Mod Post

[unreal.livejournal.com]

I got a private message about this today and decided to make a post about it.
I got a message from one of the staffmembers from shineee.net telling me that some of you in here have been posting translated articles from them without the right credits. This is of cource not okay.

One of the articles is: http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/8749748.html
And there are many many more.

Make sure to use the right credits in here since we don't want to get into trouble. And for anyone who wants to read the whole message you can find it under the cut.

Dear Omonatheydidnt Staff,

Hello. My name is Annie, and I'm a staffmember of SHINee Forums International (shineee.net).

On multiple occasions, your news site has re-posted articles and content that is directly made by our site and re-posted by other sites, while failing to mention us in the credits. If need be, I can dig up and compile all these articles for you to see, but I would rather see if I can get my point across before doing something like this. The other sites who have re-posted us mention us, yet the credits are somehow lost when our content reaches your site. I have directly witnessed this happening, time and time again. In the past, the staff and I have overlooked it, but this time it's completely inexcusable.

I'm referring to this article containing Jonghyun's lyric translations:
http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/8749748.html

The lyric content in that article, along with the rest of the lyrics on SHINee's new album, was worked on for NINE STRAIGHT HOURS by our translator (kimchi hana) in the subsequent hours right after the SHINee album was released. She spent hours meticulously poring over every word in these lyrics, and I spent hours afterwards, helping her recheck them over to make sure the words described SHINee's intentional meaning as accurately as possible. After all this work, can you imagine how COMPLETELY FRUSTRATING it is, to have a news site that so many people look at be posting our lyrics and crediting other sites?? First of all, ForeverShiningSHINee didn't even post our lyrics on their Tumblr, so why in the world are they in the credits? Secondly, right under the lyrics on SHINeeAttack's Wordpress, the credits are given. Give me an explanation as to why the person who copy-and-pasted the lyrics can copy and paste the entire English translation, yet overlook the bolded text at the bottom that clearly state:

Translated by kimchi hana @ shineee.net
Do not remove or edit the credits when you take it out.

"DO NOT REMOVE OR EDIT THE CREDITS." IN BOLD. This may be something that you all take lightly, but we don't. After our hours upon hours of work, all we ask for is a simple credit. Can't you even grant us that? PLEASE change the credit in this article to the rightful one. And always, ALWAYS, make sure you know where your credits are coming from when you are writing articles. For future reference, when ForeverShiningSHINee credits "shiningtweets", they mean our Twitter @shiningtweets. If they credit SFI, or SHINee Forums, or shineee.net, they mean us as well. It doesn't take that long to link to shineee.net (SHINee with an extra e) in the credits. Please stop crediting their Tumblr for the work of our translators. I personally have worked for a couple of notable k-pop news sites in the past, and there was so much crediting protocol to follow. You are supposed to take the original credits that are listed on the site you get them from, and not alter them except for organizational purposes.

Honestly, a lot of what makes me sick about this is that so many people have already seen it, and will never return to that article again. This being said, I personally would appreciate it if your staff issued a formal apology to our forum and our staff. In any case, I'm messaging every staff member you have to make sure those credits are changed. If this doesn't work, I'll be taking further action.

Replace the credits you currently have on the above-linked Jonghyun article with the ones below and bold them, as they originally were set in bold font.

Translated by kimchi hana @ shineee.net
Do not remove or edit the credits when you take it out.

Comments

[falling-empress.livejournal.com]

someone needs to calm their tits.

someone made a mistake. a simple "please look closer for sources and credit" would have sufficed rather than jumping down someone's throat in an attacking way demanding an apology. i really doubt they did it on purpose not to mention this is not a professional website...everything submitted is user-based. seriously, i don't triple check the sources within each webpage to see who originally translated something. if it's that much of a big deal, maybe they should copyright their translations (trollolol)...either way lyrics are not the property of the website, nor is a translation technically. if they don't want that to happen then they should stop wasting 9 hours doing it and let someone else.

she can go attack the other website that copied the lyrics without making a credit in size 600 red flashing font.

[unreal.livejournal.com]

go attack the other website that copied the lyrics
The pm said right under the lyrics on SHINeeAttack's Wordpress, the credits are given.
So the lyrics where credited there

[lasthenia.livejournal.com]

"staff"? someone has no idea as to how this community works
I mean yeah that's understandably frustrating for them but idt they could be more condescending if they tried
r u d e

[chunsakuma.livejournal.com]

I think people need to realise that translating Korean can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming and is also really under-appreciated. Sure, this could have been handled differently, but at the end of the day, I totally get where these people are coming from.

[my-faux-pas.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's really hard to translate articles, especially since there are Korean words that are hard to find an equivalent word in english. I get these people too, it's just that she wrote really politely in the introduction part then came off as angry and pissed-at-everything in the latter part. Could've been written in a nicer, in-your-face-i-can-write-a-perfect-letter-of-complaint way imo

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

As much as I understand why they are angry why did they contact the mods here?
Those posts are made by users and mods are only checking source as much as they can. If they really want something to be done they could ask directly to the users responsible for those posts or they could have ask to make an official statement.
I'm sur our mods would have agree to let them post an official statement for everyone to see.

