AnimeSuki Forums

***GHDpro*** · 2004-03-12, 07:59

I'm currently working on possibly a rewrite of the site scripts, so I'm gauging
what features I'd like to implement. One major feature that'll have to be implemented
from the ground-up if decided up on is to make the site multi-lingual.

Not only would this mean the main site itself (pages) could be displayed in languages
other than English, it could also eventually mean listing fansubs in other languages as well.

However, there are a few problems with this. Not with the multi-lingual site bit (that's easy),
but with listing the fansubs in other languages. As you know, AnimeSuki does not list anime
that is licensed, but adding different languages into the mix complicates this policy.

Quite a bit of anime is licensed in English yet not in other languages. Likewise there are
a few anime which are licensed in other languages, but not in English. Take One Piece
for example -- on TV in Greece, but so far considered unlicensed in English.

Please note that I consider language a factor that determines licensing, not area.
So if say, title X is licensed in Spain, but not in Mexico, it's still gone from the site.

And then there is another thing. We could allow fansubs to be posted of anime that
is fansubbed in Finnish and not yet licensed there, but already out on DVD in English.
Chances are, that the Finnish version used the US DVDs for video and subtitle source material.
I really don't think we should list those kind of "fansubs".

So, I propose AnimeSuki implements multi-lingual site & torrents in the following way:

The site will be translated to main languages (where translators are available).
How much is translated depends on the translator (main site elements are easy, but
large essays and guides are much more work).
AnimeSuki will start listing fansubs in other languages of anime that is not licensed in English yet.
If it is licensed in English, AnimeSuki should not list any fansubs of it in any language.
[or not list it until DVDs are out?]
If it is licensed in a language other than English, fansubs will be continued to be listed,
except for that particular language of course.
Due to probably lots of titles already being licensed in that region, AnimeSuki will
not list any fansubs in Asian languages such as Chinese or Korean. Possibly this "ban"
is also extended to Thai, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia.

So what do you think of this proposal?
Yes I know it's still geared towards English (in terms of licensing rules)...

Also, AnimeSuki may not list fansubs in certain languages until we have someone
on the staff which can understand this language and knows the fansub scene in
that language and what is licensed or not. But hopefully you can understand this.

Now a few issues I've found:
- Spanish = Spanish worldwide right? Accents don't matter much I think? (same for French/German etc)
- Portuguese IS different for Brazil and Portugal right? They can't be mixed?

________________________________________________

UPDATE

After 24 hours so far, the general consensus in this thread seems to be:

Having the site (pages) itself in multiple languages is ok & nice idea, no problems.
(And for those who wonder: AnimeSuki.com will probably use English as default and
allow other languages to be set using a preference script with cookies. Other mirrors will use
AcceptLanguage to guess default language - similar to Google, but also allow to set preference)
On the other hand, listing fansubs in other languages is to difficult if AnimeSuki is going
to keep it's policy of not listing licensed fansubs. To check what is licensed in languages and
area's is such a "nightmare" (much work) that it's better avoided and AnimeSuki should just
stick to listing English fansubs only.

This is not the final conclusion yet -- so continue to discuss if you want!

Time for a final decision.

Based on the responses in the past few days it seems clear that:

1) Maintaining what is licensed or not in other languages is a daunting task at best
2) Most of the current visitors whose native language isn't English wouldn't mind if AnimeSuki remained English
3) As alternative AnimeSuki could link to similar sites like AnimeSuki but for other language torrents

Due to this I will not be making adjustments in the scripts to, for example,
allow anime to be marked licensed individually per language, or to allow us to
specifiy what language a torrent is.

If we're just going to list English language torrents, then making the site itself
multi-lingual doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. Nevertheless, the scripts
for making the site multi-lingual are already finished. However, it's likely the only
supported language will be English for quite some time. Having the scripts ready
however does allow me to make the site multi-lingual with minimal effort (besides
the translations of course) in the future, if desired.

Conclusion: nothing will change I'm afraid -- both the site itself
as the torrents AnimeSuki will host will remain English only.

