- Joined
- Jan 24, 2018
- Messages
- 3,231
Hallo hallo,
Another year has passed and MangaDex is turning a whole five years old. When MangaDex first began, we didn't have any idea how big it would become or how long it would last. The generous estimates for how long we'd last were in the two year range, but here we are reaching five. We wouldn't have been able to do it without the support from our users who sent us plenty of kind and encouraging words or the scanlators that tirelessly dedicate themselves to translating content for all of us to mutually enjoy.
Infrastructure Improvements
It's been nearly two years since we made the decision to rewrite the site from scratch, and we can happily say that it was the right one. As we continue to focus on both security, stability, and long term viability of each feature (we try to share some insights on that work every now and then in our DevBlog, for those interested), things do take a bit more time to build at each step of the way, but it has been paying dividends.
From fighting downtimes every week (and sometimes every day) in the v3 days, we can look back at 2022 (i.e.: 8760 hours) and see that we had a grand total of 6 hours of complete outage, and 33 hours of partial outage. The vast majority of which was planned migrations, or hiccups before we had fully tuned things after these. And that is while seeing steady growth, slowly but surely inching back towards the heydays of v3, with traffic spikes above 700'000 unique daily users, 5500 requests per second, and breaking 17Gb/s of traffic recently.
Quite a lot of reading indeed.
Forums and Comments Return, Rules Rewritten
In our last anniversary announcement, we said we would focus on bringing forums and comments back this year. After we implemented what we needed to make it work with the manga side of things, the forums and comments have made their glorious return. We're using the Xenforo forum software rather than the completely homebrew solution we had before, which means much more features to play with such as a more developed text editor, media embeds, group DMs, push notifications, better moderation tools, and other things you'd expect. We'll continue to work on the appearance to make it a bit more MangaDex-y, as well as focus on the creation of a light theme for those that prefer it.
The forums coming back represents the return of our ability to properly communicate with users and scanlators without having to resort to third-party platforms such as Discord or Twitter. Because we have a new Community Contribution forum section, we've taken the opportunity to completely rewrite our rules (old rules for comparison) to make the wording more consistent and easier to understand. Users can post threads in the Community Contribution section about MangaDex metadata situations that need a bit more discussion than just reports to properly sort out. Take a look at it if you're interested in improving the data quality of MangaDex. Just make sure to read the new rules page first!
Looking to the Future
There are just a few things left before we hit feature parity with v3 such as view counts, RSS feeds, site-wide tag filters, server-side user settings, and a few other quality of life things like having genre filters on your follows page. We're at the point where it's less about hitting feature parity and more about implementing things as they ideally should be. The main new thing that you can look forward to is the custom follows rework, which should aim to give you full control over how you manage your follows.
We know things aren't perfect right now, but with time we can work towards it. Thank you for being patient with us and we hope you enjoy the site.
Just like the past four years, here's a word from our staff members.
P.S: We're hosting a Reddit AMA right now!
P.P.S: There's also an anniversary sale going on at https://loot.moe/ if you want some MangaDex merch.
@Holo - Papa
Another year has passed and MangaDex is turning a whole five years old. When MangaDex first began, we didn't have any idea how big it would become or how long it would last. The generous estimates for how long we'd last were in the two year range, but here we are reaching five. We wouldn't have been able to do it without the support from our users who sent us plenty of kind and encouraging words or the scanlators that tirelessly dedicate themselves to translating content for all of us to mutually enjoy.
Infrastructure Improvements
It's been nearly two years since we made the decision to rewrite the site from scratch, and we can happily say that it was the right one. As we continue to focus on both security, stability, and long term viability of each feature (we try to share some insights on that work every now and then in our DevBlog, for those interested), things do take a bit more time to build at each step of the way, but it has been paying dividends.
From fighting downtimes every week (and sometimes every day) in the v3 days, we can look back at 2022 (i.e.: 8760 hours) and see that we had a grand total of 6 hours of complete outage, and 33 hours of partial outage. The vast majority of which was planned migrations, or hiccups before we had fully tuned things after these. And that is while seeing steady growth, slowly but surely inching back towards the heydays of v3, with traffic spikes above 700'000 unique daily users, 5500 requests per second, and breaking 17Gb/s of traffic recently.
Quite a lot of reading indeed.
Forums and Comments Return, Rules Rewritten
In our last anniversary announcement, we said we would focus on bringing forums and comments back this year. After we implemented what we needed to make it work with the manga side of things, the forums and comments have made their glorious return. We're using the Xenforo forum software rather than the completely homebrew solution we had before, which means much more features to play with such as a more developed text editor, media embeds, group DMs, push notifications, better moderation tools, and other things you'd expect. We'll continue to work on the appearance to make it a bit more MangaDex-y, as well as focus on the creation of a light theme for those that prefer it.
The forums coming back represents the return of our ability to properly communicate with users and scanlators without having to resort to third-party platforms such as Discord or Twitter. Because we have a new Community Contribution forum section, we've taken the opportunity to completely rewrite our rules (old rules for comparison) to make the wording more consistent and easier to understand. Users can post threads in the Community Contribution section about MangaDex metadata situations that need a bit more discussion than just reports to properly sort out. Take a look at it if you're interested in improving the data quality of MangaDex. Just make sure to read the new rules page first!
