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New Poll - Online Manga Readers

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From User
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9:33 am, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 10648


This poll from _silent_ isn't worded very well, and I bet people are gonna complain about the choices, but just choose the best fitting option. Even better, state exactly what you mean in the comments below or on our forum.

Forum thread is here:
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=27899

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related):
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Anime: Sub or Dub?
Choices:
Sub - votes: 15818 (82.2%)
Dub - votes: 740 (3.8%)
Both are equally fine - votes: 2294 (11.9%)
I don't watch anime - votes: 382 (2%)
There were 19234 total votes.
The poll ended: July 30th 2011

Not quite our most popular poll, but definitely an overwhelmingly one-sided response

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A just ruler amongst tyrants
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A manga parasite
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11:55 am, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 319


This has a triple meaning, do you mean those online readers that takes the stuff from the scanlators and and put them up on their own site, or are the readers on the scanlation groups site the one mentioned?
It could also be the 'publishers' reader, like daum or naver comics, I really would like something like that in English...

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Even after dead, we raise from the ashes for the sake of manga.
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12:05 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 83


I think they have helped popularize manga and made it easy to read manga. I think they show that there are a lot of people who like manga outside of Japan. I also think they demonstrate that there might be a viable digital distribution model for publishers if they can work it right. They also make it easy to decide if you want to put money down on legit copies as many series take quite a few chapters to get interesting and some never do. But they do cause problems with publishers and some online readers look to make money on visitors which of course is going to bring the man down on scanlation groups. This extra heat on groups is just going to reduce output and drive them underground, making it harder for fans to acquire scans.

Member

12:20 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 19


From purely a readers viewpoint who has nothing to do with a scan group I'd have to go with help popularize manga and make it easy to read.

I know scanlators don't like sites like MangaFox because it means readers go to the mangareader site and not their own but without MangaFox and the like I definitely wouldn't be as in to manga as I am.

I think the first manga I read was Full Metal Alchemist after I saw the anime and I read it on MangaFox (Or another mangareader, it was a long time ago so I can't really remember) and from there I found other mangas that I read and found I liked. And when there was one that hadn't been updated in a while I then tried to find the scan group to see if they had dropped it and I eventually came to this site.

Now I rarely visit MangaFox or any other reader as I find it more continent to get it from straight from the scanlators (except when a group only releases via IRC which I have no idea how to use) but without manga readers it's likely I wouldn't have read nearly as much manga as I have if I was just using this site as online readers allowed me to try out the manga to see if it I wanted to read more and because they also have releases from now disbanded groups or releases that are so old it is no longer possible to download them without a somewhat time consuming google search.

In short, I think they are a positive thing as it allows people who are new to manga experience it quickly and easy and like me may eventually find their way here and to the scanlators sites.

Post #538031
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rawr
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12:38 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 161


Like chomio said, I think which online reader needs to be specified.

Most likely, talking about scanlation aggregators like mangafox, batoto, etc. bigrazz
Help popularize manga - certainly. I without scanlation, I highly doubt manga would have come anywhere near popular as it is today.
Make it easy to read manga - Also agree.
Not worth lower quality - not necessarily true: Batoto/Mangatoshokan both have full quality.
Threaten Scanlations - Well, people yelling at mangafox to put out the next chapter certainly doesn't help. Not educating the community that they can help is probably also true. But by popularizing, we'll likely get more scanlators.
Will cause problems with publishers - well, I think we all saw the downfall of onemanga... Though, MF seems to be doing quite well after ignoring DMCA notices.
Don't use them - I do use them. lol

Scanlator's online reader
I think scanlator's online reader is really not that different from above except that the users would simply be more likely to be educated about who produces them.

Official Online Reader
Well, this section even has two subsections. lol
[u]Naver/Daum/Nate/etc - free online readers[/b]
They certainly help popularize quite easily and fast. Much more convenient than having to go out and buy (and cheaper too! lol). Rest of the points in the poll makes not applicable though. But these cannot be created by manga specialy companies. Because the direct monetary benefits are far too little to be viable. Naver/daum/etc are big portals that support them for indirect benefits.
Paid Online readers
Still heavily unknown to vast majority of people, these do exist. Operated in japanese/korean and even english. Viz for example has an online reader for which you can pay to read. However, I find vast majority of these to carry really really poor quality scans. I mean, they're "professionals", yet willing to put up tiny 500x800 picture as a page and making you pay for it... sigh... honestly, do they think that will sell? Lot of the text are often not even legible!!! Some of them make you install programs that borderline on malware to view... I think this section of the industry really needs to revamp itself if it's going to seriously compete with scanlation aggregates (PS. competing with free is not impossible, just look at apple's app store!!!). Providing terrible quality with inconvenience combined with lack of advertising isn't going to get them anywhere.

