Don't know if this has been suggested before, but maybe there should be a way to lock marking a manga complete until it has a release and/or scanlation group listed. I keep coming across manga that are marked complete, but there is no information on the scanlation group or any latest releases. I think there are some people who don't realize that a manga has to be completely scanlated in English in order to be marked complete, and will mark a manga complete once they have found a complete set of raws.

No, that would be a horrible idea.

I think you're mistaken. Although MU has a wonderful and comprehensive database in terms of English scanlated manga, it is unable to list ALL the English scanlated releases that are available on the interweb for a number of reasons. Such as no actual group/site, only available on online readers, released by groups who don't want to be listed on MU, etc. There is usually a very good reason why it was marked as 'Completely Scanlated' in the first place, and it really helps letting more people be aware of scanlated series they might be interested online. And next time, you should seriously try searching for for those specified series' releases before you consider messing around with the status.

(If anybody changed the 'Completely Scanlated' status without trying to find the release online, please change it back as that would be greatly appreciated.)

I've rarely changed the status of a manga, because I figure that my search must have been mistaken somehow (like sometimes a scanlation group will only release a manga to people who are members of their group or something). But it's really disappointing to see a manga that I'm interested in listed as completely scanlated and then once I search for it I can't actually find it. I only come to the conclusion that the manga isn't actually completed after doing a general search for it. Usually, I'll find that either 1) the raw was recently posted online, 2) the manga was completed in a different language or 3) the manga was recently licensed. I'm assuming that these reasons are why someone has decided to change status of the manga to complete.

If people were required to input other information for the manga, such as the group that was scanlating it, it would be easier to confirm if the manga was actually fully scanlated, or if someone just misinterpreted the rules of MU on when a manga can be listed as completed.

I think a big part of the reason you couldn't find anything is due to your lack of searching skills, as every time I've seen a series page with no released marked as 'Completely Scanlated,' I've managed to find the English release somewhere online.
No, there is very little chance anybody would mark a release as 'Completely Scanlated' by a closed community group, as that status is meant to show the English scanlation is available freely somewhere on the interweb (because I know countless other completely scanlated series by closed community groups that are listed as NOT 'Completely Scanlated' here). There is also the fact that if the manga series was completely scanned in English (not scanlated) by a scanning group, it is not listed on MU but the status will still be shown on the page.

But if the majority of those release can't already be found on online readers, they were most likely only available on sites like MangaTraders before it went down. Thankfully, there are plans for a substitute site coming soon perhaps 1-2 months (since they managed to save the entire database before it closed down).

Thanks for just insulting me as a response to my legitimate concerns. Sorry if my searching skills suck, but since I can't ask anyone on MU how to find the scanlation, I'm limited as far as what I can do. By the way, I've had this concern for a while, and the reason why I chose to write about it today was because of finding yet another series marked as complete, with no information provided about it, and a general google search did not turn up anything about the series. The series wouldn't have been on MT since that site has been down for a while and the series was just marked complete.

As far as I'm concerned, a series should be relatively easy to find from just a general search, and I shouldn't have to scour the internet with advanced researching skills just to find it. But maybe that is another matter entirely.

I actually agree with KaoriNite. It does seem like some series are changed to CS (going to abbreviate completely scanlated to CS) when it's only been licensed in English. (Or the other possible reasons KaoriNite said). If it is CS by a closed community group, well it shouldn't be marked CS as the closed group doesn't wish for their scans to be public, and if they were part of that closed group they would be able to know without having to check here.
If it's from an unregistered group, but scans are not easy to find, (Not even on online reader sites) who's to blame you to think someone mistakenly marked it as CS because above reasons. I don't think it's that hard for that group to be added, if they wanted others to know. I don't think a reader needs to have extreme searching skills just to find scans from an unknown group. Not to mention some registered groups won't touch manga that are CS. (If they happen to look here for things that are dropped, or untouched.)
Now the only reason why I would agree with tart is for those direct "scans". The "scans" that are copied from licensed English manga. However, those shouldn't be marked CS here for two reasons. A) It's against the rules here (only translated info should be updated here), and B) it's wrong. You should support the mangaka by buying the licensed book. (But I'm poor T^T so those direct "scans" are a nice sample to read before I buy it if I get the spare money, and like it ... but this isn't the point of this thread ... )

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I strongly disagree with this line of thinking, and I'm going to give a couple of specific examples to show why.

A few years back, I added Sparkle! Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere as a completely scanlated series to the database. It was scanlated anonymously, and released on a site that may not even have been registered on Google searches (I'm not positive on this point, and the site doesn't exist anymore for me to check). Regardless, the scanlation was publicly available to those who knew where to look.

Now, I uploaded the release elsewhere, so one can easily find it today - but should a user really be obligated to redistribute an anonymous scanlation before updating the series page on MU? That hardly seems proper to me.

On the other hand, if a scanlation release needs to be readily available to be included in the database, shouldn't you also be seeking to remove official releases that no longer have any working downloads?