Looking to the Future
There are just a few things left before we hit feature parity with v3 such as view counts, RSS feeds, site-wide tag filters, server-side user settings, and a few other quality of life things like having genre filters on your follows page. We're at the point where it's less about hitting feature parity and more about implementing things as they ideally should be. The main new thing that you can look forward to is the custom follows rework, which should aim to give you full control over how you manage your follows.
We know things aren't perfect right now, but with time we can work towards it. Thank you for being patient with us and we hope you enjoy the site.
Just like the past four years, here's a word from our staff members.
P.S: We're hosting a Reddit AMA right now!
P.P.S: There's also an anniversary sale going on at https://loot.moe/ if you want some MangaDex merch.
@Holo - Papa
@ixlone - AdminHow has it been 5 years already?! MangaDex has grown beyond my wildest dreams - a big thanks to the dev team for making it possible!
@Lymus - Adminlolis > *
@AlexEliot - DeveloperWhen the forums are living and the shitposters singing, that's amore
When the regulars bant and the readers comment, that's amore
When the threads are a flowing and reactions are growing, that's amore
Half a decade? Whack
Now that forums are back we're almost back to full form! Happy to see many of the usual suspects are back.
Big thanks to the Devs and Mods for keeping up with all the craziness.
As for me, I've been neck deep in work, games and weebstuff. Hard to balance!
While Elden Ring is the GOTY 2022, do go and checkout Tunic rare to get an opportunity to truly discover a game, so go in blind!
@Asyncantiunredoify - DeveloperTyping this here feels like a dream. New forums features are unreal. I joined MD as part of my grand scheme to eradicate all Harem Manga from existence. Support my effort.
@Bottersnike - DeveloperWooooo! 🎉 Happy anniversary! 🎉
Did I do that right? I'm kinda new here, but also not really? I do code and read manga. ...and occasionally break the site.
I'm rather confusedAlso I seem to have broken the BB code?What is happening hereI wonder how deep it can go?
@carbryvietia - DeveloperWell this is a lot shiner than the markdown bodge that was last year's anniversary post 😅
@eralfl - DeveloperIt has been said that fate and destiny maintain dominion over the world, and that MangaDex exists, not by the graces of its people or its supporters. but as a manifestation of the machinations of temporal beings beyond our control.
I know not of the truth. But sometimes the truth is not neccssary, and the world is better thanks to mystery and enigma. I, carbotaniuman vi Ryvietia, Princeps Carbotia, welcome you to this humble realm. It has been countless millenia since the fall of our Golden Age, and yet our people have never been stronger.
As the world falls into chaos and despair, let MangaDex be here to lift your spirits and bring peace and prosperity to a world filled with darkness.
@panda__________ - Developer🍻 Here’s two another year of MangaDex.
@rdn - Developer🍻 Don't ask, read the docs. Happy new year 🎉
@Teasday - Developerwith the forums now out
get into the bout
rid us of post drout
to mine that sweet clout
Bonus meme:
@tristan9 - DeveloperI think I develop more art than code for MD these days
@Xnot - DeveloperYet another hectic year that passed in the blink of an eye. Glad we got to the good ™️ ending, with comments and forums coming backfor the new yearbefore the releases of Star Citizen and Yandere Simulator.
Love you all, happy birthday to MangaDex, and send me more yuri.
@ImightRemember - DesignerAnother year has passed and the working conditions at the MangaDex office continue to deteriorate. This year's entire budget was allocated to converting the Solo Leveling server into the forums server, so this is the fifth year in a row with no pay raises. To make matters worse, workplace morale has taken a nosedive ever since Miku Central got slashed from the budget. My meguuumote NFT side business has been completely ruined as well by bootleg smugglers. I have contacted the Copyright Office but they haven't done anything about it yet, I'm starting to think they hold a grudge against me for some reason.
@BraveDude8 - ModeratorEverything is possum if you just try hard enough
@Daviot - Forum ModeratorThank god forums are back, I can DM people instead of hunting them down via Discord.
@Electromaster - Moderator[Wakes up with Rip van Winkle beard] What...year is it? Covid's still a thing, Tarkov and Warframe are still in beta, Star Citizen still isn't out, and I'm behind on my anime seasons by mumble years. Sounds about right.
Please ignore any joint-popping noises, but it's good to be back focusing on things that really matter...people who spoil the plot twists two chapters early. 🍵
@glad-barfs - ModeratorTime flies fast. I can’t believe it has been 5 years already. Its been nice seeing the site continue to evolve and improve over the past year.
p.s.
@Kafka - Moderator/Public Relationsh-hi ... u-u-uhhh ... 👉👈
* barfs *
@woulez - Forum ModeratorWithout this site, I would've never be able to be part of this huge community (drama and all), know some very amazing and kind people and overall have as much fun I've had over these past years. Thank y'all for making this possible.
As always, danke fürs lesen [on MangaDex]!
P.S. Still open to collabo on manga with cute girls(♂) doing cute girl(♂) things, DM me
@Zephyrus - Forum ModeratorTomboys are underrated.
@Plykiya - Public RelationsFive years of MangaDex. Here's to all the haters that said we wouldn't last 6 months! 🍻
Oh, and don't forget to donate to the MD Yacht Fund. With everyone's hard work, staff can add another yacht to our fleet!
@Henny_ - Public RelationsMy love for crossdressers is too long for this announcement so just go read the comment chain on my profile page.
Hip-hip hooray for another year! It's good to be the best
Ummm... read Kokou no Hito. Been into Gundam a lot lately. Moved to a new state. Also got a Steam Deck. Everything has been alright, I suppose. Defintely another weird year