About NW last big speech

[adol1976]

Well Nightwolfe, such a big note...and I didn't undrestand it completely ....
but are you telling us that you want to do sharewares for your patches ?
well in my case I agree completely. every job needs a salary.
that would be great. but don't forget Psycho DeuceBag. 

[Neo-Kaiser]

Yeah so he can be hunted down by authorities? Don't be so vain! Falcom don't mind by now if they are aware of the releases of this translations because they are free. But if these goes shareware things may change. If there is someone rich in this community please make at least $100 donation. If only 25 people where to donate $100 USD it will make a difference. I hope that someone at least a single soul could donate $35000 USD. I'm planing to take a International Debit card but I don't know witch one is the best to buy directly from Falcom.  Visa or Master Card.

[NightWolve]

Yeah. I plan to do it for "Ys Origins," if I work on it some time in the future. I was thinking of starting with Felghana, but I decided to do a donation-incentive generating period instead, because getting it ready for shareware would've taken much longer than I wanted to spend or was able to. Some warez butt pirates though say $5 is greedy and a scam, so I wonder, what's their pricepoint? A dollar? Fans of dollar stores perhaps? You hear that on one side, then on the other side they say, nah, it should be free and I have no right to charge for it or that it is somehow unthinkable. Would a penny be in their pricepoint? Five cents maybe? I have to wonder.

The point is, the freebies I've given out over the years are gonna phase out. If the spoiled juvenile brats didn't like a $5 access period, they're not gonna like this. There's another issue too. I've got a particular warez butt pirate, that's still snooping around here, and who's caused me a lot of financial damage at a time where I was seriously dependent on these donations. If it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna find out who this fucking piece of garbage is. One way or the other. If I'm gonna have to bribe someone, an administrator or moderator, whatever it takes, I'm gonna find this fucker. I don't give a shit about anything else until that happens. That's my next and only project after this patch goes public.

Yeah so he can be hunted down by authorities? Don't be so vain! Falcom don't mind by now if they are aware of the releases of this translations because they are free.

Please. It's a problem if there's a license holder in this country more so. They would have more legal standing to do something about it and would care more. That's not the case with Felghana or Origins; it is a possible concern with an Ys VI PC patch, but that is on a different platform than what Konami released on.

But actually, I do worry about "authorities" with regards to piracy, that's why warez butt pirates aren't welcome here nor their propoganda. Piracy gets you in trouble, that I guarantee you. Theft of other peoples' work/denying them compensation for it is what accounts for the lawsuits/legal actions out there, not unauthorized translations. You can easily lose your server space with AUP violations as well which has happened to me in the past because of it, abandonware or not. A far more frequent occurrence.

Anyway, free or not though didn't stop a license holder suing someone that I know with Falcom's consent. It basically just amounted to a cease and desist order, and to turn over all material related to having created the patch and to destroy all stored personal copies of the work. That is rare, but it is something to consider with Ys VI, which is why, as you may know, we terminated that project for a long time upon learning Konami was bringing it to the US. The rationale to continue now would be that enough time has gone by and Konami won't care, but it's still a risky idea.

But if these goes shareware things may change.

It's not all that different than from what I'm doing now with the YsF patch BTW, just that it would be permanent instead of temporary. It's essentially being sold at a $5 minimum, but temporary.

[X-Calibar]

I hope that someone at least a single soul could donate $35000 USD.

I'm sure NightWolve would appreciate that

Regardless of how things change, I'm down for it~
Soon as I get a newer computer to run the new Ys games on
And I haven't forgotten Ys 1 and 2; donation(s) should eventually fill your coffers...

I'll be interested in how you setup your pay to patch, as long as I can still load up the game years after the patches release (even if I'm not connected to the internet) : I'm in

[adol1976]

Well Nightwolve, you know 5 dollars is quite cheap for that huge job.
how many hours have you (and the translators) been working on felgana for example...
come on you live in USA, not in bangladesh !
I never understood exactly what kind of job you do (I imagine something related with computers), but you know my job. I would not work for 5 dollars / hour. so I imagine you neither. so I think at least 10/15 dollars would be a good price. at least you would see who are interested for your works.

[NightWolve]

Well Nightwolve, you know 5 dollars is quite cheap for that huge job.
how many hours have you (and the translators) been working on felgana for example...

Oh, I definitely know it's cheap for that amount of work. I thought $5 was more than fair for this caliber of a patch. I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it by any other group since I've been around. There is only one by D-BOY I know of that comes close. I guess I didn't realize who I'm surrounded by, not to this extent. I knew I had a something-for-nothing-at-all-costs butt pirate faction, sure, but to actually read their thoughts and see them diminish & devalue a patch like this, I wonder if they even believe what they're saying.

Just follow their logic. According to them, $5 is greedy and a scam. So divide by 2, thus $2.50 would be half as greedy, half a scam, right? So where does that leave me? $0.00, right? That would be not greedy and not a scam, cause yeah, it'd be free!!! There you have it. The mind of a warez butt pirate at work!! Heh.

I hardly exaggerate either. That logic comes very close to their mindset, as far as what I saw recently. Nevermind they're entirely ignorant of what it took to create this patch and thus are in no position to judge a price like that, nor try to force it, as one individual did by betraying my trust. You don't fucking tell me years of my work, my labor, isn't worth diddly squat, then have the audacity to brag about how much you're enjoying it at the same time.

[Neo-Kaiser]

But of course! Pirates are not to help you but to rob you. After that they will try to crack your patch and include a keygen and a viral file with the game to share it on P2P software. They don't care about your efforts or dedicated time for that matter. But to try to battle them and your will waste your time encrypting your work etc. That will consume
all you resources and time as well. Then you will ask this yourself "All my hardwork for nothing and this is how they repay me? I will now shutdown the website and close my doors to translation for I will not waste anymore my time." and then everyone will lament and cry "Noooooooo!!!!! why? if only I had donated $20 USD then these terrible fate would had not fallen upon us" 

Well at least it would be $5 USD that is the range of must cheap bastards. If he charges more then people will become bossy and demanding. Shareware could work but what if we and the people on Seldane board are the only Ys fans who will buy a patch?

[NightWolve]

"All my hardwork for nothing and this is how they repay me? I will now shutdown the website and close my doors to translation for I will not waste anymore my time." and then everyone will lament and cry "Noooooooo!!!!! why? if only I had donated $20 USD then these terrible fate would had not fallen upon us" 

I came very close to that. But, I need to stick around to fuck a few individuals over in time. First though, I gotta identify the little Judas in my midst. It's not gonna be the case with Falcomfan who admitted what he did. I'm gonna have to track down this other fucking piece of garbage and be willing to do whatever it takes.

Well at least it would be $5 USD that is the range of must cheap bastards. If he charges more then people will become bossy and demanding. Shareware could work but what if we and the people on Seldane board are the only Ys fans who will buy a patch?

It's gonna be around that pricepoint. For $19.99 you can get new PS2 games when they move to the Greatest Hits collection or just get old. Based on the market, I'd certainly have to find a pricepoint below that for a translation patch, say between $5-$15.