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Post #538032
Member

12:53 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 63


As you say, this poll is worded badly. What this poll boils down to is 'Do you agree with Online Manga readers or not', but the choices given only confuse the issue.

Personally, I dislike anything which uses scanlations to turn a profit, and can only see it causing harm in the long run. Since the online readers began proliferating a couple of years ago, I've seen the advent of watermarking, some scanlators stopping working and, most ominously, the attention of Japanese publishers being drawn to these sites and thus the scanlation community as a whole. It's kind of painful to see the high quality work of a scanlator rendered into a low-quality resize defaced with logos (sometimes the scanlators have felt pressurized into watermarking themselves as some sites try to claim their work as their own). All of this is simply due to laziness on the part of the reader - they want to save a few seconds rather than bothering to visit the scanlator who did all the work for their fix.

T1
Post #538033 - Reply to (#538031) by Grumpy
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The H Emperor
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3:26 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 501


But by popularizing, we'll likely get more scanlators.

-I will only say one thing to this: Have you ever released people thanking them instead of the scanlators? I have and it hurt me...for it's my spending my hours and not them, they just put it up and earn nice money on what we did for free.^^

T1
Post #538034 - Reply to (#538032) by babel
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The H Emperor
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3:30 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 501


Thank you for understanding us that well, good citizen. I guess it's because of people like you that I still continue scanlating even though I've been feeling it's not worth it anymore. Thanks for telling me that I'm not just doing it for the idiots who just want the next chapter as fast as they can without bothering about how correct the translation is, how good the editing, if there were really a need for the second group picking it up etcetc.

Again thanks, it warms my heart to there be others that me that finds it annoying^^

T1
Post #538035
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The H Emperor
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3:59 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 501


I have to admit I dislike anything that can profit from scanlations. We aren't doing this for money but for the love of the manga so that everyone can enjoy it, and for free.

I'll tell you the truth...I like it when people thank us for what we did. I'm that small, sorry. I don't believe in the greater good and so on... The thanks keeps me motivated to do more for the readers so they can enjoy more since they thanked and liked what I did I should do more for them. Kinda an endless happy-happy spiral.

In comes this manga online reader and make me go: embarrassed smile biggrin none D: Dx

Reason is simple.

I like that there's a place that people can go to learn about new titles but it's thinking that they aren't downloading anything is a stupid thought. You are downloading the page and more to your cache/temp folder on your disk. I may go as far to say that it's easier just to download the chapter than waiting for the page to load.

Anyway people could choose themselves, no need to force them.

Then they started to thank the manga online readers...I've seen it more than once where people actually thanked mangafox for the scans without knowing that there's actually a group that did those and mangafox just uploaded those as the only thing. The best part is when people are willing to translate or want to know status of it...on mangafox because they are still in the same illusion as mentioned before.

Then I noticed...manga online readers gets money for people watching 'their stuff' ...hello wut? Money and their stuff? I'm quite sure that the scanlators did "their stuff" and they did it for free. Could someone tell me how you can feel good about doing something this low? I would feel ashamed, 100% truth. Maybe that's the reason for why we still don't got a donation button on our homepage.

Anyway I ended up still accepting that...who knows they may be giving out to charity or being damn poor n 121 in the family. I dunno but still I accepted it.
I set a rule for 3 days delay on uploading our stuff. Why, you ask?

The waiting period is there because online mangareaders absolute want to earn money so to be “nice” I want them to wait 3 days before they start ripping the author for the money that is rightfully theirs.

The 3 days are there for increase the popularity so people can see who it is that is scanlating their manga. This included the people who actually go and thank mangafox for doing the title.

The 3 days with the people coming increase the staffs morale…and specially mine. Yes, I’m a person driven by my feelings…I’m that simple D:

The 3 days is there so people don’t indirectly give money to the online readers since the first 3 days are the days where everyone want to read the chapter. I like the idea of having a place where you can read the manga online but not when it includes nice money for the one who’s running online manga readers.

