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

[DirkHardpeck]

So, aside from the Manhwa argument, I'd like the ability to hide only specific titles. I'm one of those people who will hate-read something and I'd really rather not see certain mangas.

 

[Sola]

This new group-blocking feature is nice.

I do worry about circumvention attempts, although I trust that those kinks will eventually be ironed out.

 

[orangeoctober]

Soooooo happy the Group blocking was implemented. Gooooooooodbye troll SSSSS!

 

[Lithe]

Lol aside from "troll releases" was there any other practical application of the group block?

 

[Kanami-chan]

@Lithe
Reading K*rei C*ke's uploads PHYSICALLY hurts me.
He scanlates a lot of manga and ALL of them are complete garbage AND he always makes sure to insert that money begging watermark using her mom's fake "illness" for sympathy points in the middle of every fucking chapter.
Disgusting. There's nothing more repulsive than that.
I'd rather give J*imini all of my savings than read K*rei C*ke's scanlations.
.

 

[suwanka]

I hope sssssssssssssssss or whatever sees this so they notice all the work that abyss is doing for their right to troll.

Anyway, I was literally wishing this was a thing when a mediocre manga that I was reading was picked up by another group. The thing is, they release within 24 hours of each other and neither are exceptional at translating so this will fix that problem for me at least.

 

[Holo]

@AbyssalMonkey

You know, if I wanted to, I could just straight up ban him. It would be much easier and faster than coding a blocking feature. But I didn't. I respect his desire to scanlate random chapters - that's not against the rules.

At the same time, I also respect the readers' desire to not see his releases popping up - hence this feature.

Circumventing site features directly or indirectly is against the rules. Now if he is really scanlating random chapters for fun, there should be no need to circumvent this feature, should there? The only reason one would circumvent this feature is if they are intentionally trying to troll readers, which is against the rules.

I think I have been fair to both sides in this.

 

[Blazezalb]

@Holo I appreciate all the work you put into this site, you’re doing a great job buddy keep it up <3

 

[DarkDooM]

@Holo
Hasn't he been circumventing the block by releasing as ""collaborations"" though? Shouldn't he be banned for that?

 

[deleteTF]

@DarkDooM Yeah, but there's a chance that he indeed was collaborating with someone (which i doubt), so maybe he was evading the block feature but we can't tell for sure, so it's unfair to ban him. @Holo just needs to code that: collaborative chapters will not appear if one of the scans is blocked.

A Toogle to activate this would be a good idea aswell, (ON= All collaboratives chapter this group is in will be blocked, OFF= Collaboratives chapters this group is in will remain visible).

 

[DarkDooM]

@deleteTF
Does it matter though? He's apparently never done collaborations before but suddenly he starts doing them on the same day the blocking feature gets implemented? I don't have to be a genius to realize his purpose in doing so is trolling.

 

[Yatsuki]

I already blocked the monkey but lemme guess did he suggest Steamedbun evade the blocking function AGAIN? Because it seems that's all he could talk about whenever SSSSS comes up. Because apparently "ungrateful readers" need to have SSSSS's translation shove down their throat right? What a shitty logic.

I hope they won't exploit "no group" or "anonymous" because that would have been just awful and mods will have more headache having to sort this out because of this one trolls who want to ruin things for everyone.

 

[Teasday]

_{@Lithe posted:}

Lol aside from "troll releases" was there any other practical application of the group block?

Yeah, some people don't like our links to official releases (in other words MangaPlus, for now).

 

[Teasday]

_{@AbyssalMonkey posted:}

I think it's plainly ridiculous how pandery this community has become that they can't check the uploader before reading a chapter; that they can't check the chapter page on their updates to see if they missed a chapter; that they need warnings and tools to block perfectly fine scans because they don't want to see them.

I'm sure nobody creating perfectly fine scans wants scores of people complaining about it in their comments. If we can program in some relatively simple features that makes things more convenient for everybody involved, I don't see a particularly compelling reason to categorically refuse to do so. I don't even know on what basis we would refuse that and you're not really giving one in this post (maybe you did elsewhere, I dunno). It almost sounds like you want the site to be intentionally more frustrating to use than it can be. Usability isn't "pandering".

That isn't to say usability on MangaDex is anywhere near perfect, but we do what we can.

