Opinions on featured content and why it bothers me

noxfox 2016-07-12 14:28:16 UTC #69

It would be good indeed to have a staff reply, to get answers to all the questions that were brought up. While I agree that one bad work shouldn't represent all of Tapastic, it still speaks quite loud for Tapas as it aligns in the trajectory of porn novels and other works that have been advertised for in the successive newsletters. With each new one I got, I felt a little more alienated, as if each of them was a hammer blow fracturing appart Tapastic and Tapas –I do feel like those two worlds have become very unalike in matter of content and atmosphere.

The issue here is still quite grave, given that this content is the sort that most people are absolutely grossed out by. It's grave enough for me to question whether I want to stay on Tapastic or not, because I would be absolutely mad if a series of mine like Consuming Darkness were to be promoted next to Learning Curves. With all the effort we put into making it as safe and healthy as possible, even for readers who are not familiar with the BDSM themes, I would be very disgruntled to see this work ruined by prejudice –we're already getting a fair bit of it just because we are being honest and upfront about the BDSM label (unlike most stories on Tapastic containing BDSM themes, often unhealthy).
If Tapas is going to be a haven of unhealthy material, I'm not sure I want my works to be available through it.

This said, I'll be waiting for clarifications and a note of intention for the future of the App, its content, and the content getting to be featured.

Zikul 2016-07-12 14:31:06 UTC #70

It would be very comforting indeed, if staff could dement the compromising claims...

UzukiCheverie 2016-07-12 14:51:08 UTC #71

Hey guys, me again. It was my plan to only leave one note, but after seeing your following posts and consulting the rest of the mod team, we're going to go ahead and lock this thread - after everything that's been talked about so far, it's going to be very difficult for everyone to get back on topic (and I say this out of understanding).

This thread will be locked, HOWEVER it will remain listed and in the meantime, we will be seeing about getting an actual Tapastic staff member to step forward and address your concerns further. Afterwards, the thread will continue to be locked - any further unanswered questions or concerns can be brought up with the Tapastic staff or mod team (though if you bring up Tapastic-related issues specifically with us, we'll probably just forward them ahead to Tapastic lol if it's a forum related question though or if you just need someone to talk to, we're here to help.)

Thanks for your understanding, everybody. I hope everyone has their concerns and questions addressed so we can put this to rest once and for all. Y'all are the best <3 - Uzuki

UzukiCheverie 2016-07-12 14:51:12 UTC #72

michaelson 2016-07-12 17:23:19 UTC #73

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michaelson 2016-07-12 22:04:49 UTC #74

I'll be responding to questions and comments later tomorrow.

I'll decided to unlist the topic because of its toxic nature and have decided to leave it closed for now. I'll be re-opening the topic and listing it again once I've issued a response.

If you have any other questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to e-mail me at michaelson@tapasmedia.co

michaelson 2016-07-14 05:23:07 UTC #75

I wanted to apologize to everyone that has been personally affected by the featuring of Learning Curves. It has become clear that unwanted pregnancy is a very personal issue to many of you. And moving forward, it will be a topic for us to avoid featuring.

I wanted to address the statements @Roxanneh made first, since all of them are speculative and overall are quite harmful. I will try my best to answer as many questions and comments beyond that as possible.

This was not a failed tv show, it was a pilot script that was being sought after by other studios and there was care put into the construction of the series. Most creators don't set out to make bad work.

The pull quote that you reference from the medium article "If you think about it, a vast majority of scripts haven't been made into movies and TV dramas yet... Probably sitting in someone's drawer" is meant to illustrate the number of stories potentially out there, and not meant as a reference to Learning Curves. There are other Tapisodes in the works.

These creators aren't obligated to mention us in a social media post. The absence of them mentioning us shouldn't be indicative of their how much they care about the platform or their own story. There are a lot of creators we feature or publish with us that don't mention us in social media.

There was reformatting added to the Tapisodes based on the scripts. I.e. certain descriptions being taken out and others being added in, how the dialogue appears, and etc. The inclusion of character faces next to the dialogue among other things are indicative that the scripts have been modified.

