Combating Misinformation: Official Statement

[Harry_Dong]

100% agree with OP (and by extension mangadex). The recent drama just seemed like a giant fake news smear campaign from the start to me, from groups with their own vested interests, or not getting their way as they deem fit. ...To the point it even drove some members of said groups to leave and continue on mangadex (I salute you TOOR Scans).

Spoiler

The vast majority of the time, the readers who post negative comments towards groups say things along the lines of:

"Your translation sucks!"
"Why is your delay so long?"
"When are you releasing the next chapter?"
"Lol, you guys suck because you beg for donations in every credit page."

Having a negative opinion of a group or a release is fine so long as it follows our rule, Be Civil and its related corollaries. Disliking a group and complaining about how they scanlate, their release schedule, or whether or not they have a delay on MangaDex does not break our rules.

Great. Maybe this will also help others grow some thicker skin in our age of fragility. Sticks and stones and all that. As for the times when it does get out of hand, the [report] button is right there under every comment, on top of [block] button on every user's profile.

@Intervencion
Just use the block function if your skin is too thin

^THIS!!!

As for the whole drama situation in general:

Spoiler

 

[herbie]

Luckily I have yet to encounter toxic users / comments here at MD. I don't deny it exists, but if I can read the trash I read and only see wholesome comments, hey that speaks volume about our community. Anyways, sorry to see groups leave along with great content aside with them. Still love MD and their beautiful interface with zero ads... This is all due to hard work and a solid community. I hate the drama, but as far as I can tell MD is acting professional and has yet to be vicious. We are all here for manga, we all love manga, and MD is still delivering safe & easy access to what I love. Thanks dudes.

 

[Invader_Retro]

@Dor1tos

I suppose we are, though the fact that this is common enough for it to happen to multiple series in a relatively short span of time concerns me.

Thats what worries me, it spreading to other manga.

@PSRTExperience

My bad. I missed the part about comment section getting derailed. I agree with MD's staff about closing off/wiping comments then. I still hold my stand that nobody should've gotten worked up over internet mean comments though.

Glad you mentioned about the internet comments, because people will get worked up whether its groups themselves or fans of said group.
What about the people that want to discuss the chapter with everyone else having meaningful discussions? Should the good suffer for the bad?
What would happen if all comment sections were locked then?

 

[Invader_Retro]

@zell I agree with you there especially if its the case where either the groups quality isn't good enough or they are way behind.
If you can't handle the series give it to someone else.
Heck sometimes "sniping" ends in both groups co-operating to get the chapters done faster.
I don't agree with a monopoly, just try communicate before uploading causes less drama.

 

[kenx]

@Invader_Retro

What would happen if all comment sections were locked then?

 

[Esteria]

I'm kind of surprised the clarification was even needed. Even reading the original post that started it I could tell it was all horseshit. It's literally no different than someone picking up a series that say Gantz Waiting Room was working on but hadn't released a chapter in a year or two because nobody commissioned the next chapter/volume. Then GWR getting buttmad as all hell that someone would dare touch one of their projects (that they only do by commission) and posts several chapters at once and says "we quit".

Also that example was not hyperbole, it is exactly what happened with Sakuranbo Syndrome and Kono S o, Mi yo! (except this time Pr0zess) several years ago. Oddly both from the same Author but I think that was just coincidence. The "snipe" was also by the same group on both of those.

So yeah, I guess only those new to reading scans or online weeb drama in general actually thought MD was doing anything wrong.

 

[Invader_Retro]

@kenx But are there marshmallows? 🤔

 

[Reelax]

Well... To me MD is totally right!
Sometimes I went to read some chapters on the scanlator's site to help them; now Ill just use the aggregator to read the manga of the scanlators who has done this stupid war! Or not read them at all!
Ill never be a patreon to them.

 

[PSRTExperience]

@Invader_Retro

Glad you mentioned about the internet comments, because people will get worked up whether its groups themselves or fans of said group.
What about the people that want to discuss the chapter with everyone else having meaningful discussions? Should the good suffer for the bad?
What would happen if all comment sections were locked then?

Then those that get worked up, groups and fan of said groups either need to stop being such a fag and ignore it or use the literal ignore function provided by the site.

And criticism about how a group conduct its business is meaningful discussion. More meta than discussing about the content provided sure, but enough people are interested in it to warrant a discussion as shown in various thread surrounding this topic already. Nobody have to 'suffer' anything because direct personal attacks and the likes were banned by MD comment rule already.

 

[mmalyska]

Finally tldr; topic about all that drama.
And keep up the good work!

 

[Invader_Retro]

@PSRTExperience

Nobody have to 'suffer' anything because direct personal attacks and the likes were banned by MD comment rule already.

The loophole for that was the credit pages on the manga though 🤔
I'm not disagreeing with you, its just as you said its the internet and not everyone will be mature🤷‍♂️
Either way just hoping things settle down after this xD

 

[jackty89]

I really hope this gets resloved fast, as of now i'll have to shift through 426 title and see which is still available and where i last ended, as each time chapters get removed i lose where i last read, sigh.

Anyhow on the drama stuff it's kinda annoying, I mean, MD gives a general comments, a chapter comments section and they didnt want drama in those comments seems damn logical to me. I can also understand why MD wants to keep their neutral stance and in that aspect i support them fully, MD is literally a catalogue/library where content is displayed in a nice and orderly fashion.

