What exactly is sniping, and why does it make people so angry?

[shwiftyshfifty]

There were a few series where, for whatever reason, someone had posted a new chapter before the regular people did. I think that is the basis of 'sniping' (right?) but I'm quite confused on why the comment section of the chapter is full of vitriol. Why does it matter so much? Is it not easier to just ignore it?

I suppose it's just people being people getting angry of such non-consequential matters as 'sniping', but perhaps I'm overlooking some aspect of scanlation that I can't comprehend.

Thanks!

 

[abc003262202]

On one hand, I can understand why some people would get angry, it may feel like an insult, like they are telling you your tls are not good enough, especially if yours is already decent enough. On the other hand, I do sometime wish more people get into translating a same series, as some groups really take a long time to release one chapter when there are still many raws ahead.

However, trash MTLs are bad no matter what unless they have a good human editor. (in which case we wouldn't have known it was MTL anyway)

 

[GipoScribantino]

There are two outcomes for sniping:
one is when the sniper is a terrible translator, in which case people get to read a subpar chapter, aggregators collect this chapter and people are generally unhappy.
The other is when the sniper is good at its job and release a quality chapter, in this case readers don't really care since they get to, you know, read something comprehensible; the "regular people" will get angry for one reason or another, but that's on them and only affects readers when they make it a matter of principle and stop working on that title.
Ultimately, whether or not a snipe is bad depends entirely on the quality of the chapter and whether or not the "regulars" get assblasted.

 

[kohelemon]

Well it's a matter of pride, and I suppose maybe even attention, though that sound rather rude.
1. Once one person does it, usually it is that person's version people read first and stick too, which sort of makes any other version made after unneeded no matter if it is better or not.
And that's really the only reason I can see it.
One thing I've noted is the recent series "Jojolands" Two English Teams were working on it's translations: Dogpark and Hi Wa Mata Noboru. The Former usually posted chapters which were in translation far better in comparison to the latter. But, the latter would manage to post chapters of various qualities most of the time before DogPark.
And now, after chapter 8, DogPark has not translated another chapter to my knowledge. Hi Wa Mata Noboru having translated 9-12 through the proceeding months.
IDK if Dogpark stopped because of this, but it may've been a contributing factor even though I'd always reread the chapter with Dogpark's translation.

 

[chatnoirchatgris]

Part of it is the worry the original scanlator will stop working on it because of the sniper, and the sniper is poorer quality. This usually only happens with snipers that consistently snipe the same series every week.

 

[EchoGirl]

idk if there's etiquette for mangadex specifically, but r/manga says that the 'waiting time' between each updates to where it'd be ok to make a request for someone else it pick it up is 3 months, tho it's prolly best for some ppl to just also have it on their own site as well otherwise it's best for ppl to just join together but i tend to read the slower slice of life stuff that ppl wouldn't go outta their way to snipe anyways

 

[mmosimca]

To answer the "why does it make people so angry?" question in more specifics: it makes the group that was sniped angry because they likely had most of the chapter translated already and were just finishing up on it when the "snipe" happens.

Basically, while the fan TL scene is very large in its entirety, there's a still not an infinite amount of effort to go around - every release is usually days of work by a dedicated team. Having this work duplicated means one of the teams could have done another chapter of another work instead - it's a waste to have two copies of the same thing in comparison to two different things.

The other issues raised in earlier points about quality differences are valid, too, I just wanted to lay out what I see as the primary reason people are frustrated: duplicated work sucks.

 

[AlonzoWest45]

Because it ain't good at all.

 

[Rukkha]

It would be one thing if another group picked up the work because the original group either stopped or were far behind on updates, but it is another thing entirely when it is done to people who are still updating it on a regular schedule.

I do not personally mind "snipes" in the sense that who translates what Chapter isn't as relevant to me as the actual quality of Chapter Translations is. If the new group (or individual) does just as good of a job or better, then it is perfectly fine for them to do so in my opinion, even if it might invalidate the work the previous group had done.

What I do take issue with however are those done in poor quality, simply for the sake of catching attention by being the first to get new chapters out. Particularly in the case of those that are essentially just advertisements for their own websites. You know what I'm referring to, ones filled to the brim with watermarks on practically every page.

 

[kn4ll]

Most of the snipes are done by low quality speed scanlators, and they do it to pick up popular series because they have a patreon, a kofi, paypal, and perhaps an ad infested web site. Since their releases are poor they manage to release before the original scanlator, which might get demotivated and quit because less will read their work, it won’t be uploaded to aggregators, and someone has already done the same work.

One of the worst groups were arang scans, who probably was one of the most greedy and harmful groups. They sniped both solo leveling and mieruko, and they tried excusing it with that their releases were late, which they weren’t.

