Comics only in episodes policy

[PotooGryphon]

[Strontium]

I also checked my spam - nothing. It's not really a big deal though; my email just farts like that sometime, and I've gotten all the other newsletters and site notifications, and @CyndiFoster posted it here, so it worked out.

[puppetbomb]

I have to say, I'm pretty confused with the analogies in the email (Why would I want anyone on my front garden GTFO my lawn).

If there's too many reports to keep up, Tapastic might want to loosen up on what is or isn't considered reportable. Having more guidelines means more report files to look over, which it seems like is not what you're going for. But that's how I imagine this scenario playing out.

This may mean allowing NSFW content and/or ignoring spam/advertising "comics" and focusing more on harassment and extremely offensive material.

I think when it comes to advertising in comics, it's up to the author if it would affect their readership. I assume that if fans get annoyed with spam or ads, they will either complain to the author and/or unsubscribe.

A bit off tangent, but I like the idea of having multiple feeds in a profile. Maybe even making the profile page look like the front page?

[michaelson]

If there's too many reports to keep up, Tapastic might want to loosen up on what is or isn't considered reportable. Having more guidelines means more report files to look over, which it seems like is not what you're going for. But that's how I imagine this scenario playing out.

Hm, possibly - from an editorial standpoint, it's pretty important to try and maintain some consistency though. More guidelines that clearly outline what each tool should be used for would hopefully mean less reporting instead of more - unless, you're assuming that more creators will not follow the rules. Right?

I think when it comes to advertising in comics, it's up to the author if it would affect their readership. I assume that if fans get annoyed with spam or ads, they will either complain to the author and/or unsubscribe.

Yeah, this was the expected behavior from fans, but in reality, there are a lot of users quick to press that report button. And so we started to collect that data (ala who was pressing that button, for what purpose, and at what frequency). There was a lot of overlap in terms of what was being reported (i.e. spam, episodes not NSFW flagged, and non-episodes). I think it's important to take a look at this kind of data and start factoring in that user behavior to our content guidelines.

[igneriss]

Whoa, I was really confused about this topic at first : o (but then found the announcement in spam OTL )
Anyway, what about bonus pages that are giving info about the world in the comic? Like some more information about organizations in the comic, so reader won't be confused when characters mention a name of said organization in a casual chat with other character? Or maps, or something about characters? I was planning to add one episode with 1-2 pages like this at the end of every chapter, but well, technically it's not a story episode

[puppetbomb]

unless, you're assuming that more creators will not follow the rules. Right?

I believe rules are there for the people who break them.

Yeah, this was the expected behavior from fans, but in reality, there are a lot of users quick to press that report button.

Right now the report button is as easy as sharing on Facebook, which I don't think is what you want (my first few days in Tapastic I found the Report button faster than the button that took me to the first page).

For reference, Youtube's reporting function takes seven clicks to submit a report, not counting a mandatory description. Tapastic only takes three and a description is optional.

You can probably make Tapastic's reports much more specific like asking for a general panel number for really long comics, the link to an episode (if the button location changes), mandatory descriptions and dropdown menus for often-used reports. Or artificially adding clicks so there are less trigger-happy reports.

[Kura]

Count me in as one of those that did not get this e-mail that should have.

I am a tad bit concerned as I like to have title pages and end pages to my chapters. Would those still be allowed?

For Raven Wolf I start the chapter off with a title/cover page. http://tapastic.com/episode/37527 and end it with a chibi comic type thing that is NOT directly related to the ongoing flow of the story, but is still related to the story or what happened in that chapter in some way. http://tapastic.com/episode/37488 Like an end page or back cover page.

For No Future instead of doing end of chapter comics like that I have been putting in a character sheet to match the character featured on the cover page of that chapter http://tapastic.com/episode/104102 and sometimes adding an end / back cover image http://tapastic.com/episode/104105

These are all at the end or beginning of chapters not in the middle of them so they do not disrupt the reading flow. And to ME they feel like part of the comic (it's just not the same not having something at the end like I do a cover at the beginning), though I'm not sure if staff would feel the same way.

On an additional note, any extra art like holiday pictures, or announcements with art associated with them goes to my feed or just stays on in my dA (or other art websites) since my feed is so crowed with notices.

[Jelw]

I know some creators specifically have second series for "extras" and unrelated content for their series. What are Tapastics opinions for such series?