Thany · 2004-03-12, 08:10

Quote:

Now a few issues I've found:
- Spanish = Spanish worldwide right? Accents don't matter much I think? (same for French/German etc)
- Portuguese IS different for Brazil and Portugal right? They can't be mixed?

As for Spanish, I don't have any idea...
In French, accents are mostly not that important and the words are still comprehensive.
However I think that in German the "¨" can change some understanding of the words so could be important, though my German is very very bad

anthonyxscotland · 2004-03-12, 08:36

I think with this multi-lingual move you would still have to make it clear that if its licenced in english that the uk/south african/Australian/other english speaking areas have to live by those licencing rules. Or you could have uk/euro based groups trying to get licenced stuff through this site.

Well thats my 2c on the issue.

SirJeannot · 2004-03-12, 08:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thany

As for Spanish, I don't have any idea...
In French, accents are mostly not that important and the words are still comprehensive.
However I think that in German the "¨" can change some understanding of the words so could be important, though my German is very very bad

the umlaut doesn't really matter that much, since it can be replaced with a "e" after the voyel
ü > ue etc ...

anyway, i've had that idea too. but since i only get english fansubs

JAppi · 2004-03-12, 09:02

I don't mind, as long as it doesn't clutter up the webpage too much. If you make it so that the german/spanish/french/<insert non-english language> subs don't show up on the english version of the page, it won't bother me at all.

I agree with you though, the focus of the webpage *should* stay on english fansubs.

microlith · 2004-03-12, 09:18

Don't forget that a lot of titles are being picked up by US companies with rights extending worldwide outside Asia, the end result being all other licenses coming by means of the US licensor.

Granted while the lack of an english track would make it unattractive to english-speakers to download, I do expect that posting licensed shows would bring down much pain regardless.

I think that tracking and balancing the licensing issues right now is difficult enough to consider with just english subs. I do like the thought of multi-lingual support and would encourage people in other countries to set up anime-suki-alikes in their respective countries.

Where can the anime-suki scripts be had, by the way?

Reaven · 2004-03-12, 09:39

I think it'll be too hard to keep track of what is licensed in what language, but the thought of translating the main website to other languages is a good idea, since there are people around who like to read things in there own language.

Unless you have someone who can keep track of licensing in there country very well I would suggest not to add anime with languages other than English

***GHDpro*** · 2004-03-12, 09:40

Well the AnimeSuki scripts are completely custom made and not open source.

I'm not sure if making AnimeSuki open source would be a great idea. Especially as it
may make the main site more open to hackers and DoS attackers if the source is disclosed.

Jappi: Forgot to mention it, but having a "my language only" or similar filter was
among my plans for the new scripts, so that indeed like you mention you can have the
main site only list English fansubs for example. Whether that be JUST the "Recently Added"
list or other pages as well, I don't know yet.

G-G · 2004-03-12, 10:03

Quote:

Now a few issues I've found:
- Spanish = Spanish worldwide right? Accents don't matter much I think? (same for French/German etc)
- Portuguese IS different for Brazil and Portugal right? They can't be mixed?

On a side note, since I am brazilian and tend to dislike when the confusion happens...
Spanish [not equal to] Portuguese. And even so, I think there's some words in "Pt-Portuguese" that's different from the "Br-Portuguese", there's distinction for both translations in some sites.

Also, I think it sucks about the sub/scan groups to stop when they licensed [insert your favourite anime/manga] in North America... I mean, just because they're licensed there, it means all the rest of the world who depends on english translations have to wait alongside, and even if it's really out, what if it never get licensed in other countries...
People may say "go learn japanese", but damn, english is required worldwide nowdays that it's almost natural for people to know it, japanese isn't.

Well, that was my opinion: You should list all the releases, even if it's "licensed", because it may not be in that certain country yet, or worse, never get oficially released.

***GHDpro*** · 2004-03-12, 10:29

G-G:
Sure, I know Spanish is really different from Portuguese. What my comment was about
was what you mentioned: is Pt-Portuguese so different from Br-Portuguese that say,
for the site we need translations for both. Unlike Spanish, where it shouldn't matter if
you are from Mexico, Venezuela or Spain, as even if there are differences, people from
those countries should still be able to understand the same Spanish translation.

