Sniping and proposed solution for non dicks :rejected:

[alidan]

Edit/add/clarification
--- I think I need to clarify something due to the word claim, I don't mean they claim something and only they can post it, I mean this as a
1) known raws, this lets everyone know where the scanlation is at and if its behind, as in something to consider picking up
2) inform people that someone took up the reins on translation as in the actual translation has started, and when it is done. this would work as a way to have translators set a target on something else, less wasted effort on something that takes skill you cant teach yourself in an afternoon to do
3) in the editing, before its worked on and till its done, it would be nice to see if the group has this as a priority or if taking them up on the 'help wanted/needed' would be a good idea.
I think this is all I need to clarify because it seems to many people took it as a you can't do this---

would it be possible to have a way to display chapters with known raws, and then have groups 'claim' stuff?
Lets say a manga has chapter 21 and it's late and only has a 'raw" status, for groups that use this site, they could take the chapter and update it with 'translating' 'translated' and 'editing' so everyone knows about where the manga is. it would help both from wasted effort side of things in letting people who are translating it know if somethings happening, and could be a recruitment tool for people who edit as I have seen a few groups where they sit on translations for a while mostly due to lack of editors.

I think this would overall help everyone.

 

[hazzack]

there is no rule prohibit sniping. There's only etiquette, which says sniping is bad.

asshole be asshole the way they want and it's up to other's ass

 

[sterven]

would it be possible to have a way to display chapters with known raws, and then have groups 'claim' stuff?

Fuck no. The whole idea of a group 'claiming' a series has always been ridiculous to me and legitimizing this action has to be
one of the dumbest moves this site could ever make.

 

[P3n]

Ridiculous proposal. Bad Idea. In my opinion, sniping is

Spoiler

good for the readers.

Nothing wrong with a little competition.

 

[Sleeper]

@alidan Because this is a hot-button issue, and people can get a little...emotionally intense in their wording on the subject, I'm going to try to explain this as objectively as possible.

The short answer is: No. The idea of claiming/reserving/owning a series or chapter for translation is not going to happen, nor is there going to be any sort of "status report" system for ongoing translations.

The long answer is: No, exerting any kind of ownership over a series, no matter how loosely-defined, vague, or tenuous it is, will simply never be applied or enforced as a rule. The most common arguments against this are "Pirates complaining about ownership rights" and "leeches complaining about free content", both of which I believe are self-explanatory. As @hazzack stated, the closest we can come is having etiquette, which can--and often does--get completely ignored. Etiquette gets ignored in real life; expecting etiquette to be upheld on the internet is an exercise in frustration, even in the best of circumstances.

This proposal has been made, in various forms, countless times. It will probably continue to be put forward as a suggestion countless times more. The answer will most likely always be "No." And this is because you can't really make rules for a practice that's illegal to begin with. Before the can of worms regarding scanlation legality even gets a chance to open: scanlating is illegal, unquestionably. It falls under intellectual property rights--by translating a work, without permission, from one language to another, you are preventing the copyright holder from making money on the legal--hypothetical or otherwise--translation of their product, because you are creating an environment in which someone can choose to read a scanlated copy over paying the money to buy a legally produced copy of the work. The only difference between this illegal act and other illegal acts is that this is often considered a "victimless crime" because many series go untranslated to begin with, so copyright holders tend to look the other way. But if, and when, they get those dollar signs in their eyes...suddenly, you're hurting their profit margins and cutting into their market share, and then it's time to litigate.

Yes, sniping can ruin the fun for everyone: groups can, and often will drop a series in progress out of frustration at being sniped. After all the time and effort they feel they've poured into a work, someone else comes in, releases their version first, and everyone reads that instead, even if the quality is subjectively (or sometimes, demonstrably) worse than the first group's releases. I've had series I loved reading dropped by the groups whose translations I preferred because of snipes. It's incredibly disappointing when that happens. But that's the nature of dabbling in illegal work: rules can only be upheld by agreement, and agreement is not mandatory. "No honor among thieves", as is often quoted. As a result, you--the consumer--are at the complete and total whim of those doing the scanlating. If they choose to quit, the best you can hope for is that enough people band together to request they resume translating, and they grant that request. Otherwise, your only remaining options are to
(A) Find another way to read the work, legally if possible.
(B) Take up translation yourself and take matters into your own hands.
or
(C) Give up on the work altogether.