 

[Kendama]

@Teasday Trolls will be able to circumvent anything if they really want to, especially the ones of the SSSSS variety, whose releases are proper (that is, a real attempt to convey original content and not fake content).

AbyssalMonkey has a point. Pushing trolls into anonymity and the like will only cause your mods to cross a dangerous censorship line.

BUT you can corner SSSSS-like trolls further by making it possible to "block from view any higher-number chapters not in direct sequence to the latest read chapter from a series one is following, if the bridging chapters don't exist".

(I don't think this is crucial. I like this feature to block manhua-only groups, not because I'm particularly concerned with last-chapter trollers. I just like to think of measures and countermeasures as a fun exercise.)

 

[Excelsior]

This alone goes to show that readers have started to not care about who did the scans; they'll click first, get angry later.

Looking at certain users who got butt mad the other day...

It's too hard for some people to just silently report troll releases and act like they don't care so the troll doesn't get any attention lmao. I don't like troll releases myself but I can agree with the dumb entitlement part on this /shrug

 

[petra]

I'd recommend clicking on the series link instead of the new chapter link on your follows page, in case a group you actually like has uploaded multiple chapters. And also in case someone translates a random chapter you don't want to read yet.

 

[Teasday]

_{@AbyssalMonkey posted:}

But it's not gonna solve the issues of the trolls, the thing that seemingly caused you to fast track such a feature. I've pointed out several ways to bypass your new restrictions and still be in line with the rules. The reply? "I'll ban them anyway". I mentioned in that post that this is the moment in line when you are now policing what scans are, as much as you don't want to think you are. All you've done is push the trolls to be anonymous. Which is frankly easier, safer, and harder to block, especially given how this platform wishes to be an index for all manga, and as a result, can't ignore anonymous scans.

We promised group blocking like months ago, I could hardly call this fast tracking. Frankly it's kind of embarrasingly slow.

The group block doesn't prevent trolls effectively but I don't think any of us said that's what it's for. Sure, trolls can upload anonymously or under no group. It's not particularly a problem, since the reader's spoiler net takes care of people unwittingly clicking on skipping chapters, so if someone explicitly decides to read a chapter like that when they wouldn't want to despite the warning, it's frankly their own fault. If it's just a pure joke release, we've had a policy against them (except for April Fool's) since the site was created, so the same old rules apply as always.

As far as I'm concerned, the issue we're talking about here has already been addressed a good while ago, and the group block is - among its other use cases - just an extra measure. If @Holo wants to start banning people for posting legitimate scanlations under whatever group name they have the right to use, that's up to him and I would disagree with the decision because we've already got preventative measures in place for it being a problem, but I doubt that's happening. However, like he said, troll releases are already against the rules.

Would I want people learned to just fucking ignore what they don't like? Absolutely. It's a pain in the ass and I'm not even a mod.

_{@Kendama posted:}

AbyssalMonkey has a point. Pushing trolls into anonymity and the like will only cause your mods to cross a dangerous censorship line.

I don't know what you're calling "censorship" in this context (not to mention dangerous :eyes, but we've always had rules about what releases are allowed here, and it's never been pure free-for-all. We do in fact decide which images we're not willing to host on this site, whether it's official raws, advertisements, malicious garbage or whatever else. Practically, though, our approach is generally speaking kinda laissez-faire in order to foster this hobby, so maybe that might have given a different impression.

BUT you can corner SSSSS-like trolls further by making it possible to "block from view any higher-number chapters not in direct sequence to the latest read chapter from a series one is following, if the bridging chapters don't exist".

That's true. It's why that feature already exists.

 

[Kendama]

@Teasday I see your point, I chose my words poorly. I assumed continuous troll activity under anonymity would somehow compel you to target these chapters speciously as opposed to via existing rules. I see it's not the case.

Well, since trolls like Steamed-whatever get their kicks out of being noticed, AbyssalMonkey may have missed the point of the effects of this measure: uploading under no group or along with anonymous blob won't give him the recognition he seems to crave.

Still, the suggestion I made would make this kind of upload very hard. Call it the "See no spoilers" button.

 

[deleteTF]

@DarkdooM I'm too certain he is trolling, but you can't prove it. He is not breaking any rules, so therefore he doesn't deserve a ban. If they ban him, it would be a slippery slope, so they should avoid that.