Baka-Tsuki:New Project Startup Guidelines

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These Project Startup Guidelines apply to all new Baka-Tsuki projects, including alternative language projects and alternative media projects.

Valid Baka-Tsuki projects include light novels originally published in Japanese/Korean/Chinese, visual novels, and original novels of any language.

Reminder: Any new translation project must be UNLICENSED by publishers in the corresponding Baka-Tsuki language.

All Light Novel Translation Projects

Step 1: Prepare Translations

• Before starting a new Baka-Tsuki project, you must translate an excerpt of a novel on your own time.
• Refer to the Future Project Suggestion Forum for ideas if you can't decide which light novel series to pick up.

Step 2: Creation of Project Overview Page

Note: If you need help creating a Project Overview Page and the forum threads, feel free to ask for help or ask another to do it for you. Many of us are glad to assist.

• Once you have translations, create a new Project Overview Page as described in the guidelines: Project Overview Page Conventions

• Fill out all the required information related to the series.
• Create a Registration Page for the new project.
• IMPORTANT: Make sure you have tagged your Project Overview Page with the template, {{Teaser|English}} (or the equivalent language).

• Web novels do not use the the Teaser template. See below for details.

• Upload the translation(s) you (or your friend) have completed.

• Note that if you are not submitting your own work, you must abide by the Submitting External Translations with Permission Guidelines.
• You must upload at least a portion of a chapter within one week. Failure to upload anything will result in Overview Page deletion by Wiki Supervisors.

• Provide a link to a corresponding Feedback Thread in the Forums:

• A). For English Projects:

• If a thread for your series exists in the Future Project Suggestion Forum, you should link that thread.

Afterwards, ask Administration to re-categorize the Project Suggestion thread to the Teaser Board.

• If no thread exists on the forum yet, create a new thread here with your series as the title, and give the following poll options:

How do you find reading {YOUR LIGHT NOVEL SERIES}?

• "It was good, please do more!"
• "It was interesting."
• "Not as good as I thought."
• "Boring. Not touching it again."

• B). For Alternative Language Projects:

• Create a thread in the Alternative Language Forum with your series as the title and your language in parenthesis.
• A poll is not required for Alternative Language Projects.

• MANDATORY: Notify Baka-Tsuki Administration that you have begun translations for a new project on the Administration Contact Page. Write something like this:

I, {YOUR USERNAME}, have started a new project for {INSERT NOVEL SERIES} and uploaded some translations. 
The link to the project overview page is here: {PLACE LINK}. --~~~~

Note: If you need to ask Administration to move some forum threads, you should include the request in your post.

Step 3: Approval to Full Project

Requirements

• At least one volume of the series must be fully translated.
• The Project Overview Page must be complete and cannot lack any required components, including:

• Registration Page
• Staff Section
• Recent Updates Section (or Updates Page)

* In special circumstances, the requirements for Full Project Approval may be lower. Contact Administration for more details.

• MANDATORY: Add the category, [[Category:Pending Authorisation]] to the top of the Project Overview Page to signify that your project has fulfilled the minimum requirements and you are requesting approval to Full Project Status.
• (Recommended): This is a good stage to nominate a Project Manager. See the guidelines for nominating a Project Manager.
• (Recommended): If it seems like your request has not been noticed, you may post on the Administration Contact Page asking to get your project approved.

Web Novel Projects

Baka Tsuki focuses on being a hub and hosting translations of Light Novels in published form, and therefore does not necessarily accept all Web Novel projects on the Wiki. Translators wishing to create Web Novels projects and host their translated text on the BT Wiki may be granted approval to do (see below). However, at this time we do not accept new Web Novel projects comprised of links to external sites on the Wiki. Web novel translations may be posted in the Web Novel forum without needing specific approval.

Do not post your Web Novel on the Wiki until you receive explicit approval to do so. Unauthorized Web Novels will be deleted from the Wiki.

Review Process

• As the translator, submit a request to the administration contact page and give a link to the translated text in the forums (or on an external site for hosted projects). Administration will contact the user via the wiki talk page or private message in the forums.

• You may create a thread and post your Web Novel translation in the appropriate Web Novel forum.
• Note that we do not accept requests from fan's who have received translator permission, only those from a translator who wishes to post text or create a project.

• Administration will seek to accept most all Web Novel projects requests from translators, but note that the project must meet other policies (ie machine translation guidelines) and in special cases may be denied based on the other considerations from administration, such as serious quality issues or particularly objectionable story content.

• Approved Web Novel projects will use the Template {{Web_novel|English}}, (or the equivalent language), at the top of the page to mark them in the Web Novel project category.

Web novel projects that have a corresponding published version should be posted on a separate project page or thread from translations of the published Light Novel version.

Note: Web novel project created before this policy was implemented will be dealt with on a case by case basis, but may be removed after forewarning the project staff.

Original Light Novel Projects

Unfortunately, we cannot accept all submitted Original Light Novel (OLN) manuscripts submitted by contributors. Baka-Tsuki has a peer-review and editorial-review process for original light novel submissions.

Do not post your Original Light Novel on the Wiki until you receive explicit approval to do so from Onizuka-GTO, editor-in-chief. Unauthorized OLN's will be deleted from the Wiki.

Step 1: Peer Review

• Create an account on the forums.
• Post your Original Light Novel (OLN) in the Creative Works Board.
• Attempt to build interest for your original light novel.

Step 2: Editorial Review

Tip: Only proceed to this step if your OLN was popular on the forums and generated a significant amount of community interest.

If it failed to do so, your OLN will not pass Editorial Review.

• Contact Onizuka-GTO, and give him the link to your Original Light Novel. If your novel passes, he will authorize you to post it on the Wiki.

References

1. All Projects Startup Guidelines
2. Guidelines for Project Petition ~Essential Read~
3. Novel Teaser initiative
4. Baka-Tsuki General Meeting 2014/03/30
5. Project Startup Guidelines Rule Ratification Thread