MangaDex Two Year Anniversary

[whosaint]

TLDR...
for me, I don't mind friendly ads... so, I choose option 4 since I can't donate.
but for donators, they can access MD without ads.

 

[wannaskoox]

I'd like to see ads since i can't really afford donations. But PLEASE, don't include tracking ads, those really hurt the credibility of the website. Also happy anniversary!

 

[Moodyz]

- Our third option is affiliate sponsorship, partnering with a company and referring users to their service. We currently only have a single affiliate, Path Network, who are graciously acting as a CDN and providing enterprise-level DDoS mitigation for our image servers pro-bono. The affiliate option relies entirely on having companies reaching out and willing to be affiliated with us, which means it's not guaranteed it's even possible to pursue.

I dunno. VPN services often have sections on their sites talking about their affiliate program and how interested parties can sign up. I'm sure that you could show them Mangadex visitor stats and whatnot and work something out.

Also works in the community's favour since many of the site users would probably benefit from a VPN to cover their anime and waifu-game torrenting activities and whatnot. That and the ability to workaround/mitigate the slow image loading Mangadex has been having lately.

Problem is which VPN to partner with. Big companies have financial muscle but are kind of shady, while the smaller privacy/security-focused companies might not be able to pay much, and obviously the most hardened providers don't even believe in affiliate programs, so it's a tricky balance to find. Beyond that, there's the issue of what payment methods these companies use to pay their affiliates.

 

[Xzayer]

If we go the crypto option. Could we perhaps have another Boichi Sensei Teach Us? That way we could have a general idea on converting the money into a cryptocurrency.

I skimmed through some dialogue and possibly it’s been mentioned. But if we go the crypto route will we have other ways to donate for the servers? I mean to use cryptocurrency and possibly other donation options to buffer it out.

 

[Samhill]

Out of these options, ads. Although this leaves you no creditably when talking about scanlators pulling their translations for ad money.

We still have no interest in profiting off of the website and any money from any of these options will only go towards server costs.

Can't you use the extra money for translations?

 

[psuedonymous]

Crypto, with the good old site-wide-banner donation-o-meter. Shows current donation level vs. funds needed for the next month (on a rolling basis). Works very well for prompting people to put in the effort to donate if the meter dips below or is hovering near the uptime threshold vs. an occasional "donate plz" message and hoping people remember to do so each month.

 

[t8nt3d]

Please try crypto first before ads. Most users most likely just find it daunting since it's an unknowable technology for them at the moment.

 

[Xitel]

What if y'all just published the Test Manga as a mass market paperback? Seems like a surefire way to make some scratch!

 

[Cyreader]

@Teasday

Of course you can't use Patreon/Subscribestar for the site like you said they would absolutely shut that down.

But as I mentioned before on a completely unrelated note and not associated in anyway to this thread and purely hypothetically speaking if there was a separate blog on a completely unrelated and separate site that accepted patreon/subscribestar contributions for running their blog all legit and above board. A blog about fun Manga and Anime they read and links to buying them from fine legal online establishments maybe even interviewing pixiv artists or people who learn other languages and the like.
Then that person running the blog would be well within their rights to spend their donated money however they like and if say they were interested in cryptocurrency as investment for their future with the blog well that is entirely their right as a free individual, to put that money into cryptocurrency and maybe spend it on things they're really interested in online.

But yeah I have no idea on what you could do to help fund this site - but man I'd really like to find a nice blog site to read and support especially ones people recommend to me.

 

[HDMI1]

Just throwing this out there, but what about CCBill? Sure they'll take a percentage, but they accept a bunch of different payment types, and they have a EU branch that should get around US laws (I hope).

They do the billing for a bunch of pornsites, so they shouldn't be to squeamish about MDs content.

 

[Leone]

Affiliate sponsorship and paid auxiliary services like sdbx would be ideal.
I would be happy to donate, but I'm leery about using cyptocurrencies for a few reasons. I'd rather give established PayPal alternatives or even direct bank transfers a shot first.
Ads are definitely a last resort.

 

[LeggoTutto]

Wouldn't be possible to make something like Webtoon? I mean: triying to affiliate with some Artist to pubblish their work here and having people pay for the latest chapter. I think something lik 20 cent, 15 to the Artist and 5 for yourself could be a decent price.

 

[theflex]

Ads are definetly the best choice, because every other feature would be difficult to adopt and number 2 and 3 could cause harm to MangaDex itself and to us users.
I would gladly accept some non-invasive ads if those will help MangaDex to stay alive.

 

[darkchocolatesan]

I definitely suggest against ads. While I personally would be ok with seeing nonintrusive ads on the website, I think with ads on MangaDex, it might draw more of licensors' attention to the site, as well as the scanlation teams, because the licensors' will feel like they are losing money. I also think that part of the reason many scanlation groups only allow their works to be uploaded onto MangaDex is because MangaDex doesn't have ads, and while MD might not necessarily profit off of the ads, it would definitely draw suspicion to have ads.

 

[theonlycasper]

I'd do crypto. Ads are too unstable. You never know when an ad network decides its time to pull the wool over your head and puts full banner or autoplay videos into your site.

 

[smashman42]

While I hate the idea of ads, IMO it seems like the safest way to keep the place running long term.

You could always do the OP's mentioned options of only having them on the front page or only for guests etc, but if it earns too much perhaps donate the excess to charity once you get enough of a buffer saved up? Could do a pool of charities and rotate through them whenever the bank balance gets big enough, could have people nominate and vote on the charities even for that extra transparency factor.

The donated servers seems the nicest idea theoretically, but I figure there's be hardly any people that can both afford that and are generous enough to do so indefinitely, and what happens if suddenly a few of them pull the pin at the same time due to another GFC sort of thing? (maybe there's already been more than enough offers in the comments to cover it? I saw one skimming the first page but didn't read it all, would be awesome if true)

If going the old skool donations route, you'd need some idiot proof mud map guide for n00bs on how to get teh crypto and donate it - US companies locking you out of easy donation options like PayPal, Patreon etc really blows for making this easy, but it is understandable given what this place is.

The affiliate sponsorship option sounds the most sketchy for long term stability - even if you get a company to do it, they get one nasty lawyer's letter & it could be all gone again.

just my worthless 2c

 

[sinisempi]

ask for crypto donations with an affiliate link from an exchange

 

[madmccoy]

There are some JavaScript-based crypto miners available. What about setting up a special page on MangaDex, hosting one of those miners there, and letting readers with idle computers mine cryptocurrency directly for you? I know it's not particularly efficient, but with enough visitors it may generate some value for the site.

 

[TimeVolt]

I think I can speak for the majority here (owing to the current results of the poll) and say that it is really frustrating to be not in a situation that I am able to support Mangadex yet use it so often, so it would be fine (in my eyes at least) to run non-intrusive ads, especially in select places (like only on the home page) or during select times (like only when it is needed), but I can see why you guys wouldn't want to do that, so do whatever.
EDIT: BAT (a cryptocurrency) exists and you can get it from viewing ads on the brave browser, it seems like a suitable way to support Mangadex from my financial place, so I guess crypto is a good way too maybe.

 

[AB2000]

I think Mangadex shouldn't rule out any of these options.

But I'm not sure if the ads can be a very reliable way to fund the servers. If ever some ad redirects to an online scam (like some crappy ads on Manganelo), it'll clearly damage Mangadex's reputation. And people can block the ads anyway...