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Max255 yeah, next year they'll buy subscription on DeepL, fire all translators and make us pay for mtl 
Misguided_Rooster because they don't know how to use Google or Microsoft translator
Why are the new trial reads all machine translated?
They have had MTL before, but they were clearly labeled as machine translations, why do these trial reads not get that warning?
Also, i see a bunch of Simple MTL released translations not in the trial reads, are they next weeks selection? Ergh such a trash site.
They even list a name as the translator/editor giving us a false impression that it isn't MTL.
This says Lord_Immortal translated and edited, but it's clearly machine translated.
Ive long since
Mute I've long since stop reading in webnovel (for translated books). The only use i have for webnovel is to read original books and to search for translated book titles by reading the freebies and then if I'm interested, read the rest mtl'ed lol.
Mute oh yeah this time around there's a lot of interesting books compared to the trial reads for the past month or two.
Im happy yet also sad that they picked theres a divine tree in my heart when its been hiatus in the raw for so long.
Then im sad they didn't choose i won't play by the books when its been constantly updating high quality content
ExodusGaming555 Yeah some of them have an interesting concept, i can deal with it if it's only for the selection process and then a real translator takes over, but i doubt it, i bet it will stay machine translations.
@CKtalon any idea wtf is happening?
Well, MTL is the only way to keep things cheap so they can keep on being translated. It's a win-win, no?
Lonelytree No. I understand that company needs to earn, but if they really MTL novels and charge full price there is seriously something wrong with people managing the company. Can you imagine going to bookstore to find book translated to broken English? Would you really be willing to pay full price?
On the other hand how is book supposed to win if it scares away considerable amount of readers with terrible translation? You can't just expect readers to accept it.
Cynical_Taste We're looking at this from different perspective, you from the perspective of the reader and i'm from the perspective of a translator. There's no wrong party here. It's just how things are progressing.
The number of paying readers is plummeting. it's just not feasible to expect good human translations anymore. Hence all the dropped novels.
So if the company don't want to have more dropped novels, they have to find a cheaper alternative to human translators and like every field all over the world, AI is the way.
I'm not happy with this either because this means i have to work the workload of a machine with a much lower price (which I'm already doing) or find another job. I could gripe all day about it, but that's just how things are going to go.
It is what it is.
Lonelytree
The number of paying readers is not plummeting, it's just Qidian brings here more and more novels, so coins are spreading much thinner.
It's okay to use MTL for trials, but there are few conditions: use DeepL and not some sh*tty Chinese translator, proofreader to check with raws and editor to make it a little more readable.
Dwarkin That's what they were supposed to do anyway but we all know quality control and webnovel doesn't often go hand in hand lol
Lonelytree So if the company don't want to have more dropped novels, they have to find a cheaper alternative to human translators and like every field all over the world, AI is the way.
Either way, charging full price for a machine translation, and one that is, let's be honest, not all that great, is only going to alienate even more of the paying readers and lower any income by a far greater deal. This is the very literal representation of wringing the market dry.
They are also even locked from chapter 5. I looked at one and used a FP to open chapter 5. NGL, charging 6 powerstones for 1007 words just feels dirty.
When you do literally nothing for PR, addressing the general community, or outreach to attract new customers, this is bound to happen. A lot of people have been upset over the years and left, and the company has earned a poor reputation in many circles but never cared enough, or whatever reason, to properly address these issues at the time.
Let's be honest, readers aren't exactly rushing over to reddit to share the latest chapter releases anymore, nor is NU updating locked chapters and helping garner new readers for the novels. There are many factors which are lacking which has led to a plummeting of readers overall.
Whilst it is true they need paying customers more than free readers, the latter make up the majority portion and are a crucial factor in bringing in new audience (Not to mention the factor of what coins there are being spread thinner).
A balance between paying and free readers needs to be made, which is where PR comes in.
Lonelytree No, ot's not a win win, not atall, giving us a bunch of barely readable trash and expecting people to pay for it? It's a mystery why people willing to pay is dropping off.
I could accept MTL for trial reads, and then assigning a real translator, but this is bullshit and most of us won't be willing to pay to read badly edited machine translations that completely gut the essence of a novel, aswell as being full of mistakes.
Mute Hey, you asked why some of the TR are MTL-ed and the answer is cost efficiency. Whether that will continue after the book gets out of TR, who knows?
Lonelytree I'm sure people know, they just won't tell us.
But honestly, if webnovel can't afford to translate new novels, then they don't need to bring a new one out each week.
Mute But they can afford to... with Mtl.
Lonelytree To be honest I would expect translators to be one of the fiercest group protesting MTL.
