First of all, you should allow to use old version of this site (user setting).

I struggle to see the unchanging design and experience as anything other than a plus, personally. The site does exactly what it is meant to, and it does it extremely well, but maybe I'm just an internet boomer.
What sort of problem are you trying to solve? Low traffic?

I think perhaps there should be an emphasis on what's community driven. I agree with Xenophon that a discord community is a good idea and might further add some life to the website, what's more the IRC link on the left side seems to be dead as far as I checked. Discord is also used a lot by other communities and scantrad groups so I could definitively see that working.

I believe the forum really needs some modernisation. A lot of the current categories don't have a single message per month so it is difficult to pinpoint the active threads or new messages, unless you're using the "new message" feature, but I think it might be useful to reassemble some of the categories.

A notification system for new messages on topics where you post (enabled by default) would also be very useful. There's a subscribe feature but as far as I know it doesn't do anything other than showing a list of topics in the admin CP.

As far as redesign of the website goes, I'd say like many that I'm very attached to the strong and consistent design of MU. After seeing Mangadex' redesign and how stagnant it is, I'm pretty fearful of anything related to a complete rework. There are many points that could be modernised without going that far though, but I don't know whether that would be doable without rewriting everything and if that wouldn't be easier, especially if you want a more reactive UI. Not a web dev so I can't say much about this.

Since MU isn't a manga reader, I utilize the site for it's ability to discover similar manga to the ones I'm reading. One thing I like is that if I really really like a series I can try and search it and look at the Category Recommendations to see if I can find something similar. (And usually if none of the ones in there fit what I'm looking for I can always just ask in the forums). However I am not sure how the "Recommendations" section directly below it populates -- is there some way for people to suggest series in the Recommendations section? And then people can vote on each one similar to how category tags work, and the highest one on the list would be something that would be most similar to the series you're looking at?

Adding onto the above, maybe another cool idea would be if someone makes a reading list, MU could recommend series based on a specific reading list?

I'm not sure if this is already on the roadmap or considered, but another thing I personally would like to see would be improved forum searching, specifically being able to limit a search by subforum, and sort (relevance vs new). If there is some way to do this, it doesn't seem apparent in the UI.

Adding support for scanlation status outside of just english could potentially increase usage. I remember when I started scanlating almost 10 years ago the group I worked with required other groups to ask us for permission to take our english scans and retranslate them into other languages (ex: spanish, french, italian, etc.) and I don't think there was a way back then for them to easily figure out whether or not another group was already working on that project in that language. They would ask "Can we scanlate Project X in Language Y?", and we basically just had to keep track of groups who asked prior and cross reference it 😕 and then tell them "Project X is already being worked on by group Z, perhaps you could ask them for a collab?" (they didn't realize another group was already retranslating it in their language and in some cases they do end up working together). Although I'm not sure if it's worth the added overhead since each release needs to be approved manually... And I'm not sure if MangaDex already filled in that need or not.

I see no issue with the design of the site. I know it's dated, but I like it.
The only suggestion I have would to perhaps give users a notification for any responses in forum topics they create or are interested in. There's not much site traffic here anymore so posts aren't being pushed off the 1st page of the forum topics, but who knows.
I use this site to find new manga/novels and to see their chapter releases. If anything, mangadex is a bit like a competitor now as some scanlators do not add these new series here, hence not coming up on search. Additionally, with more series getting simultaneous official releases in English, these new series may also not be added here. It would be great to see a way to encourage these kinds of series to be added here, either by the scanlator team or official publisher. I'm unsure of how to do that.
Just my 2 cents. Please keep up the great work managing this site!

So change for the sake of changing?
So progressive.

More like the beginning of the end.

Leave it alone.

See tower of Babal.

😐

P.S., did I miss the poll on this?

Personally, the only things I really want to see is a dark mode and maybe a few edits to Advanced Search (aka making most of the options checkboxes, so I can select, say "Show results for Manga" and "Show results for Manhwa" at the same time, or "Show manga on my reading list" and "Show manga on my on hold list", etc., instead of having to do multiple separate searches).

I've been using this site for so long that I'm used to the current design, so any super significant UI changes would probably take some getting used to. I'm not opposed to it, though, but I can't think of anything else I want changed.

Oh, wait! Maybe a way to add a release directly on a series page instead of having to go to User CP?

And maybe a page for us to see all the comments we've left on series pages, instead of having to look through our lists for it?

EDIT: Oh, and adding onto the "increasing search functionality" bit, a more accessible way to access the category list from the Advanced Search page would be nice. Maybe an auto-suggest when you're typing into that box, so you can find the tag/category you're looking for?

Thank you all for the great feedback! For anyone who still has thoughts, please don't hesitate to let us know what they are. If MU is going to evolve, it's important we have community input.