Take The Imprisoned Princess, for a recent example. It was released just under a year ago, and to the best of my knowledge it's not currently available anywhere - the original release links are down, and nobody seems to have redistributed it. Should we remove the release information, seeing as it's no longer accessible? In which case we should remove the series as well, seeing as it would become an "unscanlated" oneshot.

In the end, MU is a database of information - I don't see why accurate information should be removed simply because some users don't find it useful. Now, if there are widespread accuracy issues with the completely scanlated status, perhaps it could be treated the same way as the licensed in English field, i.e. requiring a change request to update the information. But first you should show some evidence that this is the case.

The manga I was referring to was Fuson na Hana o Aisureba. When searching for it, I could find websites to buy the licensed version but could not find an actual scanlation of. There is no information on a scanlation group or releases. But there have been numerous manga like this (no info on group or releases and can't be found from a general online search) that I've found in the past.

Knockin' On Your Door is an example of a manga that I found marked completed once raws were made available online. Maybe there is an English translation somewhere, but I've only found the Chinese and Japanese versions. There is information on the group and release dates though.

The group Harudaki (http://www.mangaupdates.com/groups.html?id=1755) regularly has their releases updated on MU although from the information I've found about this group they are a closed community.

@hahhah42 You make an interesting point about mangas that were scanlated and made widely available, and then for whatever reason taken down. I don't necessarily think that someone should have to go back and change the status of the manga from scanlated to not.

But as far as your first point,
If people have to know a specific site to go to to find that manga, it seems like the same thing as having a closed community (unless the information on what site to go to is common knowledge or readily available).

Last edited by KaoriNite at 6:56 pm, Aug 15 2014

I don't see how a publicly accessible site is in any way comparable to a closed community, especially now that MU no longer offers links to scanlator sites. The series I mentioned didn't require any registration or the like to download, it was (at the time) available to anybody who came across it.

That said, I was under the impression that groups that require registration were still considered acceptable under MU guidelines, so long as their requirements for signing up don't amount to invite only.

Also:

Fuson na Hana o Aisureba - this is completely scanlated, and not too difficult to find. It was done by a group listed on MU that later became a closed community (iirc). Nonetheless, for this particular series, they allowed it to be redistributed elsewhere in an open forum.

Knockin' On Your Door - I only found working links for chapters 2-3 for this one, but then again, I didn't bother trying the original scanlator's site, since that would require friending them on lj. So they might all be available there, for all I know.

As for Harudaki, their Shin Tekken Chinmi releases seem to be openly released... And I've already filled my yaoi quota for the year with the above two series, so you're on your own there.

If a manga is easy to find on a site that doesn't require membership that's one thing, but you mentioned that people looking for that manga wouldn't have found it doing a regular search. They would have to know what site to go to in order to read the manga. To me, this means that the average reader wouldn't be able to find the manga, and that the manga is meant for a specific group of people (regardless of whether you have to register for that group or not).

It's great that you were able to find those manga. Sadly the person who is actually interested in these manga can't find them. But I guess that's a problem for me and not you guys.

No, I didn't intend to insult you. But I do sincerely believe that if a person seriously wanted to find a series, they would be able to put the effort to find at least some information about it online. If you check the 'Completely Scanlated' and if the amount of people reading the series listed on the page are more than 10, there's an extremely good chance it's been scanlated.

Yeah, Fuson na Hana o Aisureba was scanlated by a 'Closed Community' group, but I was easily able to find their English scanlated volume on Nihonomaru. If you bothered reading the description written in the post there, the download link is easily accessible.

Knockin' On Your Door is scanlated by and can be found at Hinako Takanaga LJ community.

Harudaki isn't a closed community, but I think they're strictly moderated enough they should be considered one. You can find their link somewhere on Minha's LJ. Though I should let you know that there is a delay when the scanlations are posted and are actually released because it depends on whether each post gets enough "thank-you comments." And that's only for the NON-Crimson Spell and Haru wo Daiteita releases. You have to jump through several hoops on mIRC for those including downloading the sysreset extension, set up a fileshare and get a +v status. =_=



I agree with hahhah42, I don't think you actually know what a 'Closed Community' group because compared to those, a lot of other groups are pretty easy-going (Harudaki is an exception IMO). A 'Closed Community' group is basically when they don't accept any new membership to access downloads no matter what or force you to make 50-100+ posts in their forum before you can access a single release. I really don't see how just because some openly joinable groups choose not to be listed on MU, but are easily found by using a google seach (if you put in the effort) could be considered a 'Closed Community.'

Thanks for the information. I agree with you that I don't know what a closed community is since I have no contact with any of those types of groups. Basically, if I do a google search and can't find something I assume that either someone mistakenly labelled the manga, or that it is some sort of community where you have to be a member to gain access to the material.

My initial suggestion was based off of the fact that when I can't just search for the manga and have it come up in a search, I usually then search for the group that was scanlating it. If a group isn't listed, then my search ends. I guess at the end of this I've realized that I'm still a newb when it comes to this, but at least I have a better idea of why there are so many manga I haven't been able to find.