Not sure if mad or amused…

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Hello everyone,

okay, here’s the situation. There is a Polish guy that about a month or two ago sent me an e-mail, whether he can translate FTR to Polish. Although I warned him that Dom1n is already doing that and is doing a great job, I was like – what the hell, why not?

So, this guy created the blog – had a look, not sure about the translation quality (native Polish readers would have to decide themselves), but whatever, I won’t link him here, because I prefer Dom1n, as I said earlier. Two things however made me raise my eyebrows.

At first it was the fact a WGA ambassador (WG EU employee) called the blog a great place, even though it has no original content, pretty much everything is a copy from FTR:

jasy

I posted about that earlier, no sweat. But what made me really raise my eyebrows was this:

copy

Basically, WG EU is endorsing (“official WoT fan page, we entered a cooperation with Wargaming and became community contributors” or something like that) a site, that is a 1:1 copy of FTR in Polish (the guy even copies my post titles and either removes my comments, making the content less comprehensible, or replaces “SS” with his nickname). That’s a bit of a mixed message right there, isn’t it? :)

Personally, I am not sure what to do with that. The last thing I want is WG EU parasiting on FTR in any form and this guy has no original content of his own, it’s really just a copy of FTR, so if WG EU promotes a pet blogger like this… feels a bit off, especially, since Dom1n (who has been doing for quite a while) did not get promoted (quite the contrary).

What do you think?

117 thoughts on “Not sure if mad or amused…”

        • UUU, since polish has been taken can i do it to swedish? XD I dont want to start my own blog though…

          SilentStalker, seriously. You could have translations of your works here too. Dont think it would hurt to make FTR a multilanguage.

    • “[N]ot sure about the translation quality (native Polish readers would have to decide themselves)”

      As a native speaker and someone who worked in translations in the past: Dom1n is not perfect, but generally competent (and his blog contains much more than FTR translations, even Q&A articles contain some additional relevant comments from him sometimes), while the endorsed guy is doing a usual haphazard job of someone who thinks translating are easy.

  2. revoke permission and leave a Fail-WG endorsed and promoted blog without content.

    and yes, WG knows perfectly well.

    • Exactly,

      - Revoke
      or
      - force to have every translation of your article to have clear statement where they were taken from and that every translated article need to be authorized by you before putting it there. Just to avoid substiuting author.

      And of course formally inform polish comunity that this blog is copy of your blog.
      If you need anything translated to polish just let me know.

    • He can’t really revoke the permission….I mean, that dude is free to read and copy-paste this blog articles…free internet navigation…even if Frank bans him he’ll still be able to check the blog.

      • He can as permision was to use it on old blog not on CMS.
        plus guys started to get profits from it and in the email asking for permision they clearly stated that no profits are to be gained from this webpage.

      • >.I mean, that dude is free to read and copy-paste this blog articles…

        Read – yes, copy-paste – hell no.

        • Actually, copy-paste falls under copyright laws. Since the original content is found here, any copy-paste should be considered stealing without permission from the original author.
          Just think of it like you copy a book, and then you publish the same thing under your own name

    • The guy asked for permission and permission was given, yes? Then this is out of the question.

      • permissions can be revoked, anyway, the dude is calling the content his instead of giving the proper credit, so however you wanna look at it, legal action is the way to go.

            • There are differences between publishing rights and intellectual ownership. If he’s translating and publishing his work for free, with SS’ permission, that is OK. If he starts to commercialize it and gain something from it, then it’s whole different story. In any of these cases he’s obliged to give credit to the original author and any 3rd party is obligated to ask the original author for permission before engaging in any sort of business deal with the “copy-guy”.

  11. 1. Politely notify both parties of the situation. Do not make any threats. Keep record of these notifications.
    2. Await their replies.
    3. If they do not reply within maybe a week, notify them again. Be sure to be polite again and no threats.
    4. Await their replies again.
    5. If they do not reply, notify them again and point out that this is the 3rd time. Again, no threats.
    6. Repeat this process several times until at least a month has gone by. Then consider making threats.

      • Yeah, it totally sucks but nowadays everything in life has miles and miles of red tape. Not to go all Karl Marx here, but that is the true opiate of the masses: make challenges to authority so time and resource consuming that few people bother to do it.