Now to your comment about licensing: although some places of the site may need to be
clearified or rewritten, IMHO while licensing typically is about areas/countries, for me it's
about languages. If something is licensed in English, then no English fansubs should exist
for it anymore ANYwhere, and you should buy the DVDs if you want to watch it. If you're
not from the US then this still shouldn't matter because you can import OR continue your
own language fansubs. Here is where AnimeSuki makes a slight destinction: we won't list
any fansubs once it's licensed in English. But if something is truely "fansubbed", I wouldn't
mind if you still find the other-language fansubs for it and watch them.

ato · 2004-03-12, 10:33

Hmmm, am I then right in assuming that if an anime becomes licensed in Venezuela, all distribution of the Spanish fansubs will cease? It seems the logical extension of the current scheme.

It is sure gonna take a lot of people to monitor all the licensing in the world, and finding dependable admins might be a bit of a problem...But the idea is a nice one

G-G · 2004-03-12, 10:37

Wee! Sorry if anyone got me wrong in my last paragraph, I was meaning to list all the other languages' fansubbing, even if it's licensed in English, because it's going to be so mean if you don't ^^;;

And no, I don't think Brazil and Portugal's languages are SO that different, put both together if you wish, as much as people put Portuguese subs here, I'm happy ^-^

***GHDpro*** · 2004-03-12, 10:37

Well yeah, that may be a bit of a headache. Of course we can just go ahead and list things
and ask people to email us if they find an anime is licensed in their language.

But well... that's why I created this thread in the first place: is it feasable for AnimeSuki
to start listing torrents in other languages AND keep the policy of not listing licensed anime...?

boneyjellyfish · 2004-03-12, 10:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ato

Hmmm, am I then right in assuming that if an anime becomes licensed in Venezuela, all distribution of the Spanish fansubs will cease? It seems the logical extension of the current scheme.

It is sure gonna take a lot of people to monitor all the licensing in the world, and finding dependable admins might be a bit of a problem...But the idea is a nice one

It seems like it will really complicate everything. If we're going to be restricting people that don't speak English to releases depending entirely on what's licensed in North America, it seems like it would be a lot more convenient for them to just go to a BT listing site for their own language like Frozen Layer. (WARNING: Frozen Layer contains anime that is licensed in the U.S.!)

*EDIT* Frozen Layer is a Spanish BitTorrent listing site.

***GHDpro*** · 2004-03-12, 10:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneyjellyfish

It seems like it will really complicate everything. If we're going to be restricting people that don't speak English to releases depending entirely on what's licensed in North America, it seems like it would be a lot more convenient for them to just go to a BT listing site for their own language like Frozen Layer. (WARNING: Frozen Layer contains anime that is licensed in the U.S.! Also, the website seems to be down right now.)

*EDIT* Frozen Layer is a Spanish BitTorrent listing site.

...I may note that it seems like this site also lists anime that is licensed in Spanish as well.
(like the Evangelion eps marked "RIP" -- the US DVDs have French and Spanish tracks)

boneyjellyfish · 2004-03-12, 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by GHDpro

...I may note that it seems like this site also lists anime that is licensed in Spanish as well.
(like the Evangelion eps marked "RIP" -- the US DVDs have French and Spanish tracks)

That basically makes them the mircx of Spanish anime.

I just have one question for you, GHDPro: If a series is licensed in say, France, but nowhere else, wouldn't that mean that you would have to stop listing it? In your previous post, you said that One Piece is licensed in Greece. Well, if by some chance we have Greek fansubs listed, you would have to remove all One Piece listings from the website. Another example would be if, say, Kanon was licensed in Spanish. Since you would be listing Spanish fansubs, you would have to remove it from the website.

BlackOmega · 2004-03-12, 10:56

Well, there is some substantial diferences between brazilian portuguese and pt portuguese..

