REQUEST: Permission to translate one "Last Night Day" into zh-TW

[Bboy]

PB,

You continue to ignore the point of my post. I did think we were friends, as far as the Archive goes, and hope we still will be. The discussion follows:

Bryan wrote: "

If after making a good faith effort to contact an author and failing to do so, a person wants to continue a story or otherwise encorporate themes or characters into a story of t

heir own they should feel free to do so.

" I agree with this, but where was the "good faith effort"? There wasn't one. Permission was simply gr

anted.

You said: "Permission was simply granted. "

But it was not! No reading of Paolo's post can support the claim that he or the Archive "gave" permission to do anything with your story.

Your post was an attack on Paolo and it misrepresented his statement as giving someone permission to repost your story when his statement was a general guideline for dealing with stories in the event that you are unable to reach the author. He said: "

If you don't hear from the Author in 5 business days, go ahead and do it.

"

That statement obviously didn't apply to you since you are an active member of the board and your contact information is readily available. There's no big manual to consult for running the Archive. Paolo said 5 business days, which may be too short for you, and you said months with I think is unreasonable.

I have personally contacted sites, at the request of Archive authors, that reposted stories and exercised their copyright on behalf of themselves and the Archive.

To imply that we don't care about the rights of authors is just plain wrong.

I removed your post to avoid exactly the situation we are in now -- two people I care very much about going at each other --. I had to make the best judgement call I could at the time.

And I stand by my statement as well that your original post was an attack post and didn't argue them merits of your concern.

A post along the lines of "Paolo, I think 5 days is way too short a time to wait before someone uses an author's work. It should be at least two months."

Is the kind of constructive feedback that doesn't start these flame wars.

No one will be banned and your message will not be deleted. The damage has been done now.

[PB (imported)]

Bryan, I did not curse Paolo, I said his giving permission to my work without my permission was "total bulls**t" - which I truly believe it was. If that's cursing in your book ... well, don't you think I could have invented something about ten times more offensive if I had been so minded to?

At no point, however, did I make any accusations whatsoever - about you, about The Archive, or about Paolo. Nor would I. I should think that, having known me and read my posts over all these years (how long is it now? five years? a long time anyway) you would be aware that, to the best of my knowledge, I have never expressed anything except support for the Archive as a whole and the Archive administrators in particular. I have done this many times over the years.

There was nothing in my original post that I can in any way imagine to be offensive, abusive, or out of line. Blunt, yes, but out of line, no. In fact, the entire content of it (so far as I could remember and not, unfortunately, word for word) is reproduced in my post above. I didn't start any flame war! I simply posted to alert the Archive administrators to a serious error of judgement, one that any author writing here would do well to be aware of, and one that I sincerely hope will not be repeated.

The issue here is not permission to translate my story - for that is something that I have freely given and am happy to do so.

The issue is the usurpation by EA of my right to give or withold permission to use or modify my intellectual property.

(The fact that, in practice, anyone can take my work or your work or Paulo's work or any of the other stories here and republish them without any permission at all is not relevant to the matter of principle. Theft of web page content is something that no-one can prevent, but an author could, if he was determined enough, take legal action for breech of copyright and would undoubtedly succeed if he could afford the legal costs.)

I have come to know and trust you over the years, Bryan, as a fair-minded man with a decication to free speech, as someone who is prepared to bend over backwards to do the right thing by people. (And no, I'm not just puffing you up here. I have said much the same more than once before.) Indeed, I would feel perfectly relaxed about ceeding to you the right to decide on my behalf what is done by way on non-commercial use of my stories. Or to Paulo - for in all my dealings with Paulo prior to this, he too has struck me as a fair and reasonable man. But the crucial point is that if I were to do this, it would be by my own choice. To simply give permission on my behalf without attempting to get my permission is a different matter entirely.

It seems to me that the root cause of this disagreement is interpretation. Bryan seems to be saying that Paulo's original "go ahead and do it" post was a general response - i.e., a standard guideline. However, in the context where it sits - as a direct response to a direct query about one particular story - it is anything but general. I read it as a specific giving of permission to republish my story without any attempt at making contact with me.

Bryan says "t

o imply that we don't care about the rights of authors is just plain wrong

". Indeed, in the past I would have said the same myself. (I quite possibly did, in some post or other.) And that is exactly why I was so shocked and horrified at this sudden about-face in the traditional EA policy. I still can't beleve that saying "wait five days then go ahead and do it" in direct response to a specific question with regard to a specific story from an author who is not all that hard to contact is considered OK, while my shocked and angry but nevertheless measured, restrained and reasoned response to it was deleted.