The creators of Learning Curves are working on a show for Amazon titled "Just Add Magic" and writing for Buzzfeed shouldn't be something to cruelly ridicule. And to speculate that we only featured them because they were our friends is absurd. We have professional working relationship with agencies and publishers that introduce us to creators and works.

I'll reference a previous response made in a topic titled "The future of NSFW":

It was chosen to be in the daily snack because of the engagement the series was receiving. Based on views, comments, likes, subscribes and purchases.

I have featured countless hard working artists with original and creative works. We've featured over 100 different artists, many of whom had very little subscribers to begin with over the course of the past year in the spotlight banner of Tapastic and we've cycled through over 70 unique series in the app banners, and we've only started with the relaunch of the Daily Snack, but already featured many series without an audience.

And in the previous version of the app, we featured over 800 different creators in the daily snack...

We increased the rotations of both the Popular and Trending Section and have featured older works in the Staff Picks that we might have missed. To say that we blatantly ignore original creative work is just wrong.

We have to understand that there are over 40 series created daily, there was a day when there were over 640 episode uploaded.
Can we feature everyone? Unfortunately no, but we are trying our best.

This doesn't dismiss the fact that we do make mistakes. And featuring Learning Curves is clearly that, a mistake. My intention as an editor is not to upset you, it's not to make you uncomfortable, or to personally attack you. I've tried my best to combat those things. But I recognize that many people were and are offended by the work, and I apologize that it was placed in front of you.

We will continually evolve our editorial style based on the feedback we've been given, as has always been the case.

edit: I'll be responding to comments and questions tomorrow. Apologies.

michaelson 2016-07-14 05:23:15 UTC #76

michaelson 2016-07-14 05:23:16 UTC #77

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JessJackdaw 2016-07-14 06:18:12 UTC #78

Thank you for taking the time to respond, Michaelson.

While featuring Learning Curves was probably a mistake, there were likely people out there that really enjoyed reading it on their Snack.

So the issue is that there is no way to engineer one Snack that suits everyone's tastes. Now I know you're working towards customized Snaks for each individual (or something similar), but wouldn't it be easier to just make genre Snacks? For example, if I liked Fantasy I'd sign up to recieve the Fantasy daily Snack that had the cream of the fantasy catagory. Maybe there could be a NSFW only comics Snack as well.

This way we avoid possible controversy when a touchy NSFW comic is sent to everyone.

It might be a good temporary fix instead of a complex algorithm that gathers all the genres a user reads and spits out a perfect fit. Maybe what I've described is actually what's currently being worked on, if so, great!

Even if customization is extremely basic starting out (just picking one catagory you like or choosing whether you mind NSFW or not), I think it could help a great deal.

Edit: Also more spitballing of ideas. Perhaps there could be combined genre pools to sign up for such as:

Surprise Snack (a general Snack, all genres)
Speculative Snack (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror)
The Love Snack (Romance only)
Suspenseful Snack (Mystery, Drama)
Snack Attack (Action, Gaming)
Laugh Snack (Slice of Life, Comedy)

Then possibly a NSFW toggle or a Snack dedicated to just NSFW episodes/comics.

keii4ii 2016-07-14 06:59:56 UTC #79

While this is a good suggestion, I feel this is rather off topic for this particular issue. The issue wasn't that people didn't like the genre. It wasn't that the story was unexpectedly NSFW; though it does seem to have NSFW content, that's not what people were upset about. It's this:

The story centers around an extremely sensitive topic. A lot of people do not want to see this topic handled, unless done with the utmost care in every single way; even then it's like walking on eggshells for reasons that are completely understandable. I'm glad that Tapastic recognizes the issue, and hope this experience will help them avoid similar problems in the future.

JessJackdaw 2016-07-14 07:22:20 UTC #80

@keii4ii Oh, I understand this completely, Keii. I'm actually highly discomforted by the comic it myself. The difference is that a warning or possibly some sort of barrier, might prevent this issue from happening again.

This comic would've never blown up like it did if it wasn't featured as a daily Snack. (Sure, Tapastic also featured it as a frontrunner for Tapisodes, but that's another kettle of fish.) The issue is that it was sent to everyone and possibly influenced young teens that didn't follow the Tapastic guidelines. This sensitive content was highly unwelcomed by the masses for good reason, so my suggestions were an attempt to address this problem.

