Site issues (Página 1 de 3)

Did I? I hope I wasn't too categorical! I'll be honest -- the idea of quitting is always in my mind, you see. The site, as a website, is a failure not really worth my time and efforts. And... I'm also getting less and less satisfied with the final results, as a reader/visitor.

The thing is, I've only put there a very small fraction of what I have to say on video-games. There's still stuff which needs to be shown and explained properly, and seems nobody else wants to/can do it. So let's just say that, for now, I'm working on the next issue, yeah.

And thanks for the heads-up. That page is doomed or something.

Of course I was talking just about popularity. A website with no visitors is a failure. I'm not saying I get no visitors and even some nice feedback once in a while, but it's not enough for what this place offers. Especially considering the competition. I know it's directly related with the quantity-over-quality mindset and whatnot (I actually believe it's worse than that, though; the people just can't tell where there is quality and where there is not), but that's besides the point -- simply, I don't run a website only because I somehow enjoy it, but because I want my stuff to be read. And, as you know, I already stopped caring about winning that battle.

Well, we have different ways to approach this subject. I indeed think that the best way I have to show what I want is through "reviews"/game-focused articles. For instance, if I want to explain why 20-years-old games like Gen-san look better than hi-res, 32-bit colors Western stuff like the Boy and his Blob remake, there's nothing like having a "review" of it with proper screens.

I wish I had the patience and skills to write so many understandable theory-focused editorials as yourself, but I just don't have them nor I'd enjoy it as much. And think about this -- I myself did enjoy Insomnia more when you favored reviews over editorials or philosophy lessons.

Hayama Akito is one of the few persons, much like yourself, who is aware that _I_ am the fucking best source for news on Japanese games. Not just because of how I do the selection and add the illustrative commentary you don't find anywhere else, but because I've been doing it for more years he can even remember and have provided the original sources like nobody else does. I learned that he essentially copy-pasted once and again the news from Postback in his Gamercafe without mentioning his actual source, to the point of ridiculeness -- taking advantage, of course, of Postback's "obscurity". It was quite hilarious finding out that he indeed had been linking IC back when I posted the news there.

Then I learned that he also had been doing it at Shoryuken Dot Com, taking credit for stuff he just saw here first, and he never was grateful even once, despite knowing that every news worth posting he "revealed" (and "reveals") to his very public was/is thanks to me (or Zepy, if you count doujin as worth material) -- even if it's only because without me, he wouldn't have a miserable Japanese source. So I got tired of this kid with that hunger for fame and false acknowledgement, especially when I asked him to stop and he persisted on insulting me by denying it all.

Gamercafe is so horrid from a language/textual perspective I do wonder if anybody there is over 12, anyhow.

If it serves, Hayama is not the only one. A couple more followed soon after and another couple would have been banned if they hadn't stopped posting, I'm sure.

Edit: Silly errata.

Also, I laughed at this:

It never is, is it?

If it was in English, they would be. That's the only thing that's holding you back...

The problem with being always right is that you cannot get good-reasoned criticism. You can get either complete approval, or complete rejection :)

Imagine how many more there would be if the site was in English. I am not saying it should have been in English. But really, the language barrier is the only reason you do not get enough feedback.

I think that, now that Insomnia's reputation is getting to somewhat decent levels, I should be able to find several people willing to start translating your site methodically. I already know at least 3 or 4 such people, though I am afraid only one of them can really do a good job. But as time goes by, and it becomes easier to find more volunteers, the day might even come when a new edition of Postback will be offered in Spanish and English simultaneously.

All this, of course, assuming we still care about updating our sites one or two years down the line :)

After the translator is done, it is really only an issue of an hour or so for me and you to go over it and clean it up. So it's not that much of a time investment on our part, considering the benefits to both of us. And those benefits are:

-Your articles immediately reach at least twice as many people as usual.

-My site gets even more great content -- for only a very small time investment on my part (since most of the work has been done by you and the translator).

I would basically love to have your entire site (including the forum, lol!) translated into English and seamlessly integrated with mine. So that if I wanted to talk about Out Zone or Giga Wing or scanlines or arcade sticks, I could just link to your reviews or articles straightaway -- something which I can't do right now.

