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Digging through my endless archives, I turned up this fun e-mail from early 2004.

For those who have followed the translation scene for some time, you might remember The Whirlpool, a translation news site that byuu and I had a longstanding feud with. Well, more with its two creators and maintainers: Spinner 8 and (wraith).

In 2004, the site was lagging on updates, and they started taking applications for new writers; on a dare, I sent one in.

The following is my application e-mail to contribute news to The Whirlpool:

From: Derrick Sobodash
To: donutapp@parodius.com
Subject: Staff
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 02:35:17 -0500

I bet you hoped not to hear from me. Honestly, I was dared to apply (by someone other than byuu), so why not. I’m not really expecting you to reply, or even consider me.

I love video games. I may not like the politics or the attitude of people in the translation scene, but I like video games.

I’ve been involved with translation work since 1996, shortly after Demi and SoM2Freak began their work on Final Fantasy II and III on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Quatch and Lord Pinto were working on Dragon Quest I&II. Their work was what inspired me to try Final Fantasy V, a game I was in love with at the time.

Except for a brief break between 1998 to late 2000, I have always been involved in some kind of translation work, even if it wasn’t on my own projects. I did some of the first work on several systems, including NEC’s PC-88 and PC98, and Sega’s Saturn and Dreamcast. Currently, I maintain an open source tool for monochrome bitmap ad bitplane work called FEIDIAN.

My writing background includes a yearlong employment at a weekly newspaper, some freelance work and four years of education in Oakland University’s journalism program. I am completing my senior year of study with a focus in print Journalism, and also a second major in East Asian Studies with a focus in China.

My journalism education has included courses on SQL, media law, feature writing and extensive study and practice in Associated Press Style. Some publications I have worked for have required adherence to a secondary style guide on top of AP’s, so I am able to adapt to other specifications as needed.

As a former reader of The Whirlpool, three problems have always stood out to me: a tendency to editorialize news, reviews lacking in detail and structure and little investigation into news before posting — though there’s only so much one can do, as most authors are unwilling to release their source.

As the Internet’s only real translation news source, The Whirlpool has an advantage over emulation news sites in that it’s not competing for time with anyone else. I believe that with that advantage, The Whirlpool can afford to be more than just a wordy calendar of events, and really bring a bit more to news updates than pasting out of a README of off an author’s page.

Researching the history of the project, and even a bit about the game, could bring a whole new element to The Whirlpool’s coverage, and save its readers from hunting Google in hopes someone, somewhere has posted information on the obscure game of the week.

I would also like to bring more detailed coverage of PC translations to the Web site.

To continue to succeed, The Whirlpool needs to transcend “translation scene” news and become translation news. The Super Nintendo is increasingly antiquated, and while it may have been one of the driving forces of early translation work, it is certainly not the future.

The Whirlpool is in a position to seriously influence the future of fan game translations. If it works to evolve a pace behind the actual game market, it could introduce many new people to translations and ensure the tradition of free game translations continues.

On the flip-side, if attention continues to be lavished on the archaic systems its staff grew up with, many new people who are where we were in 1996 may be turned off from translation entirely, seeing as it only covers the machines of yesteryear.

Assuming I get the position, and assuming I choose to accept it, I am available to write immediately, though between studies and other standing obligations, I cannot commit to more than two stories per week for The Whirlpool. I will be unable to update between May 5 and June 23, as I will be enrolled in Beijing Foreign Affairs College and without Internet access.

Other skills:

• Four years experience in PHP development, currently with a focus in console application
• SQL
• Literate in Japanese and Spanish — though it has become rusty; partial literacy in Chinese
• QuarkXpress 4.0 – 6.0

Sadly, I don’t have the response e-mail. As I recall, it came from Gideon Zhi, who asked me if I would help to bring the site’s MSX section up to date, since it was roughly five years behind. I said sure. He said nothing.

Several months later during a flame war, the staff threw it in my face and blamed me for not helping to solve any of the problems I complained about. In reality, someone told someone to tell someone else to tell another guy to tell me what to do, and in that great game of telephone, the message was completely lost.

Today, The Whirlpool is over a year dead. Its databases, and all the game reviews like, “I can’t read a f——king thing in this game, so it sucks ass. But I guess it is cool someone is translating it,” have been inherited by ROMHacking.net.

And what of my comments on the future of the translation scene? I believe this sums it up entirely: they have translated Wozz, and now they are eying Bazoo! Mahou Sekai …

Edit: Wow, this one stirred up some shit. At least some good did come of it, in that it revived Spinner 8, who says he rejected my application because it was a dare. I’m not really hurt, because, well, it was a dare!

I hadn’t realized posting a funny e-mail from my backup discs that had a few still-true criticisms would start so much trouble.