Improving BT Quality Discussion

[larethian]

Not sure whether you guys are actually reading the document in the same way as I did. It's actually very well-thought out and written and manages to quell much of my initial skepticism. And it's quite clear that it's not meant to be restrictive. There are no restrictions actually, but having a 'stamp' is like a recognition and applauding the quality undertaken by a project, and shows that BT values and applauds quality, but in no way restricts people from translating at a 'lower' quality. It creates a kind of 'pull' effect on people to try to improve the quality on their own without making it a rule and a must. I also hope that most of you commenting in this thread has gone through many of the projects to see the disparity in the range of quality. To me, machine translations and use-a-dictionary-and-guess-the-meaning translation projects are a no-no, but I'm not the boss and can't say anything to that.

Though I still see some problems in implementation, the biggest one being people certification (or even people who are willing to be 'certified'). But I haven't much time to comment properly on that yet.

With regards to the question on how some of us work with editors, it's like what Eusth said. We work privately, and go over the text multiple times, discussing and disputing, before it sees the light of day. I'm using a private mediawiki so it's a breeze to rely on the revision comparer and talk pages to work on the text collaboratively with my proofers.

[krytyk]

With regards to the question on how some of us work with editors, it's like what Eusth said. We work privately, and go over the text multiple times, discussing and disputing, before it sees the light of day. I'm using a private mediawiki so it's a breeze to rely on the revision comparer and talk pages to work on the text collaboratively with my proofers.

I think that is the way to go, and we should encourage translators to work together with their editors and go through the text multiple times and make sure everything makes sense to make sure more people use that methodology. I've seen way too much translations that didn't make any sense to me whatsoever. We should encourage and make a platform for these people to work together, as well as make it easier for translators to help each other. Currently majority of translators simply dumps their translations on the wiki, and if they are lucky enough some editor is going to fix a thing here and there.

I also completely agree with having people improve their quality on their own, and being acknowledged for the high-quality translation in some way, and thus make people work on their translation further. However going too far in that direction by building strict verification system around that idea and having people get "certified" is a no-go, same to TLC - It's needless to say that if there's someone skilled enough to TLC, then he would rather translate his own project, or translate the TLC-d project by himself rather than work to make someone else's translations bearable, thus lack of those TLCs - again this argument.

I'd rather see different ways for getting acknowledged. For example:

- Getting at least 2 dedicated to series editors.
- Preparing a page with separate guidelines for project, that include:
* Character descriptions including specifics - like they way they speak,
* Unified project-specific terms to be used in every chapter, every volume and explanations for them to maintain consistency and ensure high quality translation,
* Additional project style-specific information from translator, including things like usage of dots, exclamation marks, furigana.
- Having one main translator for the series approve and check all of the translations, including those done by different translators for the sake of consistency.
- Project being run in proper order starting from volume 1 onwards, without skipping in-between content.
- A feedback topic on the forums for discussion.
- A separete IRC channel to discuss and consult the translations with dedicated editors, and anyone else who wishes to edit or has any doubts on the translations.
- Having someone who is competent acknowledge the project quality is good enough.

^Just some random points I thought of, I based it mainly on the way Campione! or ToAru projects are being run. Setting them as an example for how the projects should be run, and encouraging other translators to use such methodology is the way to go imho. It's not a complete proposal, but an example I thought of, and I hope something like that could be discussed and the idea expanded.

[cloudii]

Thank you, krytyk, for being the first one to bring up a serious alternative route this "Gold Standard" could entail. <3

@Hayashi, this "Gold Standard" is supposed to be determined collectively by the community. I large portion of what I described is my own personal opinion. As such, the premise of the mission shouldn't be tossed out the door because some individuals don't like the certification process. Instead, we should try and compose something collectively. I've merely jump-started the conversation.

I appreciate that members have given their time to read through my proposal. However, I do wish people would provide more constructive criticism (like krytk) if they're going to say it won't work and we shouldn't do it.

If you don't like it, perhaps you can provide an alternative?


