The story behind "The Flame Credit"

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Lacked a better name for it, so I'll just randomly write whatever's in my head. Just some insight thoughts from an ex-member of the group that got involved and handled it rather in a not-so-pleasant way

The Anjou-san snipe

Anjou-san was handed over to Hatigarm via internal discussion, and it was released reasonably fast - however, because the series is off the "popular" one, the team's current speed is not fast enough to please general readers. Doesn't help that Hatigarm actually lacks skilled cleaners to deal with the rather bad quality raw scan, and TL is a paid one who piggyback almost all of the J series (TL,DR: They don't have enough manpower to keep up with the scope of this series, which theoretically they don't have to, but because reason, you know). The snipe then occurred out of nowhere by a random group and they left a mocking credit page toward the general scanlation scene, calling out all groups taking donation "scammers"

The response

Needless to say Hatigarm is determined to fire back and the team quickly speed up the process to release 2 new chapters. However, due to the rushing, Hati (the QC+uploader) made a critical mistake of NOT CHECKING THE SCANS before uploading - mass-export JPG, zip, upload - because 4 am logic. This lead to some pages corrupted and missing certain bubbles, and thus the other group called him out for it on their next release, because they can. I won't comment on how they also missed bubbles, not going to assume they rushed too because it's innocent until proven guilty.

MD's involvement

To my knowledge, this conflict sparked when the chapter's discussion turned into a flame war over the credit page, which goes against the discussion rule (off-topic discussion). MD stated in their official statement that they've reached out to Hati asking him to bring this matter to discuss privately with other group and/or using their own credit page to respond, but this was ignored by Hati. Meraki got dragged into this somehow and apparently the argument lead to them getting punished by the mods - because rule is there.

The loophole

This is what everyone's been arguing about and it can be considered the first time this was brought up. Naturally the comment and forum sections have rules that everyone knows and understands, such as "no derailing discussion". But before this incident there was NO rule regarding the credit page, in fact uploaders not from the original group are not allowed to modify the images at all (to prevent stealing scans). Obviously because MD didn't expect groups to get salty over a mocking credit like this, they didn't prepare for the possibility of a flame on the comment which has to be stopped due to forum rule, but at the same time it hurts the group getting attacked because they can't fight back directly there (I said "directly", because MD has suggested said group to contact the sniper, leave comment on their group page, or response with their own credit, but sadly Hatigarm's not fond of that idea.

The aftermath

Hati and Meraki decided to respond by nuking release, at first with Anjou on Hati's side, to show their displeasure toward MD's decision. What was discussed among MD staff is unknown to me, but eventually they've come to agree that the policy need to be updated to combat the loophole, so they did update discussion rule, namely "everything related to the chapter can be discussed, including credit page and the likes". You may ask why didn't they just outright ban offensive credit page - IMO, there are 2 reasons: 1: It would lead to chapter content being moderated which would cost staff endless time and 2: More fake reports to deal with as anyone can find a credit page offensive for the slightest reason, unless a SUPER LONG, DETAILED guideline is provided, and even then it still can't possibly cover everything due to cultural / religion difference. MD's solution is to simply allow such discussion to carry on without having to moderate the comment section for all sort of trivial matters

What could have been done?

As someone who's heavily involved with the Anjou-san, I've provided lots of advice for Hati but sadly I wasn't able to prevent this whole trainwreck. When the snipe first occurred, I know that while this was a dick move, the sniper isn't actually doing a bad job since they also bought the physical raw instead of kindle version - the best course we should've taken is up our level and claim it back, so this is exactly what I told Hati to do. However I could not defend Hati for the slip on the fast release because it was entirely our fault - his 4 am reason I can understand but that's by no mean justified to release a chapter without a last minute check as QC. Then come the second mocking credit page which obviously pushed him over the edge - I tried my best to calm him down and reminded him that this was HIS fault to begin with so he shouldn't get too mad, and just either ignore it or apologize to readers. Instead, he went through the length of battling with the troll and ended up nuking Anjou-san when things got out of hand. I don't know if Hati's aware of the policy change, but internally the staff working on Anjou-san are none too pleased with the nuke - he said he'd restore it, but later on the decision was overturned because toxic community, or something like that. And now the group's left MD completely

The conclusion

In the end, both sides are neither fully right nor wrong, however as a scanlator I can never agree with ANY action that harms readers from a particular platform no matter how you hate it, because ultimately you're going to hurt innocent bystanders who wants nothing but reading your scan in peace and appreciate your efforts. I've been told countlessly about MD's bad practice, and I'll refrain from commenting on it because personally I have NOT seen any problem with that - no one's been deleting my comment for no reason, my chapters haven't been edited without my permission, etc... Some people even suggest me that batoto (yes, it still exists, and still allow you to upload) is even better than MD, but I'll have to disagree with that in term of functions and performance

What do we learn?