[Neo-Kaiser]

Sum that to the price of the game and the shipping range of most people. Remember that it may still be illegal to reverse engineer a closed source code even if it is not licensed in our countries without permission from Falcom and because you are moving shareware you may attract unwanted attention. So watch your back and I hope you won't quit translation even if that the final option.

[Zoel]

Very well said speech Nightwolve, i totally argee with you 100% i just hope you don't quit translating.

[ShinjiPG]

Ok, I now NW doesn't really like my comments, but I'm interested in this matter.

First of all, I think people should also consider other positions taken by fantranslators, mainly the anime fantranslators. If you don't know, these teams (sometimes it's one-man-job) do 2 or 3 episodes _a week_. They have to translate, time, encode, quality-check and distro the eps. Yes, they do this without getting a penny, most of the times. They have a Donate this Site PayPal button in their sites, most of the time, but do not enforce it to downloaders. Just to compare, altough NW has _hard times_ dealing with the code/reprograming/etc of the game, translation-wise, he has the kanji/kana + timing, so it saves some work (if only a bit). Either way, each case is a case: this is a game translation, the other is anime translation, and each has it's different problems to deal with.
I wouldn't want to compare reverse-engineering with doing video translations. That would be _very_ dumb.

The point is, these anime fantranslators aka fansubbers do what they do because their purpose is to spread anime, make it known to more people, they commit to that job (ok, I know, these days things have changed a bit... *cof cof*). They are aware of the difficulties of giving their fantranslations only to selected few. What I guess is that maybe NW wasn't aware of this or never had to deal with it in the past.
But anyway, this was just to answer those "you have to pay even if it is a fan-translation" comments. There are other fantranslators who do it for free despite having butt-pirates all around.

Now, moving on to the main topic, NW should be the one to decide how to distribute the patch (and the rest of the team (aka Psycho DeuceBag) also). If someone doesn't agree with that, they should go cry to gamefaqs where most lamers talk, and let people do their work. I agree with donating for the patch (and work involved). The _paying for the patch_ part is still something to think better, I guess, but it is not something that wouldn't work.
I actually didn't knew there was so much drama going on with this patch and it is really getting annoying. People should know their place, instead of just complaining. They should admit to themselves that they don't want to donate or buy the game, so they have no right to argue with people that bought the game and had the trouble to translate it. But alas, this is internet.

However, seeing NW say things like "this is probably the best friggin translation out there, I outdid myself, this is perfection" so "everyone should donate", doesn't make much sense to me (the argument, not that fact that you deserve donations). I mean, what's more out there is people doing great works of art and not getting anything in return. Not having their work praised or seen by anyone.
I mean, yeah, it's natural for you to be impressed by your work. But c'mon, you can't make someone like your work just because of that.
This is not an insult/offense/wise-butt comment. I'm saying this because I also have to deal with things like these: admiring my work and see others despise it.

All I wish is best of luck to this wonderful team (Psycho DeuceBag and his speed-of-light translations should be praised more) and PLEASE someone make this internet drama stop.

[NightWolve]

The point is, these anime fantranslators aka fansubbers do what they do because their purpose is to spread anime, make it known to more people, they commit to that job (ok, I know, these days things have changed a bit... *cof cof*). They are aware of the difficulties of giving their fantranslations only to selected few. What I guess is that maybe NW wasn't aware of this or never had to deal with it in the past.
But anyway, this was just to answer those "you have to pay even if it is a fan-translation" comments. There are other fantranslators who do it for free despite having butt-pirates all around.

So other people do other stuff for free, and therefore everything should be free? Did I stop them from charging for their work? No. Would I? No. Would I harrass them about it? No. Would I tell them their work isn't worth a dime, even all the while I'm enjoying it? No.

Thank you though, I'm aware of their existence and the fact is they're subsidizing their work on their own, but if they get to a point where they feel they can sell their work, they should. Turning your hobby into a source of income is a great thing.

"you have to pay even if it is a fan-translation"?

No, you don't have to pay. Don't want to buy something, don't buy it. Nobody said that. You don't have to pay anything to anybody, but that also doesn't mean you're entitled to something regardless. Duh!

I'm responding to people saying, "IF IT'S A FAN-TRANSLATION PATCH, IT SHOULD/MUST BE FREE!" as if there is some unwritten rule concerning the issue. Quit paraphrazing my comments into something I never said. Of course you can go find free things elsewhere in the Internet. This doesn't get us anywhere. It's a nonsensical distraction. I should feel sorry for them and not charge myself, keep things free? Where does recognizing that take me?

I'm getting mixed signals from you. What do you believe now? You support my decision, you don't support my decision. Which is it? Either you can sell your work or you can't. Butt pirates claim fan translation work can't/shouldn't be sold, an argument motivated by their own self-interests to keep things free. Duh. Do you believe that or not? If you don't, well, that's all I was addressing. Then we have agreement.

Now, moving on to the main topic, NW should be the one to decide how to distribute the patch (and the rest of the team (aka Psycho DeuceBag) also). If someone doesn't agree with that, they should go cry to gamefaqs where most lamers talk, and let people do their work. I agree with donating for the patch (and work involved). The _paying for the patch_ part is still something to think better, I guess, but it is not something that wouldn't work.
I actually didn't knew there was so much drama going on with this patch and it is really getting annoying. People should know their place, instead of just complaining. They should admit to themselves that they don't want to donate or buy the game, so they have no right to argue with people that bought the game and had the trouble to translate it. But alas, this is internet.

Well, we agree on something.

However, seeing NW say things like "this is probably the best friggin translation out there, I outdid myself, this is perfection" so "everyone should donate", doesn't make much sense to me (the argument, not that fact that you deserve donations). I mean, what's more out there is people doing great works of art and not getting anything in return. Not having their work praised or seen by anyone.

You're right, I don't really like your comments, and I know you're using a leaked patch. Now, why doesn't the argument make sense to you? That's not really my argument anyway; it's your extreme paraphrasing of it. But yeah, I don't think I've seen a better game fan translation patch out there. I wouldn't speak about anime or anything unrelated. And I don't think that's just pride talking. But the problem is I'm listening to individuals claim it's not worth a dime. Of course I can't "make everyone donate." I don't need someone to tell me that. What I can say is that it's well worth a $5.

You're going back to your previous argument about, "Hey, go look at other people who do free work and don't get a dime for it." What's your point? I was one of those people with my past translation projects and tools I've done over the years. Is your point that they should wisen up and set up a system so they can be compensated for their work? If so, great, they should go do that.

I mean, yeah, it's natural for you to be impressed by your work. But c'mon, you can't make someone like your work just because of that.

I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about. The work speaks for itself and yeah I can't make anyone like it "just because of that" or whatever it is you think I'm saying.

This isn't an issue. I'm actually talking about people that are using the patch and enjoying it, then making arguments to justify not having to pay for it. "Eh, he's an @sshole anyway. haha. Eh, I've seen better. Eh, $5 is a scam, etc."

It's not "me making them like my work" when they're fucking using it. It's already a given! They're Ys fans, a portion of the fanbase, and they're going as far as to boast their enjoyment of it and not having to pay a dime for it. Do you get that or no?

All I wish is best of luck to this wonderful team (Psycho DeuceBag and his speed-of-light translations should be praised more) and PLEASE someone make this internet drama stop.