One last point: can anyone reading this remember me ever posting in an abusive manner about the EA staff? (Or indeed, about anyone here?) Do you really think I would take it into my head to suddenly attack the ever-helpful and hard-working Paolo for no reason?

[PB (imported)]

Paolo, Your remarks about copyright and the Internet are, of course, quite correct. (And yes, I too enjoy the anarchy, or such of it remains.) There is a vast difference, however, between leaving my car where anyone can steal it (but no honest man would), and having someone suddenly say "Oh, take PB's car - it's not locked". That's what your "go ahead and do it" post said to me.

I am appalled at the thought that any consideration has been given to banning a long-time member in good standing, who in somewhere around five years membership has never abused anyone, simply because he firmly asserted his moral right to ownership of his own intellectual property. From Bryan's post, I now understand that your purpose was not to specifically usurp the legal and moral rights that I have over my own story (which is what your post said), but rather to explain a general EA policy. (Which is what that same post would have said if it was in a seperate thread, or if it included a phrase like "the EA's general policy is ...", as opposed to being a direct response to a direct query.)

I was pleased and relieved to read that, as I could not credit the amazing about-face from the Archive's usually scrupuliously fair policy toward its members that I saw yesterday. (And I am glad that Bryan posted, as without his explanation of your words I shold never have realised what it was they were actually meant to convey.)

Now, let's see if we can close off this little misunderstanding. To the extent that your post was a statement of general EA policy (as opposed to the specific permission that GuaiT asked for), I withdraw my objection to it. But it would be nice to see you yourself confirm that.

(As an aside, I feel strongly that a mere five days is far too short a time in which to conclude that an author is uncontactable. What if he or she is away on vacation, or in hosptial for a few days or some such? But I understand that in any shared project, individuals have to sometimes bend to the general will in the interests of cooperation, and if the EA decision makers feel that five days is enough, then I must rub along with that, however reluctantly.)

Now, how about a suggestion that might defuse this issue. I have come to know you a little over the last year or two, Paolo, and respect you a good deal. (Indeed, the shock I felt at seeing that "go ahead" post of yours is a good measure of my respect - had it come from a man with a less well-established record of fair-dealing and helpfullness, it might not have left me feeling as stunned and angry as it did coming from a someone I had previously thought to be entirely trustworthy.)

So, should there be any future request to translate one of my stories, or write a follow on, or whatever, I volantarily cede to you and/or Bryan the right to say yes or no on my behalf if I can't be contacted (save only that it be non-commercial and credit me as the original author). Yes, I trust you both, despite this sudden argument. I am as perfectly happy to give permission, in other words, as I was unhappy to see it being taken without me being asked. There is a very important difference.

Best regards,

PB

[cowboy (imported)]

Major:

Then I will Translate PB's "Last Nght Day".

Please be patient and tolerate my Chinese writing.

I promise I will try my best.

Minor:

The website "www.windmoonland.net", which I will post the translation to, is a website for erotic stories creating and the people there concern the COPYRIGHT issue very seriously.

The writers of that site are Not much organized, and yet they share some similarities, one of which is the concern about COPYRIGHT issue.

The works of the site are often first-hand creation, and are frequently being reposted to other sites without permission or proper credit, or even with false credit.

They all VERY dislike this kind of things. Therefor that site where copyright is recongnized can be seen as a kind of shelter for them.

Copyright is always an accute issue in Taiwan, involves politics( domestic and inter-national), moral standards, and personal financial status.

The early years it was the clothing piracy, then the pirate video games( mostly Japanese productions) came out.

Then it was video- and audio-tapes. Then it was video- and audio-discs.

Then it was pirate( or "cracked") softwares of computers.

From last year to now, press of Taiwan enlarged this list of News with:

Investigation on Microsoft's OSs' and other applications' permission of utility in governmental offices.( 80% unauthorized)

Investigation on hard-drives of computers in student dormitory for illegal MP3 musical files.

Investigation on illegal copying of college student's text books.

The list can be larger if it's more precise.

As people for copyright urge government to crack down piracy, people against them introduce the concepts of OpenSource.

I personaly hold NO meaningful opinions for this issue.