[sashays27.livejournal.com]

because they know the mods would make a mod post for every single person to see instead of only one user at a time AFTER the mistake have been done ?

[rosamajalis.livejournal.com]

Always give credit. Always state your sources.

OP of that Jonghyun post is no newb, and they should have known better than to omit translation credits.

[sashays27.livejournal.com]

like not translating for us anymore ? lol then I will be like FML

[http://users.livejournal.com/___varying/]

Yeah so maybe it could have been phrased more palatably, but she has a valid point and posters should probably be more careful in the future.

ForeverShiningSHINee didn't even post our lyrics on their Tumblr, so why in the world are they in the credits?
Well, although that credit was technically for the tweet and not the lyrics, ForeverShiningSHINee credits the translation to shiningtweets, so it still leads back to them and the same logic holds. lol

[iheartmango.livejournal.com]

I think people need to realised that all these fans who run the fansites are just fans. They all have their own lives to deal with and despite that, they give up their own time in order to bring content in another language to us. All they ask is one or two lines at the bottom saying they did the work.

If this happened time and time again, I can see why they'll get angry.

[sashays27.livejournal.com]

ia!

[geekpants.livejournal.com]

I think she messaged the mods with the impression that the mods would edit the post in question before publishing it. That said, the nature of the internet means that a lot of credits get lost in the whole ecosystem of 'sharing'. Each person who shares content is different in terms of how anal they are in crediting - some will go to the ends of the earth for the sake of integrity, while others will just share for the sake of sharing. It's a difficult beast to control. This isn't a cop-out excuse to people's hardwork (translators could be linked similarly to photographers in that they put a lot of effort into their work only to have it posted and re-posted everywhere without credit), but I can see where they're coming from.

In other news: welcome to the world of Korean fandom.

[theuncolored.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU TO ALL SHARING TRANSLATIONS!
i really mean that. if not for the translations, i'll know nothing.
so i appreciate that and crediting yes, it's a must.

BUT.. this letter really could have been written in another way.
it only spells frustrated in a child-like manner.

Honestly, a lot of what makes me sick about this is that so many people have already seen it, and will never return to that article again.
people are going back to that article now. like i did.

I personally would appreciate it if your staff issued a formal apology to our forum and our staff.
does she realise that the people posting articles are not necessary staff or in this case, mod?

[donutism.livejournal.com]

While they do come across as rather angry, I do understand that translating is often extremely hard. Though I don't speak Korean, I do speak Mandarin, and translating is a pain in the ass. I guess it is annoying seeing your hard work go uncredited, but I do think they could have been a bit nicer.

[kiku-cha8-8.livejournal.com]

They were polite in the beginning but then became superbly angry around the fourth paragraph. I understand where they are coming from, just pointing out that some users made a mistake is fine, and that they should be properly credited next time.

I never actually want to issue an apology if someone demands that I make one.

[muzegrey.livejournal.com]

How could it take 9 hours to translate an album?
I probably wouldn't trust the translation very much, tbh.

Though credit should be due.

[theuncolored.livejournal.com]

ouch.

[strawberry-efeu.livejournal.com]

idk I scan stuff and honestly I spend a lot more time on it than I probably should. And it sucks to see your shit go everywhere without credit. But that's just the way the internet goes. If you want to make sure you get credit you have to take measures to ensure that will happen. In my case that would be big ugly watermarks, which I don't want to use for a variety of reasons. For their case they could make an image out of the translated lyrics. From my own POV, I try to understand what happened and then I try to avoid that activity in the future. For example, I don't post my scans on soshified anymore because they ended up spread everywhere without any credits whatsoever.

Even people with good intentions can mess up sometimes.

[umbrella-smile.livejournal.com]

I would like to tell you how much I appreciate your scans, I already have sent you messages on tumblr but I feel it should be said more often. My walls would be so bare without your scans. Thank you.

[jxsica.livejournal.com]

I can understand the frustration; they work so hard to do this during their own free time, and this situation probably does happen a lot :/ I know their translations are greatly appreciated by everyone and I'm sure this was an honest mistake and not meant to offend in any way.
If this has happened over and over again on omona, though, and they knew it...they maybe should have said so earlier? It might have stopped it from happening so many times; Instead it's sort of built up into this angry 'omona never credits our translations!!' reputation.
If someone makes a mistake and doesn't know they've done something wrong, they can't fix it :/ I'm sure the posters weren't leaving out the credits intentionally

[strawberry-efeu.livejournal.com]

mte If they wanted something to change they should have said something about it, not just stewed bitterly over it. That is one person I would not want to be roommates with. I can already imagine the passive-aggressive battles that would go on.