Gee, ummmm, thanks, I guess? Oh, and uh how's that Felghana patch working for ya, BTW? It's not that great, right? You've seen much better video game fan translations, right?

[Neo-Kaiser]

Hell even the fansub community is more cooperative. Dattebayo said -Our server won't work anymore so we either 1- Stop doing fansubs or 2- we buy a new server with your help. Then the other day more than $9000 USD appeared.

[NightWolve]

Then the other day more than $9000 USD appeared.

Maybe I should join you and quit this.

Remember that it may still be illegal to reverse engineer a closed source code even if it is not licensed in our countries without permission from Falcom and

This is true, but it's true free or not free.

because you are moving shareware you may attract unwanted attention.

Well, I worry more about that Ys VI project with Konami being a US license holder on this. That's the riskiest project which we abandoned for a while due to their PS2 release.

It is a bit of a stupid idea to continue with that project, so I dunno if I should. I certainly want to cause Psycho DeuceBag can provide a far better script than what Konami did (theirs is a dry, boring ass script) and I wanna be able to play the PC version in English myself.

[Neo-Kaiser]

Well I'm not part of Dattebayo LOL. They announced it on their site. If Ys fanbase was bigger and they knew about this place, then it would be unnecessary to go shareware because you just have to say "I need every cooperation because we need this and this and it will cost this and without your help I will have to terminate all projects." Then the money would appear in less than a week. Anyway please tell me what is the best debit card to use in Japan?

[NightWolve]

Anyway please tell me what is the best debit card to use in Japan?

No idea. Why?

"I need every cooperation because we need this and this and it will cost this and without your help I will have to terminate all projects."

Eh, I wouldn't do that. That's sort of propoganda which anyone would easily see through. Unless the situation was actually that drastic, that serious, I wouldn't do it.

[ShinjiPG]

So other people do other stuff for free, and therefore everything should be free? Did I stop them from charging for their work? No. Would I? No. Would I harrass them about it? No. Would I tell them their work isn't worth a dime, even all the while I'm enjoying it? No.

I didn't say "everything should be free". I was just demonstrating that some fantranslators do it for free and with much bigger "audiences". Notice, also, the more recent case of the Policenauts translation patch and their policy about donations. Yes, you don't need to compare the "audience"/expectation of that project with the YsF one. But this is just one more example. I am NOT saying everybody should follow the some route. I was just mentioning, for some of the other posters in this topic, that some people do the "same" kind of work for free. I'm sure you are aware of all these things.
And I said I agree that they should NOT interfere with whoever's doing the fantranslation. You don't need to tell me that you would not do those things, I don't care, and that's not the point here. You don't need to say you are the good guy, we already estabelished who the bad guys are here.

Turning your hobby into a source of income is a great thing.

Like someone mentioned, ilegal translations are... well, ilegal. They could get in trouble if they sold the patches. But yeah, it could be a source of income.

"you have to pay even if it is a fan-translation"?

No, you don't have to pay. Don't want to buy something, don't buy it. Nobody said that. You don't have to pay anything to anybody, but that also doesn't mean you're entitled to something regardless. Duh!

I'm responding to people saying, "IF IT'S A FAN-TRANSLATION PATCH, IT SHOULD/MUST BE FREE!" as if there is some unwritten rule concerning the issue. Quit paraphrazing my comments into something I never said. Of course you can go find free things elsewhere in the Internet. This doesn't get us anywhere. It's a nonsensical distraction. I should feel sorry for them and not charge myself, keep things free? Where does recognizing that take me?

I was, again, for the sake of not being to long, pointing that what I said before (in the respective post) proves that not EVERYTHING that's fan-translated wants you to pay it for it.
You'r right. Like I said, there is no rule for that. I just gave _examples_ for those who might not know and to ilustrate that some people have the same amount of work and do it just for pleasure or other purposes.
Oh, and not, you should NOT feel sorry for them xD

I'm getting mixed signals from you. What do you believe now? You support my decision, you don't support my decision. Which is it? Either you can sell your work or you can't. Butt pirates claim fan translation work can't/shouldn't be sold, an argument motivated by their own self-interests to keep things free. Duh. Do you believe that or not? If you don't, well, that's all I was addressing. Then we have agreement.

I never said I don't support your decision. Don't know where you got that idea.

Now, moving on to the main topic, NW should be the one to decide how to distribute the patch (and the rest of the team (aka Psycho DeuceBag) also). If someone doesn't agree with that, they should go cry to gamefaqs where most lamers talk, and let people do their work. I agree with donating for the patch (and work involved). The _paying for the patch_ part is still something to think better, I guess, but it is not something that wouldn't work.

Again, I was just giving examples. Not for you to change your opinion/decision, but for the sake of understanding that fantranslations greatly depend on the person translating and that some of those people actually have to do a lot of work and waste a lot of time. Why they decide to not charge, only they know.
For instance, when I translate some asian movie that will _never_ be released in my country, I do it because I want to share it with someone. I liked it so much, that I just wish to share. Even if I buy the movie and I spent money with it. What motivates me is being able to give it to another person so she can also enjoy it. That's my position.
HOWEVER, like I said a million times, it's your patch, you made it, I agree with the way you chose to "distribute" it. Again, in my case, if someone sold my translation, I would not be very happy. It was me who had the work and I don't wish it to be profitable. And it was you who had the work with the YsF patch, so your decision should be respected.
Gah, this really looks like the million time I said this. Please tell me you understood xD

You're right, I don't really like your comments, and I know you're using a leaked patch. Now, why doesn't the argument make sense to you? That's not really my argument anyway; it's your extreme paraphrasing of it. But yeah, I don't think I've seen a better game fan translation patch out there. I wouldn't speak about anime or anything unrelated. And I don't think that's just pride talking. But the problem is I'm listening to individuals claim it's not worth a dime. Of course I can't "make everyone donate." I don't need someone to tell me that. What I can say is that it's well worth a $5.

You're going back to your previous argument about, "Hey, go look at other people who do free work and don't get a dime for it." What's your point? I was one of those people with my past translation projects and tools I've done over the years. Is your point that they should wisen up and set up a system so they can be compensated for their work? If so, great, they should go do that.

Paraphrasing?

"Add to the fact that when I honestly looked at the Felghana patch I had created, in all my amazement and astonishment of it, it felt utterly stupid to just hand it out for free. It is that valuable and professional - which you'll agree with when it goes public..."

"With that said, my point is simply that I think the work in this patch has moved beyond the working-out-of-the-garage level, and given that I've sacrificed an untold amount of time, research, work, etc. for it, I wanted to arrange some kind of way to encourage more donations."

Maybe I understood wrong.
Anyway, you say people complain that your work is shit and isn't worth a dime. WHY do you even care about those people? I bet that even if they said it was pure perfectness, they wouldn't pay a dime. I don't know, but I feel you are taking those people in consideration a lot more than they deserve.
Like I said, I, too, really like some of my work and some people despise it. That happens all the time, to many people. So I think you should just tell those people to fuck off.
I feel like your missing some of the main points of my posts, lol.