[michaelson]

I know some creators specifically have second series for "extras" and unrelated content for their series. What are Tapastics opinions for such series?

Whooaaa, I was just about to write something about that. Thanks for the great question!

I think this boils down to form and function. If a series is created with the expressed goal of delivering extra material to flesh out a primary series then it should do just that (i.e. posting maps of the world they're building, character sheets and bios, etc). I think that's fine and it's understandable due to the current limitations of the profile wall.

We'll probably have to make that an exception - it's an important point to bring up. I'll be talking to the rest of the team about it.

end it with a chibi comic type thing that is NOT directly related to the ongoing flow of the story, but is still related to the story or what happened in that chapter in some way

I read through it and it's fine - I think those recaps are supplementary to the main narrative.

[minzinger]

Thanks everyone for the message. I'll leave individual questions to @michaelson and will try my best to elaborate on the big picture.

Rules may be confusing (I know), but our goal is clear and simple - When a reader clicks a comic episode notification on their email or phones, I think we all can agree that we want this reader to think, "Oh man! That was a great comic!"

Now, let's look at a few unfortunate scenarios:

1. Tapastic sends too many notification. The reader turns notification off. Ouch!
2. The comic episode wasn't good. The reader probably unsubscribes from one creator and tends to only follow creators they like.
3. The comic episode is about T-shirt Sales / Commission me / Announcement. Maybe the reader ignores it a couple of time, but after a few times, it may get annoying and the reader turns off the entire notification.

For #1, we know some readers turn notifications off and that is our fault because our product is not good enough. It's not a huge problem, but it is still a problem and our team is addressing it. For #3 however, we know that readers do get annoyed by these non-comic episodes because they tell us. That's something we need to address as a community by trying to set some rules. It's a problem we did not foresee but has increasingly become problematic as our community grew.

I like @keii4ii's comment:

I get the feeling that the staff doesn't see why we find this confusing.

One of the reasons why we're so confused is because it isn't a norm for a comic hosting site to have a separate place where we can post things and notify our readers. (This is a PLUS for Tapastic, by the way.) Therefore, people are used to posting non-comic updates -- hiatus notices, fan art features, etc. -- as regular comic updates/episodes. THAT's the norm in the webcomic world.

Yes, and please understand that this whole things is very new for the staff, too. We want communicate the best we can and apologies for confusion. At the end of the day, all we're saying is let's all use common sense to give readers a great comic reading experience.

Just an observation here and I'm going to be frank. I think many creators automatically assume all subscribers are all fans, and I think that's bad. I'm sure that many subscribers are fans, but many are also casual readers. I am a fan of some series and I am a casual reader of many others, but I subscribe to both. As a fan, I love to get all updates about the series and creator's activities. As a casual reader, my excitement level is just not the same as I just want to quickly read to see if this series is getting better or not. It's sometimes too much to see doodles, notes, announcements, etc. On the other hand, there are many series where I was just a casual reader in the beginning, but became a fan. I hope you see what I'm trying to say here.

Anyway, great discussion.

@fanartist - HAHA...sorry. I had a next-door neighbor who never cleaned his garden. Never cuts the grass. Leaves trash the stunk the neighborhood.

[ck_tapastic]

Just curious - anyone else who also didn't get publisher newsletter emails?
Yeah, better notification (smart digest/collating) is what we need to add. Please bear with us..

[kurisquare]

I see your point when talking about the new policies on non-comic episodes, but I think that we can also classify "non-comic episodes" into different things. On one hand we have announcements (check out my store/patreon, going on hiatus, there's a livestream, etc), but there are also non-comic episodes that have things like character profiles, extra info about the comic (worldbuilding, etc), or things like the Christmas collab we had last year.

Announcements go well with the profile posts we have - they're notified to our readers (also hoping to have categories in notifications, but I see that's being worked on), and serve their purpose in that specific moment. For extras, however, I'd like to keep them somewhere accessible instead of letting them dissappear into a sea of wall posts. I think that's one of the pros of non-comic episodes that wall posts just don't have - they're easier to find. If I want to look at the Christmas collab again it takes me less than five minutes to find it.

