Translator Needed!!

[FiliusLunae]

As a linguist and translator, and as someone who speaks just about every Romance language, and being proficient in Latin, there is absolutely no way two people could come up with virtually identical translations like what we see here. Some similarity would be understood if this involved two closely related languages, say Spanish and Portuguese, or even Italian and French. But here we're talking about two very distant languages: English and Japanese, which only serves to prove the point further in favor of Elmer's claims.

In my own work, even working from English to Spanish, two translators working independently would come up with very different results; that is, the idea in the translation is kept the same, that's for sure; however, the phrasing, conjunctions, and vocabulary chosen will always vary. Think of two people who just read a book (in English). Now, after they have finished reading this one book, you ask them to write a summary of the whole book, by chapter, or even page by page, for example. You will get two papers which say basically the same thing, the same idea, but worded very differently. If you start seeing identical sentences or key idiomatic phrases on both works, you have reason to suspect there's plagiarism involved.

Having said that, from reading the posts, it seems it has been already determined that Elmer's work has been copied from, without being properly credited, and no further proof is required.

I'm a long time Allakhazam poster, and this thread intrigued enough to make me post on here for the second time.

~FILIUS

[Sephiroth]

I'm developing a FFXIV fan site. Now I know no Japanese or German but I'm wondering if it's acceptable to quote translations and list the source/give credit?

Is the only issue with FFXIV Core's methods them trying to pass it off as their own? I would never go to that level.

[Riki]

I'm developing a FFXIV fan site. Now I know no Japanese or German but I'm wondering if it's acceptable to quote translations and list the source/give credit?

Of course it is fine to say "xy made a translation of a japanese interview" and then quote that interwiew.
It's the same principle as in dissertations or serious journalism in general.
You can quote anything as long as you give the original source.

[Elmer the Pointy]

Back home now. I wasn't even around to enjoy my own drama.

Anyway, this is kind of silly because it's not like you have to do anything, really. Just don't copy work from other sites and claim it as your own. It should be really simple to just take it down and move on. I'm not sure what requires an investigation.

But let's just forget all that for a second. Let's ignore what may or may not have been stolen. Curse.com is featuring all these interviews and articles that are inaccurate because they were copied and not checked. The subtitles you added to Famitsu.com's videos (upon which you grafted a 60-second ad for your site) are simply pieces of your article copied and pasted into the video. Some points roughly match because it was the same interview, but some points are wildly different, containing lines that make no sense. If you claim to be the "premiere English FFXIV site" I would think you should be really concerned about that - much more so than wanting to

[Juriva]

As a linguist and translator, and as someone who speaks just about every Romance language, and being proficient in Latin, there is absolutely no way two people could come up with virtually identical translations like what we see here.

I just wanted to second this, because it seems like MakaiTenshi is intent on using the "same source material" argument. I've studied and worked with Japanese for nearly 10 years and I can honestly say that I've never seen two legit translations of an article or an interview that are worded exactly the same. The most glaring evidence seems to be anything that was a direct quote from Tanaka where, unlike in the other paragraphs, the plagiarist was too lazy to change any of the pronouns around. Sorry for the random comment, but as someone who has worked with foreign languages, this kind of thing upsets me. /lurkmode restart

[Seph]

If you claim to be the "premiere English FFXIV site" I would think you should be really concerned about that - much more so than wanting to

It was his site who broke first info/screens/etc it's the "Premiere" FFXIV site" it was not zam who brought all these info even with their big staff/site they couldn't do it first and if you don't like the ads in his video, your drama/zam drama is already making his site even more popular i say he is smarter than those people who feed on drama.

I think Zyuu is a nice guy (Nice site too) and people need to chill out a bit/give him a break and stop attacking his website, his website is not an AAA website backed up by a big company etc where you expect him to react in the same manner that people expects from the big websites with big staff, and he already promised to check this whole thing.

This should be about the facts not the drama and freaking video ads he uploaded he is free to add ads or whatever he like and people are free to watch them or not it's not like that he forced them to do so.

Even stating all that everyone knows that elmer is the #1 transformer when it comes to translating jp to english for FF11.

Sometimes it seems some people in here feed on drama lol.

[Destinye]

Sometimes it seems some people in here feed on drama lol.

Isn't that the original purpose of BG?

[Zyuu]

MakaiTenshi has been removed from the FFXIVCore.com staff after I read through the whole thing by Elmer. I also checked with our second translator and it's obvious that Makai translated way too fast and with way too similar content.

I wish I took Japanese classes.

Anyway, genuinely sorry for having someone under my wings who stole content and then (why do he even bother?) rewrote it as well. Rest assured he's not under my wings anymore and never will be again.

This whole thing (even if not intended) reflects bad on myself and my site as a whole. If we can pay sending 5 people to Gamescom, we can certainly pay a translator, so we had NO idea he was doing this.

For future articles we make (not by the same translator), we're going to link to ZAM's translations as well, just to give them some extra traffic.

Oh and the icon mentioned below, it was sent to me by one of the users at FFXIVCore, I'll replace it just to be sure.

Again, I'm deeply sorry for this. There are no words really. I feel very let down and my trust has been abused. I sometimes trust easily and this is what I get in return. We all learn eventually.

[fusionx]

his website is not an AAA website backed up by a big company etc

Actually curse.com owns FFXIVCore (not that any of you have probably ever heard of curse.com, i know i never have)

[Zyuu]

I've forwarded a request to one of the designers at Curse to make a new favicon.ico fusionx.

[Thiefami]

would read again

[Elmer the Pointy]

OK, it looks like it's time to round up the drama llamas and get them back into the pen.

I've been contacted by people in charge of FFXIVCore and Curse and they took the time to talk to me about the whole incident. As I suspected, the translator they had been using was falsely representing his abilities and copying content to fill in whatever he couldn't manage.

The guy is gone, FFXIVCore will take down the articles and a different staff member will rewrite them. That's probably the best solution to all this.

So, I guess we're done here.

[Aevis]

i guess kir..erm elmer is justice riddle solved, case closed. now what to do

edit: actually yes, curse.com is pretty huge. the run sites for almost all "big" mmo's like wow, aoc, war, aion etc. and is run by curse inc.
edit2: lol look what i found: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cou...ase_id-412535/

[Kurokikaze]

Well, good to see this was resolved in an orderly fashion, er somewhat. JUSTICE PREVAILS.

And yes Curse is a huge site when it comes to other MMOs, namely WoW.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Glad things were finally resolved. Brought the process of translation to a whole different perspective for me at least, especially the various different language translators posting their opinions here.

[Apricoth]

I appologize - I thought I was doing something good here when they were needing a translator earlier yesterday morning. I was just asking for a translator to help assist Core Staff. I will let them do their own work from here on out. I ain't getting in the middle of this next time. Again, sorries all around in general.

[Kurokikaze]

Am I doing this right? iXi Gaming - You Got Blogged! Blog my friends from school and I have been working on lately. Don't be too critical about it. Site still needs a shit ton of work. ><;

[Viq]

Our sarcasm is only mildly entertaining?

[superzombie23]

/clap great show.

[Kurokikaze]

Our sarcasm is only mildly entertaining?

Haha. Maybe I should change that.