Several of us admins are currently in a discussion on the focus and direction of MangaUpdates. The more immediate changes would deal with how we treat doujinshi and novels. These policy changes are currently not in effect, but that could change at any moment, pending comments from you guys. Feedback is welcome.

Doujinshi:
Currently there is no limit on what is considered a doujinshi. We feel we need to narrow the scope instead of allowing anything. We will only be accepting doujinshi that are published and/or sold in stores (whether offline or online). A basic guideline would be that a release/series will only be approved if it can be found on http://www.doujinshi.org/. This means we'd be rejecting many of the shorter works, especially those from artists on http://www.pixiv.net/.

Please note that the MU definition of doujinshi is a derived work of an actual series. Original works are considered oneshots. There is no such thing as an "original doujinshi" on MU. This distinction has existed here for many years, so this last point is not a change in policy.

Novels:
We feel we need to bring the focus back to our primary purpose: manga/manhua/manhwa. Lately there's been a huge increase in web novels (I just did a CTRL+F with "Novel" on the main release page, and there's 114 instances). We will only be accepting novels that are directly related to existing manga, manhwa, or manhua (according to MU). This means most web novels will be rejected.

PS: We are still in discussions about what to do about artbooks and webtoons.

Last edited by lambchopsil at 8:15 pm, Jun 15 2015

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

First of all, when I see this I thought, "oh it seems to be a good thing", but then I remember that we just got that new filtering for novel, doujinshi, and stuff like that right mmm...~?

So I thought rather than rejecting most released stuff, isn't better to enhance the filtering and make it more user friendly (it's already good but some people don't really care about it yet because either they don't know or they'r too lazy to apply the filter mmm...

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I will change this world mmm...
So the world can change me mmm...

I can agree with the changes, however, I'd like to advice you to keep webtoons.
The line between Korean manga and webtoons is so thin, there's no need to remove them.
It would be silly to lose highly popular series like Noblesse, Tower of God, etc.

Of all those potential changes, webtoons is the only one that matters to me. To be honest, I don't track any of the webtoons (that is if you are talking about LINE webtoon) on MU anymore since the app has a release schedule and i can see what's the last chapter I've read. If you mean webcomics in general, i'd defintely keep them since I keep track of them on here as well (plenty from mangacow and others).

I don't think it's a good idea. Their is indeed an increase in Doujinshi and Novels, but that is logic as their are a lot of doujinshi's, if you check around how many their are of Kuroke no basket for given an example then it's logic it gives a lot of work. I'm OK with only accepting official doujinshi's.

What about novels, well it is indeed to much on the moment. However their are more novels than their are manga, so that is normal. I'm not agreeing with it that just basically all those good novels are banned.

What about webcomics. Well, it's recommend that MU continues with them because it's only a matter of time and everything is a webcomic. Basically all manwha's have become webcomics, this movement will also start with the manga. Webcomics have some advantages as well for the publisher as for the reader. The reader has everything in full color and it's cheap or free, while the publisher only needs to do some mouse clicks and it's published, while publishing on paper is more complex.

What about artbooks, well it's a question mark for me I would only say to allow the ones that are made by the original mangaka.

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Even after dead, we raise from the ashes for the sake of manga.

Wouldn't it be better to separate the novels into a genere that way people who don't want novels can just ignore novels? if the top 25 are almost all novels that means they're getting releases and are popular? webtoons and novels have gotten to the point where that have eclipsed the manga releases but i think getting rid of them would hurt the community more than it would help. Just giving the option to hide it is better than completely removing them there's a lot of people who read them now.

i think filtering it is the best option; unless it's a server/db issue. since novels have their own "type" it should be rather easy to set a filter option in user profiles for users who don't want to see it.

if it's tl'ed/edited i don't see why it shouldn't be included on the site. i'm personally in favor of keeping everything on the site; again unless it's a server/db issue.

Maybe it has something to do with the workload on the admin. They're probably annoyed by the long list of doujinshi and novels to moderate. And those releases are most of the time on an earlier release date so the admin has a lot of work.

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Even after dead, we raise from the ashes for the sake of manga.

please dont take away my novels

Agreed. Better to filter it than remove entirely. Over the years, there are already quite a bit of titles collected here. Dumping them seems such a waste. And it's not like there aren't any people reading them.

Regarding novel release
Personally, I'm following 20+ novel at the moment and will have problem keeping track of them if MU de-list them. I don't want to check 20+ website everyday just to kept track of novel updates.

Since the feeling from ln/wn is practically the same with manga, why reject them? The large number of ln/wn in new release is simply because most people didn't know about ln/wn, and only added them here after the recent novel boom. Wait until several month and the new release number will decrease by itself.

Regarding doujinshi, artbook & webtoon
I agree about the new rules for doujinshi, but removing webtoon won't do. As for artbook, I agree with deadpheonix's suggestion to only accept official art-book from original artist of manga/manhua/manhwa.

Active release portal of novel translation: www.aho-updates.com

It automatically update news of release and link to the page. Currently, there's no database like mangaupdates so it strictly report news of release.

With the new changes in MU, I think Aho and MU compliment well each other.

Although, if MU delete the entry of non-manga novels then readers are out of luck concerning that entry.

May I interest you in a compromise: NO reporting on release page, but still silently updating in the entry page. Example: series A got a new chapter done on site Z, that release news doesnt make it to release page, but the entry page still keep the report.

In effect, it's like an enforced filter put on release page that hide all those non-manga novel news.

Lord, the gormless policy WRT fair-use of covers was bad enough, and now this? No more novels? That's BS. If you're worried about it "cluttering up" the release page, then add it as a genre so those who don't want to see it can filter it. But don't just remove content.

i'm an admin; it's not that hard... changing dates can be annoying when you got 40~ to change, since you have to do it from admin panel and not release mod page, but that doesn't happen that often.

I must admit it would be a bit troubling to have all novels removed from this site, though I can fully understand your point and it does make sense.
On the other hand, the aforementioned filtering does sound like a good idea to me.