Quidian makes unpopular decisions and to be honest mostly ignore issues brought up on this forum, so they lose paying readers. But I can't see how lowering quality of the product they offer would help. They at most lose more paying customers who will feel conned. It is slippery slope.
I am not really sure how big percentage of reading community is willing to accept MTL (I for one prefer to drop novel instead of looking for MTL), but I think that a lot of them do that because it's free.
Cynical_Taste Didn't you notice the novels getting dropped like flies? Hence the protest lol. What else can we do exactly?
Lonelytree Yeah, MTL is garbage though, there's no need for a new novel each week, what they can do is stop picking up novels with like 2k chapters though, they rarely hold peoples interest.
Mute bro, could you tell me how you seem to be finding translated new novels (mtl or otherwise) ? i found a bunch last week on the phone half of which became last week's trial read, and the other half seems to have completely vanished even though they're still in my phone accounts library. and i actually wanted to read the raws of those. which reminds me it's impossible to find the raws of some novels, despite being given the raw name
Immortal Hero: I Can Replicate Talents- for example can be found but the main character name is ye tian instead of su chen
Immortal Hero: I Can See the Success Rate- literally does not exist in any shape way or form... even the official link is dead.
anyway i seem to never be able to find new novels, because after 4 years we still have not been given a sort by release date.... or i am blind
P.S you can't DM on this forum?
PlantSmoker Bro same! I wanted to read some of the raws for a few pilot read novels that never got chosen, but they disappeared! Like wtf why would you delete the novel. Fucking bastards. Also what Chinese website did you use to read the 'I can replicate talents' novel, when I read the raws he didn't have a different name.
9 days later
SexyYoungMaster https://m.xindingdianxsw.net/xiaoshuo/712712.html
this was what i found when i tried
8 days later
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Mute hey there are many high quality original books out there. I remember at that time for about 2-4 years i only read originals because all the translated books started to get paywalls.
Mute or you could try royal road
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Lonelytree there's almost nothing we can do.
Think of it like this, readers feels that webnovel is slowly making the paywall higher and higher while at the same time reducing the quality of the translations.
The translators on the other hand may also have problems from the site that cause them to even consider using half baked translation or a little editing from a mtl result.
Now comes the question, who to fault for, is it the readers, translators, or the site?? Next, how to fix this issues?
I'll just come clean and say that imo its the sites fault. To change all this situation we need to start with the roots of the ecosystem that is the site. Both the readers and the translators truly have limited capabillities to really change anything. As long as the roots is wrong, nothing will really change.
Realistically for the site to continue running up till now means that it still gains lots and lots of income right? So why did they still increase the paywalls and do seemingly unwise move in the eyes of the many? The answer is more profit, to gain high and cost low. Causing readers to consider reading at illegal sites and translators to start producimg half baked content.
Imo the current site is EXTREMLY unfriendly to new users(and even many old users), making users to prioritize using this site to search new books to google it and read it on other sites. This all comes down from the very high paywall with a very limited "official" way to bypass it for new/free readers, many trial reads/new books with half baked translations, and many more reasons.
Now for new readers to stay and be real readers(or even pay readers), they need to first be comfortable with the site. This needs readers to repeatedly or long term use of the site (which is not working when all the translated books have high pay walls and half baked mtl translation,causing the to read on other sites). The solution to this is actually easy by
making a few finished old popular books from both male and female lead to be fully free and automatically save them to the new users library according to the male preference and gender.
Reduce the harsh paywall by increasing the free chapter to about 1/4 of the translated chapter with a minimum of 60 chp free
Increase the amount of ways to allow free readers getting free pass or even gold coins. Example a 2-3 gold coins will be given from the gift after reading 15 minutes/day for 7 consecutive day(After all, gold coins is in a way harder to use and get than free pass and yet they will never expire unlike free pass.). Invite a friend could also give a cold coins for every 5 users invites and a free pass for every 1 user.
And many more ways i can't think of (p.s. honestly exp is only worth it for long term/old users, so make any mission or things that gives reward to give exp as a reward in addition to the main reward and not make exp as the main reward)
Remembers the days where even if many chapter were locked, we could patiently wait for each chapter gets unlocked after every update and we could do missions to get spirit stones? Ahh those olden(yet golden) days.
I remember the time when a reader can watch ads to unlock a chapter.
String11ni yeah there is also that
ExodusGaming555 Now that it suddenly hit me that its already been a few years since i started reading at this site. Now i feel old.
String11ni Macaulay Culkin is 40. If you don't know him - don't worry, you are still young
Xincerely locked the discussion.