Looking for Team Members

[Joyjason]

Hello folks, Joyjason here.

I'll get right to the point. I love VNs, and I'm sure many of you do as well. I've been interested in Aaeru's "spread VNs" ideal, but this is rather hard to do by myself.

This is where I ask for help from members who are proficient in both Japanese and English to work with me on translating VNs.

1) We will be using annot-player, when jichi is finished with developing it. To be honest, hacking is the hardest part of translating the game. Lol

2) I will need at LEAST 3 others with me. All of us will be translating, and all of us will be checking. It is my wish that each member can dedicate at least 5 hours per week to translating visual novels.

3) I wish to have at least one meeting per month to discuss the next VN we wish to translate.

4) Each member needs to work fast. Our goal is continuous release of English VNs to amplify the VN community. We won't have time to dilly-dally about translation checking.

5) You must relinquish any hope of being rewarded. There will be no cash compensation or even "thank you's" for your effort and time. This work must purely be through your love of the game.

Any member who is interested should hit me up with a reply below or a private message.

Let's spread VNs all over the English Community!

[Andregate]

Hello joyjason, folks here.

volunteer for VN? sounds great... i'd like to help you. i know some people who works translating and capable of programming too...

But, where are you come from? "meetings once a mounth" seems hard for us...

[Guest]

I think he means meeting online once a month? (e.g. on IRC)

Hey joyjason I actually really like this.

I actually think it'd be more effective if you picked a game or if you put up a small list of games you are interested in, and then hopefully someone who sees your list might contact you about something they too might be interested in.

Also you will find it quite hard to locate even one other translator let alone three... they're pretty slim pickings...

also the other thing I was going to say was, that translators seem to do this stuff for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they do it for the credit and fame, and it is entirely possible someone might be attracted to your project but not be motivated by pure love of the game. what i mean is... the translators i have spoken to, they are all very different. Few people were like me who genuinely want to see these games get played by more people. That's not usually their primary motivation. But remember, Fuwan is very new, and ppl didn't think like that before fuwan was around. These are new ideas.

You also want to organize everything, translate a demo even, and show that you are serious and committed because the most most valuable credit on the internet is your reputation/reliability. because these are huge huge projects, people do not naturally trust you to carry through till the end (they think you might bail on them), That's why you have to earn that trust, maybe through talking to people or by releasing something.

There's one other trick... the easiest way to get translators is to not have to have them do anything. Present it to them on a platter. Organize everything so that they can drop in and drop out casually without having to engage with the stressful bits (e.g. how to carry the project forward) and theyll be more willing to translate. For example, they'll do a bit every tuesday and thursday evenings, in their own time, at their own pace, and they need to feel like it was quite rewarding (they got stuff done and the project feels like it's moving forward), yet they feel they're not responsible for the whole project (it's casual).

The reason why is because free time is scarce. Most people have to worry about getting through Uni or making a living and so they can't really commit (even if they wanted to). And so the Annot Player model is, since free time is dispersed, No One Person has all of it and everyone has a Bit of it....... therefore design the system to allow casual translators. It is much more attuned to the way internet denizons work. Everyone does a little. That's why it only works on moe-ge or non-sophisticated games without lots of plot twists.

anyway those are some of my thoughts.

[BlackKnight]

I have experience with VN translating, although not a huge amount, it's better than nothing at least.

[Tay]

There's one other trick... the easiest way to get translators is to not have to have them do anything. Present it to them on a platter. Organize everything so that they can drop in and drop out casually without having to engage with the stressful bits (e.g. how to carry the project forward) and theyll be more willing to translate. For example, they'll do a bit every tuesday and thursday evenings, in their own time, at their own pace, and they need to feel like it was quite rewarding (they got stuff done and the project feels like it's moving forward), yet they feel they're not responsible for the whole project (it's casual).

While I have not translated into Japanese (still learning), I am actively doing Russian translation (both fan and commercial) and I can tell you that as long as you aren't paying your translators, Aaeru is completely correct here. In my experience it takes several projects before you can develop a rapport with a team to the level you've indicated. Until that time, leadership is lonely, and it'll be your responsibility to silver platter everything you do with them, to work 2x as hard, and to enthusiastically present updates to both translation trackers (VNTLS, for example) and your own team.

IF you're planning to pay translators, it's a totally different ballgame. It didn't sound like that was the case, tho.

[Bu-Bu San]

im an image editor

so just send me a message if you need me

[REtransInternational]

There's one other trick... the easiest way to get translators is to not have to have them do anything. Present it to them on a platter. Organize everything so that they can drop in and drop out casually without having to engage with the stressful bits (e.g. how to carry the project forward) and theyll be more willing to translate. For example, they'll do a bit every tuesday and thursday evenings, in their own time, at their own pace, and they need to feel like it was quite rewarding (they got stuff done and the project feels like it's moving forward), yet they feel they're not responsible for the whole project (it's casual).

The reason why is because free time is scarce. Most people have to worry about getting through Uni or making a living and so they can't really commit (even if they wanted to). And so the Annot Player model is, since free time is dispersed, No One Person has all of it and everyone has a Bit of it....... therefore design the system to allow casual translators. It is much more attuned to the way internet denizons work. Everyone does a little. That's why it only works on moe-ge or non-sophisticated games without lots of plot twists.

That's similar to the goals we had in designing RWI: translate anywhere, anytime. No need to download or install anything; it's browser-based so all you need is an internet connection. We haven't had any comments about using it on a smartphone but that should be possible too.