I would agree with leaving novels up, and to provide filtering (as suggested previously) for those who do not wish to go through those categories.

Personally, the reasoning to remove novels could be applied to manhwa or manhua as that's not a "MangaUpdate". To me, novels should belong just as much as them because they are all 3 literarily works that have been translated. Heck under that definition, novels translated from Japanese have more common with "MangaUpdates" than manhwa or manhua, cause again, literarily work, but manga and Japanese novels are from the same source language.

Also, novels were never on here, I wouldn't be reading so many different translated novels because I would have never known that they existed. Plus if you start putting in stipulations that a novel requires a related manga to be put up, then once it gets added, you'll need to back log everything that could have been already up and searchable if you leave it as is.

I can see a reasoning for doujinshi, as these are usually short term series or oneshots, same with artbooks. But novels, these are longer series and usually keep going for a few vols.

That is an understatement. I have been tricked a few times by people saying they translated something but just used a machine. Now if it was a LN I would just think poor quality but it was a web novel.

On a side note you did bring up a good point about machine translation that I didn't think about before. I can see a reason to exclude web novels unless they have a corresponding light novel.

I would treat machine translations as troll releases and deal with them accordingly. It is very easy for most people to agree when something isn't readable. A few complaints, and the release is removed, same as it works now (I have requested a release to be taken down on those grounds once before, and it was).

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There are such things as OCR software. The proposed change however, thats why most people disagree with it.

I never used to mind the novels, but now I'd say so otherwise. There's a lot of novels recently, particularly web novels, that have absolutely no connection to manga/manhua/manhwa/anime: They are not published (website or in print) by a recognisable publisher or author that have novels adapted to manga (etc), they do not have a "manga style" cover, maybe the author doesn't even read manga etc??

Sure, they're interesting, but MU is just basically listing every kind of translated Asian literature.

I'd say keep the webtoons. They're published stuff with a manhwa-ish style after all. Not to mention that there are now some Japanese sites publishing in webtoon-format as well now (though I don't remember any of those being translated yet?)

...But that's just my opinion. Haha

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I'm lazy.

The new trend is to let someone, who's good at English, fix up the garbage from the MT, so that it becomes readable.
The "translation" is still as inaccurate as ever, but no one can tell, since it reads normally. gg.

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Lol, Sorry, PROzess. I think, in what concerns translators, beggars can't be choosers. You know what I mean.

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@cclark777 and indekkusu:
I was talking about release data, not series data. What were reported to us by that user were translated chapters, not series that have not been translated at all. I know full well that we can't add untranslated series to the database (and fyi, release moderators do not handle the approval of new series; we only handle the approval of release reports).

Even then, I can probably count in one hand - at most both of my hands - the diligent release reporters who report novel chapter releases to us. And most of them aren't even affiliated with the translation groups.

There's nothing stopping users from reporting poorly translated content. If it is proven that the translation quality is indeed subpar then the admins will surely be more than accommodating enough to strike it off the database.

The catch is, though, that burden of proof is on the accuser. It is not and will never be MU's job to proofread releases. Users have to do their part.

Sorry I thought you were talking about series. Then NVM my previous comment

This issue does not effect me directly, but I think you are making a good decision limiting novels. With that being said, you may not want to do it if you think that you will lose visitors to this site.

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I'm only going to write about light novels and web novels. I read this suggestion dozen of times, but it bear repetition: If the problem is the novels taking to much space on the release page a filter is the best solution on my opinion.

If the problem is that novels have multiple releases on a given day. You could make a rule that novels releases will only appear on the next day witch would prevent the problem of editing the releases multiple times and would put the novel releases on the bottom of the day release where they will not brother mangas and etc.

Beside considering that novels frequently become the source of good mangas and animes if they are removed from the site it will be a great loss. Since we won't be able to compare the two medias easily and will lose this pleasure.

Finally if what you guys want is to select which kind of novel can be put on MU. I think it will create a great amount of work for the moderators and it is of difficult categorization. For example Soul Land begun as a web novel self published, but now has a print edition and a manhua. So depending on the moment of the submition it wouln't be aproved, but later it will...

So if any criteria is needed i think the best is the existence of a translation because translators wouldn't waste their time on a boring novel.

Last edited by xhenriholimar at 8:00 pm, Jun 17 2015

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cogito ergo sun (Decartes)

It's less a space issue and more of an identity issue.


This is actually difficult and potentially confusing to implement.


The loss is a subjective one. There are others who couldn't care less.


I believe the admins are prepared to take on the responsibility. Well, I hope they are.


I wouldn't be too sure about that... And it was never a question of good or bad works to begin with.

Last edited by auriga at 1:27 am, Jun 18 2015

Question: If the policy change for novels doesn't go through, would novels like Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami or The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu be allowed on MU? (Especially since both are translated in English, even if they're not fan translated, and are by Japanese authors.)

If yes, damn, that's a lot of backlog to go through...

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Manga updates is a web site for the best readable OTAKU MATERIAL and that my friends is everything, not only manga!
I almost stop reading manga 2 years ago but everyday I come to MU because it is not only a manga database. Being a Otaku one day make you an Otaku for life it not because I read less manga that web comic and novel / web novel that I will stop being one that NONESENSE.

The database here is great because I can follow all that I like and it is mostly not manga.
Fine by me you made Manga updates for manga if you want to remove material that aren't manga than don't be picky and just flush half the database and remove manwa, manhua, doujin, novel, oel, not japoness manga (manfra, etc). What the point of those they aren't manga they shouldn't be here anyways. If not then don't remove any of it.

Did you know that the Novel community is flourishing BECAUSE OF MU! 2 year ago it was hard has hell to find new stuff, there was like 10 group of half active translation for novel now because of the community new stuff come faster and faster and there like 100 of FULL POWER OVER THE TOP ACTIVE TRANSLATION GROUP, the difference is easy to see in the Releases section.

Kill the novel database and you may has well kill the only reason that after 8 years of daily viewing I still come and love the MU community.

There are 1000 and more better solution, filtering, sister web site with the same base for every kind of different material, new section, putting Novel and doujin in the Genre section ( easiest solution because you wouldn't need to make a new filtering system)

I mean it for real, removing what is a part of the community already will only destroy the community breaking it into small fragment like it was 10 years ago without MU.
MU was first made to create a bigger community of manga and other Otaku material that are on paper. That how it always made me feel, now this idea that the community is to big and need to be broken again I HATE IT WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING.

That my opinion please don't make a mistake
And thank you for asking us about it that mean that you already know half of the answer.