Quote from blakraven66

On the other hand, there wouldn't be a community if they didn't do it...

these forums (on mangaupdates) are a real community, because nobody's forced (that's the important word) to participate.
To make a comparison, when you go buy something, the vendor don't ask you to talk to him 15 times, with more than 10 words before he accept to sell you the stuff you want. On the opposite, if the guy do a good job selling you his stuff, you are more inclined to spend some time discussing stuff with him.

What i like about sarcasms is when people don't get it they think you are nice.

I agree, it's very artificial, and as a way to "form a community" it's doomed to fail.

In general I think it's faster to wait for their releases to be "leaked" or whatever you want to call it and downloadable elsewhere, than it is to try to comply with their asinine posting requirements.

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Forcing people to join and post doesn't form a "community," I will agree. But when you look at forums where member don't have to join and post in order to get the downloads, you'll often find that after a while, only the staff members stick around. Don't get me wrong, I hate having a post a certain number of times to get my downloads, and sometimes I'll just wait 'till I can get them off IRC - aka I will never get anything from Divine Sanctuary any other way because there's no way I'm sticking around a forum that burns my eyes so much long enough to get x number of posts - but at the same time, some of the people who make those posts do end up sticking around, obviously, which just fuels the trend.

poof "SHOUJOMAN IS HERE!"
Just Lynz, drop the -ajw

in a general manner having a living forum is hard when a website is specialised on something. Meaning that unless you're a big scanlation group or a more general website like here or onemanga, or mangatraders or jcafé, there is no chance to make it alive artificially like that, and worse, you're making the "small" community of interested people "hate" you for being picky while other groups, not particularly interested in making a living forum, except for the usual request/remarks on mangas, do a much better job than you ever will, and that are recognized and gain fame thanks to that.

What i like about sarcasms is when people don't get it they think you are nice.

Quote from Shoutr

do a much better job than you ever will, and that are recognized and gain fame thanks to that.

Job, n, a regular activity performed in exchange for payment, especially
as one's trade, occupation, or profession.

Work, n, physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the
production or accomplishment of something.

we do it as a work not a job. and you're right its annoying. especially when i tried joining VK and did all the posts but they said most of it didn't count 😔 . that's why as i answered your query i made it clear that the 15+ posts are for those who wanted to join the community, talking, sharing, fellowshipping together. if people don't want that, they can have access of the downloads through hosting sites like Mangatraders, Sugar888, Mangagarden, Evil Empire, etc or read it online like in Mangafox*...though we asked for them to host it only after 2 days for the members who shared a lot of stuff to enjoy it first*

well, the only problem there is that you have to wait for 2 days but i think, really, that those who shared a lot in our community deserves this as a motivation and reward for their hardwork. 😉

PS: and i forgot to add, we have links available for everyone when it comes to our completed and dropped projects. 🤣

Nothing wrong with this, we are greedily leeching off their bandwidth afterall.

Quote from funkmu1

Nothing wrong with this, we are greedily leeching off their bandwidth afterall.

And requiring 15 mindless ('cause I've registered at half those places and seen the borderline spam posted to get to 15) posts and a registration which all waste bandwidth is the way to go about it? I'd happily donate to the sites if I could bypass the posting requirement that way, 'cause I really can't register at every shoujo site on the planet (I don't even remember half the sites I've registered at) much less rack up however many posts at each.

well, the only problem there is that you have to wait for 2 days but i think, really, that those who shared a lot in our community deserves this as a motivation and reward for their hardwork.

That's nice. The really annoying places are the sites that require 15-30 posts and threaten to never release anything/shutdown if any of their scans get uploaded anywhere else. It's just frustrating.

generally, i'm too lazy to join cause of those other download sites, but if the forums look good and active then i'd join.....