    • The more polite and patient you are the better. Documentation and screenshots of your emails and their responses will help you (just in case your email history gets corrupted). Sometimes these things are resolved quickly and without difficulty. Other times they drag out for a long time and WG punishes the player by banning their game accounts. Making lawsuit threats and accusations will very likely lead to a ban. Be careful and assume the worst so that you will be prepared for whatever happens.

  12. Even if this is lousy trick, try to find positive side, Silentstalker.
    If you are copied so massively, you can be sure you do really good job. Even if you don’t receive positive feedback from EU community personally (which is a bit understandable :P).

  15. Really bad play from Wargaming EU they should Appreciate that there is someone like you who gives out this information for the Players but going into cooperation with a translater is ridiculous… anyway one shall wait and see what kind of benefits one gets. This is my opinion though. But you kind of are already Cooperating with wargaming I think since you are working together with Edrard who is cooperating with WG RU which I think is far better and more competent than WG EU

  16. It took them a while to find out where to hit to make it hurt SS… Most of people will stick to FTR anyways, nobody likes WG butt-buddies :)

  17. Straight forward “plagiarising without full permission”

    …therefore revoke any and all permissions…

    Any further publications are only allowed “fair use” and MUST include full creditation and links to you… he cannot make or take any payment of any form in respect of your Intellectual Property, even “Intangibles” (which is “reputation by association”..)

    Tell him, and WG to back the fuck off or make full recompense/accreditation to you ONLY.

    You can complain to his blog host and prove plagiarisation and have it removed if necessary without any costs involved..

  18. Copying somebody’s work without permission is breaking the law. Even more if one pretends to be the oryginal author. All they did is google-translate plus some polishing. It is not even proper Polish language. And they are Official Fanpage?! Who gave them this status?! Please notify WG and them about breaking the law, stealing as a matter of fact.

    • I disagree on google translate but the language is indeed, well, average… Unfortunately there are more and more illiterate people nowadays and he is not bad by these standards.

      As for permission, even Frank admits that he gave such.

  19. I sent you “on translations shit” email, check your spam because my choice of topic may have been a little unfortunate ;) .

  20. Ban his IP. Unless he credits you, he is basically stealing your own personal work this way… You should definetly be against this. Unless he credits you, he has no right to be doing what he is doing now.

        • He’s crediting FTR as source under his posts.
          Deleting SS nickname may break ND part of CC-BY-NC-ND license that he puts on his own blog, but SS just gave a “permission”, without specifying details most likely, so even that part is not very clear.

              • That guy is copying the content, no use of you defending him -.- BTW, i hope you know we are talking about the 2nd picture which is a different guy than the first picture….

                • I know, who we are talking about.
                  And i’m not defending him. I’m defending sanity and reason. No point of making empty gestures, that probably won’t even get noticed.

                  There may be another reason of this blogs existence, that nobody (even me) thought of yet…

            • First, there is low to no chance of finding out his IP, since if he posted here, it was probably loong ago, and with the number of IPs with IPv4 being completely used, its been too long since people have seen a static IP for a home user.

              Meaning, the only way of “banning” him is banning his blog user, which only means he can’t comment here with it (but can still visit and make tons of new accs), or banning his whole country, which is retarded.

              Seriously, banning IPs in this day and age is just stupid, so just don’t, there is a huge chance that you end up banning innocent bystanders whose only fault is being with the same ISP.

  21. If those stupid pigs don’t even mark real authors of articles, its time to punishment. They should send WG to you and leave for themselves only ” ftr official translator” title. Make em to put big ftr name and link on top of their site or remove all permissions

  23. Fanny words they have on site about copywrite permission :D Fu.. xeros. SS maby u shuld write to their hosting support that they are dicks :)

  24. Actually, I was thinking of translating the news (just that), but it would be time consuming, and I have a life. And second, nobody cares what SerB trolling, people interested in, what really changes in game, not empty promises. The historical articles worth to be translated (wery deateled and good), but have to find the reader base, and still not have time to care about working with. :D

  25. What I think? WG EU and this guy are being dickheads here. And that this “ambassador” spambot needs a swift kick right into it’s virtual asshole.

    Revoke his permission SS, see what happens. If he would still use your materials – try official channels to put him down. If that doesn’t work…

    You can always count on the rage of TEH INTERNETZ! READY YER ION CANNONS /b/ROTHERS!

  26. I also think you should put a stop to this.
    I think it was very kind of you to let him copy your blog in the first place (when there already was someone doing it well) but since you obviously don’t like where this is headed now, revoke your permission that he may copy your blogpostings.
    Also I would – very politely – inform WG RU and WG EU about this and say that you are not OK with this situation and that for example Dom1n’s blog should be promoted instead.