Anyway, I already used the leaked patch. Not because I was searching for it, some friend just told me it was leaked and gave me a link with it. What should I have done? "OH NO! Imma gonna wait and pretend I didn't saw that!"
And you feel angry because people used a leaked version? That's over-reacting, for me. Thousands and thousands of things get leaked everyday :S And I didn't just "got what I want and disappeared". I'm still here. I'm still seeing how things develop and hoping that everything turns ok.

I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about. The work speaks for itself and yeah I can't make anyone like it "just because of that" or whatever it is you think I'm saying.

This isn't an issue. I'm actually talking about people that are using the patch and enjoying it, then making arguments to justify not having to pay for it. "Eh, he's an @sshole anyway. haha. Eh, I've seen better. Eh, $5 is a scam, etc."

It's not "me making them like my work" when they're fucking using it. It's already a given! They're Ys fans, a portion of the fanbase, and they're going as far as to boast their enjoyment of it and not having to pay a dime for it. Do you get that or no?

You bet I got that. That was one of the things I was unaware of. I saw some drama at gamefaqs and some in Plight's forums, but didn't knew it grew to those porpotions. But again, the lamers who say that are probably jealous or something. Really, I don't give a shit about them. The people who matter and understand these things will see that this (fan)work looks like a professional work, even if some lamers tell them that it's shit. It's jealousy and some need to flame, I don't know (nor care).

Gee, ummmm, thanks, I guess? Oh, and uh how's that Felghana patch working for ya, BTW? It's not that great, right? You've seen much better video game fan translations, right?

Honestly, I never played a PC fantranslation. Ok, some short Visual Novels, but that's all. But if there's better than this, I really can't see how. Everything is translated (besides the mural, but I guess the final version will have that) and you can't spot a place where it looks like you just cleaned the original and replaced. It looks like the original was ALREADY in english. What could be better than 100% bug-free translations? 200%?
AND the patch disables the need to run AppLocale, installs itself with just 3 or 4 clicks. It's very pratical.
I know this, you know this. And you still listen to those lamers saying it's a bad patch?

Just FYI, I was planing to donate (and still am), after I see how everything turns. This project took some unfortunate proportions and now I'm watching how it unfolds. Again, I hope everything turns for the best.

No matter how some lamers react, I think you should try to chill out because you're looking clearly angry and that won't help. And I'm surprised Psycho DeuceBag, who's a part of the team, hasn't pronounced yet (at least here). Maybe he doesn't care about the lamer attacks?

[NightWolve]

Like someone mentioned, ilegal translations are... well, ilegal. They could get in trouble if they sold the patches. But yeah, it could be a source of income.

I don't really need this argument forwarded by pirates who steal other peoples' work which carries a far greater degree of wrongness to it than an authorized fan translation. This argument is self-disqualifying when it's forwarded by a butt pirate and the irony is if I had the license/permission to begin with they wouldn't respect it anyway.

An unauthorized fan translation isn't morally equivalent to theft. Sold or not sold, free or not free, the same legal issue is there; a patch doesn't become 'more' illegal simply because you're selling it (it becomes more risky as far as getting noticed by the copyright holder). And if you cared about the law in this case, you wouldn't be using that patch. Same as how if I cared about the speed limit laws, I wouldn't be driving ~10 MPH over the speed limit all the time, which is also, well, illegal. Illegality is a binary, technical issue, but that doesn't make stealing other peoples' work morally equivalent to killing someone, to driving over the speed limit, and/or doing an unauthorized translation...

If you wanna make the argument that since I drive 5-10 miles over the speed limit from time to time, which is illegal, and thus it disqualifies me when taking issue with other illegal actions, then you'd be saying, if a robber broke into my neighbor's house and subsequently killed him, which would all be illegal, I wouldn't be able to condemn that robber turned murderer, right? Cause yeah, man, who am I to judge somebody else's illegal actions when I'm illegally driving my car over the speed limit from time to time? Rrrrright?

This is juvenile thinking, but following that selective logic, that's what it lends itself to... I'm not framing my arguments as if I can follow every fucking law ever written. I thought I've been framing them from a moral standpoint, and from that standpoint, illegal actions are not equivalent. The law recognizes that and so the punishment will fit the crime. If I kill someone, an illegal action most of the time, I may get life in prison. If I drive 5 miles over the speed limit, I'll get slapped with a $50 fine.

Has anybody seen me running around screaming "illegal illegal illegal" all the time? I thought not. The butt pirate faction seems to pretend as much so as to claim hypocrisy. But yes, if I was issuing legal condemnations and not moral, it would be hypocritical.

I was, again, for the sake of not being to long, pointing that what I said before (in the respective post) proves that not EVERYTHING that's fan-translated wants you to pay it for it.
You'r right. Like I said, there is no rule for that. I just gave _examples_ for those who might not know and to ilustrate that some people have the same amount of work and do it just for pleasure or other purposes.
Oh, and not, you should NOT feel sorry for them xD

Well, it was pointless, and I was one of those people in the past. I don't need other examples to emphasize with because I was already in their position for quite a long time.

I never said I don't support your decision. Don't know where you got that idea.

Well, you are confusing.

For instance, when I translate some asian movie that will _never_ be released in my country, I do it because I want to share it with someone. I liked it so much, that I just wish to share. Even if I buy the movie and I spent money with it. What motivates me is being able to give it to another person so she can also enjoy it. That's my position.

That's nice. Whatever works for you and whatever you're able to afford to do.

And it was you who had the work with the YsF patch, so your decision should be respected.
Gah, this really looks like the million time I said this. Please tell me you understood xD

We have no quarrel here.

Maybe I understood wrong. Anyway, you say people complain that your work is shit and isn't worth a dime. WHY do you even care about those people? I bet that even if they said it was pure perfectness, they wouldn't pay a dime.

I was responding to their lies. You're right, they wouldn't pay a dime and that's what makes it propoganda to justify what they're doing.

So I think you should just tell those people to fuck off.
I feel like your missing some of the main points of my posts, lol.

No, I'm not missing some of the main points of your posts. There are some that I like, some that were pointless, and some where we have differences.

Anyway, I already used the leaked patch. Not because I was searching for it, some friend just told me it was leaked and gave me a link with it. What should I have done? "OH NO! Imma gonna wait and pretend I didn't saw that!"
And you feel angry because people used a leaked version? That's over-reacting, for me. Thousands and thousands of things get leaked everyday :S And I didn't just "got what I want and disappeared". I'm still here. I'm still seeing how things develop and hoping that everything turns ok.

Yes, I know you're using it. Like I said. Am I angry cause it's being used by you or others? That'd be the wrong question. Any anger is more properly directed at the individual that has been trying damage me financially. I can't really stop it now, but I can seek payback at that individual if I plan it correctly and obtain the support that I need.

You bet I got that. That was one of the things I was unaware of. I saw some drama at gamefaqs and some in Plight's forums, but didn't knew it grew to those porpotions. But again, the lamers who say that are probably jealous or something. Really, I don't give a shit about them. The people who matter and understand these things will see that this (fan)work looks like a professional work, even if some lamers tell them that it's shit. It's jealousy and some need to flame, I don't know (nor care).

Another agreement. Fair enough. Yeah.

