Watch the Footage

Sicon112 wrote:

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Oh, she's definitely not here to get the echo for us. But she's here for something. It should be fun finding out what.
(and remember, everyone-- this character requires VERY careful handling)

As we found out. *tease*

That's right, rub it in. How was I to know this would happen? [/grumble]

I knew it! It seemed too weird for someone to stay in one thread about a character!

WMG: Not Your-Sayu-Chan is a PM.

Sicon112 wrote:

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Oh, she's definitely not here to get the echo for us. But she's here for something. It should be fun finding out what.
(and remember, everyone-- this character requires VERY careful handling)

As we found out. *tease*

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:That's right, rub it in. How was I to know this would happen? [/grumble]

If we end up on some kind of Hawiiian 'Predator Watch' list I'm blaming you

Getting here late for this one. But we're stuck on this people.
PM notifications are just that. No point translating into Japanese because the PM itself won't be sent by email, and clearly the mother will not be browsing for a reply. Nor let Sayu log in again.

Well, the notification contains a link to the message. I'd say the chances for her to see the PM are high enough to try.
...and if we don't find a Japanese-speaking metaguards in a couple of hours, I'll do it the Google way. What do you think we should tell her?

Dryunya wrote:Well, the notification contains a link to the message. I'd say the chances for her to see the PM are high enough to try.
...and if we don't find a Japanese-speaking metaguards in a couple of hours, I'll do it the Google way. What do you think we should tell her?

Mimsy knows some Japanese. I do too, but not enough to actually compose a message. If we do that, I believe we should handle her assuming Sayu and her mother to be real people and not at all related to the ARG... Because if they are and we go like "Hello Zack, how you've been, we know it's you, show your face!" it'll only creep her out a lot more... And real people could report the foruns and create all sorts of problems...

So... I'd go for something like this:

"Hello Sayu's mother. We apologize for the confusion we caused. Our group is investigating some events as a part of an online game, Sayu has told us here in this forum that she lives in Hawaii and we do have an event taking place at that location. That's why we sent her a message, hoping she would be able to help us. Again, we apologize for the misunderstanding. We do not mean anything bad by talking to your daughter and hope you can understand that. If at all possible, we would like that you or her came talk to us, if only to let us know you have read this message."

Again, I don't think we'll be able to get any information out of this. The best I can come up with is damage control... If she proves responsive, then we can carefully try to learn something. Also, the password thing is NOT proof that she's a PM.

Pixelmage wrote:Also, the password thing is NOT proof that she's a PM.

Agreed. I've set it up so that I'm automatically logged in any time I come to this site. If Sayu did the same, her mom could easily have used her account.

Pixelmage wrote:Also, the password thing is NOT proof that she's a PM.

Of course it's not. Even if she didn't use the auto-login, her mother could just demand the password. Family matters, and stuff.
Also, nice message. I have no idea what Google Translate will make of it, though...

Oh, and

Pixelmage wrote:If we do that, I believe we should handle her assuming Sayu and her mother to be real people and not at all related to the ARG... Because if they are and we go like "Hello Zack, how you've been, we know it's you, show your face!" it'll only creep her out a lot more... And real people could report the foruns and create all sorts of problems...

Interacting with the puppetmasters as if they were puppetmasters is generally a bad idea.

Can I draft the message we send her? I kind of accidentally triggered this mess; I want to clean it up (plus that way there will be consistency with the PM I sent Sayu-chan, which presumably the mother has access to).

Give me a second to draft something and I'll edit this post with my message.

All right. Can we ask for a translation of this?:

Dear Madam,
It appears that your daughter visited the blog of a celebrity named Gulliver, and discovered this website-- our fansite for him-- from a link one of us had left in the comments on his blog. I sent her a message through this website because she casually mentioned meeting him, and as a huge fan I wanted to know more. I didn't know that that would cause an email to be sent, or that it would cause you such alarm.
Please accept my explanation, my profuse apologies, and my good wishes.
Yours,
Qara-Xuan

I think if we keep mentions of the game out, we're playing it safe on both ends-- because if she's a PM, even if it's not out-and-out accusing her, it gets a little too meta, and if she's a real person-- some people get funny about online gaming, think it's creepy. She already thinks we're creeps.

I've been playing this as I'm-a-big-Gulliver fangirl to Sayu already; this message is harmless, explanatory, and consistent.

Seems OK. Go for it.

I'll Google-Translate and listen to the reading... Not perfect, but at least I can find if something is completely out of place in the translation.
Well... GoogleTranslate:

拝啓、
私たちのひとりが彼のブログにコメントに残されていたリンクから - 彼のために私たちのファンサイト - それはあなたの娘はガリバーという有名人のブログを訪問し、このウェブサイトを発見したことが表示されます。彼女が何気なく彼に会う述べたので、私はこのサイトを通じて、彼女にメッセージを送って、大ファンとして、私はもっと知りたいと思いました。私は、それが電子メールが送信されることはありだろうと知りませんでしたか、それはあなたのようなアラームを引き起こすこと。
私の説明は、私の平謝り、私の良い願いを受け入れてください。
ユアーズ、
カラ - スアン

But it's way too formal so I don't know most of the speech patterns of the reading (and I can't read it myself at all)... So I'm not really sure if the translation is acceptable or butchered beyond regognition... And... Well, reversing the translation process results in this abomination:

Dear Sir or Madam,
It is your daughter can visit the blog of celebrity that Gulliver found this website - fan site our for him - from the link one of us had been left in a comment on his blog appears. I met him because she said casually, through this site, send a message to her, I thought as a big fan, and I want to know more. Did not know there would be, I can e-mail it is sent, it can cause an alarm like you.
My profuse apologies, my explanation, please accept my good wishes.
Yours,
Kara - Suan

Oh, and... I think you should include the original English message, just so that she knows it's machine-translated, or something.