It's still fairly easy to brazilians read portugueses text and vice-versa. But the spelling some times sounds too wierd =]

I mean.. if you are brazilian, while reading a pt-portuguese text you fell like reading classic literature, a text following the most ancient gramatical rules of the language =].

And if you are a portuguese reading a brazilian text you'll probably (I'm guessing here, since I'm brazilian too) fell like reading some thing by a crazy hip-hop fan or something like that, usually the text fells like it full of slangs, since many of the original pt-portuguese words have been shortened shortened in brazilian portuguese.

If u'r gonna list fansubs from Brazil and portugal they should be separated.

It's like comparing US english x British english, but increasing the diferences 2 to 4 times

, same thing with the accent.

Thany · 2004-03-12, 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirJeannot

the umlaut doesn't really matter that much, since it can be replaced with a "e" after the voyel
ü > ue etc ...

anyway, i've had that idea too. but since i only get english fansubs

Yeh I forgot about that

Anyway, I'm like SirJeannot, I almost only download english fansubs (french fansubs are soooo slow and disgust me

)

ato · 2004-03-12, 11:20

boneyjellyfish, I think you might have misunderstood a bit. What I asked was if all fansubs fansubbed in Spanish would become unlisted, not if all fansubs of the series in question should be pulled.

In practice, this would become a number of parallell AnimeSukis, each only considering licensing in a specific language speaking are of the world. So the anglo-saxon world would would all be affected by the same licenses, the spanish speaking countries would be affected by licenses within that area and so forth.

boneyjellyfish · 2004-03-12, 11:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by ato

boneyjellyfish, I think you might have misunderstood a bit. What I asked was if all fansubs fansubbed in Spanish would become unlisted, not if all fansubs of the series in question should be pulled.

In practice, this would become a number of parallell AnimeSukis, each only considering licensing in a specific language speaking are of the world. So the anglo-saxon world would would all be affected by the same licenses, the spanish speaking countries would be affected by licenses within that area and so forth.

Actually, I pressed the reply button on the bottom-right your post by mistake (which put your quote into my post) and was too lazy to remove it.

Anyway, I can't figure out why you would only remove the Spanish fansubs from it and not fansubs from all of the countries. If we have to remove fansubs from all of the countries if a series is licensed in an English-speaking area, then shouldn't we remove everything if a series gets licensed in another language that AnimeSuki is hosting? What if the Spanish DVDs of something have japanese audio with English subtitles and groups decide to just rip that?

Or was that the part I was misunderstanding?