If you know you might get comics that contain some unsafe material (such as a NSFW warning), then you are the one in control not an automated system. Not all NSFW content is this extreme but it is the easiest fix to the problem. So if you signed up to possibly get content that could contain mature content or sensitive themes, then the user would be held accountable for that decision. It's not a pretty fix, but it's worth addressing because it's certainly possible Tapastic's algorithm could spit out another sensitive subject comic as a feature yet again. D:

noxfox 2016-07-14 08:03:46 UTC #81

I do agree that such content should be put behind a barrier, and I do think that an actual update of the NSFW is very required for this. I honestly wish it would be possible to flag series that contain unhealthy content, including unhealthy romance, and any sort of glorified abuse, because it should be made clear that such content is unhealthy and should not inspire readers to think of it as anything but fantasy material of a sort that would be extremely unsafe to reproduce in real life.

I honestly think that yes, featuring Learning Curves was a big mistake, and that an equally big lesson should be learned from this. Tapastic has delayed the update of NSFW filter for far too long. Clearly, we need the matter to be taken into hands. I would very much like it if Tapastic (and Tapas) put extra effort in featuring healthy content and making the unhealthy content less easily accessible (or required a specific flagging of it). Just because the App is 17+ doesn't mean anything should be put in front of the nose of any user, nor that any responsibility toward the sneaky underage kids using the App should be discarded as "we have no control, there's nothing we can do" when, clearly, there are many things you can do to put extra safeties.

@michaelson I must say I'm a bit disappointed to see you only replied to @Roxanneh, the person who clearly made an account only to make this post, and is most probably not going to reply again here. It feels to me like you only wanted to fix the image of Tapas and Tapastic that was somewhat scratched by their post. I still feel like we creators don't matter so much anymore. My trust in Tapastic was severely damaged with Tapas, the issues it generated, the key system being unavailable to the existing series, etc. Yes, I derail a bit, and then not so much. All in all, I feel somewhat alienated by the new directions of the staff.
I no longer know if there is an actual future for comic artist in your plans. There is little transparency about them. It's no longer like it used to be. You changed. I know change is necessary, but there's something deeper, at the core, that no longer feels the same, and not in a good way.
It does sadden me. Maybe I had too much hope, too much eagerness, too much love and too much care for this platform. It's a sad thing to think of as well.

Zikul 2016-07-14 08:10:26 UTC #82

You have not demented that you are financially supporting the specific work in question, nor the motivation behind the choice - are we to draw the conclusion that Tapas Media is directly supporting Learning Curves and its creators? And if so, can you still deny that Tapas Media should be held responsible for content that it's in direct support of?

From my correspondence with mister Chang Kim, am I also to assume you don't properly preview the actual content you're featuring? Being asked to read and critique work that I'm not the publishing platform for, makes me question the professionality of the choices made in this regard. I do not do other peoples jobs for them.

Elm 2016-07-14 08:52:10 UTC #83

Welp, a lot of this seems to mostly be directed at Learning Curves, and while their is argument of freedom to create whatever we wish and 'why should it matter because the internet is full of this stuff'. It should be understood that good writing and entertainment can become quite personal whether we mean it or not. The argument of glorification, is a simple matter of how we represent things as creators. As a child I didn't see many characters who physically or mentally were similar to me. (At the time, I wanted to be tall, with flowing hair, feminine, smart, and my genes and circumstance were just not shown in media). The absence of this probably meant more to developing children and even affects us as adults. Perhaps we should be more aware of the content we create and how it affects others, and for this reason is why it did not seem like a good feature choice.

Good writing doesn't represent something for representation sake. Unwanted teen pregnancy and even wanted teen pregnancy are things that exist and things that can be written well. The content of the story does not necessarily have to be taboo, the flat execution is the problem and its a multitude of elements that fail to even make it appear humorous, just cringey. Even gag a days can have respectable character development. What makes Learning Curves so harmful is that the intro we are exposed to and what I've heard of how it continues, fails to create a story that affects its audience in a positive way. I think more care should have been given to the presentation of these characters, because right now its so far fetched, that yes it is uncomfortable.