I mean before this i was using

Spoiler

MangaLife

(ML), i switched from ML to the scanlators directly as i noticed that a lot of time the credit pages were missing/altered. But of course if you have more than 10 + manga's ... you will quickly lose track of chapters, i seriously had a bookmark with over 50+ links.
Scanlators might go like, "thats what we want cause ads we run" But to bad for them i have adblockers running and i refuse to use a site that forces me to disbale it, because most sites overuse ads ie having ads left-righ-top-bottom- mid-chapter-open a pop-under/up/tab on opening a chapter

So i was really happy that MD came along, having a central places for my manga/manhua with a very userfriendly UI etc etc. And i always stick to my official scanlators grammar errors and typo's included (no-one's perfect), ok Sniping is annoying but trying to force MD to do something about them could be very dangerous as larger groups could literally force MD to ban/block smaller groups because reasons (hence why i support MD's neutral stance)

Anyhow i really hope this drama blows over quickly and thing get resolved as best as it can be. Well i'll be off adding title that left MD back on ML :-(

 

[NaniTheFuck]

if those guys (the group who translate manga) really care about READERS, they should show their honesty.
we know you guys also need money to continue your works, such as Raw Manga and the Translator or the website bills.

but you should ask yourself, WHAT THE REASON YOU START ?

KEEP IT SIMPLE.
[ul]FOR READERS or FOR YOUR PERSONAL PROFIT? [/ul]

So if we complain about your works, you should reflect yourself.
why would we DONATE|PAY, if the quality you gave is a piece of shit?

you didn't pay IPhone X only to get IPhone 3.


use your common sense.

we respect for your works, but did you respect your works?

 

[ShinobuOshino]

@Invader_Retro

There aren't a lot of toxic users but that's the point...
Get rid of anything that might start a fire, its why we are here in the first place discussing this xD

No, that's not why we are here. We are here because the fire already started.

 

[Xzayer]

Thank you for the information. I don’t believe it was a wall of text and answered all the questions that were being addressed in the various threads.

Hopefully, with this everything settles down, as the drama was mentioned on other sites.

Just wanted to say thanks for clearing everything up. Hope the store is successful. Any other merchandise you have in mind that you might use in the future?

 

[PSRTExperience]

@Invader_Retro

The loophole for that was the credit pages on the manga though 🤔

Is it the page where a person or a group said that 'begging for money to scan manga is a scam' or something to that effect? Paraphrased because I unfortunately missed the start of this whole debacle. This is in somewhat muddy water as is it worthy of removal or not is up to interpretation. For example, the thing about NZ shooting were removed for offensive content but I think it's hilarious.

MD provided a platform and what is and isn't acceptable is up to their decision, and unfortunately this time some groups weren't pleased with their decision. I can respect that and their decision to leave. But they have to blow it out of proportion and have to take a grandstand of their leaving, and if my experience with internet bloodsport taught me anything, it's that if you have to tell people you're better than the opposition, chances are you probably not. Both side could have parted way in amiable terms, and it's a pity that's it become something that span over days and involved unsuspecting users in their crossfire.

I do agree with you that I hope thing settle down and turn out for the best for all parties involve regardless of my, or anyone personal opinion of them was.

 

[Zephyrus]

@Xzayer
We hope so too! We thought it was a good way to give supporters something tangible for supporting us.

There's been talk about shirts, hoodies, stickers, and keychains. We'll see how this run does and possibly expand the store. Let us know if you have any thoughts in the store thread here: https://mangadex.org/thread/92436

 

[mage_goo]

Geh, guess I'm late.
Just my 2 cents

And even if Elon Musk slipped us a billion dollars, and we were able to go legit, why would that be a bad thing? We would be able to further support the industry that creates the content we love by promoting official content and passing along revenue to content creators, as well as hire scanlators to work on their titles legally. How is this in any way controversial? Is it really so bad to dream an impossible dream?

Problem with this is that would also means the lost of a platform where you can post your unprofessional scanlation.
Sure, giving back to the author is nice and all, but some people likes to keep scanlating purely as a hobby and they lose the best site to post their works if you guys ever go legit.

I mean, you can't just go ahead and pick a random 10-years old manga and post your DUWANG of it.
Then there's the concern of manga stuck in licensing hell never gonna get tl, and other legality stuff limiting which manga you can tl.

 

[natsuwide]

Really laughing at all the "Yikes dude I'll stop using MD now" on the Sayonara thread. Absolutely embarrassing, you could even say it was planned beforehand. Hopefully you don't get some mysteryous DDOS attacks all of sudden, again.

 

[encoreblade]

Great response MD! I was randomly on discord when JB first put their post up and was caught up in the shitstorm. I follow both MD and JB on Discord so I flipped between the two discords probably within the first hour or so. The JB discord was just super toxic to be in and a lot of misinformation and fear-mongering was happening (similar to what happened on the pewdiepie subreddit after he posted that nimses ad). I wasn't lurking either, I was taking part of the discussion and defending MD, so it's nice that MD took the time to write a well-thought response about all the "fake news" being spread.

Secondly, @TheOneWhoSighs came in trying to start shit, but in my opinion the community in this thread responded well to his posts. And hey Sighs, if whenever you post back, don't bother replying to me cause I just don't have it in me to reply back, but I would love to see how you retort everyone else's counterpoints, if you even can.