Bug in the rules about allowed languages

[ShinobuOshino]

I was thinking about The Beginning After the End and the fact that it can't be uploaded here in eng because the original it's already in English. So I reread the rules and I think there is an unspecified situation.

rule 2.1 says that the raws and official translation must not be uploaded and specify the only exception to that.
rule 2.2 say that the presence of official translations doesn't change our ability to upload it in that language as long as the uploaded one has been translated from an other language.
rule 2.3.1 specify that the 2.2 applies also to translation from a language, to an other and back to the original language.
(I found no other relevant rule)

This means that the ability to use an official translation and translating it back and forth is not in contradiction to the rule 2.1 as that has only one exception (2.1.1). Thus rule 2.1 should be interpreted with uploading it as is, not translated or 2.3.1 would be an exception.
On the other hand rule 2.1 is explicit about raws and official, while the 2.2 says only official translation and 2.3.1 says translated script of an official release. No mention of the original untranslated one is done.

This lack of explicit mention of the original language technically means that there is no rule about that and together with the 2.1 it should mean that it's possible to upload in the original language as long as translated from a different language. On the other hand it can be possible that it was specifically not mentioned supposing that a lack of mention would mean a lack of ability to do that, but it's actually possible as it wouldn't break any rule.

So, is this hole in the regulations a bug because it doesn't reflect the intention to forbid this behavior, or was it intentional and it's possible to upload re-translations even in the original language?

If this is not a bug and it was actually permitted, a mention about the original (and thus untranslated) language in the 2.2 and 2.3.1 would avoid people thinking that it's not possible to upload something in the original language as it happened in the comment section of said manga. If instead it wasn't permitted than an "It's not possible to upload something in the original language" or something explicit would be necessary as doing that doens't currently break any rule.

Thank you in advance for your time.

 

[elephantNo5]

Hmm. I'd be kinda wondering who would be so enterprising as to translate something back into the original language... But I guess a loophole is a loophole.

And I may just be blind to the reason someone would wanna waste their time doing that. Unless it's to do something like this: https://translationparty.com

 

[ShinobuOshino]

@elephantNo5
I would have said the same thing, but there are good guys that would re-translate an already translated manga just so that Mangadex could have it too (as the previews group didn't want to upload it here). And apparently many asked for that re-translation (mainly because that group dropped it and there is a hole in the chapters uploaded here).

So I thought as that could happen, maybe someone would do this too. But if the rules are not clear no one would ever do it.

 

[Holo]

You're right, the rules do not cover the specific situation you mention, because it is so unlikely to happen.

If it does happen, we may revise the rules depending on what the community thinks.

 

[421cookies]

Isn't that practically just re-typeset and re-phrasing?
I can't stand something even more cancerous than scanlating simulpub manga so, please no.

 

[ShinobuOshino]

@421cookies
From a quality standpoint it's even worse than that. It's easier to maintain the meaning while re-phrasing if that's your native language, it's harder if you are doing a translation. Translating back something translated by someone else without using the original should be even crappier. But that's the same for any double translation like the jap->Vietnamese->eng that you get sometimes.

The point though is that it's already allowed by the rule 2.3.1, just not from the original language (making it at least a three step translation). The only actual difference that may justify this difference in treatment (afaik) is that the author and copyright holders can be more likely to care if it's the language it was originally written into, but I'm not sure if there is any actual difference with what happens whenever there is already an official translation.

I posted this reply because to me forbidding it for that reason while keeping the 2.3.1 doesn't actually make much sense as from that point of view they are the same, but I'm fine with either decision or with the current "lazy evaluation" strategy.