Yes! Totally true. Having the comments in the sides makes it very confusing for the readers to know what is everyone taking about. I was reading the latest page of Terra Prima and accidentally scrolled to the past pages comments, it was indistinguishable which page did they belong to. 
Okay, will do! I tend to use the mobile site exclusively when not at home because I need to edit stuff I've uploaded, but I can easily use the app for comments in the immediate future 
I'll let my readers know, too, since there's been a noticeable drop in comments and the mobile site window issue is probably why.
Thanks for the update info!
Thanks Ratique. Still going to episode 1 via my bookmarks of https://tapas.io/series/MrLovenstein1 and https://tapas.io/series/The-Pigeon-Gazette1 and I've loaded those pages at least four times in the last two days (certainly three times today,) and scrolled through to the most recent episode at least once today and once yesterday. I've never had the site show me the most recent episode on load, it's always been the list - although it used to at least have the newest ep at the top, and now it's showing me the oldest possible episode.
Firefox 72.0.2, Debian Linux. I'm probably blocking your cookies, I'm doing whatever Firefox's default is on that front and newer version are quite aggressive about blocking stuff. And before you say I should allow them (which I'd rather not do), default behaviour should be that of least surprise, and almost all webcomics load the more recent episode on their main url as standard (eg, xkcd.com, questionablecontent.net, etc), so one site defaulting to first episode is very much the most surprising thing to do.
Hmm I think without cookies I'm unsure the team could help you. Our system is designed to automatically scroll to the most recent episode you viewed, which is very convenient when you're reading long series. Automatically flipping to the most recent episodes is good for short content, but was problematic for long running series where the most recent episodes could contain spoilers.
That might be a feature that the creator have to choose in the dashboard.
New readers will feel it strange to start with the latest episode and want to start with first.
But when you click on the notification, that a new episode is out, it will take you to the last episode you have read as @ratique said.
Problem is, if you have read all episodes and then return to a random episode in the middle, then you have left the series at that episode. Then the notification will take you back to last viewed, in the middle.
And in this case you wish to read the new episode and not something old you viewed last time you doped by.
I as a creator also think about this. Should I make it easy for new readers to find the first episode or help the current readers to stay updated?
I just checked and I'm only blocking tracking/advertising cookies, and that is standard Firefox behaviour. I have 21 cookies currently set under tapas.io domains.
Your system has never worked as you claim it is designed to do, and now it's broken to the point of being unusable.
Why you'd design a user experience which operates in the exact opposite way from almost every other similar site on the internet, I don't know. But that's your design team's call. I would appreciate it, however, if someone could look into making the site at least work to the point where I can read the comics I want to read without spending minutes each time scrolling through a list.
Jens, thanks, but I've never had a notification on this site. I wouldn't know where to click. I never had an account until today. I have a folder of about 30 links which I open daily to read. Two of them are on tapas.io. They were until two days ago the most fiddly to read because the old site design didn't work very well, now they're basically unreadable in the few spare minutes I have in the morning to look at comics. It takes me almost as long to find the most recent episode of Mr Lovenstein as I have spare to read everything!
It would be interesting to know how many people loading each comic were new readers and how many were returning readers. Obviously you want the default behaviour to cater to the majority - cause the least confusion the least amount of time. My guess would be the majority of people are returning, not new. Also latest episode first is how almost everyone else does it and if you want a painless user experience, do it how everyone else does it. That's user interface design 101.
Why not just keep the side bar but also allow readers to expand the comments at the bottom? That would provide both kinds of functionality, returning the ability to scroll through comments easily. Substantial comments end up squashed so that they take up many lines, making it much less convenient to read. And having a single comment at the end makes it look like comments should be there.
Jens, sure, but there isn't a 'first' link on tapas. Not that I can see. Also, go to a load of comic pages. Here are a few from my bookmarks folder: xkcd.com, questionablecontent.net falseknees.com
Not one has the first episode load on the main url. Everyone loads most recent episode first. Then they have first/prev/next/latest links. Tapas does neither of those things. It's not smart design.
@ratique I don't remember tapamon appearing like this before. Is this a new thing for page loading? It's stuck on the page, (this was on the mobile website, using Chrome)
Tapas did have a 'first page' button pre-revamp right above previous, maybe it could fit on the bottom bar since it's here to stay? I haven't needed it recently since I'd just open in different tabs but now that it's mentioned, it could be useful.
I'll let the team know, but for now, please use the app on your phone - there you won't have that issue.
My guess is that we have to show the ads after the episode. And if the comments are too long the ads will be too far away. This way we get all the comments and the ads quick.
And we need the ads to pay the bills
I've only got one technical issue to report, and I don't think it's cause of the site update but it might be related.
Last night, my phone did that really stupid thing where the website shifts for one reason or another, and I accidentally signed out of the forums.
I tried to simply sign back in, but on my first two attempt, I was met with a messages telling me the page could not be opened, as too many redirects had occured.
Again, I don't know if this has to do with the site update, or even if it's an issue on your end that you can fix, my phone might just have been acting up since I succeeded on my third try, but I figured I'd let someone know.
I just tested these links and both take me to the latest viewed episode - so it could be a Linux issue. I'll tell the team.