I think as far basic functionality goes, some people have already mentioned it.
The priority is redesign, but while you're at it, I wonder if you can consider the admin side as well. The idea for discord is great. I will take this from two sides:

First, create a channel where users can ask what can be submitted and not, or if they have other doubts. This applies to follow-up questions that are not in the FAQ. I want to help them as much as I can before they attempt and end up getting rejected one way from me.

Second, a channel for updaters. Honestly, I'm itching to make a specific guide like other sites, but since it's community-driven and all updaters can update the data, I don't want to put too much pressure on this. Still, communication between us can be done because I myself am not always right. This is also important for database consistency and the updaters can be more careful to fix only what is needed. Me and most people, as you know it, can't stay forever. And passing on the knowledge of where and how it will help to keep this community going in the long term. I don't mean to take this as a burden or anything, making mistakes is completely fine, we all learn here.

Now moving on to the admin dashboard which needs some attention too. I feel like the notes there aren't very helpful, Manick. Is there any reason to keep the old groups info? I'd like to suggest creating a viewable box so I can leave messages for other admins. It's too far below, I also prefer not to do it via PM tbh.

Aah there is so much in my head how we could improve this page.
not that its bad or anything. i really love MU because the database is so huge and it’s filled out so properly. also it kinda supports scan groups.

things i have on my wish list:
* modern view for personal lists (when i view or share my lists, i want to see the covers. most of the time i dont know the title but when i see the cover, i know the series immediately
*follow authors / artists (damn it! i have several artists that i really like and it is hard to keep track of them. a follow would be nice, where we can see new released series as well!)
*as someone mentioned before, a redesign of the menus would be great (i was so confused at the admin cp link first. this should be properly hidden for non admins.)
* the whole home area needs an overhaul imo. why are there polls and stuff? when i go to MU I am usually not here for the social aspect but because i either want to search or track series. recommendations (personalized when logged in) would be awesome.

and these are just the things that came immediately to my mind when i saw this post. i am sure i can get a few more when i think about it.

unfortunately i am not a developer. if there are other ways to help out, i’d offer my help though!

and yes, discord is a very nice idea. i’d join! 🙂

Please do not make this site a React SPA. Continue server side rendering.

While some things could use cleaned up, like the old recommendation section that's largely unused, If you significantly redesign this front end of this site I'll have to seriously think about switching to something else.

(deleted)

I like this site for the expansive user-driven tagging, huge catalog and sometimes the forums. I wish it were easier to access this data to make searching for specific manga or browsing manga easier.

I’d like to see user content like inbox & MyList updates at the front page and forefront of the experience, followed by advanced search and browsing that lets you filter by keyword and tags (please populate the categories somehow, I never want to pull up a separate page to browse the huge categories list ever again), the site news, then all manga updates.

Would like to be able to:
-follow scanlators
-follow authors
-add series that aren’t scanlated to my List for tracking
-add notes and tags that are only visible to user
-be able to track series with incomplete chapter release (like if an anthology only had chapters 1 and 3 scanlated, I can’t show that through current tracking)

Please continue the polls.

One thing that bothers me is the 5+ 1+ when you register where you are reading a manga. I won't say to remove that , but i would like if i could just type the number of the chapters.
So maybe add a button for that.

I honestly quite like the website design, especially because of the nostalgia and how reliably placed everything is. That being said, priority for certain manga in the reading list would be helpful, especially with tracking. I understand that I could have another list for manga I want to prioritize being updated on, but the reading list is the de facto add button on manga pages, and allowing for a priority system would help streamline tracking to not include endless amounts of useless lists that would clutter the list dashboard. Also, I couldn't find this particular topic anywhere in the forums, but allowing upgraded users to track their added series/authors/releases would help if mistakes were made in the addition request form. I wasn't sure if this was a decentralized feature that used less resources, but it would help updaters like me that send addition requests by bulk because of sporadic reading sessions. Also: adding a button to automatically request deleting a forum post from an admin instead of trying to catch their attention to delete since we can't delete our own posts.

It it is indeed urgent that the UI will be updated. I've got a wide screen and the website barely uses a third of the screen. And a dark theme is also missing.

Another issue is the missing of updates. It's supposed to be the most important function of MU, but recently a lot of them are missing. Every release of a group should be here, including the ones that only release on an online reader (a general one that steals from other groups.)
A missing update from Swordmaster's Youngest Son from Webtoons (Line Webtoon) can be found in their canvas departement. An example of missing releases.

A suggestion I want to do for ages:
Is it possible to split the server in two, mangaupdates with the releases of scanlation groups and one that is specific made for information with all the releases of the publishers? The problem, a lot groups don't want to put their releases on MU, because it's a paradise for companies that want to put scanlation groups down with a DMCA.
I hope to have a full clean site with a lot of information that I can show around. And another site to do the scanlation stuff.
Off course the scanlation site can update with the main site.
This might be an opportunity, for example MU could get something out of it like with MAL.
For example MU would make a deal with Kodansha and gets some licenses. The fans that want to translate the stuff can do it without any problem and put it on MU. (Yeah, I'm daydreaming.)