PS: @krytyk, I'll respond later with my personal opinion on your ideas later when I have time. Thank you, though.

[Detalz]

I quite like this idea as well. As someone who hasn't engaged in any creative writings since middle school, I admit my writing can be a bit flat, which really hinders me when translating a novel using descriptive writing. I really appreciate all the help I've received. (Special thanks to Cthaeh)

The biggest setback I see here is gathering a community of editors and TLCers willing to actively work on a project. Once that community has been sufficiently established, it'll probably be smooth sailing from there. There might also be some translators who translate at leisure and might find having to go through revisions tedious. So before enlisting this new certification standard, why not create a forum where translators may request the services of an active editor and/or TLCer? This way, no one will be imposing on the translator besides himself.

[Guest]

I'm thinking that baka-tsuki is a translation community, there fore the meaning of community is a group of people who could appreciate works from the other..

speaking about the TLC, editor and translator, because we never especially recruit someone and it's all based on volunteer system, you can expect somethings from people but asking for too much and it will become troublesome...

there's no point in comparing the quality of works to other translation group because baka-tsuki is baka-tsuki...
some people like me who isn't even capable of contributing a lot for baka-tsuki will stick with you to the end, because we're here based on our feelings..
we're here to support each other, there's a job for everybody...

certification system seems perfect, we should do a poll about it.. what i mean is, whenever a work is completed, we should do a vote whether the translation is acceptable or not... what do i get from the suggestion is like this.
1. a translation is submitted.
2. it's posted on the page with a status of non-certified translation (from editor and TLC).
3. if it's edited or checked and accepted as a qualified translation, the status is changed to a certified translation status.

but, what if we add another type of certification.. say it's a community certification...
everyone that read a translated works, may put in a vote. if it was acceptable or not. and the translation other than get a editor certification and TLC certification will get a community appreciation certification... so, even tough a works isn't get a certification from editor or TLC, knowing that other people has read it and give it an OK is probably a big points..

whenever a project is given an OK from community appreciation certification but haven't gotten the editor and TLC certification, people have to realized that the quality may not as high as a project that have been certified by editor and TLC..

because, there are a lot of people that appreciate someone works even if it's not been checked by editor or TLC... it's also giving a sense of achievement for translator to see their works is approved and accepted by people...

just some suggestion tough... my english also isn't that good since i'm originally an Indonesian.. hehehe...

[cloudii]

With regards to the question on how some of us work with editors, it's like what Eusth said. We work privately, and go over the text multiple times, discussing and disputing, before it sees the light of day. I'm using a private mediawiki so it's a breeze to rely on the revision comparer and talk pages to work on the text collaboratively with my proofers.

I think that is the way to go, and we should encourage translators to work together with their editors and go through the text multiple times and make sure everything makes sense to make sure more people use that methodology.

I'm coming at this from my perspective as a translator, but honestly, having an entire team to perform edits with is a luxury. I'm translating Watashitachi no Tamura-kun right now, and it doesn't generate enough interest for even random passerby's to correct typos....... let alone dedicated editors. I'd like to see my own translations reach a level of greater quality, but I don't even have the editors to interact with.

In this way, I think the issue of BT Quality is tied most intimately with the lack of contributors in the editing department.

Why does BT seem to lack dedicated editors? Why is it so difficult to attract editors to BT? I translated OreShura for eight months before my first English-fluent editor, cautr, joined the project. On the other hand, it feels like it takes NanoDesu less than 2-3 weeks to fill an open editor position when it goes open (correct me if I'm wrong). Why this disparity? Don't we generally have the same readership? As a matter of fact, you'd think BT would get editors faster than NanoDesu. We don't even have diagnostic tests.

