Looking for solutions, not rant. How to fix the overcrowded Tapas?

[darthmongoose]

But if Tapas openly tiers everyone...we all know exactly what they want in a series. Maybe they put things like Scurry or Errant immediately in tier one and validate that web series of professional quality that don't meet the dominant genre are valued. They're meant to be nurtured and let the audience grow to high expectations...even if it's slower.

I'm not sure I necessarily see a need for this personally? Tapas have already endorsed Errant and shown signs that they believe it could go places in spite of being in a less popular genre. It's had a staff pick and another feature in a staff-chosen category (it was called "Adventure!") which to me achieves the same goal of boosting it.
If a work has been community picked and is made by a forum regular but has not received a staff pick, to me... that's kind of doing what you're suggesting for the lower tiers here, it's a sign that the Tapas staff don't necessarily feel that the work in question fits in with the front page, either due to quality, style or content.

I would feel very uncomfortable if I thought my work was only doing well because Tapas had pushed it deliberately. I'd already surpassed 250 subs under my own steam despite being in an unpopular genre when I got my staff pick and I feel proud of that. I went in with an oddball comic in an unpopular genre and I fought it out on level pegging with everyone else and I got past 250 subs, no sub-for-sub, no bribery, just honest hard work and networking. I'd really hate if people resented me thinking I'd only succeeded because of favouritism by the staff, particularly because as an LGBTQIA+ creator, there would inevitably be people who'd say I was only being boosted because I'm gay.

Personally what I want for the site is an even more level playing field. I want more chances for a comic to get seen by just organically performing well and having an effective cover and description and entertaining content. I don't want to feel like I have to rely on the staff to be seen. I just want to make a really engaging comic, have people see it and go "damn, that's a kickass cover and this is really fun to read, I'mma subscribe!" all of their own volition and then for my performance to naturally cause the site to go "Oh hey, you liked Magical Boy, here's another colourful manga-esque comic about queer peeps fighting monsters with magic that's generating buzz" and recommend my comic to them in a list of similar things.

[jensrichard77]

this is a site to host my comic, nothing more.

Sorry. Not trying to be funny or something here.
But why even care about us wanting a rating system if you just here for the hosting and nothing more?
If you do not care about being on the front page, why stop those who want?

[nathanKmcwilliams]

That's the thing that bugs me. All of these community contests on the forums are randomly luck based. None of them actually encourage creativity. And if they do, the judgement isn't rendered on skill or quality. It's randomly chosen.

Usually they're a little game like make emojis, or a post a picture of your workstation kind of thing. (I was a winner on that one actually ) that kind of thing is all well and good...but again...it's randomly chosen. No skill really required. And the reward? Usually some bonus ink, that can only be used on purchasing premium comics.
(The staff pick one is tempting, but even if I was randomly chosen, I think they'd pick a different person, since the beginning of my comic is less than perfect for reading on mobile.)

I dunno. I'm not expecting Tapas to change. Nice if they did, but I don't really need them to. I'm already committed to the long game, I knew what I signed up for when I started making my story.

[Rhonder]

Big agree, especially if it was something that was presented to readers as well, I think a tier system would honestly do more harm than good? My gut reaction is that it would be even more of a deterrent for people than the current "popular/trending" system Like, right now you're at least either on one of those lists or not. Everything else is kinda fair game. Comics that are poor quality still don't get as much traffic and those that are better quality still get more but it's flexible, I guess?

Whereas I'm envisioning if there were, say, Tiers S-F. If you can sort by that then... I would personally probably never look below tier B or C, personally, unless it was a direct recommendation from the author or otherwise. I'm given a preconceived notion as a reader that those lower tier stories exist but are clearly not worth my time. I feel like would-be low tier comics already have a hard enough time without having a big ol' "Kick Me!" sign slapped on as a first impression as well

The only way i could see this being useful is if it were a dashboard exclusive feature or something. Similar to the follower milestones we have currently, you could have a little tier rating with parameters to move up and the promise of getting featured once you reach Tier whatever. That would seem kinda contrived still, but at least it would give creators something to work towards without tainting reader impressions? I dunno.

