I completely agree with you! I imagine a group would be angry when they finish with a chapter they are working and just before they upload it someone else did it before them. So they lost their time and effort and they could do another manga that is on hiatus instead. Thrrefore, i don't think a head up is just for courtesy but rather a necessity for our yaoi community.
Very well said.. super agree with you..
The original group is going to release their version of Chapter 12 with acurate translations and HQ scans. They are so close to releasing it. We were not going to miss out on anything. But people on here are so desperate for any update that they don't care if the translations aren't accurately portraying the story and dont care if there's just text over the Japanese text instead of actual clean scans.
There's plenty of great untranslated manga or dropped projects that have been officially dropped that people can work on instead of stepping on other groups hardwork.
Yes, no group "owns" a manga but there are unspoken rules in the scanlation community and one of them is respect. This is why many scanlation groups keep closing down or go into private. Then you guys are the first to complain about why these groups close down or drop their projects when you keep "encouraging" random translators to take over projects that other teams are already working on. All you have to do is be patient.
Regarding the quality of this latest translation, well, that, of course, is nothing but your subjective opinion, worth as much as the next one; and yes, readers are desperate to read a manga on hiatus, which is absolutely normal and most definitely not deserving of any type of reproof or criticism. That's all we need now, for readers to be blamed and accused of being "impatient"...really? what reader in what genre and in what world isn't??? As far as I can see, this manga had not been updated for months, it’s not like it was "active" and a second group "hijacked" it. Since it was inactive for so long, anyone that wishes to move it along is welcome to by most readers in the community because the efforts of all scanlators are appreciated equally. I really wonder what you mean as "random" translators, as if some translators have less worth than others; some translators may have broader language skills but **not** more value. I guess that it is necessary to remind people like you that this is a **furtive** community, therefore, there are no social hierarchies where some translators are more important than others. Let's not blur the lines here with delusions of self-grandeur, lest you give people the impression that the root of this type of controversy is really arrogance.
"Regarding the quality of this latest translation, well, that, of course, is nothing but your subjective opinion, worth as much as the next one"--I'd like to address this statement, if you don't mind. You have an excellent command of the English language, so I am certain you understand that words mean things, and that languages follow grammatical rules that are sometimes loose, and at other times, set in stone.
I understand where you are coming from when you say that one's assessment of translation quality can be subjective. It's true; it can be. I have seen people get eaten for breakfast for "bad translations" that aren't actually bad, in that they are accurate, albeit the English prose sounds awkward. But there are times that it is not subjective.
Imagine that you are at university, taking a foreign-language class, and you are taking an exam. When you answer the questions on that exam, they might ask you to read some sentences written in a foreign language and then to write the meaning in English, there are many ways you can write a certain phrase or sentence. But there are also many ways you can't. You could, or example, say "I walked my dog to the park" in several ways if you want to get technical. "I took my dog for a stroll to the park." "I walked my hound to the open-space." "I guided my dog walk down the street to the park." Depending on the language it's translated from, there can be so many ways to say it as well.
But you can't say just anything, right? There are main ideas in a sentence, or sentences, that you can translate incorrectly. With the example above, saying "I walked my cat to the park" is incorrect. Why? Because a cat is not a dog. "I walked my dog to the store" is incorrect. Because the park is not the store. "I ran my dog to the park" is incorrect, unless the verb "to walk" translated from another language doesn't specify the speed of traveling on foot. In which case, it could be translated as either "I ran," or "I walked." When translating, you can run into a lot of issues where the language you are translating to requires more specifications than the language you are translating from, and vice-versa.
The most common problem I see when translating from Japanese to English is that Japanese often doesn't specify the subject, which can confuse us beginners. It's obvious who the subject of a sentence is to experience Japanese speaker and readers, but to those of us who are not, we feel like it's brain-surgery trying to figure out who the verbs are referring to. But there are many clues you start to pick up on. If the conversation, based on what was said before the sentence in question, was talking about a particular person, then that person is often the subject. By default, most often, the subject is the person who is speaking. But usually, you can figure it out based on the context.
Let me tell you...I get it wrong sometimes. And it's not subjective. If I translate something and apply a verb that is meant for one subject to another, I am wrong. It's not open for debate. If I was taking an exam, my answer would be marked wrong. Period. End of discussion. The art of translation leaves quite a bit of wiggle room in refining prose, to best capture the original author's tone, emotion, and level of formality or informality. But the fact is, certain points must remain the same, or they are simply incorrect.
I hope this helps.
I really don't understand the controversy that many times surfaces with and between scanlator groups (or their fans). Why do people get upset with multiple groups translating a manga? Yes, in the spirit of courtesy, scanlators should give each other heads up when overlapping occurs, however, it is not a rule stamped by the hand of God. I personally appreciate with all my heart anyone and everyone that contributes to the community with their precious free time to translate mangas, irrespective of perceived "quality"; enriching our experience, making content intelligible for us, that otherwise would be out of our reach; really, without Scanlators, our community wouldn't even exist, and as a leech/reader, I really don't value one scanlating group over another, to me they are all equally invaluable and appreciated. That's why I don't understand ingrates that bitch about the quality of translations. Really? leeches complaining about the free efforts of others that they fully take advantage of...
I also don't get offended when translations overlap because ultimately, as a reader, I'm interested in expeditious translations and if a manga has been on hiatus for a while because the previous or original scanlating group is too busy or short on staff to advance the translations, then there is really nothing wrong with another group or individual picking it up to move the story along; in that type of situation, I not only welcome but appreciate even more the efforts and intentions of that group/individual. ; again, it is good practice to give the first scanlating group a heads up as a courtesy, so that they may consider not translating and/or picking up other projects, but again, it is not a rule of nature because this is an "open" (if you know what I mean) community. If I were a scanlator, I wouldn't feel offended at all if another group overlapped with my translations, because due to the nature of the manga community, there is no such thing as wasted effort, because, again, what is most valuable to the reader is expeditious translations, because there is nothing more torturous, more painful, more agonizing to the manga reader than good mangas on hiatus, or worst, dropped. And yes, I am familiar with the arduous work of the scanlating process, which is why I profusely appreciate it.
I think that it's worth reminding people that scanlators don't own the mangas, they don't have "rights" of translations over them, which means anyone that is willing to put in their time and effort can translate, and should. As any manga reader would attest to, our community is afflicted with far too many incomplete and dropped mangas, and I for one would never reject or not appreciate the efforts of someone reviving and/or moving along a slow/dropped/or in hiatus translation.