Spoiler Policy Q&A thread

[Archon_Wing]

Well, just hit the report button if you feel people are being abusive or are dragging this into off topic spoiler territory. It most likely will hit a cyclical discussion as well if this keeps up.

One thing to remember is that the quote button is not a "duel" button. You aren't required to reply to everyone that replies to you as it is an open conversation, and sometimes people don't put any effort into their replies, so nor should you put any effort in any given rebuttals. A lot of people seem to feel that if they don't provide a rebuttal to every single post that their point is invalid, and that would just be an endless game of "who won't shut the fuck up". It can be entertaining, but if you present your thoughts clearly enough this isn't really that big of an issue.

Generally, if someone replies in a callous, poorly thought out fashion to me, I usually just reply to them with a one liner regardless if it makes sense or not, or not at all. Because a well thought out one liner is better than 5 pages of nonsense. Of course, I follow the #1 rule of Player vs Forum, and that is each reply demands an equal quality of effort in replying. Why bother engaging in thoughtful discussion when other people just dismiss anything they don't like?

[Marcus H.]

Bumping this thread for an important question: Why are detailed summaries for LNs now restricted? I just heard this from the Mahouka subforum, where mods intervened about detailed summaries of just-released light novel volumes, and apparently this extends to material that has no known or existing English license/s.

Can someone please explain the reasons behind this?

[monster]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Bumping this thread for an important question: Why are detailed summaries for LNs now restricted? I just heard this from the Mahouka subforum, where mods intervened about detailed summaries of just-released light novel volumes, and apparently this extends to material that has no known or existing English license/s.

Can someone please explain the reasons behind this?

According to this post, they only want links to any translation (and not the translation itself) in the opening post so that, in the event that the licensing status changes, it will streamline the process of removing the links in alignment with their legal/ethical obligations that they enforce elsewhere on the site.

I suppose since it's a textual medium, posting detailed summaries is almost like posting the actual translations, which they don't want.

So this is actually more of a licensing policy issue rather than a spoiler policy issue.

[Marcus H.]

Does posting summaries actually infringe licenses in any way?
It's just a summary, though. From someone who probably got a copy of their work, to add.

Man, I really don't understand copyright and licensing. To me, the entire concept is too focused on NA to actually matter.

[relentlessflame]

It depends on what you define as a "summary". If it's just to give you a very quick overview of the content or to answer specific questions/issues, that's one thing. But if it's basically a play-by-play of absolutely everything that happens, why would someone then read/buy the book? They've extracted everything you need to know by just reading the summary. That sort of "summary" is really just an abridged translation. It's the difference between condensing a 2 hour movie into a trailer-length highlight reel, and creating a 1-hour re-cut that just contains all the "good parts" and cuts out the "filler". And in the case of novels, we'd rather those not be posted interlined in the threads (where it'd be a huge mess to remove if requested), but linked in the opening post like the rest of the translations.

So basically: brief summary/highlights = okay, extensive summary/re-telling = treated as a translation.

[Kanon]

How extensive a summary are we talking about here? From the sound of it, you'd think wikipedia is completely illegal. A one/two pages summary is never going to be a substitute for a 200 pages novel. Not for anybody.

And just to be clear, this doesn't apply to manga and anime, does it? Reading a summary, no matter how detailed it is, is never going to replace looking at the actual drawings or animation. I think it's already far-fetched enough you're applying that rule to novels, applying it to visual mediums would be plain retarded. Reading summaries for these types of release in fact increase the anticipation for the real thing.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Kanon

And just to be clear, this doesn't apply to manga and anime, does it?

I don't think that's ever been an issue.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Kanon

How extensive a summary are we talking about here? From the sound of it, you'd think wikipedia is completely illegal. A one/two pages summary is never going to be a substitute for a 200 pages novel. Not for anybody.

That's not the sort of summary we're talking about at all. Some people write summaries of individual chapters, or parts of chapters, that are basically full re-tellings and give you a full breakdown of everything that occurs. At that point, like I said, it's gone beyond being a summary and is just another form of translation, but not word for word. It'd basically be a way of dancing around the no translation rule by arguing that you're rewording it so therefore it's not a translation and therefore it's fine. That's the sort of long summary we're talking about, and the sort of semantic games we don't want to play with people.

The sort of summary you'd see on Wikipedia, or any short synopsis of a large block of content, is totally fine. This sort of thing is covered under Fair Use.

Originally Posted by Kanon

And just to be clear, this doesn't apply to manga and anime, does it? Reading a summary, no matter how detailed it is, is never going to replace looking at the actual drawings or animation. I think it's already far-fetched enough you're applying that rule to novels, applying it to visual mediums would be plain retarded. Reading summaries for these types of release in fact increase the anticipation for the real thing.

