For this headline (which I gave a +1, BTW), Subby's gonna get his thumbs broken by the guys at Ultra Mainichi Daliy Ne++++++++++++++++++++NO CARRIER++++++++++++++++++++

Me Chinese, not a jerk,
No pay five dollar,
To read Fark at work.

The Japanese will get over it, just like they did Hiroshima.

Seppuku is a biatch.

When the Japanese apologize, they mean that sh*t. Having read through those two releases, I'm positive that someone on this editorial board died by seppuku, or a fatal vertical collision with asphalt.

The people responsible for sacking the people responsible have been sacked.

Two Dogs Farking: The people responsible for sacking the people responsible have been sacked.

I'm still waiting for the llamas.

I'd be interested in some of this "vulgar" WaiWai content that seemed to piss so many people off.

These people were probably uptight American soccer moms, I'm betting...

Anyone else notice the URL?

/Racist

Two Dogs Farking: The people responsible for sacking the people responsible have been sacked.

GAAH! Ya beat me to it. *facedeskfacedesk*

I'm suprised it took this long for this news to make fark.
They took waiwai down a few weeks ago and now the entire site is getting revamped

No way this is a real article.

If it is though: FTFA: We continued to post articles that contained incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content.

OK subby, why did you link this article and not all the other articles chock full of "indecent sexual content"??

I call shenanigans!

The people responsible for the sacking have been sacked.

Now its time for the manichi ultra sexy action news team.

Here's Rick Cartman-san with the daily news...

no more waiwai? Why do the jurn'lists hate our freedoms?

Silly? Where the farkin' HERO tag?

"We will appoint a female employee as the new chief editor, based on our realization that the lack of a woman's point of view, in addition to the lack of a checking system, helped to create a situation in which inappropriate articles continued to be published in the column."

Those Japs really know how to spoil what sounds like a fine work environment.

We so sowwy! Pwease excuse us! Many thanks!


/thats wacist!

The schoolgirls have been sacked.
The tentacles that raped the schoolgirls have been sacked.
The Americans who dropped the bomb that spawned the beast that had the tentacles have all been sacked.

A Møøse once bit my sister...

No realli! She was Karving her initials øn the møøse with the sharpened end
of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law -an Oslo
dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo
Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"...


We apologise for the fault in the
subtitles. Those responsible have been
sacked.

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

We apologise again for the fault in the
subtitles. Those responsible for sacking
the people who have just been sacked,
have been sacked.

The directors of the firm hired to
continue the credits after the other
people had been sacked, wish it to
be known that they have just been
sacked.

The credits have been completed
in an entirely different style at great
expense and at the last minute.

People writing bad,
Now they do not have a job,
It is all good now.


/this haiku brought to you by someone who needs more caffeine

The Mainichi Newspapers took punitive measures on July 20 against Managing Director Yoshiyuki Watanabe, who previously served as general manager of the Multimedia Division, and another senior official, to hold them responsible as supervisors, in addition to those who were earlier punished.

Wow, you know that is not the US. Senior level supervisors only take responsibility when thing go well. When things go tits up, they usually pull an Ebbers and say they didn't understand what their workers really did.

what was the article in question?

England 932 A.D.

Dammit, WaiWai has been a mainstay on Fark for years. Now they're telling me that Japanese mothers giving their kids head for getting good grades isn't true? Damn you Yutaka Asahina. Damn you.

... (need some coconut shells) ...

The funny thing is that the WaiWai column just used to translate existing Japanese articles into English.

They are fine with that content floating all about in Japanese, but just got their knickers in a knot when they thought foreigners could easily access it and half a chuckle at their shenanigans.

zzrhardy: The funny thing is that the WaiWai column just used to translate existing Japanese articles into English.

They are fine with that content floating all about in Japanese, but just got their knickers in a knot when they thought foreigners could easily access it and half a chuckle at their shenanigans.

where's that place you like to eat with all the goofy sh*t on the walls?

