisfactory, by fiat?

The fact of the matter is that if you want to make a biblical analogy, the 'old' system is pharisaic in nature; certain people are of the tribe of Levi and allowed to serve in the temple, and they mediate between God and man, and nobody else is allowed to. Welcome to Anno Domini. The curtain is torn! If I want to contribute my work to the community, who has the authority to tell me I can't? Certainly not other scanslators.

Now, here is my restatement of my argument, made as succinct as I am able:

1) There is no sound argument from first principles as to why any group should not be able to scanslate any series. While it's far from optimal in my opinion to have a dozen groups doing a series (like Naruto), if the market supports it, the market supports it. If it doesn't, then the groups that are least popular will die off naturally. This is a good thing- it's like natural selection.

2) Thus far all argumentation in defense of the 'no stealing projects' rule has been done by declaration: stating it, or some sense of honor underlying it, as axiomatic -- this is faulty logic. That's like saying 'I'm right because I am.' The fact is that a sense of ownership over a manga is unjustifiable to anyone but its original mangaka, staff, and publisher. Scanslators may feel a sense of ownership over their work: translations, typesetting, and cleaning, and it's a matter of course that if any of these were stolen, torches and pitchforks would quickly be assembled. An appropriate sense of ownership is like two graffiti taggers tagging the same building - so long as you don't write over my tag, or copy my tag, then it's all good. The only person who can really have a legitimate grievance is the person who owns the building.

3) There is a tangible difference between 'speed groups' and groups that pick up projects they perceive as being released too slowly. 'Speed groups' cater to the fans who can't wait hours for a release, the latter cater to those who are tired of waiting months for one.

4) Anecdotal data indicate that the people who complain the most loudly about this are the ones who release the most seldom, as they don't like to be hurried. My response to this is:

-a) If you don't want to be hurried because you want to release a high quality product, take your time, it will be appreciated regardless of when it comes out if it is, indeed, high quality.
-b) If you don't want to be hurried because you are lazy, then either join and help the faster group (if you are a 'true manga fan' to use Alan Smithee's words), or take your ball and go home.

I just saw a mountain of text and died a little bit inside and I always thought that I had the tendency to ramble! I just hope it's not a lot of "I'm intelligent" words used to cloud shaky arguments or insulting/condescending tone to divert attention from the main points, too many times in these cases people use smoke and mirrors to try and shield the shakiness of their argument (which is why I tried to state mine as clearly as I could)! As for now I'm only going to read and respond to your 1-4 restatement.

1) We will probably never agree as I don't see the death of another group as natural selection and this is what I mean about people with a negative competitive edge. I would feel guilty if I caused the death of another group bu muscling them out of a small market. Especially as they would have been people who had a good enough sense of taste to like something that I liked and a strong enough desire to want other people to like it! (Naruto's market could support 20 scanlators others can not.)

2)I don't really think your illustration is comparable. I would say it's more like someone has already tagged a very hard to get to spot it took them a while but they cleared a path maybe got a ladder propped it up against the wall cleared all the ivy growing on the building then started tagging. Maybe they had a whole sick design planned for the buiding but the next day they wake up to go and check on it and someone else has already started tagging the wall taking advantage of the path they cleared and the foundations they put down in getting there.
It's still not perfect graff has such a strong code within itself that the two are not directly comparable.

3)99% if the groups who pick up projects because they consider them too slow are speed groups. It's raaaare that they will be faster and better quality.

4a)You would be surprised the true fans I mentioned are the ones who appreciate quality and they are also very rare. Which is evidenced by the fact that online readers are so popular despite a distinct drop in scan quality and also you can go onto manga download sites and they never update the lq scans with hq ones when they are available (for example even though nexgear did version 2 tank scans of HxH volumes 19-24 most online download sites still have the weekly mag scans which exhibit togashi's ass like "i'm ill" drawings).

4b)I agree that some people are just lazy but in many cases there are people drowning trying to keep going who just need the help. I don't get why they should have to wait for competition to arise and then ask them for help. Isn't it only natural for the competition to let them know they want to work on the project a lot and maybe offer a joint before they release? Those drowning under the work will be glad of the help and often the lazy people are more than willing to let go once that (very) small courtesy is shown.

EDIT: Bluuuudc**t!! Even my response to just your four summary statements turned into a wall of text. Raaartid! I'm going to respond to your other points one by one via pm from the course of this evening to tomorrow as any more posts in here would just be....

I was going to respond systematically again, but that seems pointless. I will just say this: your points are based on 1) personal opinion (e.g. 'I would feel guilty if I caused the death...'), 2) dealing with an imperfect analogy rather than the main point of 'ownership', (yet another straw man) 3) citation of anecdotal statistics without a *single* example, and 4) confusing the people who run online manga readers with the population of manga readers as a whole (yet *another* straw man).

As to the last point, allow me to provide a direct counterexample. I was wondering why Hayate no Gotoku was being released so slowly, so I wandered into the Musashi chan to see if I could help, right into the middle of a staff argument, as it turns out. Applied as a QCer, noted the translation wasn't perfect and got personally insulted and given the boot. So no, groups which are dying are not always glad of the help- sometimes hubris makes death preferable.

1)Was a response to your suggesting that a groups death was a good thing. I was drawing attention to that since it basically sums up the fundamental difference in our arguments. You're thinking the death of a group is natural selection is personal opinion (everything you have stated has been personal opinion this is a discussion about our differing personal opinions).
2)Because I noticed the bad analogy more than the point behind it as an imperfect illustration always stands out (unless it's funny then I just get carried away with the amusement and let it slide).
3)It was a hyperbole.
4)No I didn't (online manga readers don't exist so the people who created the site can read as many mangas as they want to online)... Even if I had my second point still stands (it was only a few months ago when I struggled to find the hq HxH scans).

I didn't say groups which are dying are glad for the help i said "but in many cases there are people drowning trying to keep going who just need the help."
These are the ones who I said would be glad off the help and when I talk about drowning looking for help I'm talking about people who post we are looking for staff in every release of a series and all up on their forums.

Edit: Sorry for not pm'ing yet I went out today got back just now (2am) and have got work in the morning so I won't pm till I get back from work tomorrow.