Honestly, I never played a PC fantranslation. Ok, some short Visual Novels, but that's all. But if there's better than this, I really can't see how. Everything is translated (besides the mural, but I guess the final version will have that) and you can't spot a place where it looks like you just cleaned the original and replaced. It looks like the original was ALREADY in english. What could be better than 100% bug-free translations? 200%?
AND the patch disables the need to run AppLocale, installs itself with just 3 or 4 clicks. It's very pratical.
I know this, you know this.

OK, well, I thought you might've had a broader experience than me with fan translations for PC games and thus would be able to educate me by pointing to much better fan translation patches out there. I thought, but OK.

And you still listen to those lamers saying it's a bad patch?

Well, I'm answering the 'lamers', cause I know, and since you're using it, you know, that they're full of shit. Agreement once again, after all! How about that?

Just FYI, I was planing to donate (and still am), after I see how everything turns. This project took some unfortunate proportions and now I'm watching how it unfolds. Again, I hope everything turns for the best.

Are you sure? Cause like you said... Um, there are better things to spend your money on, just as there are better things to be doing with your time other than playing video games, rrrrright?

No matter how some lamers react, I think you should try to chill out because you're looking clearly angry and that won't help. And I'm surprised Psycho DeuceBag, who's a part of the team, hasn't pronounced yet (at least here). Maybe he doesn't care about the lamer attacks?

He certainly does care, but he wants to concentrate on the future. No need for everyone to get bogged down dealing with dumbfucks.

[ShinjiPG]

Are you sure? Cause like you said... Um, there are better things to spend your money on, just as there are better things to be doing with your time other than playing video games, rrrrright?

Gaaah. I told you, I'm on vacations now. This next week will be the last, tho. That's why I played the game. I don't have much free time during classes.
AND I also told you that I would only consider donation AFTER I tried the patch and saw it was worth donating. What I (also) said was that I wouldn't donate to get the patch faster.
Now I'm perfectly sure your patch made me able to play a great great game and it does look like you and Psycho DeuceBag put a lot of effort into it. AND, seeing all this drama going on and you being affected, I decided once and for all to donate some bucks. I first thought about buying some gift (makes more sense to me), but I guess you should know where to spend the money. Thing is, this is internet, and I don't know if you're just acting up, but whatever, I'll still do it.

About your first paragraph. I really don't care about the law, since I also do ilegal translations and pirate games. Thing is, they could REALLY get into trouble, because they have a wider "audience" and the word could spread, etc.
I don't agree that companies do that and trouble fantranslators. I mean, if it wasn't for those fantranslators, they wouldn't be know outside of Japan (means, more income). But it's one heck of a law so people should be careful about it.

Oh, one more thing. About the leaked patch. I don't know who leaked, but I know who did the translation. So much for his recognition. The link just spread through the net, no one really knows where it came from.
One thing I didn't got was how is he "damaging you financially"?

[NightWolve]

Gaaah. I told you, I'm on vacations now. This next week will be the last, tho. That's why I played the game

OK, OK.

AND I also told you that I would only consider donation AFTER I tried the patch and saw it was worth donating. What I (also) said was that I wouldn't donate to get the patch faster.

No, I don't think you said that exactly. You said you don't plan to donate and you don't plan to buy the game. I think I remember that accurately, cause it irritated me. You also said there are better/more important things to spend your money on as a student.

Now I'm perfectly sure your patch made me able to play a great great game and it does look like you and Psycho DeuceBag put a lot of effort into it. AND, seeing all this drama going on and you being affected, I decided once and for all to donate some bucks. I first thought about buying some gift (makes more sense to me), but I guess you should know where to spend the money. Thing is, this is internet, and I don't know if you're just acting up, but whatever, I'll still do it.

That's fine. I know there are try-before-you-buy folks who don't know my past work and wouldn't be willing to take a chance on something they haven't yet seen before donating for it.

But it's one heck of a law so people should be careful about it.

Yeah, they should.

One thing I didn't got was how is he "damaging you financially"?

The individual made it clear he's doing it to deny me a donation incentive-generating period referring to it as a greedy scheme (again, $5 is budget buster, I realize now). I caught some of his posts everywhere I could find, because I was trying to match his typing style and how how he thinks, etc. to see if he's ever been a member on this board. The problem, the damage, is that I'm in situation where I'm relying on those donations to pay off some debt, which I think I'll be able to manage. It'll take a little longer, but I think I'll manage. So this dumbfuck, he couldn't have done it at the worst possible time for me and that's why I'm gonna fucking hunt him down no matter how long it takes.

So, you can fucking use the derisive double quotes on that phrase, cause maybe potential donations lost doesn't qualify to you as an attempt to damage you financially, especially when you're relying on such donations. But I had a significant drop in donations soon after that incident. So the potential is not in question. There was a frequency of donations coming in when I started, and after that, there was a drop and it's mostly been at a standstill the past few days, except for some recent generous folks. Am I making any sense to you or no?

Anthing else I said you wanna use the quotes of derision on? Let's finish that up today, please.

[ShinjiPG]

Anthing else I said you wanna use the quotes of derision on? Let's that finish that up today, please.

Lol, ok, you're really messed up ^^;
I used the quotes (" ") because I was really _quoting_ you.

Yes, I know you're using it. Like I said. Am I angry cause it's being used by you or others? That'd be the wrong question. Any anger is more properly directed at the individual that has been trying damage me financially. I can't really stop it now, but I can seek payback at that individual if I plan it correctly and obtain the support that I need.

I just didn't bother actually using the [ quote ][ /quote ] system
I wasn't trying to be derisive.

Yeah, you're making sense to me alright. The leaker probably just wanted to irritate you and didn't knew he would cause that kind of harm, but that's my positive thinking working. But I guess you shouldn't rely on donations for those things, since they are not something we can be so sure about.

Hm, yeah there are more important things I should spend my money on, as a student, like $100 kind of things (the price of the game). But I don't mind donating (not $100 lol). And I DID say I prefer to try first then donate... You shouldn't have deleted the post.
Anyway, whatever. Chill out.

[NightWolve]

Lol, ok, you're really messed up ^^;
I used the quotes (" ") because I was really _quoting_ you.

You did it before, and I dunno if you understand how that comes off as at times.

I just didn't bother actually using the [ quote ][ /quote ] system
I wasn't trying to be derisive.

I'll buy that.

But I guess you shouldn't rely on donations for those things, since they are not something we can be so sure about.

Yeah, no shit, but that's the situation I'm in. That's why I started a more forceful donation period like that all of a sudden. Paypal icons just sitting around on the patches, on the site, they weren't doing much. People needed some kind of incentive to donate, not just being spammed with paypal icons everywhere.

Anyway, whatever. Chill out.

I will unless you have more words of wisdom to share.

[Neo-Kaiser]

If I where to have a income of $80000 I would donate $45000. So if I only earn $300 monthly the I could donate $60.

[Blue Suit Riot]

YOU SICKENINGLY SWEET BASTARDS!!

<_<

Anyways, carry on.

[NightWolve]

That avatar of yours is really something, I gotta say. I think 'scarecrow' every time I see it.

Oh, and uh that was clearly the most annoying line ever delivered by Terra.

