Mangadex vs Scan groups

[Morpheus]

Ive read the shit to some extent and I have a few questions:
- I see in a lot of these pages that holo demonizes scan groups for utilising patreon as an avenue to continue their independence and not become dependent on a site like this, what is this supposed to prove? MD is utilising their own form of patreon through their site in terms of donations where the donor acquires perks like tags? (thats what was advertised when MD first came about, idk if it still is)

- How in the hell is potentially allowing holo and MD to use scan groups as a stepping stone to grow this site into a major business with the potential to generate 6 figure sums (i.e. crunchyroll/fakku?) a good idea or even decent? Holo made it clear that this is one of his goals so the groups that support MD rn, why? Like i get you hate the groups that went out but why? Some said it hasnt happened yet, BUT the idea is THATS HIS GOAL.

The same way you all hate kissmanga and MD demonizes kissmanga for profiting off the scan groups thru ads, thats what MD is currently doing and potentially wants to do to an even further extent. To clarify, instead of ads, they attract you with the notion of no ads and thanks to having a library of comics from scan groups to provide you, some can be swayed to donate to them to allow the site to continue run, thats profiting lmao. MD wants to take that further and go legal, NOT IF, WHEN they do, there isnt anything you can do to stop it, so this resistance bringing awareness is really good imo. Crunchyroll AND fakku has survived the ppl who pirated so why cant MD lmao, you just need 1% of your audience to buy your shit to keep you profitable (largely exaggerated but still you can see what I mean)

Are the groups that took up arms mad about MD's policy about sniping?
Can MD confirm their plans for everyone so its not all wishy washy, this would help all the groups to develop a concrete stance on what they believe to be the right thing to do?
Holo said going legal will happen so the groups that support MD, why do you support someone using you as a stepping stone when essentially you have put in all the hard work not them? (scanlation wise)
MD insinuated they will potentially create a hierarchy, i.e. if they go legal, theyll support the groups that side with them and shit on those that dont, that's what I got from holo's message (from a screenshot thats going around), is this true?

Id appreciate clarification without further drama.

 

[Zing]

What is wrong with the idea of going legal?
If there is a market for it and they can pull off profitable revenue model that gives back to both original author and people who translate, clean and typeset. More power to MD, am I right or what? Do not underestimate the amount of work kicking off and managing a business will require.

Besides, didn't j-novel.club get started by people who used to do fan translation and saw the potential to make a business out of it?
From what I heard CR also started out as a fan project and eventually graduated into legal business. No matter how many qualms I have about CR, I am glad they exist.
Fakku is a different story, for me, their website lacks the quality of life you get from e-hentai.


I think that people who are worried about MD going legal in the far off future, despite how much of improbable pipe dream that is, are being short sighted. Instead of bitching about how MD is profiting from your work and flip tables like a undisciplined child. Why don't you think of a way to make things work and profit off MD in return?

 

[Valkynaz]

1. Holo doesn't demonize scan groups for utilising Patreon (afaik), them pointing out that all the groups walking out having Patreons was a slight hint at why they were walking out, aka they wanted more clicks.

2. It's not a good idea, and from what I've seen all the admins say isn't the goal considering how most if not all of them have said something along the lines of "MD will only go legit if they can keep the vast majority of the current content on" and as many have stated, it's an obvious pipe dream that would require a literal miracle to actually happen, so TL;DR MD doesn't plan on using the groups to their own goal.

3. And again, they don't, do you see MD constantly shoving donation requests into your face every minute? Oh that's right, they don't, who'd of funk? Again, if MD is to go legit they've in no uncertain terms said it'd only be if they're able to keep the triangle happy (Publishers, Groups, and Readers) and they've also admitted, that is near if not entirely impossible.

4. No, the groups that "took up arms" (Or as I'd call it, throwing their dollies out of the pram in a hissy fit) were either mad about a. MD not siding with them in any drama (MD says they wish to remain impartial and let people deal with their beefs like adults) or b. They're just looking for an excuse to leave so they can try and get more patreon and site clicks (Hense the first point about Holo brining it up)

5. They didn't insinuate shit, they just said that they'd work with "good" groups, the term "good" out of context could literally mean anything ranging from well behaved and "pro MD" to groups with really good content get the jobs, without further clarification or context that saying is moot point since it relies on conjecture, and again, MD going legit is akin to a pipe dream that would require a miracle to occur.

TL;DR MD going legit is Holo's dream that's got a less then 0.01% chance of actually occurring due to how specific their goal is (Aka, everyone is happy) and the walk out is more about e-peens, hurt fee-fees (Or convenient drama), and money.

 

[Morpheus]

@Zing uh the problem lies in the fact that other ppls works are being used as a catalyst to propel MD into going legal. Even if they say theres only a small chance, that means they are still pursuing that path. Thats alarming. No one cares that they want to go legal, its cos they arent using their own work to do so, they are using other groups.