Off course the backed also needs an update. A lot of stuff can be done with a program, so all licensed stuff can be added with an program that checks the website (or use the feed) and add automatically. Add a button for a release with something wrong with it. or so (max a week available).

Another issue is the difference in Licensed in English. I hope a difference in print and digital is made.
I was searching for half a day for a series, which semmed to have only a digital release (if you live outside the USA, then it is difficult the get the info on releases by publishers.)

Another one is the safety issue. Some scanlation groups add so many advertisement on their site that it starts to get dangerous. Certainly the ones with malware in them.

Another question, why are a lot of groups calling their group a scanlation group, while they don't need a scanner for their releases: (for example Reaper Scans, would be better with the name Reaper translations.) With this question doesn't fit here, but I hope that their will be some information what type a group is (scanlation group, translation group, license holder, etc.)

Quoting Hinokai, "the site does exactly what it is meant to, and it does it extremely well". The reason why I chose MU years ago and I've never gone anywhere else is because of its functional minimalism. The features are essential, the layout is intuitive, the website is easy to use. Plus, MU is perhaps the only website where you can find information about fantranslators.

That being said, something that could be added is a space for personal notes. Right now, if I want to write down how I feel about a certain manga, I can only do it publicly, in the comment section of the respective manga page. I'd like to be able to save my impressions in a private section of my lists.

Well... the layout and design are good. No need to change something thats not a problem... as for what to add?... Mmm...... Maybe add links to Noveluodates within the same manga page? Its a thing thats some want to add to NU so they can also see the manga.

The best feature on this site is definitely the advanced search feature due to the expansive tags, so I recommend focusing on improving that. A drop down autofill for the tags and titles would be greatly appreciated rather than having to consult the entire database. Chapter tracking is also rather clunky with the +10 -5 chapters on the series pages, so maybe look into how mangadex and novelupdates does it. Given how this site is focused on tracking manga releases, it's kind of weird that it isn't on the front page. I think it would be beneficial to have the front page be involved in discovering new manga, like a trendings list or a list based on seasonal anime releases.

I want to throw in more ideas. This is actually a lot, I feel like requesting a feature instead a feedback for redesign tho.

For main page, what to add/fix :
1. Moderator’s announcement can be highlighted at the top and separated from other parts of the website.
2. Upcoming series release calendar (TBA, TBC, etc). I strongly encourage this if you’re not sure what to fill in the front. This might be worth considering as to what people can expect in the future.
3. Change all the description mentioned manga in each section of the website. Or distribute them evenly what is what, some kind of intuitive trivia. Because this website isn't just about manga anymore. Include the naming of mangaka, change it to author instead to make it more general.
4. Place FAQ where people can see. And categorize to make it simple to search.

For series page, what to add/fix :
1. User personalized recommendations.
2. Link for reading/buying so people don’t have to cram everything into the description.
3. Algorithm to prevent people from adding unnecessary categories e.g Cringe Fest, Shoujo Trash etc. This relates to, maybe you can move the vote for a category to another vote, which is more to give their impression of a series.
4. Enable filter adult content/auto blur explicit image as a user.

What to remove :
1. Old users review as people prefer leave a comment.
2. Algorithm recommendations.
3. Forum discussion.
^All of the above, I find it less useful to keep. Again, I want to emphasize the importance of comment section more. Just simple and fully supported comment section with reaction is enough.

For profile page, what to add/fix :
1. This is personal suggestion. Give people option whether they want to be invisible/offline/online/busy etc if you still want to keep profile public. No last active information. Sometimes I feel like I need some privacy.

For submit entry, what to add/fix :
1. Make another box where people can put their source to back up their entries.
I can cover this when reviewing manga just fine, but it’s a big world out there so sometimes I don’t know where people get this series info and whether it’s serialized or not.

I feel this simple and easy to use design is fine as it is. And this site have also been doing a very great job at what is was meant to be doing.

I've been using the site for forever! I agree that it hasn't been updated in a long while.
As long as its main functionalities (the "my list" feature and the ability to search for new manga by categories, tags, and genres) maintain their function I am not against any changes.

I agree with the person who said seeing covers in our list would be good. I personally use this site to keep tabs of my lists, although this site has some drawbacks (OEL and stuff) it's still great for the intended purpose. MyAnimeList, Anime-Planet can already show thumbnails so adding it here would be great.

So, re: adding support for half chapters and the like, I thought a bit more of this, and maybe a combination of adding fill-in support on manga pages + support for decimals would make this viable, while also still retaining the old +1 and +5 incremental support. So like if there's a half-chapter, I could just edit my chapter count to say 2.1, or whatever. Adding support for 0s would be nice too, so I can record prologue chapters and the like as well.

Also, another Advanced Search option I'd like to see is the ability to search keywords while also doing a genre and/or category search.