I've hypothesized a few reasons why this is the case:

• Editors don't feel like they're valued on BT - If an editor is picking between a potentially editing for a BT project and a Nanodesu project, they'd pick the NanoDesu project. NanoDesu just treats them better, and their existence gets acknowledged, and their skill is valued. On BT, no one cares. Editors are ghosts.
• People don't think BT is "recruiting" - People see BT as a wiki anyone can contribute to. Projects are driven by their translators, but apart from that they're seen as crowd-sourced translations. People think crowd-sourced things can't possibly have quality or standards. They don't expect to see quality, and people think BT Project's aren't looking for quality. Why would an editor want to join a project that doesn't want to improve? It's a psychological thing. As an athlete, would you rather join the team that's trying to win the championships, or the team that doesn't give a shit?
• BT's platform - It just simply isn't ideal for editing. As an editor for Teh_Ping on Heretic, I often have lots of questions about the text, and need lots of space to make comments. The <!-COMMENT--> tag on the wiki doesn't cut it for me. It's a hassle, not easily visible, and is difficult to work with. I used to edit a lot of other's people's essays, papers, and creative writing, and I easily produce paragraphs of comments (just from editing). Americans seriously pursuing writing or English in college, or as their career, are used to having a comments function that highlights a section of text (like in Microsoft Word). I extremely dislike editing on BT because of the lack of this kind of feature. FYI, Heretic communicates almost entirely via Google Docs w/ it's commenting system.
• Lack of responsiveness - It often takes a long time for the translator to respond, if ever all. This again, falls into a communication issue.

I've stated these problems, now the question is how do we start figuring out a way to solve this?

Let me boil down the issue. To summarize, there's two ways to improve quality:

• Option 1: Improve translators. Forget about Editors and TLC.
• Option 2: Get more Editors and TLC that actually do things.

Option 1 isn't possible unless the translators themselves want to improve. Like Nurin said, the translators that need the help the most.... conveniently happen to be the ones that don't give a piece of ****. We can help give them resources... but will they use them?

Another alternative to achieve Option 1 would be to prevent underqualified individuals from contributing (by mandatory tests). However, we already decided this is no good and unethical based on the spirit of an open-source Wiki.

Doesn't this mean the role to improving quality should be shifted more towards the editing department? I know BT right now under-emphasizes the editing department, and most projects are one-man-show's on BT. However, this doesn't have to be future of Baka-Tsuki. The biggest difference between BT and third-party independent translation groups is that NanoDesu and Heretic have editors. On the other hand many BT projects don't have any editors and/or many chapters never get edited even ONCE.

We don't we have a means of easily tracking which chapters are the ones that never have been edited before. T_______T

Because of a lack of system, a chapter never-edited on BT can go unnoticed for years. If fact, you really can't tell without clicking on the History tab. On the English-language side, this is precisely why Baka-Tsuki translations appear to be poor.

[ldyrdy]

I'm thinking that baka-tsuki is a translation community, there fore the meaning of community is a group of people who could appreciate works from the other..

speaking about the TLC, editor and translator, because we never especially recruit someone and it's all based on volunteer system, you can expect somethings from people but asking for too much and it will become troublesome...

there's no point in comparing the quality of works to other translation group because baka-tsuki is baka-tsuki...
some people like me who isn't even capable of contributing a lot for baka-tsuki will stick with you to the end, because we're here based on our feelings..
we're here to support each other, there's a job for everybody...

certification system seems perfect, we should do a poll about it.. what i mean is, whenever a work is completed, we should do a vote whether the translation is acceptable or not... what do i get from the suggestion is like this.
1. a translation is submitted.
2. it's posted on the page with a status of non-certified translation (from editor and TLC).
3. if it's edited or checked and accepted as a qualified translation, the status is changed to a certified translation status.

but, what if we add another type of certification.. say it's a community certification...
everyone that read a translated works, may put in a vote. if it was acceptable or not. and the translation other than get a editor certification and TLC certification will get a community appreciation certification... so, even tough a works isn't get a certification from editor or TLC, knowing that other people has read it and give it an OK is probably a big points..

whenever a project is given an OK from community appreciation certification but haven't gotten the editor and TLC certification, people have to realized that the quality may not as high as a project that have been certified by editor and TLC..

because, there are a lot of people that appreciate someone works even if it's not been checked by editor or TLC... it's also giving a sense of achievement for translator to see their works is approved and accepted by people...

just some suggestion tough... my english also isn't that good since i'm originally an Indonesian.. hehehe...