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/?So_solly

OOPS! Wrong URL! Fixed!

Darn. I am going to miss those articles.

/You submitted this with a better subtitle

Since when did the Mainichi Daily News have its own FARK tag?

WaiWai column gone? It was one of those "once a month" things" but it made the day.

Are they p*ssed that the articles were posted or were they p*ssed that the articles were translated into English so the world could read them.

more like $4.17 per month

//on the 6 month plan
///best money i ever spent
////boobies

xanadian xanadian: I'd be interested in some of this "vulgar" WaiWai content that seemed to piss so many people off.

These people were probably uptight American soccer moms, I'm betting...


Here you go.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/20080720/0720_04.html

Chronology of problems with English-language site
Inappropriate articles translated from magazines

The WaiWai column on the MDN Web site was, as a rule, updated daily between April 2001 and June 2008 and carried a total of 2,561 articles. An additional 346 articles were uploaded onto a related section called "The Face," bringing the total number of similarly translated articles to 2,907.

Approximately 30 publications served as sources of the articles, including monthly magazines, news weeklies, pictorial weeklies, men's and women's weekly magazines, and evening-edition dailies.

Generally speaking, WaiWai stories identified the name of the source publication and carried a photo of the magazine's cover. The lead paragraph summarized the article, and went into more detail from the second paragraph. Most stories were around 600 words, and 60 to 80 percent were essentially translations of the original.

Among the stories carried in the column was one titled "The Cook, the Beast, the Vice and its Lover" describing abnormal sexual preferences (September 2007) and another headlined "Ancient rice festival has reputation smeared by 'therapeutic' facial cream claims" linking a traditional festival to sexual practices (December 2005). The column also reported on Japanese tourists participating in tours involving illegal activity in some countries, including Ecuador and Belarus (July 2003). These stories were translated without confirming any of these claims.

Other stories inappropriately took up issues of underage sex; did not explain how figures cited in the Japanese original were calculated, inviting misunderstanding; and portrayed the comments of several women in a magazine article as indicating a general trend.

The lead paragraph of a story about a manga introducing the Defense Ministry's policies, which features a young girl character, adds a description of the ministry not found in the original article, claiming it is "the successor of the government ministry that gave the world Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking." The explanation given by the column editor for this addition was that it served to accentuate the gap between the ministry and the manga character.

Issues relating to the translation and summarization of copyrighted material are being discussed with the publishers of the source magazines.
Delay in deleting articles, shutting down WaiWai

A new thread was opened on an online bulletin board about WaiWai in late May this year, which was soon flooded with critical opinions about the column, such as "The contents of the column are too vulgar" and "They could cause Japanese people to be misunderstood overseas."

On May 30, the publisher of a monthly magazine protested to the Mainichi Daily News (MDN) for translating one of its articles and carrying it in the WaiWai column.

Managing Editor Hiroshiatakahashi conferred with the staff writer in charge of the column, deleted the articles being criticized on May 31 and blocked access to all past WaiWai articles in the archives after deeming many of them to be inappropriate.

On June 2, the company apologized to the magazine's editorial department.

However, the MDN continued to post articles in the WaiWai column, based on articles from the Sunday Mainichi, a weekly magazine published by the Mainichi Newspapers.

"It was a popular column that had continued since the Mainichi Daily News was published as a printed newspaper. Therefore, we couldn't easily decide to shut it down because we thought there are many regular readers," Takahashi explained.

"I received an official report on June 2 that we had received complaints (about WaiWai). Until then, I hadn't taken notice of WaiWai," said Atsushi Hasegawa, at the time the general manager of the Digital Media Division and a superior of Takahashi.

"I remember having received a report from Takahashi in May about the problem, but I didn't think it was a serious matter," said Akihiko Isono, at the time the deputy general manager of the Digital Media Division.

An online news site reported problems involving WaiWai on June 20. The Digital Media Division shut down WaiWai on June 21, and posted a message on both the MDN and the Japanese site of the Mainichi Shimbun on June 23, admitting that the contents of the articles in question had been inappropriate.