And, this is mostly just a consistency thing, but I noticed that for the "Type" section, it's kind of... messy? For instance, there's stuff like "Artbook" and "Doujinshi" but also "Manhwa" and "Manga" and "OEL" and "Vietnamese".

My suggestion would be to split this off into two sections, one for actual "Type" (Artbook, Doujinshi, Drama CD, Novel, Graphic Novel?, maybe even a webcomic option? idk) while another for "Source Language" (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, etc.). This also helps because if you want to search solely, say, Japanese novels, you'd be able to. If nothing else, the uninitiated will no longer have to google what the distinction between "manhwa" and "manhua" is, or what OEL stands for.

EDIT: Oh, and this isn't a must-have or anything, but it'd also be nice to have a separate "Demographics" category for Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen, Josei, Adult, Yaoi, Yuri, Hentai instead of leaving them in "Genre". (Maybe a "Kodomo/Children" tag could even be added, for stuff like the Corocoro Comics.)

EDIT2: I keep thinking of more stuff to add, haha, sorry. But this is mainly relating to Updaters:

It'd be nice if Admins were given the ability to write a short reason when they reject a new release/group/series suggested by an Updater, so the Updater can know what they did wrong (if anything).

Honestly, at this point I'd feel uncomfortable if this design "modernized" if there was no option to use this old one, haha. I have however noticed some backend changes and the API creation is definitely good! Thank you for caring <3

As for what I use - obviously my lists, usually sorted by unread releases but I think all the sorting options are great and should stay. I also love using categories and searching by them (though the recommendations seem kinda sketchy sometimes + there is the forever empty old system). Honestly thinking about it, almost everything on the series page is useful and I wouldn't want to see go. Source language could be added, maybe even as filterable/searchable thing in combination with current searches rather than the strange combination that type has going on now.

Mainly, I think I would welcome more functionality for the releases page.

First off, I know I can filter out some scanlation groups and genres, being able to filter out categories (with x amount of votes/ratio so it's not fake tags) or even specific series I don't want to see would be good too. And then actually being able to see a list of things I filtered somewhere in case I changed my mind. If it exists, it's in not very intuitive place. Speaking of, the release filtering (genres you can disable and set the colors) really should be accessible from the releases page and not hidden in User CP only.

I think I'd like to see a variation of the releases page that filters only things on my lists (and ideally also shows which list it is on, with option to only pick which lists I want to see).

EDIT: Someone mentioned adding covers for our lists and while that seems fun, if it's added please make it as an option (per list even maybe). I have large lists and wouldn't want to paginate them to avoid lag because of hundreds of covers loading. On that thought, maybe it would be nice to be able to add favorites and have these shown with covers in a specific list (just split by type of list it's originally in), while they could otherwise exist as part of my normal lists....

EDIT2: Also browsed a bit and agree with most of Xunu's ideas and also support the idea of edit chapter count directly on page instead of having to go search in a potentially large list or clicking + many many times.

EDIT3: And yes please to personal private notes for series (that can be accessed by you from either the series page or from the list, ideally both). I don't think they should take up space, maybe just an icon signifying there is a note. As for reason... I don't think being able to add my progress as partial chapters is possible without breaking the current +5/+10 etc system which I love, I would love at least a way to note it for myself. And well, there are other things to note sometimes.

Once again, thank you all for your suggestions! They will help evolve our experience and keep MU relevant.

-The categories are great, the fact that you can actually select them and look at a link with every other work that is tagged with them, and select and deselect categories when using advanced search.
I think it could be better although it is more laborious though. I would appreciate if they added a publisher, and publication field in advanced search, and also somehow standardized length, like vndb so we could search by length. It's fairly easy with manga series published in Japan, but they may have to come up with something else for Korean/Chinese and other web publications because of how they often get released in chapters of varying lengths.

Like (using vndb as a guide) for manga volumes not web publications at least we could go

Very Short Length <2 Volumes
Short Length 3-10 Volumes
Medium Length 11-30 Volumes
Long Length 31-50 Volumes
Very Long Length 51-100 Volumes
Super Long 100+ Volumes

Maybe there could be descriptions for categories?
Also, on a personal level it might be nice if we downvote a category for that work to not show up when we use advanced search for that category

I think people have great suggestions on functionality to add. However, I am commenting as to the design. Please, please, please leave it be. It's simple and no frills. Mangadex's homepage makes me dizzy -- I personally like clicking on "What's New!" if I want to see what's new. I do enjoy reading through the forums when it's active, especially since it's a great place to get recommendations. I like seeing the announcements first and screw the haters -- I love the polls, lol.

My biggest ask would be that on author's pages, if the manga with releases could be marked somehow. Like for instance:

AUTHOR NAME

Manga 1 Genres
Manga 2** Genres
Manga 3 Genres

Where manga two has at least (1) release by any group (in any language, too). It would make exploring author's other works so much easier since I like going through back catalogs when I find an author I like. This would also be amazing when I am looking through a particular magazine's (like Margaret) releases as well!