It's me... I forgot to logged in earlier

[lchigo93]

Get a multi-lingual person to edit, since he will have either original jap or chinese raw as a source, any mistakes or stuff that needs editing would be closer to original meaning.

All editors who register have to agree to a single editors guideline on certain phrases or sentences that constantly show up throughout the novel (recycled phrases).

Must have been years since i last visited the forums.

[Cthaeh]

I’m repeating my previous post a bit, but I think it editing is much more effective when done in communication with the translator. Editing is a lot harder to do well if the editor can’t consult the translator. Therefore, I think an important part is not just marking things in need of editing, but indicating that the translator wants to work with an editor on it (this idea has already appeared in some earlier comments).

With regards to cloud’s comments on wiki’s ability for editing. It’s true that it’s a little cumbersome, but the talk pages can be used for long comments (I think the inline <!-- comments are usually a bad way to do it). The disadvantages I see are you can’t do simultaneous commenting, and you can’t directly link it with the text, necessitating copying the segment of text over. I think an in-wiki solution to those disadvantages would be too difficult, so I’m inclined to just work with it (it's not that bad). Or translator-editor groups could work in google docs before transferring to the wiki (some already do). I do like the wiki’s compare revisions feature.

[cloudii]

I’m repeating my previous post a bit, but I think it editing is much more effective when done in communication with the translator. Editing is a lot harder to do well if the editor can’t consult the translator. Therefore, I think an important part is not just marking things in need of editing, but indicating that the translator wants to work with an editor on it (this idea has already appeared in some earlier comments).

I really like your suggestion. xD I'm just curious though, would the "translator is willing to work with editor" ever expire? I mean, one week the translator could be around, and the next the TLer could vanish off the internet? Would someone need to monitor these "willing" tags and clean up the ones that don't apply anymore? People tend not to remove themselves from the "Active" list of translators/editors before they disappear... XD

So I suppose we should divide this conversation up so we're talking on the same terms?

There are really four kinds of projects on BT:

• Projects that have active translators and active dedicated editors
• Projects that have active translators but no dedicated editors
• Projects that have active editors but not translators
• Stalled projects that have neither

Generally, the projects that fall into the first category are actually pretty good in quality (relative the pool of everything else). These are the "better" translations on BT. I'm not as concerned about these projects as the others, and I think most of us are happy with these. It might be nice to recognize these projects for being higher quality, though... but I know not everyone is comfortable with that. xD

Aren't most of the quality-lacking projects in the second through fourth categories?

[hayashi_s]

@Hayashi, this "Gold Standard" is supposed to be determined collectively by the community. I large portion of what I described is my own personal opinion. As such, the premise of the mission shouldn't be tossed out the door because some individuals don't like the certification process. Instead, we should try and compose something collectively. I've merely jump-started the conversation.

I appreciate that members have given their time to read through my proposal. However, I do wish people would provide more constructive criticism (like krytk) if they're going to say it won't work and we shouldn't do it.

If you don't like it, perhaps you can provide an alternative?

Don't get me wrong, I do think your proposal has merit, and I'd like to see some QC going on the wiki, but it seems like a lot of your ideas hinge on the notion that there are going to be people available for the roles you're proposing BT creates. I realise that some staff would be able to slot right into their new roles, but that's assuming they a.) are willing to, and b.) can find the time that their new roles entail.

In terms of entry level, I would like to see perhaps a new, private section of the forum created where new translators have to post their translations inside first. Once they've hit a certain threshold, the wiki page can then be opened, and a discussion thread can be created in the aux brigade. If they fail to hit the threshold and leave, then their work can remain inside the forum until a new translator comes along and picks up where (s)he left off. The BT sidebar is littered with tons of projects that are unfinished (and effectively abandoned)

Also, some form of editor matching can be done inside. Since all the projects are not open yet, editors can go inside the forum and pick up projects that interest them, and once the wiki page is open the project will already have a dedicated editor(who will have hopefully edited a fair bit by then). The most important thing is communication between an editor and a translator. Too often communication on the wiki degenerates into a messy affair, I rather use the forum's system of threads and PMs to sort out through the clutter.