I'm in full brainstorming mode so I don't know how this would work exactly, but here's an idea: maybe there could be a separate "extras" feed/list inside a comic, where we could post things like profiles, maps and things like that. Subscribers would be able to choose if they want to be notified of all updates of a series (comics+extras) or just the comics. That way non-comic episodes stay accessible and we don't bother readers who aren't interested in non-comic episodes. Announcements would stay in the creator's profile wall. I remember hearing comments from creators when we first joined that Tapastic doesn't have extra pages for comics like other hosts (where we usually do a longer "about" page, a page with character profiles, etc), and something like this could fill that gap as well (I'm saying this from a creator's point of view, but as a reader I always love to read the extra info pages in a comic site).

Sometimes I get the feeling that most of the changes to the Tapastic experience/guidelines/etc are based on the readers' experience, so it's good that we can discuss these things here to get the creators' viewpoint. That way we can work on making a better site/community for both readers and creators, which I think is best.

[noxfox]

Another thing: profile post notifications from the creators whom you're subscribed to, VS all the other activity notifications. These two are very different in nature and should not be lumped together IMO. Creators who have lots of episodes get like 100 activity notifications every time they gain a new reader who Likes every episode. Or non-creator readers who comment a lot -- they probably get a constant influx of notifications from replies and whatnot. When that happens, important notices from other creators that they're subbed to get buried in the pile. We want to avoid that.

There are other issues will wall posts actually, and I hope the staff will consider them so to improve the user experience with this:

• On episodes, users can start a likely infinite number of comment threads, engaging in a specific discussion with creators and other readers who might join in the conversation. It's a bit like when you're in a bar, sitting around a table with friends and talking together. Then there are wall posts where there is only ONE possible discussion. It's like you have to talk with all of the bar, which can be 1. intimidating, 2. confusing if someone starts to derail the topic, 3. seriously annoying because maybe you don't want to listen to whatever rant someone had to say.
• I know we'll soon get the option to unsubscribe from discussion threads to stop being notified. However, while this will surely be greatly appreciated, I would still have a pinch if I feel "forced" to kick myself out from an interesting discussion that got completely derailed (it sometimes happen that two users start flooding a discussion while other participants --even the creator-- are afk, and then you come back to some sort of weird madness.

There are lots of non-comic episodes that I KNOW were allowed, at least in the past before you guys rolled out the profile post notification feature. For example, in one of the past newsletters, you spotlighted a Christmas collab done by several creators and posted in their comic episodes. Are these things still allowed in episodes, now that we have the ability to post them on our profiles and notify the readers?

I think this is very important to address as an issue. @elixiadragmire recently told us in chat that she was considering to delete this Christmas episode because she was afraid that her series might be taken down. I took part in this collab and would be quite peeved if I had to take it down. But it's not the only sort of non-comic episode indeed, here are some that I consider are totally right at their place in series:

• Subscribers Hits: "We've reached xxx subscribers, thank you so much!"
  Those are usually very sweet words of joy from a creator, with a special picture to celebrate. It's nice to go through one's own series and remember how much time it took to get more subscribers, see people's reactions... I personnally also used one of those episodes to add some words about how my series was created in matter of influences because I kept getting people asking me if I was Noelle Stevenson, the author of Nimona. I now often get comments on this episode because readers are happy to discover sketches or my influences.

• Seasonal Celebrations: "Happy New Year/Halloween, etc"
  I think everybody likes those, and those who don't probably don't mind much to see an episode dedicated to it. It's a gift to the community, a little extra on top of the story, cherry on the cake ♥

• Questions & Answers "Ask the creator or the characters anything and we'll try to answer!"
  It's fun and an occasion both for creators and readers to discover more about the characters and the plotline. It's also a way sometimes to give the readers a little something to read when creators need to go on hiatus.

• Hiatus "Sorry I won't be posting for a while because reasons"
  Those would probably go on the wall now, but creators are used to post this in their series because 1. readers will know, 2. it might be related to one series only if the creator works on more than one and they don't want to create confusion. Plus some creators will still work to produce a few little illustrations during hiatus, even if it's just pictures, not story.

• Fanart dump "Thank you so much for all the lovely drawings you made!"
  What an amazing feeling to get fanarts of your own series! Also they can be great to feed readers during hiatus too, and to give some exposure to other Tapastic creators who may have done the fanarts.

• Crowdfunding etc for the series "Hey guys, guys, I'm starting a fundraising to make prints and goodies o0o"
  Communication is the key of success for crowdfunding so it's understandable that creators might use their series to be sure to reach their readers about something related to the series. Now maybe such could be part of the footer messages.

