Uploading hard translations when the original exists

I figured I might as well create a forum post for this for future reference, instead of letting the argument repeat itself in the comment system. I'll start it off with the comments from post #334661.

Snesso said:
Am I the only one that thinks those hard-translation are like, TOTALLY useless? Post those on 4chan or whatever place you want, but not here, since there already are translations on the original ones...

E-mouse said:
I honestly have no right to be speaking here due to obvious bias, but:
What about people that would like to have a hard-translated version for such exploitation after finding the original here?

kow said:
I'm sorry you feel that way, snesso...
I just like it to be in English. >_>

Akari said:
I don't care either way, since I ignore hard-translated stuff, but I do think it's bad when they use iffy translations because now it's not changeable on the fly like the danbooru soft translations are.

LaC said:
Snesso, you're not the only one. I think there are even people who make hard translations for the purpose of uploading them to danbooru. To me, that's like taking an existing image, scaling or recompressing it a bit, and reuploading. We don't delete duplicates, but that doesn't mean you should set out to make more.

surasshu said:
People even seem to take the translations on this very page, hardprint them onto the image (usually in an ugly font), then upload the translated image. If that's not pointless I don't know what is.

sillycon said:
If we all adopted an image format that allowed for notes similar to danbooru's, the yes, hard translations would be pointless. However, this isn't the case. If someone (let's call him Steve) saves a copy of an image he (obviously) doesn't get the notes with it. If the meaning of the text matters to Steve, he has to devise some means to save the English text in addition to the image itself. Arguably, the most convenient and foolproof way to do this, is to photoshop/gimp/mspaint the text into the image. Rather than requiring every other person like Steve to do the same thing, he feels generous enough to upload/tag/parent his hard translation here for others to use.

Granted, this rigmarole is suboptimal, but only because we're using images to store text information -- which is terrible to begin with.

Shinjidude said:
I know for the fact that this happens, because I've seen my own soft translations taken the day later and released as hard translations on a image board, which somebody ends up finding and re-posting here.

BakaHoushi said:
I really don't think this is a bad thing, so long as people make the hard translation the child post of the original. As sillycon said, when you save an image, you probably want to take the translation with it. Until we find a way to do this, this remains the best option.

I made this point on another image when somebody had a cry about the same thing, but we have no rule against hard translations, never have, and there is no reason what-so-ever to ever have one.

This is an English language site not a wackjob purity of Japan only site, and there are features in place that specifically address this, being tags (hard_translated) and the image parenting ability.

Who gives a shit even if people are taking the soft translations and specifically make them hard ones for the purpose of uploading them? If seeing a precious Japanese image sullied with the English language bothers you, add hard_translated to your blacklist and move on. Or create bad subjective tags (hideous_fonts) to show your displeasure, I guess.

I, for one, often save hard translated copies of images for when Danbooru is or unavailable or one day gone. Then I'll still actually be able to read them. Crazy idea, I know.

Seem said:
If seeing a precious Japanese image sullied with the English language bothers you, add hard_translated to your blacklist and move on.

The problem here is Japanese images being sullied with bad English translations that cannot be fixed, contrary to the notes that can be corrected.

I wish there was a way to save the translations as in XML format so one day, a program for overlaying the translation over the image can use the data.

In the mean time, I have to save both hard-translated images and the original ones.

Edit:Ok. I totally forgot about the API. I IS DUMB.

Nice strawman, Seem.

Seem's hyperbole aside, I prefer having a hard-translated version myself for archival purposes.

Fencedude said:
Seem's hyperbole aside, I prefer having a hard-translated version myself for archival purposes.

Again going back to the point that you just might be archiving an image with joke translations; and you would never know.

homeless_homo said:
Again going back to the point that you just might be archiving an image with joke translations; and you would never know.

Do you take me for a fool?

I'd allow hard translations if:

1) they're always made the child image,
2) preferably the original is already uploaded, or uploaded alongside the hard trans, and
3) if a respected translator can give evidence that the translation is bunk (or if anyone with working eyes can tell the English flows horribly regardless of accuracy), the image gets nuked as spreading bad translations and/or grammar is not something we want to encourage.

While I'm not big on the hard translations myself, I do understand why people might want them, and what uses they'd be put to.

For a perfect example:

post #345994 (original with soft translation)
post #346305 (Textless)
post #346767 (Hard translation)

Now, I saved all three, but if I wanted to, say, post this on /a/, I'd use the hard translation, since anywhere but here you don't get the translation with the original.

I agree with jxh's rules, basically.

That's a well-done edit, at least. No hideous_fonts there.
I actually made a hard translation myself once, for an image board, so it's not like I don't know where you're coming from.

However, I hate when people upload a hard translation only and not the original (you know who you are). I don't like when people upload a bad translation; and the hard translations floating around are pretty bad more often than not (the monstergirl series hard tls, for example). I don't like when people upload an existing hard tl someone else did and copy the text verbatim onto the original image. And I wouldn't like it if someone started taking every translation on danbooru and editing it into the picture, with ugly fonts and no credit to the translator, racking up 10000 posts consisting entirely of duplicates.

So don't do those things, please.

Fencedude said:
Do you take me for a fool?

No, however, there are a lot of them lurking within the community.

I agree with LaC's concerns, and think most here do. They also seem in line with my recommendations.

So does anyone have a serious objection to using this as a general approach? They're allowed, but they should be the child, and every effort should be made to upload the original as well if it isn't here already (which is probably is, outside of full doujins). And of course the hard translations need to be *good* (grammar, translation, and font/style/placement).

Bad grammar and/or a bad translation are legitimate reasons to flag a hard translation for deletion, I'd think. While I do kind of shudder to think of the grammar wars that might ensue, hopefully everyone can be reasonable and polite.

LaC, you must understand that Danbooru is a sui generis kind of website, on any other place, a *chan or such, uploading hard translations is preferred, it's also the norm in manga scanlations simply for lack of a better alternative. I myself only became aware that hard translations were frowned upon on Danbooru through the comments after being here for a while.

One easy solution I think would be to add an extra guideline to the Upload page with something like:
"Whenever possible, don't upload hard translations of images to Danbooru. Instead, post the original and add the translation_request tag.

for those who have not figured it out, if you save the whole page that the image is on you can get the image and translation notes on your computer regardless of connectivity. while i realise this may require more space than some can spare, it is an available alternative to creating a hard translated version.

Pay attention to how long ago the last response was in a thread. Try not to bump threads more than a couple months old unless you need to re-raise an old issue that was not resolved with a good, well-thought out idea that was not previously presented.

shadowninja said:
if you save the whole page that the image is on you can get the image and translation notes on your computer regardless of connectivity.

Well, for what it's worth, I wasn't aware of this.

Enjoy a million unbrowsable, unpreviewable .html files.

... I didn't even notice it was 9 months old until I saw Log's post. Damnit.

(Saving .html is a pain in the ass and a waste of space, by the way.)