Moreover, we published an apology on June 25 and reported punitive measures against the staff writer in charge and his superiors, including two board members, and the development of the problem on June 28 in the printed and online editions of the Mainichi Shimbun and the MDN.

The Mainichi Newspapers is continuing to explain and apologize to publishing companies whose articles the column quoted without their permission and to the embassies of Ecuador and Belarus and other parties for any inconvenience we may have caused.
Notice:

With regards to the content that was carried in the WaiWai column, we have refrained from explaining the stories in detail because the facts are uncertain, and carrying them here again may only bring discomfort to readers. It could also inconvenience the publishers of magazines quoted in the column, as well as those concerned who appear in the articles.
41 words used as meta tags for search engines on MDN site
Words designated by foreign staff member; superiors were unaware

On every page of the Mainichi Daily News site, there were 41 keywords used as "meta tags," which were embedded into pages to make it easier for them to be picked up by search engines. Among these keywords were the words "hentai," "geisha," and "japanese girls."

An e-mail from August last year indicates that a foreign Mainichi Daily News staff member designated these words as keywords and conveyed them to a technical staff member. The keywords were designated in conjunction with the renewal of the Mainichi Shimbun site in October last year. The staff member said, "I was busy and I don't remember clearly, but I think it was me who added them." With regard to the meta tags, arrangements were made solely between the people involved, and superiors were not aware of them.

The staff member said it was his understanding that over about the past five years, "hentai" had been part of the English vocabulary as a word referring to adult-themed manga and anime.

On the Japanese Mainichi Shimbun site, keywords vary from section to section, but on the Mainichi Daily News site, the keywords for all sections, including news and WaiWai, were the same.

The problem keywords have now been deleted.
Chronology of the WaiWai problem

Oct. '89: The Mainichi Daily News (MDN) begins to regularly publish the "WaiWai" column.
Oct. '96: The probation period of the staff writer who later took charge of the column begins. (He is appointed as a staff writer on a one-year contract in October 1997.)
March '01: Publication of the MDN as a printed newspaper is suspended.
April '01: The MDN starts anew as a Web site. WaiWai is resumed on the site.
April '05: The staff writer in charge is appointed as chief editor of the MDN.
Oct. '07: An e-mail in English criticizing WaiWai is received from a reader residing in the United States.
March '08: An e-mail in Japanese criticizing WaiWai is received from a reader in Japan.
May 30: The publisher of a monthly magazine protests to the MDN for translating and carrying one of its articles without permission.
May 31: Responding to complaints, the MDN deletes some WaiWai articles.
June 20: A news site reports on the WaiWai problem.
June 21: The WaiWai column is shut down. The Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun Web site and the MDN publish an explanation of the development of the WaiWai problem and an apology.
June 23: The online edition of the Mainichi Shimbun and the Mainichi Daily News publish an explanation of the development of the WaiWai problem and an apology.
June 25: The printed and online editions of the Mainichi Shimbun and the MDN publish an explanation of the development of the WaiWai problem and an apology.
June 27: The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. issues three months' disciplinary leave to the staff writer in charge of the column, and takes punitive measures against Director Atsushi Hasegawa and other senior staff members.
June 28: The printed and online editions of the Mainichi Shimbun and the MDN publish a detailed explanation of how the problem developed and how the company is responding to it.

GWShenlong05: When the Japanese apologize, they mean that sh*t. Having read through those two releases, I'm positive that someone on this editorial board died by seppuku, or a fatal vertical collision with asphalt.

Nah. That's just Tate-mae. They didn't mean any of it, and they were out drinking with their buddies and talking trash about you as soon as your back was turned.

xanadian: Two Dogs Farking: The people responsible for sacking the people responsible have been sacked.

I'm still waiting for the llamas.

OK, if you insist.

mynameistim: what was the article in question?