I'm team "improve filtering/searchability", personally. The ideas in this thread about multi-genre filtering, or putting higher emphasis on series tags (but also would have to be coupled with Tapas promoting to readers "hey, searching is a good option!" because right now it's a browse-oriented site) would be generally beneficial. Sure, the premium "Fantasy / Action series with tags "magic" and "elves" would still be higher up the search results than joe schmo's, but it would make the overall list smaller and that's significant for discoverability.

[migxmeg]

The most important thing - for Tapas, for us - is that this works from a reader standpoint, and helps readers find the comics they want to read. This tier sorting (which as you said, would be a very large amount of work) seems potentially helpful to some creators, but I don't see how it would help the reader experience. You have the premium content sorted out from the self-published content already, so readers that only want to read professional comics can do that.

When I head over to Free-to-read or Canvas to find a new series, I'm way more interested in whether a comic matches the genre(s) that I like than if it's more or less polished (and I can make some judgment at least about art based on the cover or thumbnail myself). I just can't see someone saying "hmmm let's go read a tier 2 comic today."

It just seems like an extreme amount of work for very little gain. How would you sort them? Wait until a series has x episodes then read and tag it? It would be really hard to be consistent - "quality" is very subjective - and have staff grading them across genres etc. People would dispute it I'm sure too...

[Llyrel]

Personally what I want for the site is an even more level playing field. I want more chances for a comic to get seen by just organically performing well and having an effective cover and description and entertaining content. I don't want to feel like I have to rely on the staff to be seen. I just want to make a really engaging comic, have people see it and go "damn, that's a kickass cover and this is really fun to read, I'mma subscribe!" all of their own volition and then for my performance to naturally cause the site to go "Oh hey, you liked Magical Boy, here's another colourful manga-esque comic about queer peeps fighting monsters with magic that's generating buzz" and recommend my comic to them in a list of similar things.

This. This so much.

Having tiers like the ones that were suggested honestly feels more like doing homework than anything else. We shouldn't forget that there are also plenty of people on Tapas who are just here to have fun and share their passion project. Creating tiers and putting pressure on them, be it because their comic is perma-stuck in the "low tier" and makes people feel bad because it's not perceived as "good enough" or because it gets promoted to a higher tier and all of a sudden a creator who's only doing a comic for fun feels the need to make a ton of high quality updates to go with the "high tier", is not going to do them any good. And even for creators who aim at a more professional approach... there's a ton of ways a system like this could go wrong and create an extremely toxic environment full of envy and hatred ("why did they get picked and I didn't", "my stuff is better than theirs", "staff is picking favorites!" and so on and so forth- which already kinda happens here... but make it 1000 times worse).

In short: no, I don't want staff to "judge" my work. I'll leave that kind of work to a publisher when/if I decide to publish my work. What I do want, instead, is what's been quoted above: more opportunities for my work to be seen and more level playing field.

[jensrichard77]

@migxmeg you made some good questions about how this would work in reality. But I think that we could find some answers from @Rhonder here.

The only way i could see this being useful is if it were a dashboard exclusive feature or something. Similar to the follower milestones we have currently, you could have a little tier rating with parameters to move up and the promise of getting featured once you reach Tier whatever.

I truly feel that there is little gain and guiding for me as a creator. Where can I go with Tapas. What do they expect from me and how do I get there?

What I’m I fighting for? Because standing alone on the web is useless IMO.

[jensrichard77]

I don't want staff to "judge" my work. I'll leave that kind of work to a publisher when/if I decide to publish my work.

But isn't Tapas a publisher?

[Llyrel]

They are, but from what I understand, simply posting on the platform doesn't automatically mean that the staff will look at your comic and eventually pick it for premium as a regular publisher would do (unless -I think?- you reach a certain number of subscribers, which I currently don't have XD) and they actually have a separate section (Studio Tapas) where you send them your comic/novel to become a premium series? That's how I always understood it, at least... I never submitted anything to Studio Tapas because I have no interest in turning my comic in a premium series and I'm more interested in getting traditionally published in my own country

(Edited to clarify)

[Rhonder]

tbf even with that implementation I don't think it would be worth the Tapas staff's time to implement It would be so, so much work to be intimately familiar enough with thousands of series to not only tier them but also keep track of what goals they need to reach to "level up".