[herocountry.livejournal.com]

their message is pretty angry but considering how frequently it's occurred and how much work goes into some of this fan stuff, i can see how it'd frustrate anyone. it's a pretty legitimate complaint, idk why some of the comments here are being so childishly rude about being called out. people make mistakes but that doesn't mean they're free from criticism or correction

[windygables.livejournal.com]

but the comments above aren't letting the people who left out credits off the hook, they're trying to point out that this message could've been relayed in a better way rather than how it has been

[devilstay.livejournal.com]

Obviously giving credit is important, and good translation are hard to find, should be appreciated etc. I just don't understand why they wouldn't give the poster/omona a nice quick, and friendly reminder that they weren't credited properly, the first time, they saw one of their works uncredited (because apparently Jonghyun's post, isn't the first one). They properly thought they were being nice, but in these situations, ALL work deserves proper credit, so there is no reason to just 'let it go'. It also creates a good habit of checking that all articles are well sourced, also that why this long condescending letter could have possibly been avoided.

Regardless, hopefully it'll happen less.

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

lso that why this long condescending letter could have possibly been avoided.

Condescending! That's the word I was looking for.
No wonder it was such a nuisance to read it.

[angela-derp-otp.livejournal.com]

Wow OK. The wording and general tone of the message makes me really uncomfortable.

What I see is this person pouring her built frustration regarding their crediting issues in this community, clearly this person didn't even bother to look how this community works, judging by the commentary of her message.

While I believe it's completely rational to ask for a correction in the case the credits were not properly issued, this isn't really the way tbh, especially if there was no malicious intentions while omitting credits.

I guess people should refrain from posting articles from that community/website since they are clearly too sensitive and can't manage this type of situation in a proper way, and while I believe credits should be issued when people works hard, what's the point in getting so angry and upset because people is sharing your translation? I have done translations before for internet audiences and the whole point as far as I remember, is sharing with people who unfortunately can't speak the language of the original article/text , what's the point on sharing something online when you are going to be so upset about things like this happening, it's the internet after all, and I mean, shouldn't common sense come first in this type of situation? It's really easy to differentiate when people leaves out your credits with no malicious innuendo as opposed when someone intentionally leaves your credits out to attach the translation as his/her own.

[izon-no-niwa.livejournal.com]

a shawol's fury?

[crystalheng.livejournal.com]

No. It's a translator's fury.

[patentpending.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the lack of a formal apology itp will surely burn their beans.

[dilettantka.livejournal.com]

I understand where the feeling comes from; it is frustrating to do translating only to have it get copied without any credit, or worse, have somebody else take credit for it, but if you do want to share information (or pictures, videos, scans whatever) you must be able to let it go, because it's just kind of inevitable.

Last fall, somebody on tumblr cut and pasted a section of what had originally been an 11-part series of articles which I posted in 2 huge entries. I had worked on the translation off and on for a good part of a week. At first I felt upset because this new post without any credit to me got hundreds of notes immediately, while mine had only gotten like 20 or so lol. Then I thought about it again and was like, "so??" and remembered that my motivation to translate & share the article was just so other people who liked my group but didn't know Korean or Japanese, could read it. The end.

[devilstay.livejournal.com]

Well, I think to an extend people who translate need to have that attitude of understanding, that on the internet, thing will be miscredited on purpose, and by accident, at the same time, I think to be lax is just...unfair.

I don't translated, but as a fan, I read translated work, and I know that as a fan, I hate it when I can't give proper credit where it's due. I don't want to say thank you to someone who hasn't done any of the work. I want to say 'thanks' to you, because your work is appreciated, especially since it takes time out of your real life.

idk. I just think that at the very least, it's important to put a notice saying your work is being stolen, not all fans care, very few in-fact, but the ones that do, will want to thank you properly for your effort.

[asth77.livejournal.com]

I really dislike the tone of her message, calm the fuck down ok.
I think she is completely right.

[valieleen.livejournal.com]

smh at people who criticize shineee.net because it took their staff 9h for the translation. That's not really the issue here.. Someone obviously worked very hard and dedicated their free time so other fans could enjoy the translated texts and it's only fair to give them credit where it's due. I mean, really, you couldn't copy/paste two more lines? If you have time to write a post and to upload pictures, then you should also find the time to give proper credit. It's really not that hard.

That being said... I think shineee.net needs to calm down a bit. It would have obviously been better, if credit had been given to them in the first place... But if they had sent a message to the OP or to a mod when the uncredited article was first posted, the issue would likely have been resolved very quickly and further issues of the same kind could have been easily avoided.

[iamtheliquorr.livejournal.com]

on one hand I get their frustration but on the other, raging all over the place and drowning everyone in a sea of tl;dr is not the way to go about it

oh well, internet tantrums always make for some good entertainment

[morgenderper.livejournal.com]

Please take further action, waiting for shawols to boycott Omona, thanks !

[lexissexist.livejournal.com]

We can only hope.