Edit 2: Not 100% sure how searches work now, but operators like "OR" would be nice, especially when I want to explore two "exclusive" genres. (By exclusive, I mean,) For instance, I want to use the same exclusion criteria and inclusion criteria to find Romance & Slice of Life manga but I don't care if it's tagged Josei vs Seinen vs Shoujo -- I'd like to see either/or. But it looks like the way the search is designed now, if I were to check Shoujo, Josei and Seinen, the search thinks I want it to show me manga tagged with all three ("AND" operator). I get why the search is set up this way because other genres can and are multi-tagged (Romance, Mecha, Fantasy, Slice of Life, etc). Sorry to ramble to get here, but maybe it might be helpful to separate the overarching genres like Shounen, Shoujo, Josei, etc into a separate field?

I used to be very active in the online manga community ~8 years ago, but I rarely come around nowadays. I love baka updates and would rather see light redesigning rather than an overhaul. For me, the best features are seeing scanlation updates and being able to do complex searched by genre then ranked by rating. It's a huge help when I'm searching for something new to read (like today). I rarely use the forum or lists. It's been a long time so I don't have specifics, but I always found the lists a bit clunky to use.

Thank you for all that you do keeping this site up and running!

I really like manga update's simplistic designs and the weekly polls, so if I were to add something I wouldn't rely on customisation or too much stuff like that, since for new users it would be hard to distinguish the site itself from others.

I'm more a seinen fan, but if you check out the "Series Statistics" it's mostly been yaoi for the past years you could probably expand their forum, add something for them and a way to filter yaoi/hentai/....(whatever there's more of at the time) from the statistics without deleting it permanently from what you view.

One detail you could add is something like "verifying profiles" and adding a small symbol (like the folding project one) or whatever and only show the threads created by them in the forum main page (alternatively manually change the ones that are shown on the forum main page), this might help in not giving a bad impression when the page gets attacked with spam and could help you compare the behaviour of temporary users (for data processing it would also be very interesting).

Maybe creating a profile of this site on other manga communities posting the same polls saying something like "If you want your poll to be used post it at our site" and asking the users already present in them to cooperate is the most effective way to get an influx to new users.

If you do big changes/there starts to be a significant influx of new people you might want the make a distinction between old and new users, since manga/nl/anime fandom is usually very toxic and you'd have to make stricter rules for opinions etc. (even now once in a while you can read some crazy opinions in the forum).

Lastly even though the design is old, it can be used in your favour adding features old sites use to have. There's always more than 40+ people online, old sites use to have chats (with 2-5 channels) and they worked out quite well (with a minimal use of moderators), if there aren't too many people trying to speak at the same time (though that feature is quite susceptible of spam). You could add one on weekends to concentrate the users that want to chat, with a small gimmick like anyone can kick someone out for 5min from the chat so there's even less moderators needed / lessen toxic behaviour/ get muted users to use their inbox. I bet this would attract lots of chat nostalgic people.

I hope we can have better spam filter in the forum or even better, a bot detection. I can't patrol 24/7 while those threads only litter the front.

Edit: Ok, this will probably add extra work because the spam doesn't show up every time. But maybe there is another way?

+1 dark/night theme option

+1 for improved search functions

+1 personal notes

+1 for covers, especially on lists (or maybe having different view options like list, list w/covers, grid, etc); would also be nice on like author/artist pages

+1 (improved?) recommendations -- I think that adding covers and the option for people to add/vote on recommendations would be helpful. tbh, I didn't even notice the recommendations section on this site until very recently. I think adding covers would make it easier to notice plus it would look nice. Covers are essentially clickbait and are more eye-catching than just the title text.
I don't know how recommendations are generated right now, but allowing users to contribute and being able to see (for example) that 35 people agreed that this title is a good recommendation would be helpful. Not everyone wants to take the time to write a review/comment, but a quick vote agree/disagree might get more people to interact. I don't know if I'm making sense, I think I'm rambling. Anyways, I think the recommendations section could use some improvements.


In addition to following authors/artists, maybe following users? If there's a user who I've noticed from reviews/comments and I really like/agree with them, it would be nice to have a feed seeing that they've posted another review or maybe even see their reading activity (if they've allowed that to be public I suppose). If you're trying to make the site more social, then this would also allow people to follow friends/internet acquaintances and be able to see what they've been reading lately. This could even be implemented on individual title pages -- have a section showing the reading status and ratings given by users that you're following, maybe even a link to their review/comment.


As a numbers person, I also think it would be fun if there was some way to implement reading statistics. So like be able to see how many chapters/volumes/titles you've read ever/by year/by country/by release year. Stats for genres and tags/categories would be interesting as well. However, I'm not sure how plausible this is with the way things are currently set up on this site. It might be a lot of work. It's just a thought (:


Thanks for all your work running this site! ^^

I don't know much about website design or any technical terms.

