Hello again, no doubt if you’re reading this you must be one of the readers of these translations who actually comes looks at the updates and not just directly to the translation page of your choice! (lol)
As summer draws to a close I found myself bogged down with real life work that I never got around to doing much for this site. The summer trip report got thrown away as work set in, and my plans to do some redesigns to the site never came to light beyond the frontpage reinstating.
That said, I recently had seen someone comment that they wished I also did other blogs too. This brings to mind some factors that I’d like to ask you, the readers, about.
Understandably you are welcome to ignore this post, I’m cool like that and I won’t be offended, but if you want to see this site change in any way input helps. Feel free to answer any or all the questions as you see fit (though number your answers incase I don’t know which you’re answering by context ^^;)
1. What is it about this blog translation site that brings you here instead of to the other sites offering translations? If it is the quick time turn over how much time makes a difference before you go somewhere else? (Keep in mind if it’s something in particular about my translations, it might be taken into consideration if anyone contacts me asking if can do translations in the future)
2. What brought you to this corner of the Internet? A former Hyakupa fan? Current Takamaruyo fan? Did someone link here from a forum? Inquiring minds would like to know (lol).
2a. If you did come here from a forum, did the people properly credit this site (or the translator) as their source? Did they copy and paste the entire post? If they did copy the entire post, what led you to coming to the site?
3. Are there ways that the site could be improved for your convenience (including but not limited to including other blog translations, color changes, interface changes)?
I’d love to add more blogs translations (and vid subs and karaoke subs) to the site but as a currently one man operation my options are fairly limited. Even so hearing suggestions and feedback is all I can ask for at the moment.
To answer some:
1) This site has RSS feeds available for every post. So it’s easy to read up new posts daily just by checking my feeds.
2) I found this site through google for blog translations.
3) Blog translation for Reina would be more convenient since I came here mainly for Sayu blog translations, I would like to see Reina’s blog translated since they’re the same gen members.
1) An RSS feed pretty much makes or breaks a site for me to follow it. Luckily you’ve got it in place and means I pretty much see every post. Also having the photos included with the blog posts is very nice.
2) I migrated over here (and Takamaruyo) after Hyakupa folded. I liked what was done over there with the Sayu blog and just continued to follow.
3) I mostly read posts via my feed reader (i.e. I don’t visit the site directly [don’t hate me!]) so maybe if there was an incentive for visiting the actual site without limiting content on the RSS feed.
As far as adding more blogs, I might like to see Captain’s blog here.
1) Consistency. This site updates daily and quickly for both Sayu and Risa’s blog. Also I like it when you let us know what is coming up even when you wouldn’t be able to translate for sometime. And now you’re asking our opinions! Thank you very much for all these.
2)Probably some forum link. They usually cite the source iirc, regardless whether part or entire blog post is copied.
3)Although I subscribed to the RSS, I use that mainly as a update reminder then I come to the site myself. The “recent posts” section is where I navigate mostly. It would be great if the list can show more posts or even separate Risa’s and Sayu’s sections because you know, sometimes Sayu’s blog posts fill up the whole list and I won’t be able to see Gakisan’s XD
For more translation, maybe there can be a request section for individual blog posts or even videos, so you can translate them when you feel like to.
1) The accuracy of the translations. I don’t want to miss every single detail.
2) TKMR <3
3) Tough call. People have many tastes. Everything is fine by me. I am only focused on the blog wording details. One man operation, someday, Reina blog…*fingers crossed*
"Have you thanked your translators lately?"
Thanks.
1) Speed, consistency and a proper implemented and categorized feed.
2) A forum post brought me to your translations on Hyakupa. I follow your work exclusively through a feed reader and because of that, there wasn’t much of a change since Hyakupa went down.
I don’t know if WordPress has a good (if any) feed tracker system. You might want to reroute your feed through Feedburner. It might give you some answers to your questions.
3) You should only add another blog if it doesn’t compromise the quality and speed of the current ones.