Personally I appreciate compelling and well thought out writing, and yes I'd like to see this featured more but it doesn't feel as though Tapastic or Tapas favours these longform comics and is looking for featuring mediums that can be quickly digested. Hence, why 'daily snack' doesn't seem to work for comics with overarching plots.

In regards to relatability and content, Im not talking having a poc or being lgbt positive for no reason but to appeal to the politically correct. I'm talking about good writing, and relatable characters. I mean, have you read Saga? It's a space opera with a winged and horned protagonist, and robotic antagonists who in themselves generate empathy. These stories don't have to be particularly realistic. I believe readers would like to see characters that are more than 2 dimensional and suggest otherwise about their real life counterparts. Perhaps this is where 'writing what you know' comes in well, because its easier to develop something worthwhile. If I was, a young pregnant teen, who grew to write a story in retrospect. I feel as though it would turn out much differently. And if I was to read this as a young teen, knowing how impressionable I was at the time and how other teens are, it may be dangerous to depict a story that doesn't show the realities in a more honest way. Unless you're going to Florence Crittenton High School http://flocritco.org/programs/florence-crittenton-high-school, you aren't going to get whisked away after a teen pregnancy with all your pregnant friends. You're going to experience a much more realistic world.

That being said, as a 2nd generation child growing up with a conservative family in a non conservative society, I find it easier to see both sides of the spectrum, and in my opinion - I cringe on both sides. There are a lot of issues in our society, that one should not be ignored, but also should be written with care. I don't mean to tip-toe around the topic, I mean actually caring for the contents and considering all aspects of the theme. For example, I didn't watch breaking bad when it came out since everyone i spoke to only made it seem like a glorification of drug use and dealing. Something I don't typically appreciate. At the time, I dated someone who seemed to glorify the drug use in it, and while drug use is very common place and has been in my relationships since, I have no particular interest in it. But the character development of Breaking Bad. All those characters were real, flawed and relatable and we could see a little of ourselves in more than one of them. Without this, breaking bad would of been a flat story with seemingly glorified drug use. Its the writing and how the story is delivered that greatly affects this. Cancer, drug addition and other things are all sensitive topics, but they were dealt in a way that quite frankly was not insulting to those who are affected, and eye-opening to those who aren't. The drugs could have been replaced with someone other addiction and methodological approach and it still would have been good.

Learning curves isn't a bad premise. It is just not well executed. The idea is that stories are featured that make you go 'hey, I really like this'. But many of us didn't feel that, and quite frankly it seems as though this featured content, unlike others didn't care for the audience that frequents tapastic. While the featured and daily snacks, are not currently tailored to individuals. I think the audience of tapastic was misunderstood and so it backfired greatly.

elixiadragmire 2016-07-14 09:28:29 UTC #84

Ok this is a little off topic but related so hear me out.

I'm sensing massive rumbling of discontent among creators and possibly readers. First and foremost with the removal of the support program and no replacement as promised, (a replacement a year later is a little harsh for creators). This was when I first saw a drop off in readership and engagement. The app has amplified this. The featured premium content on the apps is massively different than the desktop counterpart and anything none comic is not available on the desktop. Now people use the app to follow comics they like but I get the feeling that much like myself and people in this thread the featured premium content isn't for them and therefore not using the app. If this was the main way they were reading the comics and not the desktop then thats another drop in readership.
Of course most can or could ignore the featured content they don't like but I couldn't find where to turn off the 'free keys, free coins and daily snack' that held no interest to me and uninstalled the app this morning after growing tired of being badgered. I wonder how many readers have done the same?
I know the daily snack and the app banners are mixed with premium content and creator owned content but theres something pushing away readers. be it the micro transactions (a long hated tradition of mobile apps) of the subject matter of the featured content but its effects are now spreading to all creator owned content on Tapastic.