• Extras model sheets, sketches, worldbuilding, lore, technical wips: "how to draw, how I do page..."
  As @Jelw pointed, some creators like @elixiadragmire don't want to clutter their story with such material but still want to share it on Tapastic (most readers never go on other sites where we may be storing those), and decide to make a new series dedicated only to those extras. It can be more like a sketchbook or more like an actual artbook from creator to creator, but it's still non-story. Yet, readers can be eager for those tidbits of information that bring more depth to everything.

Now a thing that can demotivate a creator from adding stuff at the foot of their comic is that, especially if it's some kind of announcement, readers are likely to comment about that instead of about the story. It can be a bit frustrating.

Thus I'm proposing a suggestion:
While I do hope that the wall will be enhanced so it's possible to access a list of the creator's posts in case we missed them before they were buried under tones of messages, and that discussions on the wall posts will be improved (I'm sorry to have to compare, but dA journals are very fine in that matter), I think that it would be nice and fair to allow creators to post some of the above items in their series, or to make non-story series to store those episodes maybe. This could rely on two mechanics:

• flag an episode as non-comic
  It would be a button, like the NSFW button, and would make it so those episodes are wiped out of your algorythm that proposes new reading suggestions to users. There could be a rule however to limit such episodes so they don't become more numerous than story episodes (maybe like, suggest creators that it can't be more than x% of the overall content --since we don't post the same number of "pages" per episodes, it would be hard to rule it with a x extras/y episode rule) unless the series is categorized as "Extras" in the genre area.

• move episode to another series
  Christmas is passed, decorations have been put back in the boxes, and the Christmast episode is now stored in an Extra series, so readers who'll get to this point of the story in summer won't be disturbed by sudden Santa.

In order for this policy to be enforced more effectively and to get the users to report their favorite creators, the ability for the staff to block specific episodes is needed very badly IMO.

I so very, very much agree with this.

You can probably make Tapastic's reports much more specific like asking for a general panel number for really long comics, the link to an episode (if the button location changes), mandatory descriptions and dropdown menus for often-used reports.

Maybe it would also be nice if creators could know that their episode was reported and why it was reported. I don't know if my series Singmire Haze has ever been reported but I sometimes get users who're like "hey! you didn't put an NSFW flag but there's a naked character!" and then I point them to the very first episode, which start with a warning that the series contains non-sexual nudity that won't be flagged NSFW because it's just bodies like we all have under our clothes (and if people don't like that then they'd better not start reading or they'll get frustrated quickly). I understand that with the new app thingie it might become more of a problem as people wouldn't get the warning. That's very problematic, because whenever a creator puts up an nsfw flag we notice subscribers loss (seriously, I put that flag on a questions & answers episode that contained spoilers, I had told that I would put it up just so people who don't want to be spoiled are safe, and I still lost subscribers...). The NSFW issue is certainly one that might need to be fixed in order for your algorythm to be at its best potential while not making all series seem very mature because of a swear word, non-sexual nudity or other very mild stuff.

[noxfox]

I didn't get the newsletter either ;n; I looked in the spam, in the trashbin, but it's nowhere to be found (and if Gmail can't find it, it probably doesn't exist). Now I understand better what people were talking about and how they got to know about it. ...I was thinking "wow, admins pimped them lots of info o__o"

[Jelw]

I think some sort of gallery option would help immensely with the problem.
Now, I understand Tapastic is comic-dedicated and wouldn't want to develop into an art website rather- so maybe if there was a feature developed so that only existing comic series could have a gallery added onto it it would be good. Also gallerys wouldn't have the ability to be featured in streams or anything.

[noxfox]

I forgot to tell that maybe you (Tapastic) could use a google form to make a survey (a bit like this rudimentary tidbit, in example) to figure what creators are more likely to post where, and for which reason, so to determine which mechanics are needed to encourage creators to post on their wall rather than in their series.

Sometimes I feel a bit like you make assumptions on what design would be nice for the site, and try to encourage certain behaviors that would make the design more relevant, but without completely observing the reasons of why we behave the way we do. For creators it can feel like we're not being understood in our needs, or that we're not being provided a viable alternative to what we're doing. We're not against change, but we often have good reasons to do what we do the way we do it, and so long as we don't feel that the new thing would suit our needs better, we're not going to use it.