Thinking it through further, maybe that could be a sort of mentorship program that you can apply to after clearing a further milestone, say 400/500/1,000 subscribers? If accepted, then Tapas can work with you to help guide your series towards a level that they would feel comfortable promoting more. That would at least keep the workload down by a substantial amount Even so I don't foresee a system like that ever being added tbh...

[jensrichard77]

So many suggestions. So many frustrations. So many hopes and dreams. So many things that we wish Tapas was.

But what can we do now? By ower selves?

[CytricAcid]

if tapas won't make community based contests for promotion, why don't we so ourselves? it might not reach nearly as much as tapas front page, but its better than nothing, yeah?

[jensrichard77]

Yes! We are the community. We are the people.

Tapas is a business and if you want in on that there are clear rules and submission for you to follow.

But if you just want a good time and have some people look at your stuff, we need to work together.

I have a stick figure comic. That's all I can do.
But someone can do funny characters and another is great at laying colors and another can do background.
Together we can make a comic that feels like a success and we are not fighting each other over a spit on the front page but we are all helping to promote the same product.

Maybe we just need to lay down the self pride and start to just enjoy creating in teams.

That what I really want to do and what I believe in.

Just need to find the right members and avoid internally drama.

[Azifri]

We had some very good contests already, organized by fellow Tapas creators. This one was my favorite - it helped me find some amazing long-running comics and get valuable feedback from more experienced creators.

I respect people, who've already had a long journey with their comics, and still continue to do it, even if they don't have too many subs. Thus, I decided to make a contest for all underestimated (but still impassioned!) veterans of Tapas. Submissions are open for the next two weeks (until 19 January). Requirements for submissions Your comics is hosted on Tapas (It may have mirrors on other hosting as well, but we will evaluate and award Tapas version) a) It's first issue (on Tapas) is date…

Posting here in case someone feels inspired and wants to start a contest ^^

[darthmongoose]

But isn't Tapas a publisher?

Tapas is a publisher, but it's also a platform. It's tricky to do both, a bit like being Netflix and Youtube at the same time, and I think that's the heart of the issue here. Lately Tapas has been behaving more like a publisher, with a heavy emphasis on published premium content they choose to advertise. This has created friction with users who want Tapas to function more like a platform, with some curation but largely a meritocracy in which creators succeed by making content that grows organically either through quality or through marketing or hitting exactly the kind of content that's popular on the platform.

I've done work with and for publishers, and a thing that appeals to me about webcomics and platforms like Tapas specifically is that angle where if you can get and hold attention, that's all that matters. It doesn't matter if the publisher thinks you'll succeed or not, which is great because it means you can prove a concept can build a following even if it's niche or nothing like anything anyone has done before. Publishers are very conservative because they have to put up a lot of resources, so they avoid risk and only go for things similar to successful things, so they often lag behind what's popular online. That's why there's so much LGBTQIA+ content on sites like Tapas compared to how little there is in print.

I'd never pitch Errant to a publisher because it would have such a low chance of them believing it would succeed. "Hey yeah so... I want to pitch this comic, and it's kind of YA-ish but the characters are too old and it's about a 24 year old woman who's like a terrible shounen manga protagonist and it's really political and gay and the closest thing I have to a comp title is maybe Nimona or Scott Pilgrim.... hello? Are you still there?"
Basically my only shot with this, my dream project that a publisher wouldn't pick up in a million years unless it got popular organically first is to try it in an environment where it's freely available and see if people will read it, because it's not got a clear enough genre or clear enough similarity to anything else on the market to get picked up by a publisher. That's why it's important to me that Tapas functions like a platform, not a publisher. If they function more like a publisher... I may as well just make something more marketable and go pitch to a publisher. That's literally what I'm doing right now, formulating a pitch.