2004-03-12, 07:59	Link #1
*GHDpro* Administrator Administrator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Netherlands Age: 45	AnimeSuki: Multi-lingual? Torrents in other languages? I'm currently working on possibly a rewrite of the site scripts, so I'm gauging what features I'd like to implement. One major feature that'll have to be implemented from the ground-up if decided up on is to make the site multi-lingual. Not only would this mean the main site itself (pages) could be displayed in languages other than English, it could also eventually mean listing fansubs in other languages as well. However, there are a few problems with this. Not with the multi-lingual site bit (that's easy), but with listing the fansubs in other languages. As you know, AnimeSuki does not list anime that is licensed, but adding different languages into the mix complicates this policy. Quite a bit of anime is licensed in English yet not in other languages. Likewise there are a few anime which are licensed in other languages, but not in English. Take One Piece for example -- on TV in Greece, but so far considered unlicensed in English. Please note that I consider language a factor that determines licensing, not area. So if say, title X is licensed in Spain, but not in Mexico, it's still gone from the site. And then there is another thing. We could allow fansubs to be posted of anime that is fansubbed in Finnish and not yet licensed there, but already out on DVD in English. Chances are, that the Finnish version used the US DVDs for video and subtitle source material. I really don't think we should list those kind of "fansubs". So, I propose AnimeSuki implements multi-lingual site & torrents in the following way: The site will be translated to main languages (where translators are available). How much is translated depends on the translator (main site elements are easy, but large essays and guides are much more work). AnimeSuki will start listing fansubs in other languages of anime that is not licensed in English yet. If it is licensed in English, AnimeSuki should not list any fansubs of it in any language. [or not list it until DVDs are out?] If it is licensed in a language other than English, fansubs will be continued to be listed, except for that particular language of course. Due to probably lots of titles already being licensed in that region, AnimeSuki will not list any fansubs in Asian languages such as Chinese or Korean. Possibly this "ban" is also extended to Thai, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. So what do you think of this proposal? Yes I know it's still geared towards English (in terms of licensing rules)... Also, AnimeSuki may not list fansubs in certain languages until we have someone on the staff which can understand this language and knows the fansub scene in that language and what is licensed or not. But hopefully you can understand this. Now a few issues I've found: - Spanish = Spanish worldwide right? Accents don't matter much I think? (same for French/German etc) - Portuguese IS different for Brazil and Portugal right? They can't be mixed? ________________________________________________ UPDATE After 24 hours so far, the general consensus in this thread seems to be: Having the site (pages) itself in multiple languages is ok & nice idea, no problems. (And for those who wonder: AnimeSuki.com will probably use English as default and allow other languages to be set using a preference script with cookies. Other mirrors will use AcceptLanguage to guess default language - similar to Google, but also allow to set preference) On the other hand, listing fansubs in other languages is to difficult if AnimeSuki is going to keep it's policy of not listing licensed fansubs. To check what is licensed in languages and area's is such a "nightmare" (much work) that it's better avoided and AnimeSuki should just stick to listing English fansubs only. This is not the final conclusion yet -- so continue to discuss if you want! Time for a final decision. Based on the responses in the past few days it seems clear that: 1) Maintaining what is licensed or not in other languages is a daunting task at best 2) Most of the current visitors whose native language isn't English wouldn't mind if AnimeSuki remained English 3) As alternative AnimeSuki could link to similar sites like AnimeSuki but for other language torrents Due to this I will not be making adjustments in the scripts to, for example, allow anime to be marked licensed individually per language, or to allow us to specifiy what language a torrent is. If we're just going to list English language torrents, then making the site itself multi-lingual doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. Nevertheless, the scripts for making the site multi-lingual are already finished. However, it's likely the only supported language will be English for quite some time. Having the scripts ready however does allow me to make the site multi-lingual with minimal effort (besides the translations of course) in the future, if desired. Conclusion: nothing will change I'm afraid -- both the site itself as the torrents AnimeSuki will host will remain English only. Last edited by GHDpro; 2004-03-16 at 03:22.

2004-03-12, 08:36	Link #3
anthonyxscotland Highlander Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Aberdeen, Scotland	I think with this multi-lingual move you would still have to make it clear that if its licenced in english that the uk/south african/Australian/other english speaking areas have to live by those licencing rules. Or you could have uk/euro based groups trying to get licenced stuff through this site. Well thats my 2c on the issue.

2004-03-12, 09:02	Link #5
JAppi Banned Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Gureibi wo aishite iru Age: 36	I don't mind, as long as it doesn't clutter up the webpage too much. If you make it so that the german/spanish/french/<insert non-english language> subs don't show up on the english version of the page, it won't bother me at all. I agree with you though, the focus of the webpage should stay on english fansubs.

2004-03-12, 09:18	Link #6
microlith Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Folsom, CA Age: 41	Don't forget that a lot of titles are being picked up by US companies with rights extending worldwide outside Asia, the end result being all other licenses coming by means of the US licensor. Granted while the lack of an english track would make it unattractive to english-speakers to download, I do expect that posting licensed shows would bring down much pain regardless. I think that tracking and balancing the licensing issues right now is difficult enough to consider with just english subs. I do like the thought of multi-lingual support and would encourage people in other countries to set up anime-suki-alikes in their respective countries. Where can the anime-suki scripts be had, by the way?

