Recently there were several Japanese mods uploaded without permission. After numerous reports about the files being stolen/uploaded without permission the files were hidden from public viewing and downloading. Subsequently the mods have been deleted, as per the wishes of their authors/creators.

I have spent the last several days making contact with the Japanese modding community trying to get permission from the various authors with some level of success.

Most of the files in question are still WIP's and as such have not been released to the general public as of yet, most of these authors are members here and will upload their work when it is completed and tested.

In a few cases however, the files are not to be shared outside of the 2ch forums as the author(s) do not have permission to use some of the contents from their original creators. Specifically pose mods that are a compilation of many different creators and permissions from all is difficult or impossible to obtain.

It must be understood that the Japanese modding community has their own rules that should be respected, you are free to visit their forums and download what interests you, however uploading content here without permission will not be tolerated. We will afford all mod creators the same courtesy and respect their wishes regardless of where they call home.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope some level of understanding with our various cultures has been reached and a spirit of continued cooperation and support will be the end result.

Buddah

I'd like to get a link to the japanese forums if possible. I've always been a fan of asian modders work.

I noticed those Japanese mods too...they are nice but still authors get irritated if they are released without their permission. And most japanese sites say "Don't contact us...we don't speak english " or something like that.

Btw glad that this topic is pinned

Cheers

Maafiaman

Which is why you learn the language, have someone who you can trust learn the language, or don't contact them. Although I'm sure there are a few out there who are only looking to thank these modders, many who contact them are just doing so in order to use or re-upload their resources. There would not be a need to say something like that if there wasn't a reason behind it. This is not to suggest that people who are involved with those places know english, and just don't want to be disturbed by every little 12 year old who thinks their mod is good. But rather that they have no reason to cater to those who do not know their language, and probably have no intention of learning. It is a Japanese community, where people speak Japanese. They do not need, or want non-Japanese speaking people posting there. Especially when, more often than not, those people are just members in order to take from said community without offering so much as a "ありがとう" in return. Afterall, in English speaking communities, we expect people to speak and understand some amount of English, or atleast fake it. It's only fair that they can expect the same. Unlike English speaking communities, which tend to be more international, many other language communities don't have people around who might happen to know your language and help you communicate.

Which means that you only have an advantage when you speak the language of things people want, and are at a disadvantage when you want something from people who speak a language you don't know. It's just how it works, either be willing to learn and actually take the steps, or provide something that everyone else wants.

Anyway, enough debate. Good post, hopefully people will see it. The last thing we want is to piss off other communities because of some fools who decide not to know or honor the wishes of the author. It has certainly happened before, and may happen again, but hopefully not here.

Hello!
I'm one Japanese Oblivion player and a webmaster of Oblivion fan sites (if u want to know, plz see my profile) and one user of the Japanese players community of 2ch forums.

We are very happy to hear that there are good reputations for Japanese mods from non Japanese players. And we known there is a great demand for those mods. But NOT all Japanese are good at English. English has entirely-different language system from Japanese. It's so difficult (Same difficulty for English speakers to understand Japanese).
Firstly it's dufficult to make readme documents. Ok, let's assume that we managed to upload our mods. Then we will get some (or many) questions and demands and we must reply in English. Reading English, writing English, and again reading English... We don't want to think! We have many things want to do, and time is so short. If our mother tongue was English, we should reply questions and requests more or less. If we didn't do so, we might be criticized. But we are Japanese, so we might face more...
In this place, we won't bring in international issues and conflicts. We are the SAME Cyrodiil citizen, we wish we are peacefully and friendly and honestly.

However it's difficult for non Japanese players to get our mods, re-distribution without any permission of modders is not good deed. All people must respect for all creations each other, and language barrier is considered separate issues. To respect each other or not, this is the problem.
More Japanese modders upload their mods on TESN than before. And we start thinking about non English players. So we must meet halfway. Japanese is also difficult language, we think, but it is more easy than reading "The Elder Scrolls". :-)

What I want to say has already written by others, but it is bad thing that there is no reply from Japanese, so I post this comment.