I request for permission because:

1. It is the policy of the "windmoonland" site to concern copyright.

2. I thought I may not be turned down.

3. It takes nothing.

4. It is the policy of a Chinese programmer/writer admired by me to request permission of translation.

P.S

People live in Taiwan might find my ID interesting.

"Guai T" in Mandarin( the "official" dialect of Chinese) means "Weird T". The word "Guai" should be pronunced hardly.

It is a name of a character in the American animation "The SouthPark."

The English name of the body-challenged child character is "Timmy", but traslators in Taiwan twisted the name of every character and also the a major part of scripts of "The SouthPark". Litraly, they moved the town of story background "SouthPark" into Taiwan.

Since the animation was first brocasted on a Chinese channel of "Star", I think they are authorized to do so.

Although I like the twisted "The SouthPark", but THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE OF THIS TRANSLATION.

I WILL follow the original story.

Testing:

Traditional Chinese "zh-TW" Testing

ÁcÅ餤¤å"zh-TW"´ú¸Õ

ÁcÅ餤¤å"zh-TW"´ú¸Õ¤G

[cowboy (imported)]

Traditional Chinese "zh-TW" Testing

looks pretty good( to me).

[A-1 (imported)]

Greetings from America in general and Indiana in particular.

I thought that Guai to be the sir-name, and "T" to be the initial of the first name.

That is, in China, the actor's name would be Chan Jackie. The Sirname is always first because the Chinese people are much more concerned with family, ancestors and such. First names are a secondary concern in China. One must experience their people and culture first-hand to understand completely. In China, one is known by his last name more than his first.

This is one reason that being a Eunuch in China is something that sets one apart and makes them very, very unique.

I enjoy seeing people from other countries come here to visit and I enjoy even more seeing their posts. Otherwise, I cannot tell that they have been here.

So if you are not from America, be sure to post here and let us know where you are from, so that we may be encouraged to continue.

I once tutored a young lady from China in english as a second language. She was a beautiful creature, with dark brown eyes, black hair, full adolescent lips and smooth alabaster skin. She was tall for her age and almost as tall as her parents, even then as a teenager. I am sure that she has grown into a beautiful young woman who can melt your soul with either a smile or a doleful stare.

She was intelligent and delightful. Her mathematical abilities were far beyond her age and despite only being an eighth grader, she had a strong background in math that made her ready for calculus. Never the less, her language abilities in English were very limited, and it was my pleasure to spend about 90 minutes each day working with her to improve her english. I did not know Chinese, and what little that she taught me then I have forgotten because I have not used it.

Moreover, she was a VERY gifted and unique pianist, with an ability to play many classical pieces perfectly from memory. Besides the ability to read music, she could play almost any tune by ear from hearing it sang or perhaps hearing it on the radio. Despite her age, she was a genius of the first magnitude and I hope that she is happy and successful now. She would be about 23-25 now.

It was a somber thing to compare the Chinese methods of Education with the American methods. I could go into great detail about this but it would bore the majority of readers here. Theirs is not better, but very, very different than ours in America. Ours is not superior to theirs in quality and end results, but maybe only in quantity and drop-out rates.

Her Father was a graduate student. I do not speak Chinese, but I soon found a way to get her to read English textbooks and thus expand her knowledge of English expotentially. It worked so well that in a years' time she had progressed from a third grade reading level on standardized English tests to that of a Junior in High School. I had her to read American folklore short stories and then we would discuss them, their meanings and the structure of the language. She had an English to Chinese dictionary that helped tremendously. Her spoken English improved to the point where she sounded almost like a midwestern American.

She even took the folklore books home to her mother and they both read it together, thus expanding her mother's ability to speak and read English to the point where she progressed from the kitchen to the front counter of the Chinese restaurant where she worked in town.

The reading material was folklore, which applies to the stories here to a degree. Although from mainland China, I can liken my experience with her to the people of Tiawan. Because of her I will always have a fondness for the Chinese people. Their culture is simply put, beautiful and honorable.

That is why I am writing this message. That and to encourage you Guai T, to post the website address of the story here as a direct link so that native Chinese Speakers can have a reference.

For you other readers and authors here, please keep in mind the tradition of oral folklore in Mainland China and by extention, Tiawan. I would not qualify anything coming from here as a copyright problem. It is instead only an honor bestowed upon us for allowing a small part of the E.A. to be introduced into the Chinese story tradition via this new communication miracle, the Internet.