I think some sort of gallery option would help immensely with the problem.

I agree. Sometimes we post pics on our walls, for all to see or just for supporters, and then they get buried away. I find it quite bothersome that even Supporter-only content can get buried like that so new supporters will never get the chance to see it. I would really like to be able to have an "art" gallery for such pictures and for guest comics I might have made (on that matter the collaborative series suggestion I made is more detailed, not gonna retell it here), and a "journal" log that would list up the posts I've made and wanted to pin there. Goes along with this suggestion of possibility to stickify posts on walls.

[minzinger]

here are some that I consider are totally right at their place in series:

@noxfox - I agree with some of your points. Seasonal Celebrations are good. Something like Happy Mother's Day just makes any reader, both fans and casual readers, feel good. Some Q&A Episodes provide a good experience as well iMO. However, I have to say most of the points again based on the creators' preference than the readers' preference, particularly casual readers' preference. Many of these can be added to a small sections at the bottom of a comic episode. For others, I would argue that personal wall is sufficient.

Honestly, I personally don't mind anything you've mentioned. But, I'm highly biased because I've been in this community from the beginning and have seen subscribers and readership grow. I am emotionally attached to Tapastic and any activity seems fine to me. However, it's very different for others, especially casual readers or new readers of your work. I understand that as a creator, you guys have the best intention and want to inform readers because you think it would benefit them. But we all have to understand that often, the relationship is more one-way than mutual. There are many readers (probably more than not) who don't care about creators reaching XXX subs, hiatus message, fanarts, etc. Those information is irrelevant and perhaps even annoying these readers. I disagree and you may disagree that many of these items are "spam," but the reality is that many readers do consider unwanted activities as "spam." I hope this makes sense.

Sometimes I get the feeling that most of the changes to the Tapastic experience/guidelines/etc are based on the readers' experience

Past years, we've been primarily focused on creators. We've been building tools, adding Support Program, etc. for the creators. We've been prioritizing creator feedback than reader feedback. However, we're at a point where the scale has tilted and we feel that we're at a point where we need to spend some address reader issues - the big one is our mobile apps update.

[elixiadragmire]

hmmmmm I have to agree with alot of what other creators have said here .... kinda anxious actually. I might delete my additional serie and just leave all character sheets, maps and lore on my tumblr and twitter and maybe my wall and people can dig them out there if they wanna follow me there. As for the old seasonal/fan art stuff I might delete them too. Keep my head down and my nose clean and promo on the down low.

[ck_tapastic]

No, we're not pimping anyone in particular We're using Mailchimp for publisher newsletter, and Mailchimp is a fairly reliable service.. the most likely scenario is recipients turned off / unsubscribed, I would presume?

[noxfox]

I might delete my additional serie and just leave all character sheets, maps and lore on my tumblr and twitter and maybe my wall and people can dig them out there if they wanna follow me there. As for the old seasonal/fan art stuff I might delete them too. Keep my head down and my nose clean and promo on the down low.

QAQ noooooooooooo..... I like the extras ;n; And the app isn't there yet...

I disagree and you may disagree that many of these items are "spam," but the reality is that many readers do consider unwanted activities as "spam." I hope this makes sense.

I can understand that... Yet, Tapastic is strong for being a community, so even if a good deal of the users don't wish to partake in it and are just here to read, there's still the minority that, while being a minority, are still the little vital organs of the big body. The readers who communicate with creators give them the motivation to keep on drawing and writing, so even if they're a minority, I tend to think they're somehow more valuable, if I can phrase it so without sounding like an elitist douchebag (it's not a question of elitism, just that they're precious to us creators xD).
I do understand the purpose of not showing seasonal episodes and such non-story content in the reading suggestions (unless it's about making a specific collection of episode that celebrate a same thing), but most time those episodes aren't much bother. Except in cases when the creator is having issues, making hiatus posts all the time and forgetting to delete them when they become irrelevant, or when those episodes are placed right in the middle of an action in the story and ruin the immersion... >__>

No, we're not pimping anyone in particular We're using Mailchimp for publisher newsletter, and Mailchimp is a fairly reliable service.. the most likely scenario is recipients turned off / unsubscribed, I would presume?

Mailchimp pimp -shot- Well, so long as it gets solved I suppose it's alright^^ No one died, we can rejoice ♥