2004-03-12, 09:39	Link #7
Reaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Holland	I think it'll be too hard to keep track of what is licensed in what language, but the thought of translating the main website to other languages is a good idea, since there are people around who like to read things in there own language. Unless you have someone who can keep track of licensing in there country very well I would suggest not to add anime with languages other than English

2004-03-12, 09:40	Link #8
*GHDpro* Administrator Administrator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Netherlands Age: 45	Well the AnimeSuki scripts are completely custom made and not open source. I'm not sure if making AnimeSuki open source would be a great idea. Especially as it may make the main site more open to hackers and DoS attackers if the source is disclosed. Jappi: Forgot to mention it, but having a "my language only" or similar filter was among my plans for the new scripts, so that indeed like you mention you can have the main site only list English fansubs for example. Whether that be JUST the "Recently Added" list or other pages as well, I don't know yet.

2004-03-12, 10:29	Link #10
*GHDpro* Administrator Administrator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Netherlands Age: 45	G-G: Sure, I know Spanish is really different from Portuguese. What my comment was about was what you mentioned: is Pt-Portuguese so different from Br-Portuguese that say, for the site we need translations for both. Unlike Spanish, where it shouldn't matter if you are from Mexico, Venezuela or Spain, as even if there are differences, people from those countries should still be able to understand the same Spanish translation. Now to your comment about licensing: although some places of the site may need to be clearified or rewritten, IMHO while licensing typically is about areas/countries, for me it's about languages. If something is licensed in English, then no English fansubs should exist for it anymore ANYwhere, and you should buy the DVDs if you want to watch it. If you're not from the US then this still shouldn't matter because you can import OR continue your own language fansubs. Here is where AnimeSuki makes a slight destinction: we won't list any fansubs once it's licensed in English. But if something is truely "fansubbed", I wouldn't mind if you still find the other-language fansubs for it and watch them.

2004-03-12, 10:33	Link #11
ato Oups... Join Date: Jan 2003	Hmmm, am I then right in assuming that if an anime becomes licensed in Venezuela, all distribution of the Spanish fansubs will cease? It seems the logical extension of the current scheme. It is sure gonna take a lot of people to monitor all the licensing in the world, and finding dependable admins might be a bit of a problem...But the idea is a nice one

2004-03-12, 10:37	Link #12
G-G One-Girl Subtitler Join Date: Dec 2003 Age: 38	Wee! Sorry if anyone got me wrong in my last paragraph, I was meaning to list all the other languages' fansubbing, even if it's licensed in English, because it's going to be so mean if you don't ^^;; And no, I don't think Brazil and Portugal's languages are SO that different, put both together if you wish, as much as people put Portuguese subs here, I'm happy ^-^

2004-03-12, 10:37	Link #13
*GHDpro* Administrator Administrator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Netherlands Age: 45	Well yeah, that may be a bit of a headache. Of course we can just go ahead and list things and ask people to email us if they find an anime is licensed in their language. But well... that's why I created this thread in the first place: is it feasable for AnimeSuki to start listing torrents in other languages AND keep the policy of not listing licensed anime...?

2004-03-12, 10:56	Link #17
BlackOmega Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2004	Well, there is some substantial diferences between brazilian portuguese and pt portuguese.. It's still fairly easy to brazilians read portugueses text and vice-versa. But the spelling some times sounds too wierd =] I mean.. if you are brazilian, while reading a pt-portuguese text you fell like reading classic literature, a text following the most ancient gramatical rules of the language =]. And if you are a portuguese reading a brazilian text you'll probably (I'm guessing here, since I'm brazilian too) fell like reading some thing by a crazy hip-hop fan or something like that, usually the text fells like it full of slangs, since many of the original pt-portuguese words have been shortened shortened in brazilian portuguese. If u'r gonna list fansubs from Brazil and portugal they should be separated. It's like comparing US english x British english, but increasing the diferences 2 to 4 times , same thing with the accent.

2004-03-12, 11:20	Link #19
ato Oups... Join Date: Jan 2003	boneyjellyfish, I think you might have misunderstood a bit. What I asked was if all fansubs fansubbed in Spanish would become unlisted, not if all fansubs of the series in question should be pulled. In practice, this would become a number of parallell AnimeSukis, each only considering licensing in a specific language speaking are of the world. So the anglo-saxon world would would all be affected by the same licenses, the spanish speaking countries would be affected by licenses within that area and so forth.