Quote from justfaye

we do it as a work not a job. and you're right its annoying. especially when i tried joining VK and did all the posts but they said most of it didn't count 😔 . that's why as i answered your query i made it clear that the 15+ posts are for those who wanted to join the community, talking, sharing, fellowshipping together. if people don't want that, they can have access of the downloads through hosting sites like Mangatraders, Sugar888, Mangagarden, Evil Empire, etc or read it online like in Mangafox*...though we asked for them to host it only after 2 days for the members who shared a lot of stuff to enjoy it first*

well, the only problem there is that you have to wait for 2 days but i think, really, that those who shared a lot in our community deserves this as a motivation and reward for their hardwork. 😉

PS: and i forgot to add, we have links available for everyone when it comes to our completed and dropped projects. 🤣

a community is a group sharing the same interests and willing to communicate. If you ask someone to communicate in exchange of something else, that's not a community, that's some kind of prostitution 🙂

And do you know how many release there is in 2 days ? Do you expect to interest enough the people to the manga you scanlate to make them search over hosting websites 2 days after they see a release here ? Supposing they didn't forget it meanwhile, and assuming they have now idea about the quality of your work ? Are you ashamed of you work to make is available to so few people and to release it long after people forgot about it (it's not mainstram after all) ?

What i like about sarcasms is when people don't get it they think you are nice.

so your main point is that you don't think we should make people wait?

Quote from Shoutr

And do you know how many release there is in 2 days ? Do you expect to interest enough the people to the manga you scanlate to make them search over hosting websites 2 days after they see a release here ? Supposing they didn't forget it meanwhile, and assuming they have now idea about the quality of your work ? Are you ashamed of you work to make is available to so few people and to release it long after people forgot about it (it's not mainstram after all) ?

we put names of the hosting sites in our webpage, if you even bothered to look. and aside from those i'm pretty sure, you guys know where to get most of it.

i don't think groups do this because they are ashamed of their works. we are not. if you read clearly what i've said here and the other one, you know where we do that to motivate and reward those members/uploaders in our group that gave us their time uploading **raws, scanlations, drama cds, videos, songs, softwares, etc. ** that we share in our forum. they buy those stuff yeah i stated them at last to share for us solely so in exchanged we give them priority in having our releases. somehow the others did understand... (thanks funkmu1 and story645) hopefully you will too: not all groups requiring posts are as bad as you think.

you did say that you got freebies even without posting such right? well, we don't. i also wouldn't let the member's hardwork to go on just like that...
😃

Quote from Shoutr

And do you know how many release there is in 2 days ? Do you expect to interest enough the people to the manga you scanlate to make them search over hosting websites 2 days after they see a release here ?

I sympathize, because my reading list's got about 400 titles (mostly shoujo) and I pick up new ones almost daily so even on a slow day I'm trying to track down at least one series. It's not that bad though, 'cause between a watch list at mangatraders and a bookmark (assuming your bookmark list isn't scary, or you can start a folder for releases, which is what I should do 'cause mine is scary) it's really not that bad to remember which titles you need to check up on. I also put a bunch of titles on my wish list and just wait 'til they get finished, as then it's just one dance to find it. The only ones I've ever forgotten are the titles I didn't care all that much about in the first place.

I'm totally fine with the places that don't have any count requirements, 'cause I get that they just want to get a feel for who's downloading it, and it's not any different from doing an IRC release or a locked lj one (which is pretty standard for yaoi). The funniest part though is that those some boards seem to be some of the most active of the ones I've seen.

Quote from story645

I sympathize, because my reading list's got about 400 titles (mostly shoujo) and I pick up new ones almost daily so even on a slow day I'm trying to track down at least one series. It's not that bad though, 'cause between a watch list at mangatraders and a bookmark (assuming your bookmark list isn't scary, or you can start a folder for releases, which is what I should do 'cause mine is scary) it's really not that bad to remember which titles you need to check up on. I also put a bunch of titles on my wish list and just wait 'til they get finished, as then it's just one dance to find it. The only ones I've ever forgotten are the titles I didn't care all that much about in the first place.

also have a craze bookmark and favorite list 😲 i usually read online and then when i its completely scanlated and i'm completely satisfied with how it went, that's the time that i'm going to start downloading it...

