Major site update: Group blocking, more external links and upcoming infrastructure upgrades

[Narf]

@Kendama
I agree on the template-like writing style and tropes turned up to 11. Disease for me is right out (as are many Korean ones) because I absolutely detest the long-strip style. I hate having to scroll through chapters, and I don't read manga on my phone - I read on my PC. I pivot one of my screens 90° and read page per page. Just as I would read a physical volume. Just a button-press, and the next page is there, perfectly all across my screen. With long-strip style, I have to scroll... scroll...scroll again... wait, too far, back up.... scroll.... call me strange but I just hate that.

 

[Kendama]

@Narf Haha, yeah, that boils down to aesthetic preferences. I read in whatever format it comes out in so long as the story is good. I don't read on my phone, either - I don't have one. I read on my computers and my tablet.

On a PC, if your mouse has a clickable scrolling wheel, when you click it you'll get a fine-drag cursor that will simplify scrolling by just moving the mouse and make it so precise that you'll be able to stop the strip at the exact point you want.

In any case, I think you agree that there's a difference between a personal preference and a blanket condemnation of a format. I also dislike some stories on personal grounds, like Naoki Urasawa's works (Pluto excepted), while acknowledging their merits. I doubt you'd dismiss the whole long strip format on its worth, even if you do on personal preference: it would be like dismissing Western comics because they are in colour.

In the case of manhua, what you did, and I support, is to offer a strong objection to their use of narrative tools, regardless of the format.

 

[Tikibo]

Blocking groups won't do much against trolls if people can just create a new account and upload their releases anonymously. Either don't allow new users to upload as the 'no group' or create a different one for them which can be blocked without breaking every anonymous release.

 

[dicedmangoes]

lol just found out about sssss, sent them a like and a nice comment

 

[sedition]

Thank god, now I can finally free myself from being tricked into clicking on a mangaplus manga.

 

[criver]

@Kendama

I like to think that giving them time, they'll perfect their storytelling and in 20 years we'll get dense, complex plots with fleshed-out characters who aren't walking stereotypes.

Not very likely. Unless you mean that in 20 years neural networks would be advanced enough to not spit out nonsensical stories.

 

[Highlander]

Great, now if only we could block manga origin. (aka china, korea, japan, etc.)
I'll be happy to not see anymore of those trash chinese manga.

 

[NovaXII]

@Plykiya let me rephrase it, why not also add a way to disable duplicate chapter notifications. Personally I don't really care if a group uploads duplicates, just don't want it to get updated in my feed. Sometimes a group uploads slower than another, or other way around, so blocking one group doesn't really solve this issue

 

[KebabRemover]

Since you added a option for user to block groups, will you also add a option for groups to block users? :^)

 

[sarusa]

Group filter is very useful, thanks.

I'll twelfth update filtering by manga / manhua / manhwa or at least displaying the national flag in the update lists like you do on the manga page. It's like live action anime adaptations - there have been about five that don't suck (ever, in the history of the world), but instead of sifting through them all yourself it's much better to just assume they all suck and hear about the good ones by recommendation.

 

[Anoon2323]

@Narf
All the while a buttload of Chinese characters are just downright psycho- or at least sociopaths with a major lack of empathy, extreme egocentricity, little to no regards of their surroundings be it nature or humans as long as they can gain a profit. I'm not averse to evil characters per se - like I said above I am currently reading and greatly enjoying "A Practical Guide to Evil" in which a great deal of the characters are not exactly nice guys, as the name implies. But Chinese characters are not evil, they are just egotist assholes, and even worse, that seems to viewed as perfectly normal in many of those works!

It's normal. That's just how China is.
I'd love the filters but suggest going a bit further and allow filtering on region: China, Taiwan or Hong Kong; or if it was in simplified or traditional Chinese. There are enough cultural differences between those that I'd maybe tolerate seeing works from.

 

[twinklecake]

@WarCatBattalion Imagine seeing a guy on the streets trying to give away free bags of rat feces to anyone passing him by and thinking "how nice, he's doing volunteer work so nobody should tell him off"

 

[dube]

@Narf
I also hate long strip format, not just on PC but even on a tablet or a phone. It kinda messes with my eyes (defocusing on every swipe/scroll) and decreases immersion. It takes me out of the story.

I hope when printed physical manga dies (probably inevitable) the manga industry won’t switch to long strip like it apparently happened in Korea.

 

[NotJim99]

Am I supposed to be able to block my own group or is that a bug?

 

[Echo13243]

@legoman60 This feature avoids the issue of censorship or bias on MD’s part because some people wouldn’t agree with banning SSSSS. This is the best solution, because people won’t have to deal with SSSSS if they don’t want to, while keeping them on the platform and avoiding controversy (MD’s had enough of that already lol)

 

[idogadol]

Finally, I can block take it easy's reposts!

 

[psychoc4t]

yays this good news, I cans now block group Cookie Revolution Scans who always post self mentioned "obnoxious watermarks" who mods seem to not want to band despite thems breaking rules 3.2.5.

 

[Teasday]

_{@NotJim99 posted:}

Am I supposed to be able to block my own group or is that a bug?

Not sure why you shouldn't be able to block your own group.

_{@MonsieurQuack posted:}

Is it possible to block a particular series from a group?

No, and it's probably not going to happen. There's going to be a performance cost associated with every single blocking mechanism, and series-specific blocks start getting overly fine-grained.

And this is just personal opinion, but I fear series-specific blocks would essentially help blow up speedscanning significantly against higher quality groups that release slower. Alternate releases are another factor that sets MangaDex apart from other aggregators.

As for other filters like the origin language one, we'll see how this one performs first. Currently, as some have noted, it works in a bit of a superficial manner, so we might make changes to that in case it doesn't cause issues.

 

[hecatia]

I dont see any point in blocking groups. Instead, you should've just implement a feature to hide korean or chinese comic.

I blocked groups that only translates korean or chinese comic, but couldnt do anything when a group also translates japanese comic. And that annoys me.

Are you sure you guys had your priorities checked up? Ffs, please just let me hide korean and chinese comic from this entire site.

Oh well, pretty sure I need to wait another year until this feature to be implemented since you guys are slow at coding.

Hurrdurr give me your money to maintain mangadex and provide a site update that barely matter once every six months.

 

[deleteTF]

@hecatia I'm pretty sure blocking chinese and korean comics comes right after this update, until it's here, if you don't like it, just don't read it, even if clogs up the feed a bit. I Thinks this update is more urgent because of the drama around it, there is groups that dropped series because assholes spoiled the final chapter, which just sucks for the reader.