Light Novels?

[Roorem10]

Just a thought, I haven't found a website with a UI that is quite as clean and easy to use as mangadex's... a spin-off site, or even just the option to upload light novels to the website (even if in jpeg) might be really cool.

 

[Holo]

Supporting novels is actually planned for the future. We will probably upgrade the existing site as opposed to starting a separate site.

 

[axelTHEGREAT]

Good point @abyssalmonkey

 

[MarvN]

Another concern I have is for quality, in addition to the very valid concerns abyssalmonkey has. The main barrier to entry is setting up a website and uploading stuff, though there are some certain sites that allow you to upload there and get paid, or something. If you want to translate a novel, basically, you probably need to make a wordpress or something more. It takes some commitment. With manga, there is definitely already an issue with snipes that are considerably low quality, but this can be much worse with novels. There are plenty of MTL trash out there, and I think a site like mangadex for novels would exacerbate this problem, making it easier for people to upload their shitty MTL. With manga, you have to at the least, spend around 30 minutes shitting text onto the page with editing, and OCR + google translate to make a translation. It doesn't necessitate much effort, but it's something. With a web novel, you can just copy paste it into google translate, and while MangaDex claims not to police the quality of the manga uploaded(only troll chs removed), this would definitely need to be addressed in a novel agg. The line between MTL and translation is already blurred with some of the shit out there, and MD would have to decide whether a translation is edited enough not to qualify as MTL. And if you have to make such choices, the quality is already gonna be p shit.

Another thing, NovelUpdates has a sniping policy that IMO, should be followed by this such potential novel agg. Otherwise, it could be disruptive if MD comes and makes sniping easier. The NU policy is, in short, 3 months without an update until a different group can submit a translation. But, you can still submit a competing translation if you also start at ch. 1. MD as a novel agg could give rise to sniping in ln/wn translations if such things are not dealt with, and IMO they should be.

tl;dr: NovelDex would make MTL more widespread and further degrade the quality of novels overall in addition to sniping lns becoming a thing, if it's regulated the same way MangaDex is.

 

[MrIncognito]

MTL tag
Exclude filter for MTL

 

[Acolytus]

Yeah, getting involved with WN/LN translators is a really bad idea.

You think some manga scanlators are whiney, greedy or outright assholes? Then WN/LN translators are a million times worse. They are the reason I oppose any attempt by scanlators to enforce monopolies or the like here, because I have seen where that leads and let me tell you, it's a MTL-riddle, paywall-infested, stupid drama-heavy Hell. Compared to these people the scanlators who threw a bitchfit are like the chillest guys in the entire world.

I agree that at best this would become another NovelUpdates, though I do disagree with @MarvN that enabling "sniping" would be a bad thing and makes us worse than NU. On the contrary, I think that staying away from that sort of stupid policing and just being an index for content would be the one think that would allow MD to be a better alternative to NU. NU and its anti-sniping policies are part of the reason a lot of series are kept hostage by shitty TL groups who paywall the shit out of them and only upload new chapters to not lose their "rights" over what is essentially pirated content. I would rather deal with a million shitty MTL versions of the same series than not being able to find any verison other than the one owned by a bunch of greedy fucks (who use MTL anyway in some cases).

tl;dr: Getting involved with WN/LN translatiosn is a bad idea because the translators there are a million times more greedy and prone to bitchfits than even the worst scanlators but if you want to go there, the best thing you could hope for is becoming NU but without the stupid content policing.

 

[MarvN]

valid point, @Acolytus .

I was mainly thinking about the groups I'm associated with when I mentioned sniping, where there is actual effort put into these translations, and I wouldn't be happy to see a snipe. But it is true that many translators do patreon 'perks' with early access to chapters if you pay, and less content policing like on MD would help with that, and could even outweigh the drawbacks of sniping on other things. Still though, I think the potential for more shit translations and the drama shit with greedy TLs is too much an issue.

 

[Teasday]

Okay, let me see if I got this straight.

Assuming we started hosting LN translations while allowing competition (including sniping) but being harder on the technical quality of the content (for example outright banning obvious MTLs) and disallowing outright patreon hostage situations (other than giving the option to set delays etc as we do with manga):
- many current groups would be really pissed off that we're disrupting their money-making opportunities and taking away "exclusivity rights"
- on the other hand, low-quality MTL snipers would be among their biggest worries, so we would at least protect them from that for what it's worth
- uh, manga groups and readers might get pissed off that we're harsher on sniping with LNs than with manga

Is this how people writing antitrust laws felt like

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

Huh, it's pretty interesting how the LN/WN TL scene is so different to manga TL.