I've seen popular artists leave Tapas/tapastic in droves now, to Line webtoons. Where the featured contented is modded and edited. Their app is highly reflective of their desktop and not a separate entity with wildly different content. And when i see them leave, I've noticed readers follow them and everyone heres suffers as our readership plummets again

I'm not sure which direction Tapas now needs to take, I think the app vs desktop has divided the platform in two different beasts and the scatter gun approach at marketing is too unfocussed to know where the platform will head and if it'll be properly implemented or given too little attention and been another bump on the road.

But the best and only advise would be this, refine what you DO have before starting a new project. Theres no point in having a dozen half baked, poorly implemented plans for expansion when all that energy could be put into one project and be fruitful.

Sorry to sounded so negetive its just i sense it needs to be said for everyones benefit

noxfox 2016-07-14 09:34:12 UTC #85

I very much agree with this post and this part especially. It's important to know your audience, indeed, and the Tapastic community is not the sort that largely enjoys this kind of content, quite the opposite. If Tapas is going for 17+ content features on a regular basis (which it has, so far, what with sex novels...), then maybe it should be completely severed from Tapastic to grow its own adult community, rid of "safe for kids" content so to avoid appealing to kids. Because yes, we tend to be interested in stories featuring relatable characters, and so teen characters are appealing to teens for obvious reasons.

You can't advocate for Charlie Hebdo style of freedom of speech without acknowledging that Charlie Hebdo has a niche target audience and solely features provocative content. For proof, when, after being supportive of the magazine, the world discovered its actual content, a lot of countries were very offended. They were not the target audience. It's just the same here.

Please, yes. Tell us what is your project, what is your philosophy for the future. Are we part of it? And if yes, in which way? We need clear answers at this point. We don't live on hope when there are alternative options like LINE.

carloswebcomic 2016-07-14 10:17:00 UTC #86

Who is going to define what's "healthy" and "unhealthy"?
I find the idea of labelling things as "healthy" and "unhealthy" overly judgemental and even a tad disturbing.

Puting that aside, I'm all for NSFW labels when required and for that we need clearly defined guidelines. I think the current system is too open ended.

iddqd 2016-07-14 11:44:54 UTC #87

I do like the idea of labeling some works "NSFW". People will have appropriate expectations and won't feel ambushed, like I guess what happened here. My issue is that I interpret NSFW to mean violence, nudity and/or sex, as opposed to a topic that is simply very sensitive, but doesn't involve those things. Maybe there could be an option to flag sensitive, but not outright NSFW content?

yumehop 2016-07-14 11:47:35 UTC #88

I think we can all agree here that the problem with Learning Curves has to do with mostly its execution and presentation on a topic where teens have little to no idea about.
Why this is different from fetishes is the fact that the situation presented in the comic is very realistic. Of course, you can have realistic comics about other things, but more often than not the distinction between what is real and fictional is established. I would doubt any teen would go looking for comics on possibly dangerous topics (dangerous as in, things that could harm them and that they do not understand) and like porn, every teen probably imagines sex something akin to it. Not many teens are midwives, nurses, or have witnessed pregnancy.

Tapastic, also, has my uttermost trust as a place of quality. The features are all quality comics and stories. Maybe I won't enjoy the content of the feature, but it should at least be good content, commendable content. The comic is on the popular, trending, snak, or feature banner for a reason. Because it's good.
While people do not have enough knowledge on a certain topic, it would be hard to create a fictional story without the idea that the reader understands the real implications of the themes and ideas being put forward. Education, before it becomes an accessible idea. Or else people will lash out. What I'm saying is that sensitive content needs caring. Pregnancy stories aren't tailored to everyone, and won't be until kids know more about what's right, or, what really happens in a pregnancy.

Another idea is an updated NSFW warning. Please do. I would love for Tapastic to be a place of entertainment as much as education, for no creator wants backlash, and that we can perhaps find ways with educated individuals to better the community.

Tapastic's community is what makes it great. Please don't leave us now.

I love this site, and would love to do something when I SEE that something is wrong. In no way would I take away a creator's rights to create, but to point out to people where things need explaining.

In general I hope tapastic can keep providing quality for us in the future, and that this is a one time thing and that you'd listen to the community. We're what keep you going, and we love you and care for your ideas and content.

Sorry for rambling, but I finally got to log in to the forums soooo