  27. Under EU law you can revoke your permission to any future content as long as you clarify it as your own.
    Then he wouldn’t be allowed to copy your content and if he still is doing so you have the right to sue him legally, because he is violating copyright laws then.
    Only as a last step, of course.

  28. hello,

    if this guy copy/paste everything then this is your biggest achievement on 2013 SS
    i mean if he really copy everything then he copy even the posts in witch you prove WG EU are doing a “good job”……and they just congratulate a guy that translate these things……… so they are proud of their “good job”….mweheheheh
    i mean literraly….many of your posts are about WG EU fails……

    i can say only one thing
    “how terrible” – © by SerB

    alex

  29. I think they had just lost your permission.
    They moved from blog to cms and permission was for blog.
    They said no proffit but there are:
    - donation option
    - adv on the cms page.
    - as comunity contributor they get bonuses. And they are CC becouse of your articles.

    And in my opinion this little link “source: FTR” is not enough. Everyone who reads these articles thinks that they were sole creators.

    I just hate these scum….. ;)

  32. Im polish but i dont use that page, only FTR. If i were u i would do something with this because fact is that someone else is getting benefits from your work, and preety much everyone and his grandpa can operate google translate.

  33. Burn it with fire, SS.

    Revoke any permission (in a polite way, no need to give them more “zomg we hate SS” material to turn against you), mentioning additional actions if the content “stealing” continues.
    As a precaution, point out that he is profiting from your content, despite promising it wont be such a thing, which makes it a double fuck-up.

    In any case – dont let them (both siemka and WG EU) get away with this.

  34. Take a month vacation from posting on FTR. It’s not like you don’t deserve it anyway.

    I’d like to see what explanation that dumbass can find when he stops posting on his fail blog for a month.

  36. get him a warning…and (or) put articles in locked pdf or so mode…its hard to copy and when you do, the text is total mess anyway….let fight i say ;)

  37. I think you should still do something. See if Edward can nudge these guys into unsupporting him. I mean this is going to take away from FTR in some small way but what if everyone starts doing it?

    If you let one person do it then everyone will take the liberty to do it without permission.

  38. It’s also interesting is that they chose to support a specific segment of the EU player base while ignoring you who are an invaluable resource for the whole WOT community.
    They should have encouraged another blogger to write in English about WOT if they disliked you that much, despicable as it may have been it would have at least a wide audience.

    • They can choose whomever they like, it’s their game. I’m not suprised that they don’t support FTR directly, as there are many anti-WG EU posts here, but supporting a copy-paste blog is crazy and below industry standards.

      • I think being critical of WG EU does not equal being anti-Wargaming, it wouldn’t be a World of tanks blog if that were true.
        Yes supporting a copy-paste blog is below industry standards as is also failing every week at various things. Their weekly mistakes create confusion and anger among the players, harming Wargaming’s image. The players could rightfully think that WG is purposely trying to screw them over, but if they see here that they are just incompetent, they’ll just laugh it over and continue playing.
        I’m starting to think that France based companies in general are poor managers of employees and customers (I work for one), they should move WG EU’s HQ to….*shock,gasp*…Germany. :p

    • Lolz, so

      ” The cooperation with FTR regarding translation of the Q&A will be ended. We will translate from our own independent sources, not his page.”

      Btw Schlomo, i can not find this statement on the site…

      • In the comments below said entry. This statement is followed by:

        “By the way, the claims levied against us are baseless, and it’s a pity SS created this entry on his blog. Every time I added links as sources (after a brief check, no he didn’t…) in accordance with polish laws pertaining to copyright, we’ve stuck to his instructions, so I don’t understand the ‘butthurt’ (sic)”

        • Aaah, ok. The comment will not load for me so i can not see it.

          Checked some of the posts that i recognize from FTR. All so far has a named link to FTR either as translation or source at the bottom of the post where it should be. By all means legal this is OK and standard practice. You really do not need to do more (as if what, write in bold text above the title of the post *THIS IS NOT MY CONTENT I AM ONLY COPYING*)

          The not so OK part is only WG endorsing that blog and FTR. The translation is not very good, sentencing is on the level of what i would expect from a first grader…

          If the page is moving into profits they should remove the old content that is from FTR since permission was not given (i suppose) to any profit generating site.

