Roles and Permissions in a Scanlation Team

Dividing work is not a list, it is a capacity question. A "who does what" table is accurate on day one and fiction by month three. Here are the three mechanisms that keep it honest.

A role is not a person

A role describes a job, not a human. In small groups one person carries three roles; in large ones three people share a role. Systems that miss this distinction fall into one of two traps: everyone can do everything (nobody is accountable), or each role is locked to one person (the chain stops when they are away).

The working rule: permissions attach to roles, assignments attach to people. "Typesetter" grants access to the typesetting screen; a specific chapter's typesetting is assigned to a specific person.

Three rules for permissions

1. Permissions add up, they never subtract. If someone is a translator group-wide but also typesets one specific series, the per-series grant must be additive. If it replaces the group-level role, that person loses the ability to do their main job.

2. Resolve permission against the resource's owner. People belong to more than one group. "Can they do this?" must be answered against the team that owns the thing being acted on, not whichever team they happen to have active. Miss this and someone can invite a member to the wrong group, or see another group's chapters.

3. Never offer an action that will be refused. A button that says "you don't have permission" when clicked is worse than no button: it teaches a wrong mental model, and people plan around it.

Breaking single-person dependency

When one person runs every step, it usually is not a preference — it is compensation. They see work stalled, and take it over even though it was not their turn. The symptoms:

• One person assigns themselves to multiple steps of the same chapter,
• Most assignments are multi-step,
• "It's faster if I just do it" is said often.

The fix is not more rules; it is visibility. When whose turn it is — and how long it has been waiting — is obvious, the urge to take over drops.

Making workload visible

Three numbers tell you whether the split is fair:

Number	What it shows
Open tasks per person	Current load
Average wait per step	Where the bottleneck is
Steps completed per person, per month	Actual contribution

Without these, the fairness conversation runs on feelings — and feelings favour whoever talks most.

What should a new member see on day one?

Three things: which tasks are mine, when will it be my turn, and who do I ask when stuck. These belong on their own screen, not in a welcome message. Messages scroll; screens stay.

Next

Once roles are settled, tracking becomes the question. We look at how small groups solve it in the comparisons section.