Combating Misinformation: Official Statement

[Istvan90623]

@TheOneWhoSighs You seem to think of things highly one sided.

As Sleeper said, if a group decides to pull out from MD, it's on them to explain why. They were ones that made that decision, therefore if any MD staff asked about the reasons, it's completely logical to redirect them to the ones that actually made the decision. After a group pulls out and terminate the relationship, they have no obligation to keep their back for them. The same applies to an announcment when a group leaves. Why should MD staff make that one? Let the ones that actually leaves make it, it's their "job" to explain, as they made the decision. The fact that MD was willing to mass nuke the releases of groups that left were already a nice thing from them, because they had no obligations to do that either. If a group uploads something, a group should remove. Yet they felt entitled to that, and it looked like: I hate you, but do this favor for me so I can avoid inconvinience.

As for the irrational part, it was the case. JB refused to have a presence here, on a site, which offered a quick acces to JB website and discord, also crediting them for what they do, while their works got copied by every shitty aggregator out there, either with removing their credit page or not. You think JB and the other groups that used the delay option had no traffic redirected to them from here? They had. Most of the readers never heard or cared about scan groups until they had a presence on MD. Also let me remind you that MD already bent over to JB with the extension of the delay option.

 

[Acolytus]

@phanijump The problem is that "toxic" has an extremely subjective definition. It can go from "people throwing racial slurs and attacking people for their religion/race/sexuality" to "people telling me I suck".

 

[ObserverOfTime]

@0xDEAD
1) Let's be honest, they're all never going to happen. Everyone's a dick after all, including myself.
2) You are correct, humans are pretentious. The thing is, MD mods are pretending that they've done nothing wrong and everything is "out of context misinformation" when, in fact, they haven't handled the matter as adults. This is what @TheOneWhoSighs keeps pointing out.
3) I can't condone getting money for illegal work. However, that's not why I'm calling them selfish. Rather, it's for complaining about snipers as if they own a series. That said, the credit page of the sniped release was clearly harassment and should have been removed as per MD's rules, yet MD did not remove it. They have every right to be angry about that.

 

[TheOneWhoSighs]

@bk3k

Suppose the situation was reversed -
MD had kicked JB off MD.
JB tells unhappy users to take it up with the one who made the decision(MD).
How is that wrong? It isn't. It is 100% reasonable.
Why would JB take flack for a decision they didn't make?
Now back to reality... why would MD take flack for a decision they didn't make?

You're just being silly and a small part of you knows it too.

The reverse situation requires a much larger entity to kick a much smaller entity off its platform. That is an act of aggression.

The non-reverse situations requires a much smaller entity to look at the bigger one and go "Can you not upload our content". That is not an act of aggression.

Aggression:
hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another; readiness to attack or confront.

There is hostility in booting someone off your platform. There is no hostility in not partaking in a platform.

Your comparison is apples to oranges, my friend.

 

[Sleeper]

@TheOneWhoSighs

I see your point, and even understand it, but I will respectfully admit that I simply don't think I can agree with it. So you're saying that an entity who has no ability to change a situation should continue to deal with the backlash of someone else's decision, instead of the entity who made the decision? That's skirting responsibility in its most elemental form. You're letting someone else deal with the repercussions of a decision you made, instead of facing the people who are affected by your decision. That, to me, seems more wrong than directing any perceived disappointment to the origin point.

If I made a decision that made thousands of people unhappy, would I be bothered by them coming to complain to me? Absolutely. Would I get sick of the harassment? For sure; no one wants to be harassed. But it was ultimately my decision to lead to that outcome; no matter how much I hated it, I would have to acknowledge that I was the one with the power to prevent this. Your claim makes it sound as though MangaDex is solely at fault for any ensuing harassment, and that the harassment wouldn't have occurred if they had just stayed silent. I'm choosing to believe that's not what you meant, and that I've merely comprehended it in that manner, but even so, I contend that the harassment still would've happened, with the only potential variables being who the harassment was directed at, or when the harassment began. Displeased users would either continue to harass MD and its staff until their fires either burnt out, or they would've eventually gone to complain to the scanlation group because they'd see they were getting nowhere with MD. The same way you say that MangaDex could simply ban anyone who becomes uncivil, so too could the scanlation group simply withdraw their offerings wholesale until people learned to behave or moved on to the next "outrage."

Your argument asserts that it's wrong to direct a hostile mob towards a different target. But isn't it also wrong to let someone else be harassed and attacked for a decision that you made? Especially when that harassment and those attacks also interfere with innocent bystanders? I refer to the endless string of DDoS attacks MD endured at one point, and how much it disrupted readers' ability to actually read manga on the site. Those were attacks. That can be classified as harassment. Now, it's not to say that the users unhappy with a group not uploading to MangaDex were the ones at fault, but that's where harassment and attacks can lead; is it fair that people completely unrelated have their ability to read on MangaDex disrupted because of an unruly few? Doesn't it make more sense that the only ones who should be affected by discontent with a group, are the ones associated with said group?

