New tag (Authorized Translation) and new display panel (Indie/Creator-Owned)

[TMW]

I have two kind-of related suggestions. One is to add an Authorized Translation or Creator Approved tag, for works where the creator has agreed to have their work translated & posted to Mangadex. The other is to add a side panel or bottom slider-panel to the front page for small press/indie manga (Manga with the Doujinshi, User-Created, or hypothetical Creator-Owned tags).

The first suggestion gives groups like the ElusiveTaco recognition for their extra work in contacting the creators, and gives readers the warm glow of knowing that the creator isn't out there complaining about piracy. It also gives users a filter to find creators who are engaged with fandom.

The second suggestion makes it easier to find works outside of the mainstream. If you've come to Mangadex looking for something new, a panel that highlights material not from the big publishers can help with that. And if it displays works with the Authorized Translation/Creator-Approved tag then it gives these indie creators a boost for working with Mangadex.

 

[acs87]

This doesn’t sound like a very good idea. In the first place, I’d be such a small, and very small number of mangas that would be an “Authorized translation.” And I feel this would add a lot of confusion to MangaDex, since thousands of titles won’t have that “Authorized Translation.” It’s pretty cool that Taco manages to get permission from the original authors, seriously it is. It sounds look a good ideas if MangaDex were to be meant for creators and authors. But this website is made fore scanlators to post their translated works for others to enjoy. And authors and publishers aren’t losing money from scanlators. Some authors have come out to compliment scanlations or to say the don’t care. But usually they don’t cause their publishers condone scanlating. But in our defense, they don’t translate to other languages and if they do, it’s slow. Back to the tag, if it’s added, almost nobody will know if it’s used correctly or not. MangaDex doesn’t have the luxury to check every title the tag to see if they’re an “Authorized Translation” or not and thus the tag could be abused, creating more problems. In addition, Taco only translate twitter posted contented with author permission (again pretty cool), but “Authorized Translations” for serialized manga will never be a thing cause publishers will be getting in the way and blah blah blah. So only non serialized titles will be able to even add this tag and again, cause confusion as to what this means and why my favorite manga doesn’t have it. I personally don’t worry if the author worries about piracy or not cause usually they don’t and you can always support them on Amazon. As such, I believe this will not be a very good addition to MangaDex .

As for your second suggestion, all of the featured titles you see on MangaDex (latest updates, featured, top) are brought to you by computer stuff. Meaning staff doesn’t manually put it there. Manga shown on the featured is there because they received a lot of views in a short time (or something like that), the top of the week or day is because they got the most views in that week/day (or something like that) and the latest updates are the most recently uploaded. None of these require any human interaction. The feature you’re talking about will most likely require someone to put those there every time (if so, the selection could have been biased). Having a program find titles that match what you want won’t be a very easy one. Even Apple can’t do it and they have “expert groups” to curate their stuff. If MangaDex were to have this feature, they’d need their own “expert group” to select these titles. It’s too big for MangaDex right now, so I think this is also not a good addition at the moment.

 

[crazybars]

@TMW

Please no. That has potential to set up a lawsuit that mangadex will lose very easily.

Mangadex is not responsible for the actions of scanslation groups. If Managdex starts labeling if it's creator approved or not, then the companies will file a lawsuit that will ask "Why didn't you take down every single scanslation from every group that is not creator approved. "

Remember, all they care about is getting rid of ANY scanslation, regardless of licensing or the reality that it's a lost cause for that work specifically, etc. Mangadex would be forced to setup a copyrighting system like Youtube on mangadex, then all the scanslators leave because screw that, and Mangadex dies DIES DIES.

 

[acs87]

I didn’t want to bring up the legality of MangaDex, but yes, that too.

 

[Teasday]

_{@TMW posted:}

I have two kind-of related suggestions. One is to add an Authorized Translation or Creator Approved tag, for works where the creator has agreed to have their work translated & posted to Mangadex.

Tags only apply to the manga itself, not some individual group's translations of it. We don't have group- or chapter-specific tags.