That said, if I can be a little personal for a minute, the sheer amount of argument surrounding sniping is baffling to me. People have argued about spoilers (a certain group I won't namedrop comes to mind immediately), about dropped scanlations, about removed scanlations, about paywalls and delay-walls, about who had what first...and they're all neglecting their part in the equation: the consumer part.

If a group uploads a chapter 20 chapters out from where the latest scanlation was...don't read it.
If another group starts scanlating a series that you've been reading by a different group...continuing reading the releases from your preferred group.
If your favorite scanlator stops scanlating...make your own inquiries. They almost all have personal Discords and websites; go there and ask why they stopped. Ask if there's any way they would continue. At the end of the day, these people are all human beings--sometimes, appeals to emotion, reason, and so on can work.

I completely skipped reading all of Black Cat Scanlations' releases of Gokushufudou, because I preferred reading the releases by Sexy Akiba Detectives. And then Sexy Akiba Detectives just continued from where Black Cat Scanlations left off, and even said in their credits page that they had no beef with Black Cat Scans. So I went back and read those chapters...and you know, they were pretty good, honestly. I might even check out more Black Cat Scanlations.

Yes, as a consumer, you may find yourself in positions where you don't get any good choices for enjoying the things you like. But in a lot of cases, you do. Exercise those choices, because that's the power you do have. But asking MangaDex to enforce scanlation etiquette is an uphill battle, and one that--thus far--has been a losing battle, at that. I don't think it's great that this is the state of things, but at the same time, I've learned to just work and exist within the system.

Hopefully this helped lay the cards on the table, not only for you, but for anyone else who may be wondering about this. Hopefully it wasn't too inflammatory either. In any case, thank you for your time, and happy reading.

 

[pikokola]

If any group wants to claim anything, go license them. Else sod off.

 

[kenx]

On the offchance that @alidan legitimately didn't know about this (Sleeper already gave a pretty good explanation, so I'll just give my own opinion)
No. Reading translated manga by independent scanlators is a privilege, not a right. Speaking as a lurker and a leecher, I'm always happy when a new chapter of a manga I'm following gets translated. But I don't pester the group if their release rate gets slower. Or if their translation is DUWANG. I still get to read it since I can't into japanese.Also, I think group drama happens because one or more groups think it's their right to scanlate a manga. As pikokola said, go license your translation if you think it's your right to be the only translator of the series (though what the readership think aobut who is the best translator is another matter entirely).

 

[Xennith]

Well they can stop sniping on the site but it would make the site worse, and less people would read here, so obviously it won't be implemented, its a problem that when you solve it creates 3 more problems so to speak. (Not touching on the legality just on actual site performance.) It would also create a lot more work for site staff.

 

[alidan]

I think everyone is taking what I said/suggested as a completely different thing that intended due to the word claim. I used 'claim' for a reason, as I think it's ridiculous for people to say i'm doing something and you can't do it.

Honestly i'm all for slow as shit groups to have projects taken from them completely (as in they are so far behind and never caught up, multiple chapters if not volumes behind current and in comes someone faster and hopefully better) but that's not always the case. many times raws just are not available/scanned. which is why a way to track raws to know it IS out there would be helpful, there are books that take multiple month long breaks, that make it feel like the translation group is dragging its ass, when they aren't
this would be where 2 a 'its being actively translated now' stats would come in, as in the group/person has it, and are translating it not a 'i'm calling this now so eff off' but a 'yea, effort is being put into it right now' and because translation isn't something everyone can do in an afternoon of learning, it would be best to have efforts spaced out if its possible.

at least the way I see it, for groups that use this site and don't just dump manga here after the fact, it would help show people something is a priority, something is being worked on, and if they need help in lets say the editing phase, because I have lent hands to groups in the past that had sat on translations for weeks/months due to lack of editors.

this system isn't meant to be something that stops people from doing their own thing, but for people who want to add to it, why waste effort and potentially cause problems going forward when a simple 'lets check this before going forward' would help?