I joined as a MU member 6 years ago, but I've used MU far way back, I think since 2008/2009 when I started to read scanlation manga.

I love this site even more after I utilize the lists feature here. Even though it's an old design, its simplicity and features are what made me stay here. Not to mention some of the fun polls from time to time.

The only thing I'm concerned with, but I'm not sure about the solution, is that sometimes there are manga/manhwa with inconsistent releases informations, especially when it's from official publishers. For example, sometimes, you put updates from official publishers, such as Line Webtoon or Shueisha's Manga Plus, but then it stopped updated in chapter 11 or 12, when the official platform actually already has it translated until chapter 50 or more.

Oh, and since sometimes there are chapters that goes 50.5 or 51.1 and 51.2, I think it would be nice to have a feature for a not-even-chapter numbering

I have missed several chapters previously since there's no notification whenever the scanlator/publisher update a 51.2 or 51.5 chapters, until they updated chapter 52.

Sorry if it sounds confusing. I hope you understand what I mean.

Maybe it would be nice to include OEL manga/manhwa that are popular. Such as The Beginning after the End.

Of course this might bring issues where people might add English comics (Marvel, DC, etc). So maybe a strict guidelines to what OEL is allowed.

+1 dark mode

+1 personal notes

+1 follow author/series/scanlation group

+1 improved search functions, which I will elaborate on:

-The ability to search multiple of my own lists would be much appreciated. Currently I would use that feature to find out which series are completed, though there may be other uses for it.
-The ability to search by date/range. Either by the year published or date of last release. This would allow me to pick out manga of a certain "era", to avoid series that don't have active translations, and to look to see which series have been completely translated recently.
-The ability to search for series that I have already given a rating but aren't on any of my lists. This is more of a personal request then a feature I think other users would use, I will admit, but someone else may be in a similar situation.
I deleted a bunch of series off of my lists years ago and regretted it later. I also wound up with some bug when I was transferring a bunch of series from one list to another (my OCD need to organize my lists as they grew too big got to me) where they didn't transfer to my new list and instead were just deleted from the old one. They still had the ratings when I manually searched them up and found them later, but I'm not sure I got all of them. I just got all of the ones I could remember off of the top of my head or find and recognize the cover art in a search, after all.

I would also like to recommend a couple of other minor features:

-An indicator of some kind on the list as to whether the series is completely translated. Something obvious but somewhat subtle like a green check mark to the left of the name or something.
-The ability to choose which name is displayed on my list. Preferably, I'd like a selector next to the "Associated Names" in the series info, so I could pick which one I want displayed on my lists.
-The ability to put a series on the Unfinished list from the series info page. I don't know if it's a feature or a bug that comes from me making too many lists, but I can't seem to do that. Currently, I have to go to the list it's on and check the series then manually send it to my Unfinished list.

For the most part, though, this site is the "stable database". Reader sites have a tendency to get taken down or just die for some reason or another, this site has survived the test of time, so far at least. You could maybe make a flashy "mobile version" if you need the hyper zoomer views, but otherwise this sites main attractions are currently:

1.Keeping track of current reading progress
2.Remembering series to check out later
3.Searching for new series <- no other site does this nearly as well, definitely your bread and butter
4.Seeing if a series has been completely translated yet
5.Seeing if there are any new chapters for a lot of series simultaneously
6.Ratings, tags, genres, and reviews
7.Stability

I do think it's important to note that stability is your other bread and butter and I'm worried too much of a change may give off an impression of instability. All in all, this site is a pretty solid site with only minor inconveniences to gripe about. You may be best off just trying to spread the word more.

Just a minor suggestion, it would be great to have a delete option for forum posts. I just noticed I commented about a bug in an unrelated thread by accident, and it would be nice to be able to deal with that sort of situation ourselves instead of waiting for a mod to remove it.

For what its worth I like the site the way it is now. I enjoy how simple it is to use and how there aren't any distracting ads that block the content.

I wouldn't mind seeing a superficial face lift, but I hope the majority of the site stays the same.

The ways I currently use this site:
- I use this site to enhance my own personal manga list by hyperlinking each title and author. It's such a great way to find a summary quickly.
- I love the categories! I use this all the time to find the next great manga.
- I love keeping track of the different formats of my manga with lists.

I love this site and I hope to keep using it for years to come. Thank you!

I've discovered this website only some time ago and I agree with other commenters that it's brilliant as is. Many websites tend to go with a minimum viable product, cutting features and in the end losing users, so in general I'm somewhat skeptical about redesigns.

There are some suggestions I would like to offer from the point of view of a newbie if a redesign is definitely being considered:

1. Let use chose the title we use on our lists from a dropdown. Having to manually type alternative titles in the add section is tiring on mobile. That being said, the fact that this is at all possible is brilliant and makes this website very unique.

2. Add a separate search icon in the mobile top toolbar, next to the hamburger menu. Many websites do that and it's a godsend on mobile. Bonus points if instead of sending us to a new page dedicated to search it would simply roll into a searchbar after tapping.