**except perhaps totally captivated coz sites have been bringing it down one by one so i had to have it all before it's completely taken away 🙁 ** those serie that i have read once or twice but i didn't really like that much, i usually forget...

ah well at least this kind of short sighted people can't ban me from here (yeah, i dared to post the same thing on their board, and got banned after 2 messages. So long for they "community". yeah, i dared to talk about the fight club, so the local nazi digged some rule to ban me, the rule is something like "we are always right".

to sum it up: The shoujo scanlation community is a weird one: they want you to pay attention to them else by asking you to post to read their stuff and in the worst cases they threaten you to stop scanlating if you don't follow their rules.
They don't really care if their stuff get more people to read them or not and they seem to have a very shallow understanding of the few rules that govern internet:
-people are lazy (they won't register unless very necessary or a sudden courage surge)
-internet is big, if you expect people to remember you, you're wrong (people casually reading stuff won't bother doing a very annoying posting/checking/listing to read your stuff, they'll go somewhere else where it's easier, no matter how many links you post on your crappy boards.

bah, enjoy your little community, t's not like i care that much about reading your stuff or not, i'm just astonished about how this particular type of group work, it's almost like a sect...

What i like about sarcasms is when people don't get it they think you are nice.

I resisted posting anything because honestly I am too damned busy editing to take the time. But the "x number of posts" thing annoys the hell out of me. Especially being a fellow scanlator.

Making a rule like that undermines the whole reason why we do scanlations in the first place. And that's because we are fans, just like everybody else, and we want to share the stories and art that we love so much. It's not about being recognized, or making yourself feel good, or showing off your skills. Those things are certainly nice, but if you're doing scanlations for those reasons, you really just need to stop. The group I'm a part of releases manga straight to the public, on IRC, DDL, an online viewer hosted by our site, on MH, MU...hell, we'd print it out and shove it into the hands of passerby's if it was cost effective, and all because we LOVE the manga that we scan and want other people to enjoy it with us.

If you want to "reward" people who donate and are active on the forums, that's cool. Release it a week early on your forums and IRC, ** and don't update on MU** until you're ready to release to the public. Doing otherwise is just rubbing it in the face of both your and the manga's fans that you're finished but they can't have it.

Also, I find having to post x number of posts extremely disrespectful to your fellow scanlators. I don't know about others, but I barely have time to post on our own forums let alone have to make 50 bajillion posts on other forums. And I think the fans would rather me be preparing a new release than doing that.

Well, not like these words will change anything, some people will always be a$$holes. I'm going back to editing.

CassiusOS

Quote from CassiusOS

I resisted posting anything because honestly I am too damned busy editing to take the time. But the "x number of posts" thing annoys the hell out of me. Especially being a fellow scanlator.

Making a rule like that undermines the whole reason why we do scanlations in the first place. And that's because we are fans, just like everybody else, and we want to share the stories and art that we love so much. It's not about being recognized, or making yourself feel good, or showing off your skills. Those things are certainly nice, but if you're doing scanlations for those reasons, you really just need to stop. The group I'm a part of releases manga straight to the public, on IRC, DDL, an online viewer hosted by our site, on MH, MU...hell, we'd print it out and shove it into the hands of passerby's if it was cost effective, and all because we LOVE the manga that we scan and want other people to enjoy it with us.

If you want to "reward" people who donate and are active on the forums, that's cool. Release it a week early on your forums and IRC, ** and don't update on MU** until you're ready to release to the public. Doing otherwise is just rubbing it in the face of both your and the manga's fans that you're finished but they can't have it.

Also, I find having to post x number of posts extremely disrespectful to your fellow scanlators. I don't know about others, but I barely have time to post on our own forums let alone have to make 50 bajillion posts on other forums. And I think the fans would rather me be preparing a new release than doing that.

Well, not like these words will change anything, some people will always be a$$holes. I'm going back to editing.

CassiusOS

Amen!

Wery well said. Seems like the whole "by fans for fans" idea was forgotten a long time ago. Sorry to say it but now it seems more like "praise me and donate and you'll have a release". As a scanlator (albeit a lazy one) I must say that 90% of shoujo scanlation groups are all about those "forced communities".

Well I won't fret about that..there are many ways to bypass it. Just make yourself a txt file of 40 most usefull posts and copy them on the forum you want to join or something...yep most forums have the same topics in them and it cannot be considered a spam if the post is really usefull and you're the original author, no matter how many times it was copied over the net.

And if you want to be praised, join Tokyopop or Viz or something like that. People don't tend to read credits page anyways..unless you disguise them as a part of the chapter. XD
Ah! That was refreshing, saying it out loud at least once. lol

-Marcos

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