In general snipers ruin it for everyone except themselves. They cause scanlators to quit and series to be abandoned, they do it for profit and will drop a series if it gets less popular, and they keep chapters behind pay walls and dubious stuff like that.

There is really no rules in scanlation as it is all illegal, but obviously sniping is harmful and the general consensus is that it should not be done. But when a group is slow like hell and release a chapter every two months for a weekly manga, it’s hard to say that it’s not warranted. There’s several groups that hog popular series like this too, but cause a scene when they get sniped. How about R15 is a pretty recent example of this. The group should never have pocked up the manga in the first place if they were going to be this slow.

 

[BuyVelomobiles]

How about R15 is a pretty recent example of this. The group should never have pocked up the manga in the first place if they were going to be this slow.

I stopped translating that manga because of some drama behind the scenes. It's probably totally abandoned at this point.

 

[Forikorder]

Majority of the time snipers are trolls aiming to get the current group to dump it so the series lays dead

Also consider it from the original groups perspective, youve been working on a series for months putting in hundreds of hours of hard work into a passion project only for someone to try and steal it from you

 

[MasterSaruwatari]

I actually had this happened to me before. I was pissed but I just worked on making sure the editing of the chapters is top notch and I was able to pretty much outdo the sniper as he was lazy and just didn't like me as he tried to steal my work. My take is if this happens to you is to really look at what you and your team is doing and fix it. You can win out by simply just being than the asshole that tries to steal what you worked hard on.

 

[knight_evangel]

If you were around during the early 2010s you had people sharing in IRC rooms, random blogs, forums and 4chan along with randos who would do speedscans (rarely super accurate and rougly cleaned at best but done within hours of release).

That's five sources. You were technically ALWAYS wasting your time, because you were never the only scanlator.
I'll tell you the answer to your question OP, entitlement. I see the word "steal" being used in this conversation a lot. That's an odd word to use for a hobby, even more odd for a process that falls into a legal grey area.

-

Personally I think it's a self esteem problem. Take for instance these kind scanlators who were bitched at by some ignoramuses about their perfect scanlations and almost quit. https://forums.mangadex.org/threads...ear-foolish-you.1748681/page-14#post-21941251

One of the best series on this site with a flawless scan group and they talk about quitting because of a few trolls.

Stop thinking your work has less meaning because someone decides to be an asshole and it won't be a problem at all. 200+ people came into that thread to tell the group they appreciate them, and I'd be willing to bet it was less than 5 idiots that were about to make them quit.

 

[BuyVelomobiles]

If you were around during the early 2010s you had people sharing in IRC rooms, random blogs, forums and 4chan along with randos who would do speedscans (rarely super accurate and rougly cleaned at best but done within hours of release).

That's five sources. You were technically ALWAYS wasting your time, because you were never the only scanlator.
I'll tell you the answer to your question OP, entitlement. I see the word "steal" being used in this conversation a lot. That's an odd word to use for a hobby, even more odd for a process that falls into a legal grey area.

-

Personally I think it's a self esteem problem. Take for instance these kind scanlators who were bitched at by some ignoramuses about their perfect scanlations and almost quit. https://forums.mangadex.org/threads...ear-foolish-you.1748681/page-14#post-21941251

One of the best series on this site with a flawless scan group and they talk about quitting because of a few trolls.

Stop thinking your work has less meaning because someone decides to be an asshole and it won't be a problem at all. 200+ people came into that thread to tell the group they appreciate them, and I'd be willing to bet it was less than 5 idiots that were about to make them quit.

On other hand, there's something to be said about people who can't take criticism. I noticed in just the first six pages that the man is speaking much more formally than he does in the raws, and they mistranslated 自分に流される血をこんなにも晴れやかな気持ちで 明かせる日かくるとはな to "To think that a day like this would come where the blood running through my veings can witness the radiant light of day". And then on page 8, I noticed they mentioned the memories of the maiden who will (future tense) save the world as opposed to saved (past tense) in the raws. I doubt this is what's getting brought up, but let's be clear that there are actually issues.

All in all, I'd give it a solid B+. They're clearly trying their best to tell us what the characters are saying, and just make some slips here and there. I wouldn't even consider trying to fix their work.

 

[ThatSoulsGirl]

Also, there's a lot of cleaning and re-drawing involved in Scanlating. Redrawing part of the BG or characters because of sound effects that need to be removed. It's a lot of work especially in series that have a lot of overlapping sound effects. So I think you can see how it's bad practice to snipe the raws that someone else used their free time to clean up and make pretty for the readers.