        • Exactely what i thought, haha. Only other source i saw the using in the blod was developers blog so… pfff

  40. Well.. If he is just copying content from FTR then he is propably reading this too. SS, wait a week or so with any response to him and see if he reacts in any manner…

  41. This is a bit of a dick move from this guy and WG i mean WTF u either support FTR or dont support this guy because hes using SS stuff.

  42. Let’s start a shitstorm on WG EU! They see FTR as a devil kinda thing but an impostor not?! We should all send at least 1 e-mail to WG EU telling them what they’re doing wrong, this is just real unfair. We should tell WG EU, but also WG Minsk maybe, so they can do something about the idiots from WG EU. We might just get it the right way. Just to get the guy out of WG EU. So, either he gets replaced by SS or no one works at WG EU as a news-blog-kinda-guy.

  43. Translation quality on that blog is mediocre. Every word is accurately translated, but there are many sentences that sound like English->Polish machine translation, much like some official translations of WG EU a while ago – poorly worded sentences or sentences which would sound better in a different order.

    • To add, at dom1n.com the translations are much better. Nevertheless, I still prefer to read it here in English, as it’s published faster and is 1 translation closer to original dev’s posts.

      • That’s because even his polish , well, unpolished (sorry). Looking at his comments you can easily find oddly structured sentences and examples of awkward wording

        • The product of our modern school institution that we are so proud of… I had a guy in university who was asked to read out loud a part from a book. He read one syllable pause another syllable pause… The guy was not stupid, only no one taught him how to read properly…

  44. Problem: WG EU endorses Polish FTR, but not English FTR.
    Solution: Get WG NA to endorse FTR? Could we convince The_Chieftain to give SS some sort of shoutout?

    • Even better solution: Minks fires all those incompetent idiots from wg eu and hires SS.

      Problem solved.

  45. I can’t imagine that that guy is making a 1:1 copy of your blog and WG EU applaud him for that.
    He must be doing it selectively, otherwise every time that Polish guy would post your ‘another WG Eu fails etc’
    they would soon stop with the praise and start go for the perma-ban hammer of his acc.

  46. You realize you have no idea if anything you are talking about is true?
    This guy takes your work and fake it being its own. He is visibly a hack and will do anything to get and keep an audience. Can you really believe him when he says he is backed by WG?
    The Jasysae guy looks fake as hell too. The guy spams everywhere and has 40 followers on twitter and apparently no account on the world of tanks forum….
    So, yeah…

  47. Ofcourse he’s connected to WG. We all know who steals other peoples stuff and publish it as it’s owns. I’m looking at those pictures from 3rd party authors pusblished under WG name without crediting original authors. Beside being totally incompetent and lazy bums they also have no even a little bit of shame. Community contributor my ass.

  49. Not sure if you know about this guy, but he’s translating your developer-answers in German and post them in the forum with a link to his own website. He’s doing a fine job and is linking your blog as a source. His name is EiKarrRamba and thanks to his translating-work he’s a Community Conributor and his website was promoted in one of those “Community in the spot” or how it’s called in English.
    I don’t think there’s a problem about (cause he’s making the same job like you but not from Russian to English but form English to German) – just want to keep you informed if you should decide to overthink your handling with those translators…

    In your Position I would do three things:
    -First write a ticket on WG-Support by telling them what’s going on and make them feel that it’s not good for a company to support plagiarism (cause that’s what he doing if he replaces SS by his nickname)
    -Second write that guy, that you don’t allow him to translate your post (cause you have the rights) so he’s forced to translate just extracts (if not you can go to court – or just threat him to do so). And you can force him to write his source (your blog) well visible under every article.
    -Third (this optional dependig on how you want to appear: aggressive or cautious) you can make a cooperation with Dorm1n by blaming this Polish guy and maybe initate a ittle shitstorm flying around the forums (especially the post that focus on the promoting of this official fanpage) and a calumny-campaign at other translating blogs (using your material).

  50. Personally i am fine with it, however it is your product and it is for you to decide. However i would like it add that since he is already changing names and deleting content, that perhaps it would be best for you to put an end to it. What i am thinking is that WG will make it very nice for him to forget to post negative articles about their office/game and only post the items that make them look good. That will get them what they want, a nice tame and controllable FTR.

  51. I think it’s a disgrace. Tell that guy he can stop posting stuff now, you don’t want it anymore