From their investigation report: Link (new window)

"Among the stories carried in the column was one titled "The Cook, the Beast, the Vice and its Lover" describing abnormal sexual preferences (September 2007) and another headlined "Ancient rice festival has reputation smeared by 'therapeutic' facial cream claims" linking a traditional festival to sexual practices (December 2005). The column also reported on Japanese tourists participating in tours involving illegal activity in some countries, including Ecuador and Belarus (July 2003). These stories were translated without confirming any of these claims.

"Other stories inappropriately took up issues of underage sex; did not explain how figures cited in the Japanese original were calculated, inviting misunderstanding; and portrayed the comments of several women in a magazine article as indicating a general trend.

"The lead paragraph of a story about a manga introducing the Defense Ministry's policies, which features a young girl character, adds a description of the ministry not found in the original article, claiming it is "the successor of the government ministry that gave the world Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking." The explanation given by the column editor for this addition was that it served to accentuate the gap between the ministry and the manga character."


And there's this too:

"On every page of the Mainichi Daily News site, there were 41 keywords used as "meta tags," which were embedded into pages to make it easier for them to be picked up by search engines. Among these keywords were the words "hentai," "geisha," and "japanese girls."

"An e-mail from August last year indicates that a foreign Mainichi Daily News staff member designated these words as keywords and conveyed them to a technical staff member. The keywords were designated in conjunction with the renewal of the Mainichi Shimbun site in October last year. The staff member said, "I was busy and I don't remember clearly, but I think it was me who added them." With regard to the meta tags, arrangements were made solely between the people involved, and superiors were not aware of them.

"The staff member said it was his understanding that over about the past five years, "hentai" had been part of the English vocabulary as a word referring to adult-themed manga and anime.

"On the Japanese Mainichi Shimbun site, keywords vary from section to section, but on the Mainichi Daily News site, the keywords for all sections, including news and WaiWai, were the same.

"The problem keywords have now been deleted."


And it appears most of the "punitive measures" taken amounted to making guys return 10% or 20% of their suprevisor's salary for the few months this was going on.

I don't think any sharp knives were involved.

Anybody got the name of the 'foreign staff member' who was obviously the loose cannon in all of this?

I can't remember the person's name, but he's one of the people listed as co-authors of Tabloid Tokyo, available

here (new window)

I found a name from another site:
Ryann Connell.
I guess he's out of a job now, too. It must have been a sweet gig, thinking up pornobabbel all morning for a decent salary, no doubt.

Man, they've taken the WaiWai archives offline...now a bunch of my old greenlights make no sense anymore...

/not that anyone ever reads the farkives for that stuff

Noooooooooooo!!!! Not WaiWai!!!! How could they do this to WaiWai???!?!?!! WAAIII???? WAAAAAAIIII???????

i dwive a honda!
i am junior accountant at local business firm!
me better than you! ha ha!

7/21 nevar forget.

Pervy Mainichi articles are some of the farkiest links on Fark. I don't know how we can go on without them. *sob*

I hated that column and Ryann Connell. farking dickweeds, all of 'em. I could never figure out why a relatively respectable newspaper had a column like that. It made Japanese people look like idiots.

Mainichi, Mainichi.
Oh so soft and cuddly.

Oh, en.pravda.ru, you are next after Mainichi...

bakarocket

As much as I absolutely detested Ryann Connell's writing style and found most of the content on WaiWai to be absurd (in a fascinating way), I was completely aware that the articles being (loosely) translated were essentially Japanese tabloids and took it at that. I'm sure not everyone did but not much can be done about that, especially on the Internet.

In a way, WaiWai did the world a service in showing just how common stupidity and empty, salacious sensationalism is in publications all over the world.

Oh, and since I'm picking on writing styles I think that the wording of that apology is completely inappropriate for WaiWai's typical readership--it's formal in a way meant for Japanese people, not english speakers. Sheesh, just how caring and sensitive do they think the readers of WaiWai are? The readers want stories about soaplands and sexual problems and unusual sexy-murder gossip! They're only human...