If you posted a 200-image slideshow of an anime episode that had multiple images of every minute and every scene... then I'd say it's too much. (And yes, someone did do that before...) But I've never seen a text summary that comes to that level of detail at all, or that I could call a "substitute" in any way.

Same with manga. If you need to post an image of one page or frame because it's essential to have a conversation about that very thing, that may be fine (so long as it doesn't advertise an illegal site). But if you're posting an image of almost every single frame or scene and summarizing everything shown in a chapter... you might as well have just posted the actual manga at that rate. (And by the way, this sort of thing has happened before too.)

More or less the focus should be on talking about the thing, not reposting it or translations of it here. For unlicensed works, the translations (and these sorts of detailed summaries/retellings) could be linked in the opening post.

[Kanon]

Alright, got it. Everything's totally fine then. I don't follow Light Novels and much less read their threads, so I had no idea people went this far. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised though, I've noticed Light novel fanbases tend to be a bit more... extreme than others, for some reason.

Good to know nothing has changed for anime and manga.

[Marcus H.]

Everything's totally fine then. I don't follow Light Novels and much less read their threads, so I had no idea people went this far.

"Going that far"? I don't think there's anything wrong with helping people understand the stories they want to read. (And no, nobody did such thing as making a 200-image slideshow even in Animesuki. That probably only happens in Youtube, but entire episodes and even movies do end up uploaded there so it's no surprise.)

But if you're posting an image of almost every single frame or scene and summarizing everything shown in a chapter... you might as well have just posted the actual manga at that rate.

WHAT. That's quite a leap of logic here. I don't see how a fan of anime and/or manga could actually accept reading summaries as watching/reading the thing itself.

As for availability, talk to me about it. The only license that seem to matter in the world of anime is from NORTH AMERICA. (Even Crunchyroll, which seems to be the only Internet streaming service for anime for some, can't serve their business in Southeast Asia.) If they actually wanted to make this available to everyone, then every single country could have gotten the license. But NOPE, only America gets it.

Because of this limitation in licensing, you really can't blame people for resorting to the stuff you're trying to isolate from the site. But of course, the people issuing those DMCA warnings don't understand or deliberately ignore these little facts.

[IceHism]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

"Going that far"? I don't think there's anything wrong with helping people understand the stories they want to read. (And no, nobody did such thing as making a 200-image slideshow even in Animesuki. That probably only happens in Youtube, but entire episodes and even movies do end up uploaded there so it's no surprise.)



WHAT. That's quite a leap of logic here. I don't see how a fan of anime and/or manga could actually accept reading summaries as watching/reading the thing itself.

As for availability, talk to me about it. The only license that seem to matter in the world of anime is from NORTH AMERICA. (Even Crunchyroll, which seems to be the only Internet streaming service for anime for some, can't serve their business in Southeast Asia.) If they actually wanted to make this available to everyone, then every single country could have gotten the license. But NOPE, only America gets it.

Because of this limitation in licensing, you really can't blame people for resorting to the stuff you're trying to isolate from the site. But of course, the people issuing those DMCA warnings don't understand or deliberately ignore these little facts.

The thing is Animesuki servers are located in the US so they are liable to violating USA copyright laws. At least, this is what i understand and why the staff is so cautious.

Also, the specific summaries that relentlessflame is referencing were summaries of two volumes of a certain LN that were about 50-60 pages long (yes, as a summary). They were made because no english translation existed for them though and obviously js06 can't translate everything (lol)

While i disagree that they replace the actual book themselves since they are missing all the small details and the stylistic features of the author's writing, i do understand that not everyone likes reading as much as i do and will use those 50-60 pages as replacement for reading 500-600 worth of pages.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

(And no, nobody did such thing as making a 200-image slideshow even in Animesuki. That probably only happens in Youtube, but entire episodes and even movies do end up uploaded there so it's no surprise.)

Uhhh... I think I know what people have done on the site, since I was the moderator that had to clean up the posts from the user that did this. Perhaps you just didn't see this because... well, I deleted it. But yes, it happened.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

WHAT. That's quite a leap of logic here. I don't see how a fan of anime and/or manga could actually accept reading summaries as watching/reading the thing itself.

They do it all the time with LNs/WNs, in fact, particularly when they want to catch up on a work so they can be part of the latest discussion. Of course they don't say that, and they'll act like they've read it all, but how would you know unless you really probe them? Some of the summaries really are detailed enough.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

As for availability, talk to me about it. The only license that seem to matter in the world of anime is from NORTH AMERICA. (Even Crunchyroll, which seems to be the only Internet streaming service for anime for some, can't serve their business in Southeast Asia.) If they actually wanted to make this available to everyone, then every single country could have gotten the license. But NOPE, only America gets it.

