Scanlator drama discussion

[Anoynymouse]

Hi, so I'm just making this thread so I can put my opinion on some of the drama out there.
My qualifications are: being a scanlator, being a reader, using Mangadex, and having an opinion.
If you are not fond of drama, just stop reading or find a TL;DR at the bottom.


First off, where do I stand in this drama?
I am a scanlator for one of the groups who decided to walk out, but I was not in on the decision to pull out of Mangadex, and only came to know of it from this post.
I stand by the decision of the scanlators in this. Not because I believe they are objectively right and Mangadex is wrong, but because this is simply a matter of opinion.
In fact, I do not support the method by which they decided to push this announcement, which I explain later down.


I'd first like to address a common argument made against scanlators in almost any of the drama that appears in this harsh business.

"Scanlators are greedy hypocrites because Patreon/donations."

I do not understand this argument.
The claim is that scanlators are just doing it for the money, as proven by their accepting donations, right?
In what way is this a sign of being driven by money? As far as I am aware, none of the groups mentioned in this drama are forcing people to donate.
There are no paywalls for chapters, and the groups do not request a certain amount to continue scanlating.
The donations are simply there for people who wish to donate, as it helps the people who scanlate in various ways, and allows for more scanlating, better scanlating, and in some cases gives the people working some comfort or support in keeping their hobby.
The claim that these groups left because they want more revenue is short-sighted.
I do not believe any of the groups mentioned did this with revenue in mind, but actually were prepared for a loss in views since most people do not enjoy going to each individual scanlator's site to read their releases.
Frankly, I'm not sure how posting a screenshot of groups having Patreon pages proves anything or puts you in the right.
Let me remind you that if Mangadex does go legit, that would in fact force people to pay, and on a much bigger scale than any scanlator donations. But that kind of greed is not yet mentioned? Because it's legal?

However.

That brings me to my next point, which is that I am not against Mangadex doing this.
It is completely withing their right to choose to go legit, and it's a smart choice.
It would be a step towards closing the gap between scanlation and legal publication, which could benefit both sides.
Sure, not everyone is a winner in big changes like this, but focusing on just the negatives of this possibility is not a reasonable standpoint.
The talk about going legit is a completely acceptable one, and not a point that they should be attacked by, as if there is malicious intent hidden behind that possibility.


The situation is not a good guy / bad guy conflict (Although some of the wording used by both parties seems to suggest that it is, which is what I do not support in the scanlator's post).

On one end, Mangadex is a great site for readers. No ads, plenty of QoL features, and more supportive of scanlators than any other aggregator.

On the other end, Scanlators do not have to go along with this if they do not want to. Although Mangedex is good, it's not perfect by any means, with the community being a major point in that.
The point of the post that started the drama is that the scanlators want to let mangadex, and the readers, know that they do not support the direction Mangadex appears to be heading. Which is fine.
Scanlators still do the work they do almost entirely for free. They are free to choose to not support this site if they so wish. To paint them as some greedy money-sucking leeches because they accept donations is a weak argument, that i'm pretty tired of seeing everywhere (Some of you may even remember a group that had drama not too long ago with a sniper using that excuse to put themselves on a moral high ground).

The way i see it, readers are quick to jump on the attack at whoever is the catalyst of their inconvenience. In this case, this is the scanlators deciding to pull their chapters, but in any other case it would again be whoever makes the first step. This mentality, and the abuse that readers like to throw around in situations like this (and even during regular releases) is one major point as to why some scanlators do not wish to support a site and community like this. Mangadex could do more on their part to help prevent these kinds of commenters running rampant, and if you believe the claim in the original post, Mangadex staff might have contributed to this (I have not yet seen this argument being addressed in any of the staff responses, apart from maybe the claim that evidence was fabricated, but it was never specified what exactly or how, but feel free to point me in the right direction).

A Short summary:
Scanlators: Mangadex seems like a good place to post.
Mangadex: *Snipers, toxic community, abusive comments, entitlement, mod's seemingly not bothering with these issues.*
Scanlators: That kinda sucks but we get most of these things on our other platforms anyway.
Mangadex: *Might be going legit which would profit off of the scanlators and could even go full fakku.*
Scanlators: Yeah, we're not into the idea of being used by a platform while we're not getting much from it anyway, so we will not support them anymore.
Readers: REEE YOU'RE JUST DOING IT FOR THE MONEY! WHY ARE YOU ACCEPTING MONEY! CRYBABIES!

Readers still get their stuff for free, and scanlators, who put in their work for the translations, are as such free to decide how they operate, be it donations or where they post. Whining about that is exactly the kind of toxicity that many scanlators find a problem.

