New site, new project - Proper-permission.org launches

I just want to be left alone to translate good games with good people, and share the results with friends. But the world’s a stupid place. When I think about it, I only want a few things:

  1. A place where scripts and project files could be shared w/ people who know what they’re doing
  2. That’s collaborative on the web
  3. And isn’t always under the threat of finding a C&D coming down

I haven’t seen such a place. So, I’ll go ahead and make it.

Proper-permission.org

The idea behind proper-permission is very simple. Host projects for VN translations, and just about anything goes so long as 1 requirement is filled: All projects must demonstrate they have proper permission to be translated before they are put into the system.

All it takes is one or two emails, then a copy of the email is posted, and project set up. That’s it.

There’s still plenty of rough edges to the site. I can’t write enough content fast enough to fill all the gaps. Anyone that wants to just go ahead and write stuff, feel free. Write access is pretty generous.

Motivation

In the past few months, the visual novel translating community has seen a large rash of C&D letters. To name just a few, Visual-arts , minori , AXL .

And I have no problem with that. The companies are 100% within their legal right, and interests to protect their intellectual property to the fullest extent of the law. The rules of the game are very clear about this.

I’m more annoyed at the idiocy surrounding all the people trying to defend the side of the projects and all the repetitive and ultimately pointless flaming on the internets about it. It’s like watching a schoolyard fight.

Perhaps the ultimate culmination of all this idiocy were stupid farce sites like C&Dwiki. I can’t think of a more childish response to events. Thankfully the thing is probably now just a haven for mediawiki spam bots crawling the internet.

But there’s a silent group in the midst of all this loud idiocy from both sides of the fence. It’s the translators, the staff members, and even original content creators, who just want to sit down, get together, and get things translated. Is there a place for us? I couldn’t find one.

And it’s not a wiki.

Why isn’t it built on Mediawiki like TLWiki?

That’s because I think that a wiki, especially Mediawiki, is NOT the best platform for translation projects. The software is annoying, you’ve got no concurrency, and the translation quality issues are annoying w/ no clear solution.

I like wikis for documentation, not for actual script work.



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