MangaDex Development Update - API Abuse Enforcement

[BestBoy]

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Bit of a downgrade in functionality from the previous dedicated Community page. Not a huge deal, but I used it often enough to find it useful.

edit: also, good morning

 

[Tscheddov]

MangaDex continues to be free. Please point out where in the sign-up process you're asked to pay.

Throwaway email addresses aren't banned; plenty of users use them. Obviously, they then have issues logging in if they forget their password, but that's their choice.

i never said people pay with money. you know very well that data is considered as something valuable .

i barely logged in to read whatever i wanted to read and if i had not made an account years ago already i would not have created one now.

about the mail, i might be wrong here. but i thought somewhere the terms or rules said these types of mailadresses are not allowed for registration.
EDIT: corrected / edited the comment in that regard.
Sorry i was wrong about the mailadresses



forcing registration and log-in for acces and basic functionality is still a bad move.

Bit of a downgrade in functionality from the previous dedicated Community page. Not a huge deal, but I used it often enough to find it useful.

i agree

 

[EtherealNeko]

Bit of a downgrade in functionality from the previous dedicated Community page. Not a huge deal, but I used it often enough to find it useful.

edit: also, good morning

Good morning

 

[EtherealNeko]

i never said people pay with money

The definition of "not free" is that MangaDex accounts are paid. MangaDex does not charge a single cent for anyone to use the platform. Never have, never will.

 

[Tscheddov]

The definition of "not free" is that MangaDex accounts are paid. MangaDex does not charge a single cent for anyone to use the platform. Never have, never will.

again, i never said there was any monetary transaction.

maybe i should use an other word than "free" english is not my native language as you might have guessed already.

what i mean by "free" is that i can just use something to the fullest possible extend without being forced to do something for it first. (not talking about making lists, favorites, comments etc. that these functions require an account is undisputed and normal)

in this case the registration and login is the "payment"

pardon, i have a hard time making my point clear in english.

other mangawebsites dont force users to register and login JUST TO READ

i was a paying 20 buck tier supporter for one or two years and i was about to resubscribe after i canceled my support in february but with these restrictions now in place i will not do that

 

[EtherealNeko]

You implied there was a monetary transaction when you said "this way MD is no longer free". I am usually not this pedantic, but it's good to illustrate how the dog-pilling isn't constructive or even remotely helpful.

Re: cancelled support, thank you for subscribing for that long. I understand you don't agree with some or all of the decisions we've taken recently, and that's fine. We have a vision for a YouTube for manga, and we will continue to work towards it.

 

[Tscheddov]

You implied there was a monetary transaction when you said "this way MD is no longer free". I am usually not this pedantic, but it's good to illustrate how the dog-pilling isn't constructive or even remotely helpful.

Re: cancelled support, thank you for subscribing for that long. I understand you don't agree with some or all of the decisions we've taken recently, and that's fine. We have a vision for a YouTube for manga, and we will continue to work towards it.

maybe this roots in the cultural or language barrier. I never meant to imply there is a monetary transaction. Because there simply is none. (i would have said people would have to pay if that was the case.)

i distinguish between "not free" and "paid" . for me these are two seperate things
("free" (frei) is not the same as "free of cost" (kostenlos))

you give the user a full search and more than 10 readable chapters a day and users have to register and login in return. if you have to do anything in return, its no longer free.

i understand free as: without a barrier / without a hurdle / without requirements.
and if there is a hurdle, barrier or requirement such as a registration/ login its not free.

not to mention there are other things than money people could pay with (goods, services)

creating a yoututbe for manga ? Interesting. Thats the first time i heard someone here being that clear about the direction of the website.
i can't say i like the idea.
Youtube has become a shithole that restricts, censors and mistreats its creators and users.

Btw, even Youtube lets me watch more than 10 videos a day without logging in

 

[TGN]

We have a vision for a YouTube for manga, and we will continue to work towards it.