@Valkynaz
1. he did, ask any leader theyll say yes he did, re-read what he said lmao. He shat on scanlators cos we take donations LOL.
2. you arent part of the MD team so u cant just say shit man lmao. They clearly said they have that aspiration/goal, proving my points right.
3. Thats why i like them and wanted to get more info, they dont shove shit down ur throat. They respect scanlators and provide a scanlator 'haven' if u may.
4. Idk why they were mad lmao thats why i asked, the message didnt give a concrete answer. All ik is that Hati continuously has asked MD to stop supporting snipers, JB just hates MD for some reason and etc. I just wanted to know their motivation)
5. thats your subjective view, for me it did. Everyones definition of 'good' differs lol

I respect Holos dream, its just the manner at which he is going to attain it - which is use groups as stepping stones essentially.

 

[Valkynaz]

1. Do you have proof that Holo shat on scanlators for taking donations? Only thing I've seen is Holo saying that they don't have a beef with donations, it's harping on about them that MD has a beef with.

2. My entire point was that those were not my words, just parroting what I've seen every admin say in relation to this stupid point, if you want proof go over the recent forum posts and look at what they've said, and If you take the broad goal/aspiration without any of the requirements for said goal/aspiration to become a reality, then you can make almost anything seem bad. If you want an official response, DM Holo or any of the higher ups they're probably kind of busy to check every thread at the moment.

3. So that point was moot from the get go.

4. The TL;DR from what I can gather is Facepalm started doing Anjo and made a few quips about Hati in their credits (Like joking about not leaving speech bubbles unfilled), then Facepalm did "the credit page" that looked like a PSA about anyone blatantly asking for donations (My person opinion is it's fine to have a Patreon, just don't harp on about it) and Hati got offended, Then I think there was some drama between Hati + Merk and Facepalm? Not sure on that part and MD told them to deal with it like adults in DMs and not Manga discussion pages (fair), which results in both Merk and Hati pulling their chapters I believe (Dollies = thrown at this point), the JB and some other people decided to join in, either due to opportunism or they're really this thin-skinned that MD would dare uphold their rules the way they're written and not play favourites. Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this was how it all went down, but my memory is utter dogshit so some things maybe slightly inaccurate, so take that with a pinch of salt, it's a clusterfuck for sure.

4.1. I still personally believe this is more manufactured outrage then legitimate, that they were either blowing everything up out of proportion to try and force MD to take their side, or they were looking for a reason to bail anyway to try and force their website + patreon, but this is just an analysis of their actions and nothing concrete.

5. Yeah, that's the problem when you post clips of conversations without any context, since that can change something from innocuous to damning and vice versa.

And finally, they've already said they don't plan on screwing ANYONE over, their vocal goal is to make everyone happy and saying they'll do otherwise is conjecture at most, and all of the "evidence" I've seen damning Holo has been so clearly taken out of context it's not even funny, and most of these points have already been covered in the clusterfuck thread.

 

[Miza]

demonizing or not, holo was okay with for-profit groups, as long they admit they want money and not making excuse, but these groups didn't want to admit they want those precious money clicks on their sites, instead, those group creates a thread about how mangadex will use scanslator groups as expendable assets to go legit, that's the break point for holo, if you don't mind became e-ndiana jones you'll find them buried in the one if the locked threads

the stepping stone stuff is one of the excuse the leaving groups uses, and that same groups cherry picking what holo said on discord then forged their own context, creating the seriously going legit thing, pretty sure you can find one of mangadex real goal on the milestones reached thread, and the staff already said going legit are treated as an inside joke because its just not achieveable

i don't think its a profit if its became a dead money, i mean the extra funds just standing still there, in the contingency funds, waiting the day to get used when no one thinks donating mangadex would worth anything, while the ads ridden aggregator sites and for-profit scanslation group might use the extra money for something else outside scanslation activities, and again the going legit thing is a joke, a meme for the staff for its level of difficulties

mangadex actually support equal chance of translating, meaning people could compete for serving a better quality translation for certain title, so these "sniping" business only hurt the one who translate for profit, since they want to monopolize the title, and having maximum profit possible, since the fastest way to maximize profit is shooting down the competition, meaning, monopoly.

for hatigarm case its because they were dissed by facepalm through facepalm credit page, saying mean things about for-profit scanslation group and also sniped on yancha gal no anjou-san manga hatigarm do, and mangadex staff only said its something that should be resolved by themselves, i think they change rules about what allowed to be put on credit page now though

for JB case its because mangadex didn't side with JB and hatigarm against facepalm, mind you that hatigarm seems to be a friend of JB so JB defend hatigarm from facepalm "menace", but JB defends hatigarm through chapter comment section, instead getting backed up by mangadex, JB got warning for derailing the chapter comment version, that action taken as siding with facepalm by them;

and also i think JB felt betrayed by holo, because at first, mangadex only have 1 week max delay, but just for JB, holo change the max delay to 2 weeks, this might give JB a false sense of VVVVVIP to them, so when things goes down like this JB expect holo to back them up, but in reality mangadex are always neutral. holo said it on the locked thread too if you willing to dig them (its okay you can blame me for not memorizing where it was posted), except the delay change, which is directly from holo, the rest of this paragraph(if you can call this a paragraph) is purely my speculation, because it make sense, for-profit usually thinks they gone VVIP when they got better treatment than the other people

you may or may not believe what i type here, its your choice, but that's what i get from partially reading and page jumping the locked threads

 

[Zephyrus]

Everyone, I understand the desire to continue the conversation. However, we'd really like to keep the drama confined to the single locked thread: https://mangadex.org/thread/92399

Thanks,

Zeph