If my interpretation of your words is wrong, I freely welcome correction. If you simply disagree with me, then I can respect that and let this drop. Regardless of the outcome, I'll most likely abstain from any further reprisals on the matter--I said as much before, and didn't keep to it, and I shouldn't make a habit of going back on my word.

 

[ReZz]

dab

 

[twinklecake]

I was surprised there were people actually buying their shit, but then again, people also elected Trump.

 

[0xDEAD]

@ObserverOfTime If handling matters as adult in this case makes reference to what @TheOneWhoSighs said in regards to MangaDex directing users to JB, then I believe it becomes simply a matter of personal opinion. Some will say MD should have sucked it up and told them it's too bad essentially acting as a buffer between JDs decision on the platform and the users, others will say that if JD decides to take a decision that is detrimental to their readers, then they should deal with the consequences of that decision.

As for the matter of the manga credits page fiasco, I won't pretend I have (re)read the rules since I signed up, by my intuition always told me that MangaDexs stance was not to touch them at all. Not sure if any rapescans translations are here, but if they are, I would be more surprised to find that MD removed the credits page than if they kept them. And as anyone who has seen them knows, those were straight-up racist.

 

[Zephyrus]

@ReZz
As per my warning here: https://mangadex.org/thread/93392/1/#post_769341

I have issued you a two day comment ban. Please be sure to read threads more carefully and post thoughtfully in the future.

Thanks,

Zeph

 

[RCcola33]

Wasn't this about the _Retard user/scantilator who said he loves to do this but was quiting cause people were impatient with the A Returner's Magic Should Be Special and other manga. He was mad he couldn't talk smack back to people in the chapter sections cause it got locked for going off topic and other groups left because of it. If he really liked what he was doing none of this would be happening and he wouldn't have any issues. Most of the complaints these groups have are just really dumb...people impatiently asking for quicker scans means they like what you are doing and really want to read more. So I can't tell if these people are stupid or trying to pull something.

 

[dankdevice]

@ObserverOfTime as a casual reader from what i've seen there's no sign of infection, besides the edgy "i live for the salt" idiots that is. im just saying that from an outsider's perspective this whole situation makes absolutely no sense to me. I've always been one to support scanlation groups, hell i even spoke up in support of JB's release delay a number of times because if you want to read their shit there's a link to it right there on the manga page. pulling 100% of their stuff from MD just comes off as extremely short-sighted to me. cutting yourself off from a huge audience because a tiny minority of that audience has the audacity to criticize your policies - if you want a different metaphor - seems just like shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[kevinmul]

In my country, there is a popular saying lately:
"2019 is q clarifying year"

Really! Lots of clarifications here and there.

But yeah... A problem is 0,1% scanlators have some dects reading.
Mark my word... if LHTranslation goes out, my library will be emptied

 

[Bainhardt]

Thanks again for making another announcement post. Personally it doesn't sit right with me to see something written like "We’ve addressed these numerous times on our Discord" because if there's news related to your website, it should be posted on the website. And, well, you did, so that's good.

I still maintain that if you were willing to tell people discussing drama to take it somewhere else, you should be okay with telling the inciting of drama itself to go somewhere else. There's a reason most bars will tell people trying to pick fights to "take it outside," after all. The ideal situation is for it to happen somewhere else so no one can accuse you of being implicit or fault you for not intervening. But you've explained your stance and reasoning all the same, and I accept that.

Kinda makes me feel silly for having stuck my neck out for groups who were apparently just gonna find some other reason to leave anyway, but oh well, lol.

 

[JustNatsuki]

Mark my word... if LHTranslation goes out, my library will be emptied

Same, they're probably the other 20% of my library

 

[KB1011]

@TheOneWhoSighs
As a scanlator, I agree 100% with @Sleeper here.
It was JB's decision, so they have to FULLY deal with the consequences. MD has absolutely no obligation to try to contain frustrated readers.
As for your vapor store example, please remember that the vendor simply decided to discontinue their product, and they didn't end their deals with you on bad terms. And they definitely didn't yell around in the community about how your vapor store is going to fakku them over as if it was going to happen today before tomorrow.

 

[NikoNikoNii]

Is the yearly drama over yet

 

[Thoraxe41]

So is Mangadex insinuating that Elon Musk has connections to Managadex? Is Holo actually Elon?

 

[kevinmul]

Oh, I'll be damned...
Champion scans really took out lots of good titles

 

[ObserverOfTime]

@dankdevice A great many of MD users are very much like an infection. They attack anyone that inconveniences them or "the holy place that is MD". MD staff are often not any better than them, as has been pointed out repeatedly. Many group leaders, including myself, decided to cut off our nose—remove our releases from MD. For that we're being shot, not by ourselves, but by an angry mob of readers.

 

[gonn92]

@TheOneWhoSighs well, i guess this is just a matter of opinion because i dont think they should have had to deal with the consequences of someones else decision. either way have a goodday dude or dudette.