By the way, I am an webmaster and a project manager of the "Mod localization project Wiki" (http://modl10n.oblivion.z49.org/) (Of cource, before starting localization, we contact the author as possible). Our roles of international comunication is so little, but this may create an opportunity of Oblivion player's international comunication and development, I wish.

The language has the border, but the game doesn't have the border.

Sorry for poor English.

Have a good Oblivion life!

Hi there and welcome to TESNexus. Thank you for providing a view from Japan and let me say you're English is very good

The localisation of Japanese mods sounds like an awesome idea, provided permission is sought from the original author. I wish you all the best.

Hello!

What an honor to get Dark0ne's reply!!!
I mumbled that Adoring fan's greeeting speech before I can stop myself, ha ha ha. :-)

On "Mod localization project Wiki", we localize English mods into Japanese. But when I read your comment, I found localization Japanese mods into English is also meaningful. ...But that idea doesn't come true now, saddly. Someday our project may become successful, I wish we will set that idea into action.

Our project is just getting started, members are ill-attended now. We don't know what to expect. But we will do our best.

Thank you!!

im quite unsure if i should say this but i think its my opinion and i should therefor...

gon ichi wa

as a non native english speaking person myself and being born in a language system very close to yours but also knowing enough japanese people irl "watachi wa ai nihon musume!"
i have the feeling japanese people still are abit in the mindset of the 16th century which to many extends is good in my mind (eg hagakure's moral) but in regards to a language like english which has evolved to an international language spoken by nearly anyone on this planet i think it should change
plz dont take this as an offense as it is NOT
when i was in japan i was quite riddled by what all the people said as nearly noone spoke english or anything else than japanese (heck even the arabs speak it quite well and their language really is different)
i dont think that behavior has a future... plz try to take english as a second language which you should be able to speak well and Irrlicht (a word form my language btw ) your english is really good i must admit...
if all would speak that way my post would not be necessary
many people in my homecountry have the same way of dealing with english but more and more realize its importance to a succsesful international... no global... way of communicating
i repeat i was not born speaking english but as it is really a quite easy language from whatever language system you might come from (japanese is alot more comlicated imo if you dont come from a place with similiar system) i think one should try to learn it as good as possible and if that means creating somin like singlish... well go ahead
i just think its important for the people of our planet to be able to communictae to create a peaceful and harmonic place we all can dwell in
i hope i dont have to explain the benefits of communicating in regards to culture, tolerance and widom

sincerely yours
jaysus

as to mods... ya totally agree always get permission!

translations? ya also totally agree
i still need to translate my stuff back to my language lol

ah btw if you want you can post my stuff at your japanese community and translate it too... permission given without question asked hehe

Irrlicht it's nice to see a member of the japanese community here and you speak english well. Like Jaysus english is not my native language. My native language is the native american language. I have been speaking english for so long now and I have not spoke my native language in many years, I barely remember how to speak it now. I like what you are doing, translating english mods to japanese. it would be nice to see more japanese mods translated to english aswell. It is very hard to find japanese mods for people that don't understand the language. Personally I thik everyone should learn how to speak english, I don't think that because I think english is the best lanuage but because it would be helpful for there to be a universal language. There are already so many speaking english it would be easier to universalize a language already so widly spoken. Personally my favorite languages are German and Japanese.

I Think it's Awesomtastic that mods are being translated from Japanese to english but i think that basically the fact is that if you don't speak Japanese, don't download mods that are in Japanese. And vice versa with English. Maybe a seperate site or branch of an existing site could be set up for people who speak both languges to have the mods posted that have been translated to avoid confusion. that way people don't download a mod they can't under stand without realizing.

Haha, I'm English and my ex is teaching me Japanese (at my request). And she is 100% Japanese so WOO!