[Kiriko]

I can truely understand why NightWolve is doing what he's doing.  A long time ago when I used to fansub anime (back in the days long before divx and such), people would say the same thing about fan translation and how it should be given out free and stuff.  Yet, when it was given out free, people would make fan subtitled tapes and sell them, giving back nothing to the people who worked on the translation, editing, and timing and even making a large profit off it.  After 10 years of doing it, I finally just gave up and basically stopped doing it.

NightWolve - I am sure that many of us truely appreciate the work that you have done and we wouldn't have a problem with you going shareware.  True pirates will still get the shareware cracked somehow, but that's just life.  Real Ys fans will always appreciate your work.

[SkyeWelse]

Well I got lost somewhere in between the posts between NW and Shinji, but I wanted to comment on this as well since I'm just now finding out about all of this today.

Personally, I'm a donator. I donated $15 dollars and it would probably have been more if I could afford more with my current income situation. But I didn't donate to get a quick fix of a beta version of the Felghana patch, I donated because I'm thankful for what Nightwolve and Psycho DeuceBag have been doing with their spare time over the years. It is because of their hardwork and dedication that I was able to discover what the Ys series (And Xak series) was all about, and to me that in itself holds sentimental value. Getting an early version of the patch was simply a bonus icing on the top of the much larger cake that has already been given to the Ys community. I'm a student and I'm struggling to get through college with the money that I have, but I find that $15 is a reasonable amount of cash to part with if it is going to a good cause, which it is. To me, $5 is not an expensive amount to ask for and as you clarified in the announcement, it's basically like spotting a lunch for you, which is peanuts in comparion to what has been given to the Ys community in the long run.

Yes, some fan translations are free and perhaps it is good that they remain free in certain cases, however asking for a reasonable donation price for high quality translations of something you'll likely never see a translation of anywhere or anytime else is perfectly acceptable in my book. Back when I used to be into Anime, I'd pay for the translations for fansubs when I wanted to see the show because I didn't think anything of it. The groups were providing a service so that I could enjoy something and asking for compensation of only a bit of their time and the tapes they would have to buy and shipping costs it would take to send them to me. But nowadays with the internet being a warez warehouse for everything that exists in digital form, more and more people have grown into a concept or mindset rather of becoming a thankless society of scavengers who take what they can find and praise their own hard work of spending the time to procure something free of costs. I'm sure even I have been guilty of this on occasion as I'm sure many of us websurfers have been. But the point is, there is large base of people who do have a great deal of respect for what you have provided us and want to show our appreciation by donating. And to us, it isn't much to ask for especially since the skills involved with reverse-engineering and translating do not come cheap even in the professional industry and I can say first hand that the quality of this patch is of a superior quality than that of many, many official localizations I've seen in present day on even newly released games. The quality is there I can tell you that.

Not sure if many people know this, but the industry as I've been told pays translators currently around $.13 per kanji and anywhere from $2-10 per line of code for programmers. To have two very gifted people who are both willing to come in and  translate and code the game using up a great deal of time they could have spent doing other things, $5 is nothing when looking at how much it could have cost you when and if it had been licensed, localized and sold with a crappier translation and with possible, incorrectible bugs/glitches on a lesser graphically intense console platform for around $49.99 a pop.

But the fact of the matter is what I mentioned above, the internet overtime has led more and more people into a thought process that if something is created by a fan, it should be free and therefore someone should not charge money for it. But this is the "thankless internet society" as I'd like to call them that end up ruining and breaking people's spirits and making people like yourself get burned out and not want to do it anymore. The same thing happened a long time ago with my girlfriend, of whom is Japanese and used to be a fantranslator at a Genso Suikoden webring known as Suikosource. She would put so much time and effort into translating and scanning material and buying books in which to translate even more content for fans and eventually the "thankless" fans started to greatly outweigh the "thankful" fans and she eventually burned herself out and had to quit it all due to all the stress and drama it caused. I completely agreed with her, which brings me to my next point.

I'd have to say that even though I love the Ys series so much and I'm so very thankful that you've dedicated so much time and effort into making it possible for several Ys fans to play the games in English, I'd be the first one to jump in and tell you that you should probably quit while you are ahead. I don't personally want you to quit because honestly I can't seen anyone filling your shoes and it would most likely ultimately mean that we would not see any English translations of newer Ys games for quite some time if ever, but if it is causing you this much stress and anguish, I think you should retire from it. If you don't, chances are just as in the case with my girlfriend, and Kiriko the poster just before me, it is very likely you'll burn yourself out completely and end up possibly never wanting to look at an Ys game ever again. lol If not retire completely, then at least take an extended hiatus. Get into an MMORPG such as WoW or Guild Wars, that'd be a sure way to get you immersed into something that would take your mind off of the situation.

If you do decide to continue, I'd suggest working only at a pace you feel completely comfortable with and make it shareware. If people give you grief about it, let them. They don't really have the right to give you grief about it anyhow since it should be obvious that they are not thankful that an English patch exists. If you do Ys Origin (hopes...) then definitely make it shareware, however it will be expected that anything, even your inexpensive patch, that costs money will eventually be leaked to the internet to be downloaded for free. You might be able to halt the early stages of it, but eventually it will become warez like everything else out there. As for Ys VI, that'd be kickass to see another translation of that game for PC, but this would be the one case where I would suggest not charging money for it since Konami owns the rights to publishing Ys VI in America, even if it is for PS2 and PSP, they still have the license and when money starts getting thrown around for something that is licensed in America, that's when big corporations start to come in and shut people down. Although, you would probably get a cease and desist letter before anything major happened, but if that happened, it'd be likely that would have an adverse effect on future translation possibilities.

Anyhow, I hope things get better for you and I'm sorry that all of this is stressing you out so much. Good luck with whatever you should decide to do from hereon out.

That avatar of yours is really something, I gotta say. I think 'scarecrow' every time I see it.

It's from the opening skit of a movie called "Amazon Women on the Moon", which is either the sequel or prequel (I can't remember) of "Kentucky Fried Movie". The image is of a man who is having an extremely bad and unlucky day who has just shocked himself trying to plug in a television. It's a pretty funny movie if you ever want to check it out sometime.

Well, I should really get some rest. I need to be up in 4 hours to get to school and take a test. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have written such a long post. lol

-SkyeWelse

[NightWolve]

Wow. Nail on the head. I said it before about SkyeWelse being a high-caliber poster and boy did he deliver on that. I'm almost jealous of that post. It was articulate, precise, diplomatic, intellectually honest (not that I wouldn't have expected anything otherwise from you), well divided paragraph-wise, I could go on. You typed that up pretty fast too I think. OK, now I'm curious. You can't possibly be a liberal. Please say no! ;)

Anyway, you pretty much left me speechless with the accuracy of how you described the 'warezification' phenomenon that the Intenet and high speed broadband has fostered with honest acknowledgement that it has had its effect on all of us. I'll leave it at that and give ya +5 karma points. ;)

[SkyeWelse]

Well thanks Nightwolve. I hoped the post at least adds something useful to the table for those who might still have questions about your decision/decision making processes going on right now. But seriously, I wouldn't let it all get to you or you might burn out from it. God knows I'm burned out on the Genso Suikoden series after spending years with the Suikoden community and even running a Suikoden website/web forum for awhile only to eventually find it in the state of hostile takeover from idiotic posters who would post a great deal of childish drama, nonsense and spam who would complain about how things were run there when they never paid a dime toward webspace or bandwidth. So in a way I can relate a bit to how you feel about not getting thanks from many people.