That is my opinion.

A-1

[cowboy (imported)]

Another interesting subject you people picked.

Our education policy was in debate for decades.

The mathmatical ability of our junior students is true for a lot of people. Yes, pan-Chinese educators recognize Mathmatics involve certain level of practice, reciting and pressure (That concept was also true in cases of various math geniuses in all countries), therefor children here are skillful for a lot of operations.

There are two major problems in Taiwan education:

1. Although general performance in children of junior ages in Taiwan is better than the U.S., but the performance of the college students of Taiwan is pitiful compare to the U.S, Japan or China.

2. The pressure of studying cracks young minds.

The second problem also exists in Japan and China, too.

That is why the current of Taiwan education reform is to learn from the U.S. and England. Such as small class of students less than 30, freedom of students clothing and time schedule, prohibition on dividing students by grades, and less pressure for studying performance.

The reform has been progressing for decades and in my age it gets commonly adopted.

Yet the reformers interestingly found that the England and the U.S. is trying to go the old way of Taiwan education.

(Big class of students more than 30, restrictions over students clothing and time schedule, and more pressure for studying performance.)

Also, the parents who hold great expectation on their children criticize the current reform sacrifice their children's chances.

In Japan, similar education reform is also taken for the 2nd reason above and the problem is more problematic, since conservative right wing people consider the education reform corrupted youth minds and it is the pollution from the occupier U.S. This issue implied a nationality controversy.

In China, no education reform is taken. I don't understand why but I assume it's due to budget limitations. It may also be possible that China government consider their policy is better. Students of all ages and students' parents strive under great competition. The pressure was much greater than Taiwan's. And the competition is especially keen in colleges, where students (and professors, too) use halls as giant mutual studying rooms with no conversations. Beside the pressure of study, the struggles for life standards are common.

One father in China is famous for his daughter was permitted to study in four globally famous schools of the U.S. (and she took Harvard). The father wrote two books about how parent to sculpt an excellent from the beginning.

In his second book he compared mainland-Chinese students with U.S. American ones.

1. U.S. Americans are more independent while Chinese students are often overprotected by parents. All most of them have to do is studying.

2. Chinese generally are more skillful in the study subjects. Yet why can the U.S students success in college? He credits that for the separate (expensive) private schools especially for talented kids and he considers that should be the way of future of China education.

3. U.S. Americans are more cooperative since all Chinese students do is taking exam.

4. Due to the difference of life standards, Chinese students can endure more critical environment of study.

5. U.S. Americans emphasize on physical training more while most Chinese students sit too much and move too little.

PS. To me, that father controls every aspect of the daughter's life, from conversations between friends to the prevention of so called "early love"(the love relationship in junior age). In the book he especially declare the importance of embeding parent's idea into child's mind because so even the if child is out of parent's physical reach, parent can still have some kindd of control over the kids.

I personally that industriousness is the key of success, but d**m I hate mathmatical operations.

Perhaps I chose the wrong subject as my major.

The English ability is also a issue here.

Taiwan and Japan government, parents and students spent great effort in English education, including hiring native English speaker to teach. (Sadly, there is some racial discrimination to the speakers in Taiwan) Yet the result was not sufficient. Taiwan is going to make English as secondary official language. More rapid idea of one of my teachers is to make English the primary official language and German as secondary official language.

I think the decision of adopting Tongyong Pinyin system is stupid becauseTongyong Pinyin system is poor. For example, two important sir-names pronunced differently in Mandarin is spelled the same in Tongyong Pinyin system.

And even more stupid is the angry statement of that official, and so is the logic of using Tongyong Pinyin system to enhance Taiwanese culture intactness, for the system is simply not a part of Taiwanese culture.

The mainland-Chinese students study English in harsh ways. Such as "mad English"(shouting out with English) or put a pointy stone in mouth to tutor the tongue. The results seem good to me. Yet Chinese government has other thought of foreign language. Their policy is to make vocabularies of all fields totally Chinese. I think that's for the ambition of becoming the independent academic center rivals with the western world.