[Cthaeh]

would the "translator is willing to work with editor" ever expire? I mean, one week the translator could be around, and the next the TLer could vanish off the internet? Would someone need to monitor these "willing" tags and clean up the ones that don't apply anymore? People tend not to remove themselves from the "Active" list of translators/editors before they disappear... XD

Very true, that would be a problem. If this was a component of the Tsuki-chan Brigade idea, then you'd have the supervisor who enrolled in the project handle it (that supervisor might go missing too). You could also have similar problems with just plain 'edited'/'not edited' tags. You'd need someone to qualify those as edited enough, and remove them. You may have tags that hang around longer than needed, or cases where an inexperienced editor considers very trivial edits sufficient and removes the tag. Unfortunately I can't think of a solution that would work well.


With regards to the idea of a private forum, the problem I see with that is the new translators wouldn't necessarily know to use it, or would need to be invited. The wiki teasers, teaser forum, and future project suggestion forum currently fulfill that role. The overpopulation of the side-bar is a somewhat separate issue (though I would support changes there too). With regards to communication on the wiki, hayashi_s has likely had a wider range of experience, but I've found it satisfactory for what communication I've done.

[cloudii]

In terms of entry level, I would like to see perhaps a new, private section of the forum created where new translators have to post their translations inside first. Once they've hit a certain threshold, the wiki page can then be opened, and a discussion thread can be created in the aux brigade. If they fail to hit the threshold and leave, then their work can remain inside the forum until a new translator comes along and picks up where (s)he left off. The BT sidebar is littered with tons of projects that are unfinished (and effectively abandoned)

Also, some form of editor matching can be done inside. Since all the projects are not open yet, editors can go inside the forum and pick up projects that interest them, and once the wiki page is open the project will already have a dedicated editor(who will have hopefully edited a fair bit by then). The most important thing is communication between an editor and a translator. Too often communication on the wiki degenerates into a messy affair, I rather use the forum's system of threads and PMs to sort out through the clutter.

Ah~! This is just from my personal belief/values, but I love this idea! I actually like it even more than my own proposal.... xD

Though, IDK how many people would go for it, since it technically falls into the category of making translators pass a test before a project can be started. It's in a grey area since New Projects technically need to make a requirement before becoming full projects already. Basically, you're suggesting that the requirements for starting a new Full Project involve stricter requirements and TLC/quality review incorporated? I don't know if TLG or others would go for it... but I think it's a very worthwhile thing to consider. It's not like the translation would be forced to stop. It'd just remain as a teaser until it did get approved in such a fashion.

It's a start and doesn't address future people who pick up the project, but it was a nice thought <3

I think it's definitely more likely to show results than anything I've come up with. XD

[pudding321]

There are only a few with authority that can move projects to side-bars (not teasers). Instead of (just) allowing more people to gain authority, I can see an idea of holding a poll for each new project, and those projects that receive enough supporting votes can be moved to the side-bar. (We once actually had a threshold for a project to become an official one, namely one chapter completed. I don't find any problems in raising this threshold.)

[cloudii]

There are only a few with authority that can move projects to side-bars (not teasers). Instead of (just) allowing more people to gain authority, I can see an idea of holding a poll for each new project, and those projects that receive enough supporting votes can be moved to the side-bar. (We once actually had a threshold for a project to become an official one, namely one chapter completed. I don't find any problems in raising this threshold.)

I like where this is going, and it's certainly viable if TLG/BT Community takes it. There's two things that should probably be answered:

1). If we "vote" on accepting a project, if it gets "rejected", would the translator get demotivated? It's kind of like a statement/evaluation of translation skill, except it's mandatory.

2). Who's voting? If it's readers voting, I pretty much guarantee you that every single one will get voted in. XD Also, under what guidelines would the deciding people decide from? I mean, if we're talking accuracy, not all of us have the source material for a novel.