There was actually one point that I think I forgot to touch base on in that in some of the earlier posts, some members were hoping that someone would come along and donate a hefty sum of money to help alleviate some of your financial stress. Though, while I'm sure you wouldn't mind getting a hefty sum of money as I'm sure we all would, I'm betting you'd rather instead see a larger quantity of donations rather than sheer amount, which I'm also betting is the entire idea behind why you posted in the first place. Am I right about this?

OK, now I'm curious. You can't possibly be a liberal. Please say no!

I vote for the best candidate who will do the best at his job in office. However, usually this falls more in line with conservative views which usually means mostly voting  a straight Republican ticket across the board. However, I'd vote for Zell Miller in a heartbeat because even though he is/was a Democrat, he's certaintly a man of integrity and has accomplished great things already in his lifetime as the ex-governor of Georgia several years back.

Though, lately I find myself becoming more of a Libertarian, but since they have little chance in big office elections, I have to stick with one of the partisans. And yes, I also support the Fair Tax Bill as well we all should.

-SkyeWelse

[NightWolve]

There was actually one point that I think I forgot to touch base on in that in some of the earlier posts, some members were hoping that someone would come along and donate a hefty sum of money to help alleviate some of your financial stress. Though, while I'm sure you wouldn't mind getting a hefty sum of money as I'm sure we all would, I'm betting you'd rather instead see a larger quantity of donations rather than sheer amount, which I'm also betting is the entire idea behind why you posted in the first place. Am I right about this?

Well, either would be acceptable. Heh. But it came as a result after the leak and a drop in frequency. I mean, I wouldn't have been specific about why I became a bit forceful with donations because I didn't want to make begging that overt. People see through that and they rightly find it manipulative. After the leak though, I made my case more specific and public, because here's this dumbfuck calling it a greedy scheme to justify his leak. So, I wondered, if $5 was greedy, is $2.50 half as greedy, half a scam for this dumbfuck? And who was he to decide that it was greedy being entirely ignorant of what it took to create it, to get to this point? Did he know exactly what I went through to create it and thus would be qualified to decide $5 was not the right pricepoint? That would be thinking into it too much though.

He's just a piece of garbage that looked for some justification to make his leak moral and my donation incentive-generating period immoral, e.g., as a way to tell me here's why you deserved it, etc. He wanted his "high" of course, having been put in an opportunity to be the "hero" of the warez. In the meantime, it's thrown me off schedule and caused delays cause I haven't felt like working on it as much or as fast.

I vote for the best candidate who will do the best at his job in office. However, usually this falls more in line with conservative views which usually means mostly voting  a straight Republican ticket across the board. However, I'd vote for Zell Miller in a heartbeat because even though he is/was a Democrat, he's certaintly a man of integrity and has accomplished great things already in his lifetime as the ex-governor of Georgia several years back.

Though, lately I find myself becoming more of a Libertarian, but since they have little chance in big office elections, I have to stick with one of the partisans. And yes, I also support the Fair Tax Bill as well we all should.

Heh-heh. Zell Miller made the greatest speech I ever saw a man deliver at that '04 Republican National Convention. I watched it so many damn times on MSNBC's site and I loved every minute of it. It even brought a tear to my eye on occasion. OK, that's another +5 for you. ^^

[SkyeWelse]

He's just a piece of garbage that looked for some justification to make his leak moral and my donation incentive-generating period immoral, e.g., as a way to tell me here's why you deserved it, etc. He wanted his "high" of course, having been put in an opportunity to be the "hero" of the warez. In the meantime, it's thrown me off schedule and caused delays cause I haven't felt like working on it as much or as fast.

Well irregardless if this guy was on a donators list or not (as I'm not sure if he was or not) dispersing the patch early without consent is considered theft. Whether or not he considers your donation period as a scam or not has absolutely no weight as an arguement since he essentually has stolen your work and has committed copyright infringement.

Unfortunately program leaks happen all the time. It has happened with Magic Engine over time, it happened the day before the release of the Surreal64 N64 emu for Xbox and I'm sure it has been done to several others on the net. Most retail games and movies these days are released before the official release date by dishonest employee's, who like you said, want to become a self-proclaimed "hero" of the warez community. These people don't care about you or anyone else for that matter. It is hard to combat that type of mentality, so my advice is to not let it keep you stressed out as it wasn't your fault that it happened and I doubt there is little that might have been done in hindsight to prevent it. If it wasn't this @sshole, there would be another ass down the line that would eventually fill the shoes. The general rule of the internet these days is that "if it costs money, it shall be warezed".

This is just my opinion, but personally if it were me I would post a simple message to those who visit your site and other sites that explain that this leak has happened before the patch was ready and that if people really are thankful and support what your projects stand for, then they will have the integrity to either wait for the official patch release or donate to help support your cause and hard work.

Heh-heh. Zell Miller made the greatest speech I ever saw a man deliver at that '04 Republican National Convention. I watched it so many damn times on MSNBC's site and I loved every minute of it. It even brought a tear to my eye on occasion.

Zell Miller's speech at the Republican convention was indeed one of the finest I've ever heard as well. If you only knew what he did for the state of Georgia and the legacy he left behind in terms of state fund generations and education. It's because of his creation of the HOPE scholarship that I am able to afford college right now. HOPE is a $3000 year college scholarship that is awarded to students who apply themselves during school and obtain and keep at least a 3.0 GPA.

-SkyeWelse

[Philemon]

Yea I have to say that everyone that are taking advantage of NightWolve's kindness and exploiting his hardwork need to check themselves at the door  Donating a few dollars to someone who is providing a service most localizing companies charge much more for should be a no brainer. BTW I used to be Holy Eldeel here but now I'm Philemon (though I doubt anyone remembers me ). To make a long story short the morale of this story is to support those that so selflessly give.

[adol1976]

Talking about politics.
Could you explain me the differences between democrats and republicans ? (with easy explanations please.) and why you are voting for one side and not the other. I already know NW is republican, so what does it mean ?
from my views, democrats = clinton laughing with eltsine and republicans = bush in Irak.
so c'mon exlplain a bit.

[NightWolve]

Democrats: Socially liberal, more secular, economically authoritarian (aka Irreligious/Secular Left)
Republicans: Socially traditional, more religious, economically libertarian (aka Religious Right)

The two party system sort of acts as a tug of war to form some kind of "center." It's a system that marginalizes extreme minority parties such as Green, Communist, Socialist Workers, Constitution, Libertarian, etc. and the like, so you won't see them elected to office like you do the way you guys run things in Europe. Not everyone can fit neatly into either party of course. You have to try to work within the two parties and pull them toward your direction to get what you want.

If you want lower taxes, less state control of the economy, less social welfare programs, you vote republican. If you want higher taxes, more state control of the economy, more social welfare programs, you vote democrat. This isn't always true, but is generally. You have to make sure a member of the party actually believes in the party platform and isn't just there to subvert it for another faction, for themselves, whatever. In other words, voting for a republican doesn't always mean you'll get what you think it means and vice versa. I probably don't need to tell you this though. Same problem you have with politicians everywhere no doubt.

