I'm part of a group looking to commission translators for a special project. Rather than contact a single translation group, the project group is really looking for a wider group of translators and moreover, advice and feedback from the scanlation community on how best to proceed.

I've been looking for a way to get in general contact with many translation groups. Unfortunately, while there are many individual groups and sites, there do not appear to be any major translation forums.

Of course, there are many general scanlation/manga forums and after a wide search, I believe this is the best one in which to ask for further advice on the matter. I should mention that my knowledge of the general scanlation scene is quite scant, and is half the reason I'm asking for feedback.

The questions I would be seeking advice on are:

1. Is it possible to attract translators to a project and if so, how is this usually done? Are there particular mailing lists or forums, such as this one, which translators would frequent?

2. The project has a large body of (japanese) material that requires translation. In such circumstances, is it better to have a single translation team, or is it possible to use multiple translation teams in a consistent way?

3. Is there an etiquette associated to paying for commissions? The group is willing to fund the translation project, however I'm a little wary of upsetting any established ethos among translation groups. This may seem a silly question, but I know so little that I'm afraid I could put my foot in things without knowing it.

4. Has anything of this nature ever been done before. Without details of the project, what I mean is a wide commissioning of a large project using multiple translators?

Our project is very much an "internet" sourced affair, and we'd like to keep as much of it as we can internet sourced and distributed. So far, translation has proven to be the single greatest bottleneck and it has become clear that we cannot proceed without outside help. Our only problem is; how do we get help?

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask. I'm looking for as much feedback as possible. I can answer questions on the project as well. I haven't said much here in order to keep things short.

Quote from ObsessiveMathsFreak

1. Is it possible to attract translators to a project and if so, how is this usually done? Are there particular mailing lists or forums, such as this one, which translators would frequent? Sure it's possible, but it depends on your project. If it's not deemed interesting enough, you'll have a hard time.

Quote from ObsessiveMathsFreak

2. The project has a large body of (japanese) material that requires translation. In such circumstances, is it better to have a single translation team, or is it possible to use multiple translation teams in a consistent way? Depends on what you mean by better. It tends to turn out a better and more consistent read if one translator does the whole thing. But then there's of course the problem that it'll take a while if you don't parallelise the problem. So it's up to what you value more.

In Real Life(tm), it's not at all uncommon to put lots of different translators on one book, especially if it's a popular one that must be done quickly and without major leaks. Of course, the books that get that kind of treatment are usually shit anyway, so I'm not saying it's proof that the method is a good one.

Quote from ObsessiveMathsFreak

3. Is there an etiquette associated to paying for commissions? The group is willing to fund the translation project, however I'm a little wary of upsetting any established ethos among translation groups. This may seem a silly question, but I know so little that I'm afraid I could put my foot in things without knowing it. Well... Many (most?) people think money has no place in scanlation. But the resistance is much harder at the end of the chain, i.e. when shitheads try to charge for downloads and whatnot (especially when they didn't actually do any of the work). I'm sure some would frown on you paying translators, but it's not as clear cut as in that case.

Your problem here, though, is that you won't attract the good translators with only money, unless you're willing to pay pretty much what a "real" translator would get from a real company. Which, I take it, isn't an option. Your best bet is finding some people who are genuinely interested. Then, the money might be the final tiny incentive that seals the deal, but just money won't get you very far.

Unless there's a lot of it, of course. But if you go down that route, you also poison the whole volunteer idea too much, and it won't be long until others will start to get cranky unless they also get a piece of the pie. For scanlation projects, I would say it's a path best not taken.

Quote from ObsessiveMathsFreak

4. Has anything of this nature ever been done before. Without details of the project, what I mean is a wide commissioning of a large project using multiple translators? Several people have tried before. And had some limited success, I suppose. But the ones I know about stopped after a while, after getting tired of spending that much of their own money and getting pretty much nothing in return.

Thanks for the advice, especially on the commissioning etiquette side of things. As an aside, is a commission without payment still called a commission?

Where do people normally go to request translators? I see that there are many forums have recruitment sections. Would these be the general way that translators are attracted to a project?

Are there other contact methods that are used(irc, newsgroups, etc)? Would a posting to multiple boards or similar places be regarded as spamming?

Here's something you might find useful.
[url]http://pyupyu.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/144/[/url]

The linked article recommends 3 translators. It appears they do a lot of "hentai" commissions. Which leads me to my next question; is this a sign of translator quality, or a lack of it, or is there no correlation between what a translator translates and the quality of their work?

There's no real correlation in quality. There's just a strong correlation between hentai and paid comissions.

Thanks for all the information. As a parting question, does anyone know of or can recommend a list of good translators who take commissions? While I'd still like to advertise the project, I'd also like to have a good backup plan if there is little or no interest.