 

[knight_evangel]

Also, there's a lot of cleaning and re-drawing involved in Scanlating. Redrawing part of the BG or characters because of sound effects that need to be removed. It's a lot of work especially in series that have a lot of overlapping sound effects. So I think you can see how it's bad practice to snipe the raws that someone else used their free time to clean up and make pretty for the readers.

No offense, but it's really delusional to think that this makes it an exception of some kind.

I can think of plenty of hobbies that take time, effort, money and manpower. That's not rare, in fact it's uncommon to find hobbies that don't require investment. And yet there's another word "hobbies" go by, 'time-wasters'. It's not even meant to be a derogatory term either. The only time you should have any other mindset is if you intend to go professional.

But there is no such thing as a professional scanlator. "Scanlation" is a term the illegal manga community came up with. Before you get pedantic with me, try to recall the last time you saw an official site use the term. THAT is the difference between what they do and what we do.

It's not the same as a group of internet ppl who barely know each other banding together to get an unknown manga more attention in the hopes of official localization-which is literally all that scanlation is supposed to be.

That's how I know the spirit of it has been lost, the word "snipe" literally did not exist until groups who first started it like Red Hawk Scans started dying out and new people came in thinking they are supposed to have mandates, warrants and take-downs.

It's just a hobby, get over yourself. There is no "bad practice", there is a preference for the way you'd want things done and if someone disagrees they aren't "bad". You are scanlator and you own nothing.

 

[assholescans]

No offense, but it's really delusional to think that this makes it an exception of some kind.

I can think of plenty of hobbies that take time, effort, money and manpower. That's not rare, in fact it's uncommon to find hobbies that don't require investment. And yet there's another word "hobbies" go by, 'time-wasters'. It's not even meant to be a derogatory term either. The only time you should have any other mindset is if you intend to go professional.

But there is no such thing as a professional scanlator. "Scanlation" is a term the illegal manga community came up with. Before you get pedantic with me, try to recall the last time you saw an official site use the term. THAT is the difference between what they do and what we do.

It's not the same as a group of internet ppl who barely know each other banding together to get an unknown manga more attention in the hopes of official localization-which is literally all that scanlation is supposed to be.

That's how I know the spirit of it has been lost, the word "snipe" literally did not exist until groups who first started it like Red Hawk Scans started dying out and new people came in thinking they are supposed to have mandates, warrants and take-downs.

It's just a hobby, get over yourself. There is no "bad practice", there is a preference for the way you'd want things done and if someone disagrees they aren't "bad". You are scanlator and you own nothing.

I think his point was that it's demotivating when someone snipes you with a low quality release when you've spent a lot of time redrawing and making good looking SFXs, which takes a lot of time. Most people will only read the first release regardless of quality, and it's the first release that's going to be uploaded and read on aggregators.

 

[ThatSoulsGirl]

No offense, but it's really delusional to think that this makes it an exception of some kind.

I can think of plenty of hobbies that take time, effort, money and manpower. That's not rare, in fact it's uncommon to find hobbies that don't require investment. And yet there's another word "hobbies" go by, 'time-wasters'. It's not even meant to be a derogatory term either. The only time you should have any other mindset is if you intend to go professional.

But there is no such thing as a professional scanlator. "Scanlation" is a term the illegal manga community came up with. Before you get pedantic with me, try to recall the last time you saw an official site use the term. THAT is the difference between what they do and what we do.

It's not the same as a group of internet ppl who barely know each other banding together to get an unknown manga more attention in the hopes of official localization-which is literally all that scanlation is supposed to be.

That's how I know the spirit of it has been lost, the word "snipe" literally did not exist until groups who first started it like Red Hawk Scans started dying out and new people came in thinking they are supposed to have mandates, warrants and take-downs.

It's just a hobby, get over yourself. There is no "bad practice", there is a preference for the way you'd want things done and if someone disagrees they aren't "bad". You are scanlator and you own nothing.

It's there isn't such a thing as bad practice then I guess I'll just start taking a shit on people's lawns. You call me delusional, but you think it's fine if people act like dicks just because they're online. There has to be etiquette, even if it's not bound by law, I think as humans we can freaking act civilized. Thinking that's impossible is twitter mentality right there. Hope it doesn't bleed into your everyday life.

Jesus.

 

[BuyVelomobiles]

I think his point was that it's demotivating when someone snipes you with a low quality release when you've spent a lot of time redrawing and making good looking SFXs, which takes a lot of time. Most people will only read the first release regardless of quality, and it's the first release that's going to be uploaded and read on aggregators.

I legitimately forgot about aggregator sites. If a series already has a better scan dealing with it, shitting out a chapter in a couple of hours is basically vandalism.