But, for a start, I think it is quite feasible to have all the articles translated within the next 5-6 months. We already have three almost done, so we are already about a quarter of the way there. At least as far as the articles are concerned, we might be able to catch up with you by the next issue of Postback. That'd be really nice, I think.

I'm really interested in it despite my words, so I wouldn't mind checking and correcting it all. It's just that I'm skeptical about the final result. But I wouldn't mind even inserting the English text in Postback's layout (or a similar one to it) in case you get one or more of the Revisiones translated. So, yeah.

I think Marshall was trying to say that the English version of Postback won't really be 'Postback' as such since there'll always be something lost in the translation process. Hence, English-versed people won't really know 'Postback', but an altered form of it, so it's at least questionable. And those are exactly my thoughts. But given that Postback failed as a website, it's a welcome proposal. In the end, it's better if the people know a slightly altered version of Postback than no Postback at all.

This is what I think: If we're really looking for a "stir" of some level, we should be publishing them somehow grouped in small issues, a bit like I do with my own updates. Throwing one of them alone from time to time on Insomnia's frontpage, while it'll serve to add more content, won't really help the cause (=letting more people know this site). As a proper Insomnia's section/subsite, especially if they're going have their own layout, would have more impact and would make all those Japanophiles keep an eye in your site. I'm sure they find Insomnia a bit too "Westernish" for their tastes as it is.

Guys, I know Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Stendhal, Machiavelli, etc. from translation, and that's the only way I'll ever get to know them. Nietzsche is still Nietzsche even if you translate him into Swahili, so let's keep some perspective here. Postback will still be Postback regardless of the language it is translated into. It is still Postback even through babelfish.

As for translating Postback issues in one go, it's a good idea, but I think it would be too hard to implement with volunteers. Besides, if we take that route then we might as well stop translating individual articles and start from Issue 1 in its entirety.

Which is a great idea, but maybe not such an easy one...

On that note, how would you feel about simply hiring a competent translator, Recap? I am sure you could find someone in Madrid. I would be willing to go halves with you on that. I am already going to be sending some free games to the volunteers for their work, so if we could find a proper translator who could do the issues one by one, without asking for TOO much money, I think it could be worthwhile.

And of course the translator won't know too much about games, so we'll have to go over everything and fix any mistakes, but I am sure the end result will be even better than what we get now with the volunteers -- and it will also be much faster. A pro translator could do an entire issue in an afternoon, after all...

Think about this.

I didn't mean that. We can invent many things. For instance, think of it as "anthological issues". You can put into each of them whichever you want. The point is just not releasing the usual one-shots which would get lost on your frontpage.

That's very nice and thanks a lot, but I don't even "hire" a domain name... This shit should be paying some bills of mine, not the opposite. On the other hand, I don't believe in Spanish translators. I've worked at a very popular translation company based in Madrid, so I should know! It's better a natively English speaker, since that's the target language.

I don't understand what you mean. The way I see it, it's either issue by issue, or article by article. I don't see a third way to do this, except if you want to group together 2 or 3 articles/reviews at a time, which I guess is possible, though I don't quite see the reason. Either go full out with entire issues at a time, or one article at a time, is how I see it. Maybe you can try explaining what you mean by "anthological issues"?

As for the one-shots getting lost on my frontpage, I don't see that happening. Indeed, if I got enough people helping with the translation, it would be my frontpage that would be flooded by your articles and reviews, not the other way around.

But I don't really care about this either way. The point is to get people to read this stuff, and if we are going to translate 60+ articles and reviews, and post them on my site, everyone will end up seeing them one way or another. I mean I don't think there are even 60 articles/reviews on there by me, let alone by any single other person. So you would end up being Insomnia's no.1 writer, lol!

So this is the point. The reason your website has "failed" is because people read some shit about you in a forum, then click on some link to a Spanish page which they cannot be bothered to try and read, then leave and never come back. So they simply end up believing whatever lies they have been told. The same thing happens with my site too, but at least the people actually read my stuff, and many of them see that the shit others are saying about me is not true, and so they keep coming back again and again. Then they go back and tell their friends that their shit about me is not true, and then multiple-page threads start in which people battle it out about whether I am an idiot or a genius, and that leads to more and more traffic to my site, etc. etc. Eventually, a decent reputation grows.

If your site was in English (including the forum), all the "retro" kiddies on the internet would be reading it and linking it with wild abandon...