[aqua03]

Personally, I kinda agree with the idea of having a "recommended for you" section along with just a better and more precise algorithm for sorting through genres. Like not just having broad genre like "Fantasy, Romance, Action, Mystery, Etc." But also sub things like "Dark Fantasy, Romantic Comedy, Superhero Action, Tutorials on how to make Peanut Butter Sandwiches" for example along with just broader genres in general (The fact we still haven't gotten an "Other" genre yet for the series that are mostly just photo galleries and such is still kinda baffling to me....)

Also, maybe a bit of a broader section of different comics at the end of reading episodes? (Tapastic's minimalist format's great for bing reading, but kinda is antithetical to just stumbling upon the next great comic if that makes sense.)

Also maybe filters of how many subs as well? Like maybe an option to search for just comics that are under 100 subs or over 100 subs for example? That might work as well.

Also, please have tags actually do something as well please... Because they seem kinda pointless right now in all honesty except fore maybe slipping in a little joke or two for eagle eyed viewers...

Just... Better and more precise searching functions in general. Please and thank you.

[skicoak]

For those opposing the tier suggestion on grounds it would be demoralizing to be ranked... Is this any different from the current joy that is grinding diligently away to reach a few hundred subs out of the odd 30 million subscribers on the app/site? All with no understanding about how the site perceives your efforts?

I'm not seeing the benefits to standing pat.

[Rhonder]

Also, please have tags actually do something as well please... Because they seem kinda pointless right now in all honesty except fore maybe slipping in a little joke or two for eagle eyed viewers...

This one especially baffles me xD episode tagging is literally useless, but beyond that even the series tags are... borderline negligable with how the search results are presented @ u@;; I haven't used the app in a while because a recent update made it no longer compatible with my phone model, but on the website at least that it first orders search results by:

• the search term being present in the series title, then
• the search result being in a username, then
• the search result being in the series tags

is... kinda backwards xD that you can get the same or more immediate mileage by including a bunch of broadly searched words in your title than by tagging your comic properly is silly. Also as far as I can tell there's no way to search multiple tags? if you write several words it looks only for series that have a multi-word tag included.

For example, TreasureHUNT!! is currently the number one result when you search "treasure" because it's name starts with that and it has more subs than the other comics with that word in the title. "Treasure" is also one of my series tags and so it appears if you look at the tags tab too.

But if you include another tag, say "Treasure Guild" then my series still pops up in the series name results but... the tags tab returns empty, as "treasure" and "guild" are each tags on my series but not "treasure guild". Much like searching by multiple genres at once, being able to serach several tags at once would be a step in the right direction. I guess someone correct me if I'm wrong or if the app search has this. I guess I can't check that myself until I upgrade to a new phone In the mean time, I guess I'm a primary webtoons app reader now lmao (but that's a personal gripe and off topic >u> )

[DasIstWunderblyat]

What I want is to change readers mindset that a (hopefully) big enough portion of community series have quality that rivals premium series, art-wise and/or story-wise. Sometimes I read a premium series and think "Why this garbage is shilled so much by Tapas?" Sometimes I read a free series and think "Wow! I can't believe this is available for free."

Premium series always means quality? If anything it is always means "Regular updates." Even they can disappear from your library when the license end (if licensed) just like a community series when the creator realize they cannot repeat that many classes.

(Note: when saying things above I don't speak for my series)

By making events that make them read community series with incentives like Webtoon can help. Also IMO Staff Pick should not be for premium, have a separate category for premium, or must fill a certain quota of ratio for community and premium. Expanding its capacity also can be done. It irks me off to no end when a series plastered in the front page is also on staff's pick, like are you not promoted enough? For many community creator, staff's pick is their sole hope to gain a little traction ( and I am still waiting for one, I hope it will come). Premium series are being promoted differently and more extensively, they can do good even if they stay out of staff's pick.

Also battle royale.

[DiegoPalacios]

Sometimes not having a change is better than a bad change.

I'm not calling your suggestions bad.......gotta check the whole conversation to give a more informed opinion......

But my point is that if people consider a change is for the worse, they will be against it....