Oh, oh no, nooo...

 

[Pyoro]

A "youtube for manga" ... lol. Actually hilarious.

but it's good to illustrate how the dog-pilling isn't constructive or even remotely helpful.

This is a good to illustrate how ripping quotes out of a long user's post without addressing the entirety of their point isn't constructive or remotely helpful. You got caught up in a single misunderstanding you could've contextually understood ("you hide chapters and basic functionality behind account registration and log-in . (login-walled))") while disregarding the user's larger point.

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

We have a vision for a YouTube for manga, and we will continue to work towards it.

That's an extremely horrifying statement, even if I'm smart enough to know you don't mean "YouTube in practice" with that, lol.
Like, I'm very certain that the MangaDev team is not taking constant enshittification as their example on how to run a website.
I hope.
Could you maybe elaborate on that a bit more? I'm curious on what the intended plan for the site is.

Anyway, the concept of this "Bot protection" measurement is still inherently flawed and more a problem for human users than bots. There are valid reasons to not want to create accounts everywhere, even if you can do it anonymously with throwaway emails. I really fail to understand how these measures are supposed to handle the bot invasion, given that, as I mentioned before, it seems more anti-human than anti-bot, as it should be quite easy with IP-hopping to circumvent for the bad users.
Could you explain why it was still the choice to implement?

 

[cybeast21]

Why was the scrapper and bot never a problem before (since this limit was implemented just recently), but suddenly now is? Enough to take an action, at the very least.

 

[BestBoy]

elaborate

The way I understand it, MD is already kind of a Youtube for manga. Users can upload (almost) anything and it's only taken down when DMCA'd or removed by the uploader. This is true both on Youtube and MD.

 

[mikhi]

Here we are, back again with the same old limit (which is still applied with cookies, from the looks of it) and that can be blocked by the same old banner that can be blocked by Ublock, which does nothing to prevent actual bots from scraping the sites but only prevents users who only want to read, and forces them to make an account, which, considering recent MangaDex moves, inspires no confidence in the slightest.

We'll see now how this plays out. I hope well for most people. I hope MD can roll out some actually good spam prevention and not something dumb like this.

 

[jannick1010]

Actually, user search is already locked in the API since quite sometime. You need to have authentication to use it.

Only the mainsite got this hard-limit, the API is fine. (i hope forever)
I guess, the heavy traffic came from the main website which is actually over scrapped by bots and stuff.

Many community apps and tools depends on the API, it will be the final nail on the coffin if that were to happen.
I would crash-out if that were to happen.

I think most scraping bots doesn't give a sh*t about the API, most of them are probably aggressive AI scraping bots that uses puppeteer to pick up data on multiple website at the same time.

Speaking of API though, I guess the only way to really enjoy reading title on MD from now on is to use community apps like Mihon or to built your own app from scratch.
I took the second route, it takes time to get things right but honestly it is a blessing in times like this.

how do I do that?

 

[BestBoy]

23k guests on the forum. OOF. No wonder it's chugging.

 

[BakedBanana]

23k guests on the forum. OOF. No wonder it's chugging.

Guess I missed it since it's now at 93.

 

[Tony_Mushah]

how do I do that?

If you are good at programming, MangaDex has an API that you can toy around with (as long as you meet the requirements).
Take whatever tech that you like: Python, Javascript, etc..., make http calls to the api with it and boom the mangadex app of your dreams (Man...)
But it takes time and effort though.

 

[BestBoy]

Guess I missed it since it's now at 93

https://forums.mangadex.org/online/

At 27k when I checked just now.

 

[BakedBanana]

https://forums.mangadex.org/online/

At 27k when I checked just now.

Ah, I for some reason misread your initial comment and thought you said it was on the CC thread.

 

[vidopnir]

Online statistics
Members online 296
Guests online 4,648
Total visitors 6,944
I can definitely see why they want to nuke guests and collect information to sell with these numbers.