Come to think of it, what if we implement the "group rating" system for LN/WN, would that be good or bad? The group rating is basically a system where readers rate their experience by 1-5 stars at the end of the chapter, and if competing groups are working on the same series, their scores for the specific LN/WN - which has no effect on other series said groups are also TLing - will be displayed on the chapter.

Basically the community chooses what is the better option while not forcing the readers to one or the other. The scores are just scores, you can still read the lower one if you want to support them.

The cons I can think of are troll 1 stars, but that's already happening with manga ratings on here so really it's not that huge of a deal. This could potentially also objectify group drama and will also probably intensify group rivalry and the drama itself, this time dragging down the fans of groups along with the groups themselves.

The pros on the other hand, low-quality snipes will be 1 starred to oblivion, immadietely warning newcomers. This will also give people an idea of which competing groups are the better option, without forcing them to comply.

I actually proposed this idea some time ago but people didn't like it. I'm too lazy to dig through the forums to find it so if anyone got it plz link it.

 

[sterven]

I agree with the majority on this one. Venturing into the WN/LN scene is a bad idea for MD and it will only lead to a shit storm of drama.

 

[Holo]

Thanks for all the opinions, guys.

I was thinking we would only host chapters for which the group is dead or inactive, in line with our rules for the scanlations. If we add novels support to this site, it wouldn't make sense for there to be a different set of rules for novels.

 

[Holo]

To be honest, if we were to open a separate site on a different domain, we could operate an entirely separate set of rules (approved by the community, of course) without conflicting with the existing MD rules.

From the sounds of it, disrupting these money grabbing practices probably isn't such a bad idea. And if NU openly polices sniping, then that's hilarious. Wtf?

 

[Teasday]

_{@AbyssalMonkey posted:}

1: Translators, who are more moneyhungry than scan groups, will, using the current MD rules, simply blacklist their TLs here anyway.

Sure, and that would be fine, although if there's direct competition with readily available chapters on a decently well known website such as MD, then I'm not sure how much longer it'd be profitable to hide behind paywalls. From this discussion it seems to me that the only reason that's currently something they can do is because NU essentially enforces that status quo for them.

 

[Zephyrus]

The idea is intriguing to me, to be honest. We have several ideas that we'd like to see pan out (including @Ixlone's pretty amazing drama CD project) after the release of v4 of MD, which the devs are hard at work on in the background whenever they have the spare time.

To be honest, in continuing our overarching mission of stamping out profitable piracy, I wouldn't have a problem with disrupting group monopolies over content. But that's a story for another day and I suspect staff would have to spend quite some time crafting rules that wouldn't piss *everybody* off.

 

[crazybars]

@Holo
@Teasday
@Zephyrus


Uh... guys . . . . . Baka-Tsuki.org already exists though? Why are you guys proposing to make Baka-Tsuki when it already exists as THE anti-piracy Light Novel Aggregator?

They're so fanatically anti-piracy, they're part of the reason why the Novel Updates system of linking to the translator's own sites exists, to prevent Baka-Tsuki from mass deleting everybody's work without permission the instant an official translation is announced, regardless of common sense.

There is nothing Mangadex can do that can out Baka-Tsuki Baka Tsuki.

 

[Teasday]

@crazybars What are you talking about

 

[crazybars]

@ Teasday


Baka-Tsuki
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Main_Page


They host Light Novel projects translation groups upload to their website
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Category:Light_novel_(English)


Here's one of the uploaded Light Novel Titles you can read.
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Absolute_Duo#Volume_1_.28Full_Text_-_MOBI_-_PDF.29
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Absolute_Duo:Volume_1_Chapter_1


They're super Anti-Piracy already. Following Licensing and DMCAs to the literal letter (which makes them unpopular with lots of people.)
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=High_School_DxD
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Template:Abandoned


What can Mangadex do hosting Light Novels Baka Tsuki doesn't already do, especially if it's to fight piracy. . . .?

 

[crazybars]

@AbyssalMonkey

They delete the projects from circulation like this. These were removed in their entirety.

Maybe I worded it wrong? It's not exactly controversial, they do this all the time.


https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Tokyo_Ravens
https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=High_School_DxD

 

[sterven]

@Teasday
He's talking about the about an OG LN site that is very and I mean VERY anti-piracy (can't even catch a whiff of a serialization cause they'll delete the work off their platform), and going off of what
this sites stated objective seems to be stamping out profitable piracy it would line up closely to what their doing.

 

[BzzBzz]

Didn't BT "died" the moment they deleted like 90% of works they hosted? I checked it about a year ago and there was only boring trash :/