Because of this limitation in licensing, you really can't blame people for resorting to the stuff you're trying to isolate from the site. But of course, the people issuing those DMCA warnings don't understand or deliberately ignore these little facts.

All we're saying is that we don't want these contents embedded in the threads but rather as in a link at the beginning of the each thread. First of all, that makes it a lot easier for everyone to find, rather than having to dig through hundreds of pages to see that the summary of Volume 14 was on page 232 or whatever. Second of all, in the event that we do receive a take-down notice or that the work is licensed, we have way of dealing with the request that doesn't involve scrubbing through a long thread. It's basically just for organization and efficiency. That's basically the same thing we did with the Anime torrent site back in the day too -- we hosted links to content hosted externally and, when licensed, the links simply went away.

It's not like this policy is going to stop the material from existing on the Internet, or that suddenly it's like "oh no, now there is no way to find anything on the Internet because it's not linked at the top of the AnimeSuki thread". But our policy has always been that, once the work is licensed, we won't allow links to it anymore to help encourage people to support the release where they can. So we're just following that same principle across the board. You might think that policy is stupid (and I too think that territorial licensing is an antiquated system that can't die soon enough)... but that's what the site owner is comfortable having on his server, and what the policy has been here for 10+ years, so I think we'll survive this.

[RaymondSageClark]

Ok, I'm doing this because its seems mods/admins do not understand their own rules.

On "Ore ga ojou sama thread (LN)" people used to post some spoilers or little summaries focused only on how the relationships works and that's it but mods insist on deleting the summaries/spoilers for random reasons.

The LN is not licensed I repeat The LN is not licensed, there is nobody translating (the previous TL group drop the LN) and the only source of information are those people who can read moon runes and some other guys who get pieces of information from another place. There is literally ZERO violations of the rule, there is nothing to say "we delete the summaries and spoilers for X reason" so, can you guys please read again your rules and get a better understanding about it? because all what are you doing is letting people without any kind of information to discuss and this is a FORUM, that means, a place where people can share information and discuss about it.

Please, stop doing this you're killing your own forum.

[IndexOfIdeas]

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

Ok, I'm doing this because its seems mods/admins do not understand their own rules.

On "Ore ga ojou sama thread (LN)" people used to post some spoilers or little summaries focused only on how the relationships works and that's it but mods insist on deleting the summaries/spoilers for random reasons.

The LN is not licensed I repeat The LN is not licensed, there is nobody translating (the previous TL group drop the LN) and the only source of information are those people who can read moon runes and some other guys who get pieces of information from another place. There is literally ZERO violations of the rule, there is nothing to say "we delete the summaries and spoilers for X reason" so, can you guys please read again your rules and get a better understanding about it? because all what are you doing is letting people without any kind of information to discuss and this is a FORUM, that means, a place where people can share information and discuss about it.

Please, stop doing this you're killing your own forum.

this is also a question i want to ask why are detailed summaries of LNs that are not being tranlated or even license get deletex on their respected threds?

[ices]

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

Ok, I'm doing this because its seems mods/admins do not understand their own rules.

On "Ore ga ojou sama thread (LN)" people used to post some spoilers or little summaries focused only on how the relationships works and that's it but mods insist on deleting the summaries/spoilers for random reasons.

The LN is not licensed I repeat The LN is not licensed, there is nobody translating (the previous TL group drop the LN) and the only source of information are those people who can read moon runes and some other guys who get pieces of information from another place. There is literally ZERO violations of the rule, there is nothing to say "we delete the summaries and spoilers for X reason" so, can you guys please read again your rules and get a better understanding about it? because all what are you doing is letting people without any kind of information to discuss and this is a FORUM, that means, a place where people can share information and discuss about it.

Please, stop doing this you're killing your own forum.

Let me help a little about the bolded text above. Basically what you're asking is the same thing as Markus H. pointed out here:

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Bumping this thread for an important question: Why are detailed summaries for LNs now restricted? I just heard this from the Mahouka subforum, where mods intervened about detailed summaries of just-released light novel volumes, and apparently this extends to material that has no known or existing English license/s.

Can someone please explain the reasons behind this?

See the underscored text. And apparently relentlessflame has answered it above.

[RaymondSageClark]

All what relentlessflame does is giving Marcus an excuse, not an answer. Mahouka situation is very different from what I'm asking, also comparing the rule with Shomin Sample situation there is no reason to delete 10+ pages just because they don't understand the rule.

Even relentless said "once the work is licensed" and here that doesn't happen.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

All what relentlessflame does is giving Marcus an excuse, not an answer. Mahouka situation is very different from what I'm asking, also comparing the rule with Shomin Sample situation there is no reason to delete 10+ pages just because they don't understand the rule.

Even relentless said "once the work is licensed" and here that doesn't happen.