Well i for one am i player... never did a mod in my life... i like loads of mods and see lots of mods that i can't get or can't comprehend... or my machine doesn't have enough power to run them.. still about the japanese mods... the person who gets their hand on them them should upload em after getting permission, then if a community would want to ask for staff, for people that have spare time, that know both japanese and english and are willing to translate the readme's... things could get better i think... we just need to be better organized and this attempt should come from our side since we're chasing after the japanese stuff... btw the stuff those guys make is heavy stuff

I just wish to express my gratitude for the graciousness of you all by adding my view as one of Oblivion players from Japan.

First of all, we Japanese players must say thanks to the generous modders here for sharing their great works, some of which are also very popular among Japanese users. Actually, nearly all mods that I myself am using are those which I downloaded here. Please allow me to say thanks again here. Of course, most of Japanese Oblivion modders and users respect foreign creators, players and their great creations. Although I guess those issues have been discussed enough, I would like to add my view and share a few observations.

I first wish to clarify the meaning of "Japanese Modding Community". As you know, 2ch is a large internet community in Japan where lots of people discuss various topics, and lots of great mods have been being created there. However, 2ch is not the only forum that all Oblivion modders and users frequent. Some of those frequent 2ch but some don't. So, in actual fact, there are some other modders and users in Japan who have different opinions from those of 2ch users. Myself being a great fan of Irricht's website "Oblivion Wiki JP", I rarely visit 2ch forum. Besides, 2ch is a large forum each of whose members is anonymous, which has multitude threads where nearly all topics are discussed, from personal things to politics. As you see, lots of users visit there and post their comments. Therefore, 2ch is filled with different opinions of users even about the issues of Oblivion. Please forgive me for the long preliminary comment that I described in the above. All I mean is that there are various opinions. Especially as for Oblivion-modding in Japan, it may be said that each of modders and players acts according to his/her own criterion even though there are some implicit rules. I admit some modders find it troublesome and annoying that they describe English readme and upload their works here. There are, however, some other modders who wish to share their works here. At least I helped one of them to translate a modder's readme once. I just wish you would understand there are some Japanese modders who are trying to upload their works. Although at present only a few Japanese mods are uploaded here, hopefully the number of those will increase little by little.

I made a visit to the thread of this issue in 2ch after I had read Buddah's post here. I saw some users in 2ch discussing the issue constructively. Also, they mentioned Buddah's timely action and appreciated it. Hopefully, everything will get better. As to localization of Japanese mods into English, as Irrlicht already mentioned it, I am also afraid it will be no little time before it is realized. However it sounds great. We Japanese players have been shared lots of creations and ideas here. Now, it is our turn to share ours. Yes, English is difficult for common Japanese people, of whom I am one. However there would be way to explain use of mods if we look for. We can, for example, put image files to good use even though we cannot write English description perfectly. I hope we all will exchange more ideas someday.

Lastly, thank you for reading my poor English. I would be glad if I could have expressed anything constructive in the above. As always, I am very thankful to this great website "Nexus" for giving us lots of fun.


Quistena

Your english is actually excellent, your command of the language is also quite extensive.

Thanks for your kind words, I have followed the discussion on the 2ch forums after this topic was put up there, although the Google translator is a little flawed the discussion was quite positive. I have great respect for those that create and share their work, and have become protective of the wishes of those creators.

Hopefully with more communications a better understanding will become a reality.

Thanks again.

Buddah

Buddah

I must thank you for your kind words. Also, I do know you have been protecting Japanese modders for a long time. I remember you defended Japanese users when an issue arose up in the Bethesda Forum before. I appreciate your kindness and all your hard work to moderate comments here. Thank you very much.

As you already know, there is not the very Oblivion community in Japan that many modders and users frequent. Even the largest community "2ch" is just one forum that some of those frequent. It is a shame that we Japanese players often confuse foreign ones due to our chaotic manners. I only hope no friction will occur in future, and I am sure that everything will be getting better little by little.

Gratefully,

Quistena

Well, maybe this is too rational and reasonable a solution for some, but why not (as was already suggested) simply remove the files uploaded without permission here, and then put links to their sources? I mean, sure the authors want to keep their work within their community, but if people from here were to join their community, and not re-up the files somewhere else, wouldn't that make everyone happy? (And odds are that anyone from this community that might cause trouble for us at theirs wouldn't be able to figure out how to get in anyway, lol.)

