Website authenticity?

[Hitiro]

So, I was discussing Akira Toriyama's contribution to the anime today and this person asked for proof to what I was saying. I strolled on over to Kanzenshuu and found the page backing up claims. His direct response was that Kanzenshuu is run by a bunch of pasty white nerds who live in a basement that troll the dragonball community with lies and inaccurate translations of Japanese content. He goes on to say that he can speak and read Japanese pretty well and that the content I provided him had been mistranslated completely to, as he likes to word it, say that the manga is the superior form of media. I'm fairly convinced he is trying to troll me because not once did he provide any basis to prove what he was saying was true apart from "Its in the credits, so it must be true." But this has brought me to consider something, how do we clarify a websites authenticity to individuals who would likely say that the content it provides is just rubbish? I would like to say that this community is very good with the content it provides on all things in the dragonball franchise but apart from having some sort of stamp of approval or some way for this site to be affiliated with an official site such as Funimation or Toei Animation I don't see how individuals will be able to take facts from here or other websites with the same moral standing seriously.

I am curious to hear peoples opinions on this area. It seems to me that unless you are a company with some global influence then your site won't be accredited with the recognition it truly deserves. What are peoples thoughts?

[VegettoEX]

I'm not pasty. I just went on vacation and got pretty sunburned.

I am pretty damn white, though.

[Herms]

Well, Julian's passed the JLPT Level 1 (the highest one), so he's got official certification for his Japanese skills. I...don't really have anything so formal, just a ton of college credit.

The idea that we've got some vendetta against the anime is pretty absurd in light of our continued (and rather obsessive) focus on documenting anime credits, animation styles, and other anime-centric stuff. Not to mention that we made the "Toriyama's Contribtions to the Anime" page in large part to document instances of involvement that had not previously been widely known.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

Hitiro, I'm sure this guy doesn't know Japanese as well as Julian or Herms. I mean, he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about if he thinks Kanzenshuu is run by "pasty white nerds who live in a basement that troll the dragonball community".

Just don't talk to this guy, he sounds like a dick.

Also...

It seems to me that unless you are a company with some global influence then your site won't be accredited with the recognition it truly deserves. What are peoples thoughts?

Not true. Sometimes the official sites have little to no information. I mean look at DragonBallZ.com, that place is horrible. It has nothing useful and is still advertising DragonBall Z Kai Part 6!

[Hitiro]

Hitiro, I'm sure this guy doesn't know Japanese as well as Julian or Herms. I mean, he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about if he thinks Kanzenshuu is run by "pasty white nerds who live in a basement that troll the dragonball community".

Just don't talk to this guy, he sounds like a dick.

I have, don't you worry.

It seems to me that unless you are a company with some global influence then your site won't be accredited with the recognition it truly deserves. What are peoples thoughts?

Not true. Sometimes the official sites have little to no information. I mean look at DragonBallZ.com, that place is horrible. It has nothing useful and is still advertising DragonBall Z Kai Part 6!

Actually when I said this I meant on a much grander scale than the Dragonball universe. In education, particularly of the higher level, if you aren't referencing material like the BBC or other well known media companies through the net then your reference material is usually considered invalid unless the subject area is very new and cutting edge. Such as using CUDA for high performance computing, or if the source material has unusual circumstances. And there is probably a very fine line for certain subject areas which have even fuzzy official sources.

[Eddie]

Well the obvious solution is to get Mike a job at CNN. Preferably one as an on-air personality. An on-air personality that wears cardboard hair and plastic toys on his face. Make it happen, people.

[Gonstead]

Well the obvious solution is to get Mike a job at CNN. Preferably one as an on-air personality. An on-air personality that wears cardboard hair and plastic toys on his face. Make it happen, people.

Also needs to have Kyoufu no Ginyu Tokusentai playing as the theme music.

[SaiyaJedi]

Actually when I said this I meant on a much grander scale than the Dragonball universe. In education, particularly of the higher level, if you aren't referencing material like the BBC or other well known media companies through the net then your reference material is usually considered invalid unless the subject area is very new and cutting edge. Such as using CUDA for high performance computing, or if the source material has unusual circumstances. And there is probably a very fine line for certain subject areas which have even fuzzy official sources.

Well, one of the things we are trying to do is provide documentation / citations as to where we pull our information from on our pages. You'll notice that we do generally try to distinguish our commentary from the facts of the series, and note a specific episode / film / volume / companion book where appropriate; not quite university-level anal, but it helps. That is why our "Translations" section exists, as well: so we can show other people where we're getting our info from, and that we're not simply making it up or taking it out of context. I'd really like to put up a transcription of the Japanese alongside the English translations, to be honest, but we worry about running into copyright issues (plus removing the incentive of buying the books at all for people who can actually read the language). We might do that with one or two things that are not generally available in Japan either, but I think the jury's still out.