The policy exists as is because allowing would make it the same pain as allowing links for moderators if a work became licensed it would mean we have to dig thru an entire finding summaries that we need to remove and additionally we have not and will not host things like this.

Which is why such things are only permitted at the start of the thread as RF explained:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

All we're saying is that we don't want these contents embedded in the threads but rather as in a link at the beginning of the each thread. First of all, that makes it a lot easier for everyone to find, rather than having to dig through hundreds of pages to see that the summary of Volume 14 was on page 232 or whatever. Second of all, in the event that we do receive a take-down notice or that the work is licensed, we have way of dealing with the request that doesn't involve scrubbing through a long thread. It's basically just for organization and efficiency. That's basically the same thing we did with the Anime torrent site back in the day too -- we hosted links to content hosted externally and, when licensed, the links simply went away.

If you need a summary link added to the start of the thread contact a mod or the thread creator; I know it's easier to be lazy and complain about the rules rather than do things orderly, but please resist, simply contact us, and do not post it in the thread itself.

It's really not a difficult policy to follow or understand.

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

All what relentlessflame does is giving Marcus an excuse, not an answer. Mahouka situation is very different from what I'm asking, also comparing the rule with Shomin Sample situation there is no reason to delete 10+ pages just because they don't understand the rule.

Even relentless said "once the work is licensed" and here that doesn't happen.

I see no record or evidence of "delete 10+ pages" for Shomin Sample and people who don't follow or bother to understand the rules will face deletion just like any other rule breaking posts.

And no one can see the future on what will and won't get licensed, so we play it better safe than sorry as that's what the admin wants.

[ices]

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

All what relentlessflame does is giving Marcus an excuse, not an answer. Mahouka situation is very different from what I'm asking, also comparing the rule with Shomin Sample situation there is no reason to delete 10+ pages just because they don't understand the rule.

Even relentless said "once the work is licensed" and here that doesn't happen.

Didn't the rule always like that. I've witnessed it in a few thread I follow, whether the works licensed or not, translation isn't allowed to be embedded in the thread. Except, now the new rule expand it not to just translation, but also "detailed summary". And I think I you keep insist it, you could argue with the mod whether Shomin Sample situation could be considered as "detailed summary" or not.

Meanwhile, if I read it correctly from relentlessflame post above. Especially this line:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

All we're saying is that we don't want these contents embedded in the threads but rather as in a link at the beginning of the each thread.

I think if you wanna keep the discussion going. You could create a blog/pastebin that host the detailed summary and link them in the first post of the thread. Hence it wont violated the rule.

With this people can be productive. Also there is a benefit that if someone asking summary in the future, we could tell them to look at the first post. And if there are a kind heart that wanna translate the LN, they already the blog as a place for hosting the translation.

[RaymondSageClark]

Playing safe for mods and admins means people can't discuss anything based on spoilers or summaries in this forum, I see, and all that just because "it will probably get licensed in the future".

@Konakaga you can easily ask to everyone on shomin sample thread about the spoilers/summaries related just to pieces of info getting deleted, and all that was almost 10 pages. Do not lie to everyone there. Also lazy are the people who delete even 1 phrase pointing a fact just because you don't even know what a spoiler is.

@Ices, the info on every thread in this forum comes in PARTS, that means you cant get everything summarized on the first page because is really hard, specially in LN's with 9+ volumes, yeah people can create a pastebin or things like that but even external links are getting deleted so what's the point on doing that?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

All what relentlessflame does is giving Marcus an excuse, not an answer. Mahouka situation is very different from what I'm asking, also comparing the rule with Shomin Sample situation there is no reason to delete 10+ pages just because they don't understand the rule.

Even relentless said "once the work is licensed" and here that doesn't happen.

The rule about extended summaries applies to works licensed and not licensed alike. Extended summaries are treated like translations, and can be linked externally in the opening post if the work is not licensed.

I haven't seen the posts in question and we can try to find them. But if they are the sort of summary I described above (summaries that might as well be translations), then we want them to be in the opening post, not inline in the thread. Being inline makes it hard for fellow discussion participants to find, and also hard for us to find if need be.

Originally Posted by RaymondSageClark

@Ices, the info on every thread in this forum comes in PARTS, that means you cant get everything summarized on the first page because is really hard, specially in LN's with 9+ volumes, yeah people can create a pastebin or things like that but even external links are getting deleted so what's the point on doing that?

An external link to the index of where translations or detailed summaries are located is allowed in the opening post of the thread. So all someone has to do is create an index page with links to all the summaries, and we'll allow that link in the opening post. That way, if anyone needs to find the summaries, it's all there in one convenient space. And in the event that the work gets licensed, the link would be removed from the opening post and that's it. The summaries themselves would exist elsewhere and not be removed.