The Chinese government supports the computer softwares of Linux--which are independent from the world famous U.S. software company "Microsoft"--and recently turned the "Microsoft" down in a recent Bejin city governmental office software purchasing.

irrelevent:

The way to spell Chinese pronunciation in Latino alphas is also debated in Taiwan. Our government's policy is to adopt "Tongyong Pinyin"(General Usage Spelling) system other the "Hanyu Pinyin"(Han dialects spelling) system currently used by mainland-China and world, for:

1. "Tongyong Pinyin" 's pronunciation rule is closer to the pronunciation habit of English (while "Hanyu Pinyin" system has spelling like "Xian" )

2. Enhancing the intactness and independency of Taiwanese culture.

3. Tongyong Pinyin system can handle Chinese dialects other than "Han" dialects(a set of Chinese dialects close to the "official" Chinese dialect Mandarin).

And the problem of the compatibility to the world standard will be solved with softwares transformation.

When a native-English-speaking DJ in Taiwan asked (in Chinese) one of our officials why the Taiwan government used the world-standard-incompatible system, that official went on a rage and angrily said: "If you people are going to learn Chinese culture, you should accept what it is."

I personally think that Chinese is contradictively interesting. It was, and still is considered the world worst speaking-language/writing-character system.

It has no prominent grammar, and has a illogic system of characters for the systems serves both pronunciational and semantic representation, and treat these two representation indifferently. And often a character's "borrowed" and given meanings far from the original meaning.

Part of the reason is that ancient Chinese emperor killed the local character systems to unify character system as a whole. The local dialects had no characters and had to "borrow" characters from the uniform system.

People of Japan, Korea, Vietnam modified Chinese to create their own speaking/writing system, main land China simplified the Chinese writing.

Yet the ambiguity also make Chinese a really very convenient tool, since it has no prominent grammar structure restriction, and the meaning of phrase is ambiguous, a phrase can be interpreted as verb, adjective, adverb, and noun all at the at the same time! (At least that's how I learn Chinese)(At least I took it as a good)

Guai T: REALLY OFF-LINE.

[cowboy (imported)]

At the beginning I don't even seperate preposition("on, in, above") and Be-verb from the verb, adjtive, etc.

[PB (imported)]

We may be off-topic in the Author Feedback forum, GuaiT, so I'll answer your query over here instead. (The extra forums are a great idea, by the way: kudos to the EA team for this useful change.)

There are quite a few different versions of LND kicking around here.

1: Final Night: http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/F/new00000059.htm

This is a repost of the original Part 1, under a different title (which it got because of a mix-up). It dates back to 1997. Ignore it. There is nothing in this that isn't also in the later versions - bar a few extras mistakes that I cleaned up when I reposted.

2: Final Night 2 (completed) http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/F/newfnight.htm About half of this is [iNot[/i] mine - it starts with my original Part 2, but then seamlessly slips into a follow-on written by someone else in (maybe) 1998 or '99. Quite different in style to my stories, but enjoyable just the same. (Should I say where my writing stops and the other author starts? Or would that spoil the fun?)

3: Final Night III http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/F/new00000055.htm Another spin-off or follow-on that I didn't write. I suspect that it was A-1 who wrote this one, it seems to be in his style. Another good fun read. (None of thyis one is mine, bar the characters, of course.)

4: Last Night Day (complete to this point, castration, future penectomy?) http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/L/newlastnight.htm This is the "real" or "official" Last Night Day and it iincludes revised versions of Parts 1 and 2, plus Parts 3 and 4. And yes, this one is all mine. Take this one as your main text. (I might repost a revised version of this one day, but if I do the changes will be minor. Correction of grammatical errors, and minor stuff like that.)

5: Last Night Day 5 http://www.eunuch.org/Alpha/L/newea_332012Last_Nig.htm The "official" Part 5. There are more parts to come, of course, but I write terribly slowly, so you might not see Part 6 till after you have already finished translating the earlier parts, and you might be old and grey before I am happy enough with Part 11 to post it!

6: Last Night for Briony (parts 1 through 7) Not mine. These are A-1's. Nothing to do with Last Night Day in an "official" sense, but great fun to read.

So take numbers 4 and 5 as your texts, GuaiT. Use whichever parts of them you please. If I should happen to post more of the Last Night Day series anytime soon (don't hold your breath for this!) use that too if you want to.

For the "unoffiical" ones (Final Night 2, Final Night III and the Last Night for Briony Series, of course, you would need the permission of the people who wrote them. But I don't think you are planning to do those ones anyway.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help, and thanks for asking. Good luck with your project.

PB

[A-1 (imported)]

You hav my permission to translate the Last Night for Briony series 1-7 which I authored if you should so desire.

A-1

(Written under Anonymous+1)