TL;DR STARTS HERE
In the end, Mangadex is free to go in the direction they want, and the scanlators are free to choose not to be part of it. Anyone throwing insults around for something that boils down to a simple disagreement like this where 2 parties just go their own ways, is contributing to the actual problem here.

I'd love for people to actually keep a discussion going in this thread. I am pretty certain of my current stance, but I will gladly change my opinion if some valid arguments are made.

^{>inb4 enlightened centrism}

 

[occu]

I figure most people who bailed on things like fakku & crunchyroll would do the same for MD if it suddenly became a paywalled service.

I know I would. I stand by believing this is a knee-jerk reaction to a potential outcome. The admin claims it's not in the cards for the time being, so why are scanlators so keen on demonizing them for considering potential courses of action?

There's a whole lot of wrong overall.

 

[Kreydis]

Most of the comments in the main thread are shortsighted reactions of fanboys on one side or the other. I simply don't care for most of the pointless ravings of lunatics.

It's just that this is an issue with all aggregate sites, the only reason anyone cares is because Holo has brought it up or has responded to it. Everyone is going to have to go to the point of go legit or go full pirate. And in MD's case, I'd abandon it in a heartbeat if anything got paywalled off. But as it stands, I see absolutely no logic in pulling out of MD.

You lose views. You lose potential capital to continue translating. You have to take up the costs of hosting a web-reader if you're not going down the only RAR download method. And you're still getting fucking shafted by the money grubber sites.

Like, what do you get out of this for pulling out? There's got to be a better reason / some personal reasons at least for this to make sense. Do you all just fucking hate Holo? Is he some egotistical maniac who is literally threatening to murder your family if you don't post on MD? Because the fears that Holo is just using you to go 'legit' is fucking pointless, everyone is fucking using Scanlators.

 

[ParagonNight]

I generally dont have any issue with the groups pulling out and will prob follow some of them if I read more than 1 series that they work on. I do however find this whole fiasco an extreme inconvenience and the fact that the original poster decided to use out of context quotes as their "evidence" is disgusting. I'm honestly rather neutral but god do I find out of context quotes gross no matter the scenario. Really makes you out to be disingenuous in my opinion. Hopefully this thread will be full of actual discussion unlike the main post which is just kind of full of toxicity and memes.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

Matters not to me.
One ship sinks, swim to the next.
Nobody wins here.

 

[bioboy]

@holo
so where to begin. just reminder that i am here to make you renegotiate with the scan groups. which i am sure still open. and i don't have access to MD translator discord so i don't have more info than what already posted in other threads
this post by op is pretty good summary by many of translator. i included. the thing is i know champion and hatigarm guys, they are pretty good guys. where as when shurim slime when the anime get popular and his work for 3 years to popularize it's manga get sniped by anon, i defend him by asking at least to not support hosting anon sniper in md and ask you to work more like novel updates rule about picking up. and you don't even care and now he stopped translating. so i really think you're kind in the wrong here. like one of the listed complain is

The policies and methods MD employed to bolster their library of content created this rush for people to first upload content (for special roles), this was done assuming all active team leads would agree to this, which was obviously not the case

and this is especially correct for shurim case as then he stressed to make faster release even though it will make the qualities drop. and i know jb is not really good, but the two of top "taken out of context comment" of blaming JB is something you have done and i think its also done to other scans group that has delays to releases. like look why the fuck did that many scan group want to leave? when this is the only aggregator that at least respect scans group. going legit is a bane of many scans group, but not that hated. like you say you will pay them with good enough money, but they still don't want it right? and you thinks your predecessor not going legit is a mistake? this here is something that really bad to the old guards, now there is chrunchyroll do kissanime gone? do fansubs gone? this manga community only want 1 thing, easiest access to read everything. you want all agregators gone? want all english manga gone from internet except from MD? want other language manga gone from language specific agregators? how much money do you need to retranslate many things in many language in what kind of speed can it be achieved? what if you have exclusive battle with other legal site (same kind with netflix chrunchiroll funimation and other for anime) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4nHOABMEns even if you somehow win monopoly over other legal site, it's a monopoly. you can fucking charge us per chapter and you would think you have done nothing wrong. just saying this here to end, many manga sites already legal and maybe you don't even know it, and many illegal aggregator doesn't care about translator. batoto do care about translator and they only make reasonable line because they make it to be a safe space for translator. as for you, maybe you make some unreasonable line because the end goal isn't something many groups wanted. and you burn many groups that doesn't fall in line. sorry doesn't really wanting to answer question or arguing. but going legal is okay reason for me (so i don't really blame you or think that you are greedy), just want to say their perspective. but would still not using ur site when it's legal. and if ever your site not popular anymore, mangaupdates is still the remnant since onemanga and mangafox comes to ruin to guard the passage.

 

[el_ilm]

@EOTFOFYL Aggregator sites win.

