Written by woxxy - Bio:
The owner of this website, caretaker of the blog, unstoppable web developer, graphic editor and leader of the FoOlRulez scanlation team. And, most likely, younger than you are!
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/woxxy
This is one of those controversial problems that show how information is curved by morals that aren’t shared by everyone.
I’ll be honest, in FoOlRulez we perfectly know what are we doing with scanlation, and how the law is being really “nice” to overlook scanlators, as only the companies publishing official mangas can start the action, and not anyone else. We also know, the companies use the mangas scanlators make famous in order to sell more.
Now, what is happening in Wikipedia (or at least, thanks to its members) is simply ridiculous: scanlation groups shouldn’t be mentioned, no, not even by scratching the limits. The only reasonable story is about Snoopycool being C&D’d (what happens before legal action, asking to cease the work on a manga).
One of the members (not a team members, yet an old user) of FoOlRulez planned to try making a FoOlRulez page in wiki, according to purely real informations and statistics, giving also a decent number of sources, that can’t be called officially reliable, yet solid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoOlRulez (the article might be already deleted once you broswe it). The article is of course, beside the really logic request of deletion for lack of notability (basically, being named on magazine or newspapers), it’s also been tagged as made by the owner of FoOlRulez (which is not, I am not on Wikipedia) so not a reliable person, and has been called out for illegal material on this website.
I have a precise point of view on the fact that wikipedians are trying to avoid scanlations and fansubs, after I read few discussions.
- Scanlation (and anime fansubs) are a great share of today’s internet’s band use, and seeing Google trends and Alexa, one can easily say that it’s more than 5% of the overall. Five percent is a real lot on the internet, and it’s going to grow steadily by going down with the age of the users, and most likely around 13-24 years old there will be a heap of anime watchers on the internet over 15%.
- There are groups, king on all Dattebayo (talking about fansubs to not be in conflict with scanlation groups), with millions of viewers every month, but since it was never mentioned on a newspaper, or magazine, or notable blog, they are noone. Who doesn’t know Dattebayo here? Do you even watch anime? Dattebayo for sure deserves a post, as it has been a really influential group not only into fansubs, but also to millions of watchers. Also if not all groups should be named, there are some who signed a age.
- Anime/Manga news websites aren’t notable, none of them. Anime News Network too, it’s not a reliable source for Wikipedia, and furthermore, will never talk about fansubs or scanlations. Being there no sources considered reliable for Wikipedia, there’s no chance something about anime/manga that is beyond the episode/chapter and official news from the mangaka/studio will get into it. We know what’s behind the curtain, and it’s far bigger than what’s written.
- Notability rules promote the bad guys: what’s Crunchyroll doing there? They make people pay for fansubs, and there’s a wikipedia about the controversy. It feels like a newspaper: the bad things are highlighted, and criminals are far more known than who does a (more) honest life. This is all because Crunchyroll was for negative reasons on the newspapers.
- Dealing scanlation like a taboo, where an encyclopedia should be open to including anything, shall it be legal or not. Not linking to (suspectedly) copyright infringing websites can be understandable, but not even mentioning is not a valid reaction to the phenomena that has spread in last six years, counting over 800 active scanlators in the last 6 months. Is it a lot? It’s a lot more if you scan all the years.
I honestly think Wikipedia users in manga/anime section are misbehaving, bringing up a flag of cleanliness while dealing with Wikipedia like their blog instead of a website where facts should be told, and not only the nice side of the world. Yes, even if this is the world of Otakus, there should be maximum seriousness, as we know there’s a “dark side”, that, supposedly, is in FoOlRulez too.
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia’s deletion policy.
A major contributor to this article appears to have a conflict of interest with its subject.
This article is written like an advertisement.
15:07, 19 August 2009 page made
it’s been there for 2 days and only has 3 deletion thingys on it
[...] Excerpt from: Wikipedia does not recognize the fact that scanlators exist. [...]
this is interesting :O
I agree with the decision from Wikipedia.
“2. At least, Dattebayo should have a page.”
“5. Wikipedia should cover legal and illegal topics.”
Regarding these points, I would like to point you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AXXo. Most likely the most well-known name in the Scene, he has a wikipedia article. Scrolling down to the box with Bittorent related articles, you will see that no other Scene group has an article. A quick skim through also shows that even prominent private trackers such as What.cd, Waffles, TorrentLeech don’t have an article.
Besides, so what if Dattebayo doesn’t have an article? Anidb, MAL and Mangaupdates is for these purposes.
It’s really no harm if Dattebayo (bleh, I don’t really like the example but whatever) doesn’t have an article, but if you think how the bleach subcommunity is there, you start wondering where do they get the material.
The logic of going on other websites can be applied to most groups, as wiki is not there to be a repository. Yet there are groups that actually influence discretely fans in the order of millions, and the proof is how healty is the manga and anime community. And my idea is that if something is known and used by millions it should be covered in an encyclopedia.
The view on this can be fairly different though, it’s almost a matter of taste, “what do you want in your encyclopedia”.
argue that razor1911 I think it was has a page on wikipedia
I would argue that it is horribly unfair that they can use the scanlators/fansubbers work as citations but that the sources themselves must never be discussed. Pick any anime or mange article and I can almost guarantee a good chunk of the information is based on unofficial translations. Also conflict of interest wtf? Most of the articles pertaining to any fictional creation are written by fans of the series.
A nice example is a recent article made for Orange Roof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_with_an_Orange_Roof
Today the last released chapter is 26. Look into the references, and check which is the highest chapter number. Nothing to blame to the author of the article.
I kind of understand that using copyrighted material as sources is risky, yet that breaks another rule, as upon use of material without approval of the creator there should be at least the credits. But given that we are using some illegal means as well, one closes an eye on this without much questioning.
But being taboo when we’re spread all over the place and scanlations/fansubbers are a pillar for the community is going too far.
I’ll just mention this one line in order to express why I feel scanlations is a good necessary thing………
Who in the West would bother scanlating KissxSis and Kodomo No Jikan if it weren’t for SCANLATORS!?!?
darn, just wen i was about to make a wiki article about red hawk…
but cmon woxxy, let’s face it. scan groups aren’t going to get any official recognition – not until someone sues a group and the group actually wins.
Ah . . . really . . .
woxxy-san . . . what your group do now is a good deed anyway . . .
IF someone think that its bad . . . just let it be . . .
someday they’ll know the existence of scanlators are totally needed (very) ^_^
just . . . be patient . . .