Nothing gets uploaded anywhere without permission. Communities get larger, allowing for more creativity, and refinement of ideas. And the talent pools of the various communities involved merge, allowing for exchanges on modding techniques, and possibly content. And finally, everyone's happy.

OH MY GOD really for all the ppl requesting english just google translate the japanese readmes it's common sense and not that hard.

That's true, provided that the readme is still in Japanese and hasn't been turned into gibberish code. That's what happened to me when I tried to read the readme for the 2ch version of Beautiful people. This untranslatable gobbledegook is what I got when I opened the files... and I am pretty sure I do have Japanese fonts on my computer.

Hello! I'm a Japanese and a webmaster of the fan sites.



I tried using Google for the translation from Japanese to English in order to check the translation accuracy. How was the result?

Useless!!

I know that is useful in translating English and other Europian languages. But the machine translation have a long and long road to travel in translating between languages which have different language systems (like from Japanese to English).

If we write Japanese with considering the English grammar and habits of the machine translation, the translation result will be better. But it is too messy and we should know "the English grammar and habits of the machine translation". Well then, I'll write documents in English myself!!

The most of mods which are uploaded by Japanese at the NEXUS have English documents, I think. Is it good enough? If you make some efforts to get mods from non-English comunities, you will be happy. I cannot read Chinese and Korean, same as you. Language systems of Chinese and Japanese and Korean are different from each other (I doubt English speaker people think those languages are same...Some people categorizeｓ those languages as "CJK"). But I have tried to know the mods of Chinese and Korean comunities by some efforts.

I never intend to deny non-Jananese people. I know English is international language, too. But, what I want to say is "we should meet halfway". If we have some questions, to ask him/her is good solution. Perhaps he/she can read English. You can use machine translation for translating from English to Japanese(In fact, we can get better result in translating from E to J than from J to E. ). There is the "ROMA-JI", too (the means of expression for japanese by using the alphabet).
And I'm busy and poor English, but you want to know about Japanese mods, I will help you. Of course, I hope you do some efforts yourself before you ask me.

By the way, there is an open source Japanese font, "IPA Font". If you install that font, your PC may disply Japanese Language.

IPA Font Download
http://ossipedia.ipa.go.jp/ipafont/

If you submit the bottom button, you can access download page.

We can get Japanese fonts from the website of Microsoft, but it is more easy to get the IPA Font than MS fonts.

Sorry for poor English and thank you.

Irrlicht, Quistena,

thank you for your support and for the much needed (at least for me - I'm from Italy of all places) insight in the Japanese Oblivion community.

I would also like to thank Buddah for making sure mod authors from Nihon get both the credit and the respect they most certainly deserve: the (officially released) mods I've seen so far, such as Lera and Pizz's work, are breathtakingly beautiful and immersive.

Just when I thought all hope was lost here I find the thread that might help

@ Irrlicht &/or Quistena,

I absolutely agree that permissions or at the very least acknowledgement needs to be sought before posting up other people's works regardless of race/language or location

I had come across an amazing piece of work recently, and I decided to make a guide for it, but I just decided that It would be FAR easier for all my english speaking friends in the modding communities all over if I just translated the mod from within. I'm already halfway through and will probably finish in a few more days.....there is just one problem

I don't know who is the original author (Although it's most CERTAINLY japanese and likely from the 2ch community, that much I gathered since it had hirigana coded in it ) and my conversational japanese is horrific beyond words...haha

I'm only good at contextual translating T.T

So I WILL NOT post my translated version of this amazing mod unless I get at the very LEAST the blessings, if not permission of the original author. Which I feel is a shame since it's one of the most intricate scripts I've seen (and pretty good fun to boot )

Seeing that your english and japanese is wonderful and you know people in the japanese community, can I humbly ask for your help in seeking out the author and getting his permission please?

You can see my work and the reference to the file in question at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21135

Thank you very much! Arigato gozaimasu! ありがとうございます!

tenb1