3. Let us type the number of read chapters on the mahwa page. This works great on the list view, but being able to do it directly would be nice.

4. Take list statuses into consideration. Category recommendations are brilliant, but they often show me something I'm already reading.

5. Let us use genre filters also in the search results, while providing a toggle to show unfiltered results (just like Steam does it). Letting users set the default in their profiles would be a great bonus.

6. If a series is an OEL, tell us about this in the search results, even without having an entry for that thing. Some titles I were trying to add turned out to be OELs and I have wasted quite a bit of time before I learned that. Having a dismissable alert that there's an OEL with this name could save people some time.

7. Consider letting us rate not only the series, but also the chapters. This would probably hug the database a bit too much, so alternatively you could add a personal notes box to note favorite chapters and whatever else the user wants.

Lacking any of these is by no means dealbreaking, but after interacting with the website for a bit this is what came to mind as far as potential improvements go.

Honestly the design is super easy and very convenient as is, rather than a redesign, some additions here and there would be perfect.

Adding the topics from "Latest discussed series" to the front page on a box on its own might be a good idea, instead of having it mixed with other topics.

Having updates when you first open the site would make me want to visit more than just to edit a list, so making the latest translation updates visible for everyone would be very nice, as well as a section for latest updates of most popular series.

I like these since I get to know something new through them 😁

And as a recent thread stated, it'd be very nice to have the covers stick to the 1st volume cover, since newer covers often have spoilers and I've been spoiled few times 🙁

And I strongly agree with having a dark mode.

i would like to see multiple features implemented.
The most important thing is the search function. it should be possible to search for the name and filter for genres, categories, series, etc. It would be really nice if there would be a way to group tags together in the search. To mean by that something like that(example in sql):

SELECT * FROM `db_name`WHERE title = "" AND (category = "" OR genre = "" ) AND category = "full color"

That means that the tags within a group get connected with an "or" and the groups and the search get connected with an "and".

Furthermore it would be nice to see some meaningful statistics. Like how many people read it and how they voted and compared to other series in the same genre, but in a graph over time and not like it is now.

You could also implement an expected release schedule. It isn't that hard to code to analyse the release schedule and make a prediction.

It would be great if there would be a PWA version for mobile and desktop. It wouldnt consume as much data because it only needs to fetch the infos and not load all the static content of the page.

A usefull feature would be if there would be easy way to update the reading progress of every single scanlator site. Could be implemented through third party cookie or api.

I really like that you want to redesign the website and move away from php. I dont get why people want to stick to ssr. Im pretty sure most of the people that said they want to keep this version, dont know what the advantages of a webapp are. A responsive webapp is way better than what you could achieve with php. I would personally use svelte instead of react, just because it compiles and is therefor more efficient and the code is less messy, but when you already have a team of react devs there is no other way.

The post suggests that you want to use the api you just written. I highly recomment that you add a way to get genres, categories, names, releases, comments, etc in one api call to improve loading performance and reduce lag due to many db calls.

In Summery:
- better advanced search
- statistics
- expected next release
- PWA with mostly text fetches
- mobile version
- third party cookie to track reading progress
- change username ;D

1. I'm a longtime MU mostly-lurker who rarely uses the forums or leaves reviews, so I'm indifferent either way to most forum/social suggestions for improvement. But I wouldn't want forums to become the primary focus either: it's annoying on other manga sites when every page has a giant Facebook comment thread, or when site admins require all mod contact go through Discord, etc.
2. By far the most useful feature of MU for me is the Advanced Search page combined with filtration from the extensive series tags It's been amazing to be able to find new series (or old series I forgot the name of) by searching for tags while filtering out genres, licensed/unlicensed series, series already in my Completed, etc. I wouldn't remove any of the current search options available on the Advanced Search page because I use them all. If I could add anything to the search options it would be to add keyword search like the Quick Search has, or add filtration options to narrow down Quick Search results. If I'm trying to find a shoujo series with "Ookami" in the title, it's annoying to Quick Search "Ookami" then scroll through a million shonen series. 😁
3. It would be nice to expand the User CP Genre Filtering options from filtering just the New Releases to filtering search results as well. There are some genres I'd be happy to never see while I'm logged in. I still think all genres can & should be listed on the site, but the ability for hide genres to my individual tastes would be great.
4. Please keep the site mobile-friendly and text-based with few, small images. I'm usually browsing manga sites on my crappy phone with limited data, and I want to spend that data on loading manga pages, not giant video ads and ad popups and reactions GIFs that people have posted in the page comments. Scrolling through MU's no-frills text pages is a breath of fresh air compared to that. I would literally pay MU money to keep this part.

More ideas:

1. Multi-language options. I don't know if it'd work with scanlation releases, but it would be cool to be able to add links/information about official series licenses in languages beyond English, and/or add the ability to search/filter for series licensed in Whatever language.