I sent a PM to our Japanese player, on the off chance he gets it and gives us a better translation.
Meantime, here's what google translate gives me:

拝啓、
私たちのひとりが彼のブログにコメントに残されていたリンクから - 彼のために私たちのファンサイト - それはあなたの娘はガリバーという有名人のブログを訪問し、このウェブサイトを発見したことが表示されます。彼女が何気なく彼に会う述べたので、私はこのサイトを通じて、彼女にメッセージを送って、大ファンとして、私はもっと知りたいと思いました。私は、それが電子メールが送信されることはありだろうと知りませんでしたか、それはあなたのようなアラームを引き起こすこと。
私の説明は、私の平謝り、私の良い願いを受け入れてください。
ユアーズ、
カラ - スアン

Pixel, can you (or anyone else with some Japanese) give what pointers you have on the grammar/construction?

Edit:

Dryunya wrote:Oh, and... I think you should include the original English message, just so that she knows it's machine-translated, or something.

Good idea. When I do send her the PM, I'll include the English below.

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:I sent a PM to our Japanese player, on the off chance he gets it and gives us a better translation.
Meantime, here's what google translate gives me:

Pixel, can you (or anyone else with some Japanese) give what pointers you have on the grammar/construction?

Not really, most of my understanding comes from Anime... So I can understand day-to-day speech patterns fairly well, but I can't read or write at all. And since you're writing formally, it's something I'm not familiar with. We could wait for Mimsy to come around, he knows a lot more than I do. But other than that I'm not sure what we can do...

I did post this translation above too, along with the mess that was the reverse process.

All right. I kept tweaking the message by trial-and-error, and running it through Google translate, until I got something that still made sense and sounded respectful on its way back to English (I assume that therefore it will be likewise in the Japanese).

Here's what the message now says:

Dear Madam,
It appears that your daughter visited the blog of a celebrity named Gulliver, and she discovered this website-- our fansite for him-- from a link one of us had left in the comments on his blog. She casually mentioned that she met him, so I sent her a message through this website because as a huge fan I wanted to know more. I didn't know that my message would worry you.
Please accept my explanation, my profuse apologies, and my good wishes.
Yours,
Qara-Xuan

Here's the Japanese translation:

拝啓、
私たちのひとりが彼のブログにコメントに残されていたリンクから - 彼のために私たちのファンサイト - それはあなたの娘はガリバーという有名人のブログを訪問し、彼女がこのウェブサイトを発見したことが表示されます。彼女は何気なく彼女が彼に会ったので、巨大なファンとして、私はもっと知りたいと思いましたので、私はこのサイトを通じて、彼女にメッセージを送ったと述べた。私は私のメッセージはあなたを心配することを知りませんでした。
私の説明は、私の平謝り、私の良い願いを受け入れてください。
ユアーズ、
カラ - スアン

And here's the translation back into (broken) English:

Dear Sir or Madam,
Your daughter to visit the blog of celebrity that Gulliver, that she found this website - fan our site for him - from the link that one of us was left in the comments on his blog it will be displayed. I said so because she thought she had met him casually, as a huge fan, and I want to know more, through this site, and I sent a message to her. My message is I did not know that worry you.
My profuse apologies, my explanation, please accept my good wishes.
Yours,
Kara - Suan

Should I go ahead and send her the PM now, or wait a while?

I don't think our Japanese speaker is going to appear, considering that his/her last post dates to 16th or so. You decide.

I don't think we'll get a clean translation, to be honest... So you should send the original english with:
オリジナルメッセージ:
(Original Message:)

Thank you! I'll send it now.

Wait-- subject line. Should I use the subject from this thread?

Edit: No, that translates to "You Stop It"-- not a good start.
謝罪 translates as "Apology." I'll use that?

NO!

The tittle here means "STOP IT!", quite the imperative. Not a good title... I'll find one better suited.

KFSebnti25 wrote:

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Wait-- subject line. Should I use the subject from this thread?

Edit: No, that translates to "You Stop It"-- not a good start.
謝罪 translates as "Apology." I'll use that?

Pixelmage wrote:NO!

I'll edit a good answer.

Go for it.

Again! Don't send it with that Title!

I got too hyper now...
You should use ごめんなさい (gomennassai, translates to "I'm Sorry"). It's cleaner and a bit less formal. Also a lot more direct to the point.

Pixel: I sent it with the title 謝罪 ("Apology"). Is that all right? Or do you know a way to keep it from leaving my outbox?

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Pixel: I sent it with the title 謝罪 ("Apology"). Is that all right? Or do you know a way to keep it from leaving my outbox?

There should still be time to Edit it... But, well... Maybe it's not necessary.

You're right-- I opened it for editing. What do you recommend for the subject heading?