There's no way in hell will I bookmark a shitload of separate websites just to read the manga I want and the majority of readers are the same as me. We are forced to go to aggregator sites because of the convenience of them not giving a fuck about dumb shit like this and still having chapters up regardless.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

@el_ilm

On the contrary,
Guess I'll learn to scrape websites.
Free time is now filled?

(also I now realized "aggregator" fits into the haiku so updated version here)

Matters not to me.
One ship sinks, swim to the next.
Aggregators win.

 

[TehDunsparce]

I'm liking the haiku opinions train.

Well this kind of sucks.
It's not just one side at fault.
Aggregators win.

 

[Zyke_Nowell]

I surely dont Trust anoms, but let me say something:

The claim is that scanlators are just doing it for the money, as proven by their accepting donations, right?

No, If you good sir really look into the thread, the main point was How those scanlator are trying to push their agenda against the moderators, And all of It was Just for the money. Theres alot of scanlator that did say : "well, were not here for money, so why leave? This is a hobb after all"
Now, If you trully think those groups that are leaving Just dont care for the money, them think about this: "The whole drama started cuz of sniping And some mean coments", BUT WHAIT, why bother talking then about How MD is going legit? That was not the purpose of the trouble!
Let me ask you anom that worked for them, did they makes this whole drama for what they Said It was the trouble? Or was It for ulterior motives? What about the discord prints out of context?
Now now, I do agree MD going legit is a pain, but the thing is, It wont happen. (It's Impossible for manga domains anyway)
In the end It Just feels like they really want to show of, Just that.

 

[madbottler]

These groups making this scene are just mad cause of the stuff @Zyke_Nowell said, its pretty amusing really when these guys doing ILLEGAL things with copyrighted material have the gall to get mad when someone else "Snipes" them. This whole MD going legit thing is just an excuse for these guys to bail out without looking like the assholes they are. When did scanlation turn from a hobby to some sort of business model anyway, I wasn't really paying attention to this stuff like those JB guys started doing 2 week delays and got sniped by glorious leader, what is their justification for that sort of delay? Getting people to come to their website? I really don't get it. JB says they need some 50 dollars to get weekly jump scans lol. I appreciate all the guys who continue to translate the mangas they enjoy for us, I know most the JB sort of guys are the minority and that there will be people to pick up stuff from them if they drop them. Look at Hox, this man is a true hero and everyone of these groups should look at him.

http://hoxtranslations.blogspot.com/p/aboutfaq.html

I love you Hox.

 

[DrawGray]

To be honest, this "Mangadex going legit" sounds like an excuse.
You should jump ship WHEN they go legit, not use a thin suspicion as excuse to take out everything in the hopes of making more money in your web reader.

In the end, aggregators will win because no one will go to your websites one by one.

 

[SinScholar]

This entire thing is somewhat amusing so. Let's go over this summery points from my view point..

Snipers
How, does LEAVING help with sniping releases? It changes literally nothing at all. So that's completely invalid.

toxic community, abusive comments, entitlement
Show me one LARGE(As large or larger than MD) community that doesn't have those sorts of people. I'm sorry but it doesn't exist on the internet. If you believe it does, then you're oblivious or naïve. Just look at any Chat(IRC is a prime example) or large forums for examples. If there is one, it's an extremely closed off community(As in invite only). So again, invalid.

mod's seemingly not bothering with these issues.
Again, a naive statement. What do you think mods could do? Ban the offenders? Due to the nature of the web, bans are rather hard to enforce. Delete said offenses? You expect them to watch a feed 24/7 so you don't get your feelings hurt by some harsh words or someone sniping work? Not a viable option. Ban+Delete offenses when notified? Again, pointless simply reregister and resnipe. You state these issues but you have no way to solve these issues yourself. So again, Invalid.

MD Might be going legit
You MIGHT run over someones cat tomorrow. You MIGHT win the lottery next year. You MIGHT get struck by lightning. I MIGHT get eaten by a shark while surfing. I MIGHT lose my mind and go on a GTA style killing spree. MIGHT being the keyword here. Again, Invalid.

Yeah, we're not into the idea of being used by a platform
Fair enough, that's your choice. Do whatever you want to or feel works for you and yours.

So in conclusion, Do whatever you want. Just don't spout petty reasons to try to justify it. Because if you actually look at the reasons you've given, they're flimsy at best. Rather than "reasons", I'd say a better term is excuses. But that's just my opinion, so meh. *shrugs*

 

[Acolytus]

At least we can all agree everyone is dumb except for me who is the smarterest, right?

 

[lonefire]

stop making shit threads

 

[Zephyrus]

This was already covered here: https://mangadex.org/thread/92399

As you can see, the thread has been locked. Please do not create duplicate threads.

Thanks,

Zeph