2. Add Boys Love/BL and Girls Love/GL genre names for M/M and F/F romance. In the early 2000s, the genre names were mostly used in English manga fandom to indicate levels of erotic content: Yaoi/Yuri were NSFW/sexually explicit, and Shounen Ai/Shoujo Ai were the teen-friendly tamer stuff. These days the genre terms are used more loosely or have fallen out of fashion, and newer fans & creators mostly prefer the umbrella terms BL and GL. I think it's still useful to indicate if a BL/GL work is sexually explicit or not, but the old genre terms aren't being widely used on new works for that purpose.

I would prefer to leave it as it is. I love that I do not have to adapt to unnecessary changes. I love this site and am grateful for it.

If you would like to change something, change in the background: the search could be a bit more sophisticated / intelligent.

In general I like the site, but the one thing that I would like to suggest is maybe add the ability to see updates from other languages? Sometimes some series are being updated faster in other languages and I haven’t really been able to find any database like this website for others languages.

I don't know if this is possible or if other users are interested in this feature, but I would like to be able to add titles to multiple lists -- e.g. not only to my "complete" list, but also to one or more of my custom lists.

Don't change it at all. The design is perfect as is and works great. Almost every site redesign I've seen happen has ended in disaster with a drastic reduction in functionality in the name of "streamlining". Just leave it as is.

Releases as a table ordered by chapter. Each chapter as it’s own. Not like it’s right now with chapter 10-15. a order function for releases.

Own lists would be great

1. similar mangas suggestions(what others read and not based on categories)
2. suggestions what to read based on what you read and how you rated it
3. merge categories and genres. Probably order them with some kind of hierarchy. e.g. Location > Asia > Japan. That would make it way easier to find tags

I'd really like to see Omegaverse added as a Genre and not only as a tag. Omegaverse is getting bigger and bigger and I'd like to have the possibility to exclude it from my search (which is easiest done with a Genre)

- tags for mangas get verified by some users which have some kind of rank like mod.
- something like snapchat bitmoji

I wonder if there is a way to prevent the japanese characters from being translated into chinese.
https://www.mangaupdates.com/author/i2gbowe/tsubasa-yi

“Tsubasa” “Yi” looks…weird, especially it’s listed in the url. 翼 can be read in both ways but in this case it's used for japanese authors, so it should be “Tsubasa” “Tsubasa”. Okay, it still looks weird but at least it reads as it should.

I'm not sure whether to suggest this. It's already pretty tricky for a name.
It's not that I don't understand the users to use (Japanese characters) instead (II), (III) etc. I also came across a similar case and it actually bothered me. But if there is no way I will correct their entries and use numerals going forward.

Let me know if this issue has been raised before.

This is not a big issue, but a suggestion to consider.

Byō de Wakaru BL listed as having 13 titles when viewed from the publisher's page, but when you click on it it's listed as having 23 titles.

It seems intentionally made because of the code. I'm not sure.
(1) This one is uncountable
https://www.mangaupdates.com/series/fq1jdyb/clone-no-aikata-to-renai-tte-donna-neta
(2) This one counts
https://www.mangaupdates.com/series/6y4loab/boku-no-papa-to-papa-no-hanashi

See the difference: (1) without -> (2) with publisher's name next to it.

I know MU specifically gave an example of how it should be written next to publication so I'll assume that the writing rules here are like this (and then comes the unwritten rule):

But the problem is, most users mostly choose not to do it like that.

Sometimes I wonder if I should clean and fix it up, but there's a lot like this in the database (including approved ones), and I don't want to waste time on that either. There may be some users who voluntarily follow the [magazine][publisher] style, but many do not. And I feel that giving this freedom will also be good for unsupervised future entries.

Lastly, I'm giving this example from my observations only and my assumption may be wrong with the correlation. But the uncounted entries bothered me quite a bit. If you improve the code, maybe the entries can be neatly recorded consistently (again, I'm not sure).

I'm a bit of a mess explaining but hopefully I get my point across.
*Let me know if this issue has been raised before.

A bit late here...

Dark Mode
index similar to anidb (current season(which exists as what's new, add some of them to index), MU recommendations, currently popular, random...)
default list filters, again like anidb (advanced search as saveable and default filters for series info)
improve advanced search functionality (filter for number of chapters released in country of origin, filter for number of chapters scanlated, the years during which the manga was released in country of origin...)

subscribe to author (get notification about new mangas they write)
subscribe to series (get notifications about new chapters, and new related series)
series list view but with cover image

Add filters to the "Category Recommendations" that appear on a manga page. For example, I don't want any harem, ecchi, mecha, or novels appearing in these recommendations.

Agree with:
- Adding a lot more to the advanced search tool for finding new series. I cannot do multiple options for the type, extended options, and licence options. We have to do individual searches for Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua.
- An easier way to see a list of categories in the advanced search, like a drop box or auto-suggest like when an updater updates a series' page.

Keep up the good work!