Mind our own business and don't let the trolls get you - seriously, the time Hati spent fighting this I could scanlate a few chapters on my side and I'd rather do that instead of defending my "honor" when I don't need to. If someone snipe me and they do a better job, I'm ok with that. If others curse me for sniping them after they don't release for six years, I don't care because I like the series and want to bring release to others to enjoy it. In the end, isn't that our goal?

Ironically Hatigarm started the group by taking ToDG to ensure faster, better quality release, and to this day I still respect him for that. Which makes me wonder why he didn't think calmly when the snipe occurred, instead jumping into action too quick which caused the whole trainwreck.
 
Dex-chan lover
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Oh hi ron.
Quick question is there a chance for hatigarm or any group that "left" MD will back?
is a silly war but i dont hate the group nor MD.
except some dick person who make a flame thread or something.no i am do not mean you kronix ,you are shitposter and is a general rule not to take any personal meaning when shitposter say "mean" stuff [/ s]
 
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I guess i should start by first saying thanks for your work.
Now about the matter at hand, apparently you were the one who managed to keep a cool head in all of this, and therefore props to you.
It's a shame really that people often let unknown keyboard warriors get to them, and instead of ignoring said person, they tend to retort either with words (that makes them as bad as the toxic/troll original poster) or take rash actions that might lead to more chaos.
Things could have (and should have) been dealt better, but in the ends this is what we got to, and sadly everyone end up losing.
Readers where all packed into the toxic ball because of a "few" users, and therefore now have to go search for their favorite series elsewhere (be it the translation website OR another aggregator).
Translators, because they "lost" access to a platform that gave them free advertisement for them and their series (heck i didnt knew even half these translation teams existed before MD), not to mention they have now angered more people who werent at fault, by removing their works and leaving MD, who probably wont support them anymore.
MangaDex themselves also got hurt, due to lose readers of said series and the support of the groups.
I hope we get over all this drama soon, get back to just enjoy our series and learn a lesson for the future.
 
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@mrguest Unless there's a major change in leadership, I doubt that'd happen, the big groups are, well, big group, and they operate on the mind set of "others need us, we don't need you" motto (Apologize for being blunt, but mostly yeah). At the very least though, certain series can still be saved if the people working on it disagreed with the group's decision to blacklist MD - in case of Hati, me and Kitsune have transferred all of our stuff over to my group and re-release them for MD exclusively

@Kimzark I'm said that it had to happen this way, but there was little I could do when Hati's way too stubborn with fighting the "toxic community". MD will take a big hit, no doubt, but the deleted chapters will also give chances to other groups to take them if they dearly love to bring it to MD (That's what me and Kitsune are doing)
 
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I see that's too bad. i hope this would be the first and the last drama in MD
 
Group Leader
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Very well written. It's really interesting to me to see so much documentation of this incident. Websites develop their own histories, and I think this will be remembered for a long time.

If others curse me for sniping them after they don't release for six years
I've never heard of this happening after that long a period of inactivity, but my god I hope it doesn't start to... every single manga I've picked up except for one was a situation like this, lol.
 
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Its really shame that this can happen.

so, everything that scanlated by Hat and others in the past and in the future.
will only available in their site? or they have other alternative site like MD?
 
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@SalmonDaddy any other apprgreator like KM, MR, MK... still have them, they're simply blacklisted from MangaDex. TL,DR: They chose to boycout the platform that caters to scanlators the most.
 
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@RonBWL ah... thank you
im probably going to MR for a while until i forget that this drama ever happen. even tho i really hate their reader.
other site like KM MK are blocked by my ISP, and i dont like VPN :<


----
regarding to the topic, i forgot to add this.
True, im agree with you, its way much better to humiliate "sniper" with your quality and speed (too bad for the that blunder tho) rather than throw empty insult.
MD in general did their best addressing this chain of drama (not sure about Holo tho, lol) , but the troll and the rage just too much. and the community not even helping,they even fueling the whole drama.
Even for me, as someone who working in legit Webtoon platform, reader can be a bit of asshole and write something inappropriate.. we just simply ignore them. because its just simply not worth it.

MD IMO probably the best site that favor Scanlation now. even site like MR dont even bother to tell us which scanlator working on which title.
MD introduce me to many scanlation, and im even starting to read some of my fav manga on their site just to show my thank you to them.
but im still need site like MD to remind me every update. frankly, its impossible to me to remember all series and their scanlator. :v

If its their decision to left MD, let them. i hope for their best.
and if you guys who left read this reply. All i want to say is...
"Thank you very much for all your works!!"
i might forget about you guys in the future. but really, thank you~!
 

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