 

[Patchyknows]

It’s unfortunate that seemingly nothing can be done to stop bad sniping. In my opinion there really should be something to stop or at least make people think if its worth sniping, but only if their quality is worse.

Pirates had a code, why dont we? Instead of useless etiquette, a couple of rules, as least for this site, could curb bad sniping.

I’ve no problem with sniping itself, but when the snipers just upload faster at the cost of quality, its at the detriment of everyone.

 

[Exiled]

@Patchyknows It doesn't seem like there's any definition of "bad sniping" that isn't completely subjective though. It's just your word against someone else's, since no one can rightly claim to "own" anything. And it's easy to go on about how something should be done about it without offering any viable solutions.

It's far better to just let people decide for themselves what they're going to read than to try to gatekeep according to some arbitrary standard.

 

[kardyro]

tc your topic title is bait compared to what you're suggesting, lol.

I like the idea of being able to tag unreleased chapters with stuff like "wip", but that seems out of the purview of a aggregate reader site. It sounds more fitting for something like bakaupdates, or maybe some offshoot of mdex aimed towards scan teams. It really wouldn't help with the sniping, anyway -- snipes are going to do what they want. Even if people respected this tagging/claiming system, it still does nothing to prevent poor quality releases. You're heavily overestimating the average quality of scanlators -- have you met mtl-kun? He's equipped with the power of ocr, google, and times new roman/manga temple, and ready to release .. quality chapters, fast! (as an aside on this point, official releases aren't automatically great, either -- some scanlation teams do a much better job imo) This is basically advocating for groups to publicise their internal tracking/timelines, which just seems like a lot more work just to satisfy reader curiosity.

I'd rather see something to address the specific case of a series lacking just one or a few things before release -- e.g., script and scans are done, just needs typeset, etc. in a bounty board type system.

anyway, everyone should read Sleeper's post and follow it. Don't read what you don't want to support, be it snipes or poor quality releases.

 

[Sleeper]

@alidan, I realize now what you're saying you wanted implemented, and while I definitely don't think it would hurt anything intentionally, I can sort of see it being abused, albeit in a very roundabout manner. Say someone marks a chapter as "WIP", to let people know its out in the wild--meaning raws are available, and the translation isn't just dead in the water either, they just need a little help. That's great. But now there's going to be batches of scanlators (translators, editors, typesetters, etc.) who will see that and go, "Oh, someone else is doing it--I'll skip that one." It happens all the time, and not even in a hostile way--some scanlators only do scanlations to bring love to lesser known series, or to encourage other scanlators to take it on. Some of Anq's work, or PaulBunyanTrophy's scans come to mind: they scanlate a few chapters to raise awareness, then leave the rest for someone else to do. (Both scanlators have done full series as well; I'm just using their awareness work as examples.)

Now imagine someone marks a series' latest chapter(s) as "WIP"...and then drops the translation. Or gets bored. Or never had any intentions of finishing it in the first place. Now, any of those other groups who decided not to touch it, who would've followed through, won't because they think someone else is already doing it.

Granted, if we didn't do things because of every single "what if" scenario, absolutely nothing would get done, so I'm not saying it can't still be implemented. I'm just saying I can see potential misuse cases there too. That all being said, though, I mostly just wanted to apologize for misunderstanding what you were getting at, and to acknowledge what your actual suggestion was. My bad, and may your favorite series continue to be scanned without issue.

EDIT: Clarity; grammar and spelling clean-ups.

 

[pikokola]

... 'its being actively translated now' stats...
...it would help show people something is a priority, something is being worked on...

the only flag like that which I would support is "a group consistently release stuff in an acceptable pace."
if that won't stop somebody from butting in, then nothing else would stop him.

also, good guy don't need any extra sticky memo for them to not suddenly take over series.
Each have their own way of showing good gesture and their own idea of where the line is; but, after things pass what they thought enough - like passing certain amount of time they consider way too late, or even had message the past translator and got no response - then no amount of sticky memo showing somebody working on certain series would stop them from doing their own translation.

 

[Teasday]

Yeah I'm not seeing any suggestion here that would make sense for us to implement. Sounds like most of it could be resolved by groups communicating with each other directly rather than us having to play some kind of a nebulous, exploitable middleman.