My suggestion would be to follow and translate Mano Erina’s blog. It gets irregularly translated on blog-project.net and it would be interesting to follow someone on their way out of Hello! Project. :-)
Reina’s blog gets also translated on blog-project.net, although only once per month. The only thing that stands out in those translations is an obvious lack of communication between Reina and and her management. In more than one case she got tour/concert dates first from her fans rather than her manager. Sayu on the other hand has a tendency to give (un)intentionally a lot of private information away.
Translation blogs are not something that might stir a long discussion in their comment section. But should you ever change your formula you might consider to change your comment system to a more sophisticated one like Disqus.
And my last suggestion: How about a feedback channel for Sayu? I don’t know if Gree and Ameblo are still the walled garden they used to be (e.g. Japanese mobile email mandatory), but could you offer a service as a (small scale) proxy and translator for comments from us to her? Right now such offers only exist for graduations when they get drowned in comments anyway.
Sorry for the long comment.
1. The fast updates of Risa’s blog, mainly (but I also read Sayumi’s). Also, the fact that you look out for and translate blogs from other sources like stage play blogs and whatnot.
2. A link on a forum.
2a. I can’t exactly recall it, but it probably contained the translation and a link to the source.
3. Personally, I like it just the way it is, simple layouts are a must. If more things such as other blogs or videos were to be added, my main wish would be that it would not affect how fast the current blogs are translated.
As a final note, thank you very much for all your work!
1) I like how fast the translations are up, and i don’t know it keeps like the Sayu spirit alive xD, and i like how you interact with us =).
2) Searching for Sayu’s blog translation on google.
3)For the people asking for Reina’s blog translations go here: http://reina-project.blogspot.com/
and maybe i would like to see Sayu’s pics as big as they are in the original blog, i mean i always go to Sayu’s blog to save to pics and sometimes to look at the japanese comments xD and yes please i would love it if you translate other things (rigth now i’m killing myself searching for some Sayu’s making of with subs, i have always wanted to watch Ougen Densetsu with subs, but yeah that seems like a lot of work for just one person, i think that in H!O there are people that can help you like the same people that translated Suugaku Joshi i guess (sorry that i cannot be of any help in that >.<)
and finally of course Thank you!!!
1) I like the translations, they are up-to-date and seem well-translated to me ^_^ also, I like the fact that you announce it beforehand when you can’t do translations for some time. thanks! :)
2) I was searching for a translation of Sayu’s blog on google.
3) The only thing I can think of is the small size of the pictures. Sometimes they are a bit too small to see everything properly (especially when Sayu is putting more photos into one picture), but it’s alright since we can visit the original blog for that. However, of course it would be more comfortable if we didn’t have to go there ;) other than that I can’t think of anything!
and thank you for your hard work and these awesome translations! I’m checking this site everyday and I’m really grateful for it :)
1)Blog entry are updated very fast and translations is really good. It is really nice to follow. The pics are a bit small, but as there is a link to the original entry, it is not a problem.
2) I was following hyakupa website, so I just kept following to this site.
3) I’m really fond of the current site. It is really nice to follow. Sayu and Gaki’s blog are updated fast, layout is simple but very nice.
Thanks a lot for your hard work.
3) Could you please change the standard feed format from RSS2 to Atom? Especially the comment feed gets closer to the appearance shown on your blog. (See comment feed of this post RSS2 vs. Atom.)
Thanks for the suggestion Xavier, but I’m not quite sure if that applies to everyone, I tried to look at the differences in my browser and didn’t notice either changing to anything in particular. Of course this could just be the way I was trying to look over it, but I can’t qualify that what you’re asking for will be something immediate. I’m happy to have gotten the feedback and may implement this after some research to ensure it’s worth the efforts and will apply to enough people on the whole.
I hereby retract my proposal of changing the feed’s standard format. lol
The reason is that your last reply made the Atom feed invalid. Take a look here:
Feed validator for Atom comment feed
Feed validator for general Atom comment feed
The RSS2 feed is not affected:
Feed validator for RSS2 comment feed
Feed validator for general RSS comment feed
As a consequence my feed reader stopped updating the Atom feed (Firefox doesn’t visualize it either) and I had to switch back to RSS2.
It’s probably a bug within the WordPress software.