The last reason the 3 days are there is because I can see which titles are popular to our readers. I will then be able to check on what to release more of and if I have to drop something then which title it should be.

Some groups just stop scanlating, start their own online manga readers, start watermarking...I would not.

The problem is when the online manga readers start to not care about what we do. I mean, seriously, if scanlators stop scanlating manga because of this...what will the readers then do about their favorite title? The online manga readers won't scanlate it for them, you know. Yes, some have already stopped because of this. Some have even gone down because the ones who may wanted to join after on the online manga readers, not visiting the scanlators place to find details.

So I get angry when our stuff gets on online manga readers before those 3 days because it can't be right that we who do all the work after the mangaka shouldn't be respected at all. Specially when online mangareaders can’t even understand that they should wait 3 days to do whatever they want to do….like earning money on it, putting their watermarks making it “their release”, destroying our scan quality, changing page order, sometimes even pull out our credit pages…

I wrote in anger in our scanlation website a few weeks ago. Saying that I would close the group if something wasn't done with goodmanga and mangahere. A tard...cuz that's what he is, was screaming that someone would eventually take up our titles and do better than our shitty quality. He just forgot one thing. The scanlation world isn't as alive as it was a few years ago. Not that many new people are joining as much before and it's the same translators who's doing many titles at the same time. One quitting means halt to at least half of them.
Anyway he still got whole august to show me that he can snatch our titles, I would gladly give them to him on a silver plate if he want to work with them. They aren't famous titles but they are still nice to read. Sad part is that like online manga readers who can only upload other's work, this kind of dude can only troll at the scanlators sites.

Sorry for the long comment but that's my 2 dollar opinion on the topic^^

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5:08 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 132


Only problem with online readers is only seeing 1 page at once instead of 2 means (if the artist knows what they're doing) that you lose some of the impact. It'd be good if online readers would display 2 pages opposite each other. Maybe in the future..

Post #538037 - Reply to (#538031) by Grumpy
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Bwaaah!
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10:45 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 838


Nice breakdown. I never really felt the popularization part of online readers myself though since most people I know either were into manga and anime before scanlations and online fansubs or got into it through forums and later news sites. Mangaupdates has always pointed me to pretty much everything I could ask for anyway. Aggregate readers are little more than slightly slower news sites with hosting instead of links to scanlators.

To me, all the readers did was make it so I could see a quick preview of a chapter or have access to another copy of a series if d/l links for a series was dead. Scanlations are so small that it is often just not worth waiting for online readers to load images with my crap connection, especially when said reader is filled with script, ads, and the occassional malware from said ads.

Post #538038
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Site Admin

11:05 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 2275


I tend to use online readers when I don't care enough about the series or the scanlators to download the chapter/patronize the scanlators' site.

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Post #538039 - Reply to (#538035) by T1
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Bwaaah!
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11:27 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 838


It is upsetting seeing aggregator reader sites ignoring reasonable hosting requests and I'm a leech. Three days, a credit page and the occassional recruitment flier for a good scanlation is a hell of a lot better than never and nothing. I can't imagine how pissed scanlators would be. You'd think reader sites would be more inclined to keep good relations with scanlation groups.

It's funny though. At this point, I didn't think any fan, much less someone looking to profit from scanlations, would be dumb enough to use the "another one will take your place line." Even when speedscanning was at its peak it often took weeks if not months before other groups took over for relatively popular titles. Now, dropped often may as well mean dead.

Reader sites though are good for people with poor organizational skill, previews and as an additional (lq) archive in case a group implodes and their site disappears. It sucks to use them for the last one but a lot of times it is the option of last resort.

Post #538040 - Reply to (#538035) by T1
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rawr
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11:44 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 161


You know, the irony of implying delays on online reader is that gives advantage to those who don't follow it.

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Post #538041 - Reply to (#538040) by Grumpy
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rawr
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11:48 pm, Jul 30 2011
Posts: 161


Errr... gonna go a little more deep b/c some might misunderstand...
If two sites like mangafox and mangareader exists and you put a 3 day delay. Possibly the better of the two (mangafox - because they obey scanlator's delay limit to a degree) is disadvantaged in comparison to worse of the two (mangareader - b/c they wont care at all about your delay). So, in the end you're allowing the worst of the readers to succeed more easily. Batoto for example does not even host any new naruto chapters b/c no current groups allow rehosting. So the of the three, the most cooperative is the one at most disadvantage.

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