Anyway, that's my on the spot quicki explanation. There are a lot more differences, but I think that might you give you a basic idea since you asked. If you wish, you can Wiki the rest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29

I see a left-leaning bias in those however, but I don't feel like looking for alternatives.

[adol1976]

thanks a lot. I am gonna read wiki this evening.
seems interesting and easy.

[memoryjar]

Note that there are actually more Democrats than Republicans in America but in general, Republicans just vote more.

[NightWolve]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/neuharth/2004-01-22-neuharth_x.htm

An estimated 201.5 million U.S. citizens age 18 or over will be eligible to vote Nov. 2 '04, although many are not now registered.

Of these, about 55 million are registered Republicans. About 72 million registered Democrats.

About 42 million are registered as independents, under some other minor party or with a "No Party" designation.

Random quote by some dude:

It has been well-documented that democrats are typically "worse" voters than republicans. Republicans vote more consistently, and, until recently, dominated the absentee votes in most states. One consequence of this fact is that democrats tend to screw up their votes more than Repubs (not filling in ovals, not reading the directions). It's natural that recounts tend to favor dems, because machines are more likely to reject these votes than humans.

*If* that's accurate, I would say, don't blame us for that and then cry stolen election. Heh. Spend more tax dollars to, uh, train your "voters" better to pull the lever correctly for Dem...

Anyway, I looked this up because I wasn't sure I accepted your statement. To me it appeared it could be taken as a roundabout way to indicate the country is more liberal than conservative/traditional because of who runs the two parties and the prominent direction that they tend to head towards:  Democrats, more liberal than not; Republicans more conservative/traditional than not. This was an impression I was left with after reading your comment which wouldn't be accurate if looking at it more from beliefs/ideology rather than party registration is my point. (I'm not saying it was your intention though. Could've been just a plain way to say there are 17 million more registered Democrats than there are Republicans and you meant nothing further by it.)

Some stats: "According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate." That election had the highest turnout too, with President Bush getting the most votes in history, and John Kerry getting the 2nd most votes in history. So it's not just an issue of Democrats not voting enough or correctly; they most certainly turned out for that election given their energy & visceral hatred of President Bush.

The country is still more conservative than not, and Republicans have been able to win enough votes from those 42 million who are registered as Independents, or are of no party affiliation, along with the so-called "Reagan Democrats" to have maintained dominance for some 12 years (would've held onto the presidency since '94 too, if not for a Ross Perot throwing away 19% of the popular vote). Unfortunately, President Bush's decision to wage war against Iraq and the subsequent problems that followed with that war caught up and wound up destroying us in the last congressional election (with the help of the drive-by media of course). There was dissatisfaction with domestic issues that kept part of the Republican base at home as well, but I'd say Iraq played a large role in that defeat, costing us Independents as well.

I'll add one more thing. It occurs to me this would indicate at least partly that Democrat registration drives are over registering people. If you're registered as a Democrat and you don't vote, but you're counted as a registered Democrat, well, it occurs to me it's the result of somebody showing up at your door, registering you as a Democrat with you not minding nor caring at the time and you naturally never showing up at the voting booth because you didn't care that much about politics to begin with. If I personally go out and register myself, it's because I wanna vote and I'm interested in seeing the right politicians win, thus the likelihood of me showing up to vote should be high. It just doesn't speak well of a party to have all these registered voters and when push comes to shove, they don't much care enough to show up and vote when needed.

[Negi]

LOL @ drive-by media!  Puh-lease!  Read What Liberal Media by Eric Alterman and you'll see how conservative the media is.

This is a summary of it in an article:  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2

[NightWolve]

You linked to the 'thenation', one of the more hard left-wing outlets out there. Puh-lease right back at ya. There's a trusted source to gauge the rest of the media alright... Heh. That's Hurricane Katrina Vanden Heuvel's outfit. I hate her guts. Same with Eric Alterman. You do know how far left those people are and nothing short of turning all media into, what, Pravda, BBC and what not would satisfy them? Are you a dailykos reader too by chance?

Anyway, I can link you to Bernard Goldberg's Bias and Arrogance books and do a LOL myself, but I hardly think there'd be a point if you frequent something like the 'thenation'. Making a conclusion about media bias BTW doesn't come from just listening to someone and then buying it hook, line and sinker. You might listen to someone making the case first, but you have to see it for yourself in action over the years before you can become confident as to what direction their bias leans towards overall, not just point to examples here and there.

Copping a mocking tone at bias accusations, then pretending the bias is in actuality overwhelmingly in the opposite direction by cherry picking cases of conservatives actually being broadcast (heaven forbid) along with liberals pretending to quake in their boots just doesn't cut it. It's not been my impression. Aside from talk radio and the "all powerful, all encompassing" FOX News which they always bark about, I don't get that sense from them. And most of those cases are not hard news broadcasts anyway, but live editorials by republicans/conservatives where it's known who they are, upfront, so you know what angle you're getting your analysis from. If I'm watching Sean Hannity, I know what he is. Same with Keith Overbite on MSNBC. They're not news anchors. Same as how if I'm watching a guest like Ann Coulter or even Katrina Vanden Heuvel making political commentary, I know what they are. They're giving me an upfront partisan point-of-view. Nothing more than a televised op-ed.

The more relevant issue of bias that we care about though and address more often than not is with someone delivering hard news like on the big three networks, wishing to be thought of as objective, credible, and non-partisan, but at times spiking/tilting the particular news story being covered in favor of one side or the other. Also, what news stories are covered and what are ignored is another important factor. I think Bernard Goldberg does a good job of explaining the issue. But, that's me. Alterman on the other hand can bite me. (I've seen him around on the cable news networks BTW, mostly back when he was hawking that book of his that your article deals with.)

[Negi]

Alright, then, more specifically, how did the media smear bush during the 2006 congressional elections?  I watched MSNBC and FOX On MSNBC, Olberman clearly leaned to the left, but he's not taken seriously.  His show is halfway between the Daily Show and a real news show.  Occasionally, Chris Matthews leaned to the right, but he balanced it out with his personal disgust with the president's policies.  However, FNC indisputably leaned far to the right.  You have Hannity and Colmes, where you have a strong conservative against a moderate.  You have the O'Reilly Factor, which leans extremely right.  Fair and balanced my ass.  Special Report with Brit Hume is the only moderately middle-of-the-road show on the whole channel, and even that has clear right leanings. 

However, if we branch into different media, you'll find a liberal bias on the internet, a conservative bias on the radio, and little to no bias in the mainstream print media (Washington Post, New York Times).  However, if you count the extremes in print, they cancel eachother out (thenation, new york post, washington times).

Then again, the nation is no where near as extreme the New York Post (accused Bill and Hillary of murdering a business partner for MONTHS?!) or the Washington Times(Run by a cult leader who declared himself the second coming of the Messiah and has said on record that he would sentence all gays to death).

If you'd like to point me to specific liberal bias in the media (Media Research Center's CyberAlerts are intellectually dishonest and untrustworthy (they pick and choose facts etc.)), I'd be eager to investigate it.

EDIT: By the way, don't take any of this personally.  The fact that our political views differ shouldn't be taken personally, not saying that you are doing so.  =)