[TAPAS INSIDER] How we curate the Staff Picks section

[Iris-Grimoire]

If the Action Trending page doesn't even fill up a page like everything else, it might be a bug or problem with the trending mechanics and it's very valid to bring that up. There's no reason to just discard all other works in that genre if they aren't as bombastic as the ones at the top, at least compared to the old version where you could go through pages and pages of Trending no problem (and even find a bunch of dead comics that accidentally exploded in views that day).

[zed_parade]

Hi.
I have to say I'm pretty agree with Darthmongoose.

Still, I can't help but keep drawing and posting here. Because... I dunno... I think that on a long term my target will find this comic and begin to follow. It's a hope more than a feeling.

My advice is "don't care, go ahead and keep creating your comics no matter what".

[skicoak]

If trying to aim for a specific audience is also a deciding factor in staff picks, that is perfectly fair because I understand Tapas is a business and target audience, core demographics and brand identity are important, but that's not really listed as a criterion in the opening post, so if it is actually a key factor, it'd be nice if it was included on the checklist for the sake of transparency.

We chatted briefly about this, off forums, once.

In as much as the algorithms around here change and stay indecipherable....Tapas's long term mission statement is a straight cipher.

Do they want to capture the hoards migrating from the brick and mortar shops? Do they have a plan to push content that is evergreen? Or create content that ages with their current core demographic ? Is the current demographic the ONE they want even?

Hard to even guess.

So I feel you.

[ryoko]

Thank you for being transparent and giving us an insight into how Staff Picks work. I have maybe an odd question? If an established creator let's say starts a new series that ticks all the boxes, but their previous works might include sex/violence/etc, would they be barred from attaining a "Staff Pick" or any other kind of sight recognition because Tapas wouldn't want readers to find their other series?

The Trending page for Action doesn't even have enough comics to fill a full page,

This is true for the "Fantasy" section, too. There's been multiple occasions where there's been maybe 15 comics listed if you specifically chose "fantasy" and "trending". Even with several days of getting 3000 views combined with several subs and about 10% likes for those pages, my series did not make it to that list, but there were a couple series that hadn't updated in almost a year that were there.

Lol I'm not looking to get featured since I've been on here too long, I do no tick any boxes, they delisted my comic without telling me (thank you to the reader who alerted me and to Michaleson for looking into that and fixiing it!) and I know where my shortcomings are with my series, but man...I have so many pages they should want me to appear sometime just so that they can get ad revenue! ahahahaha!

[ratique]

If an established creator let's say starts a new series that ticks all the boxes, but their previous works might include sex/violence/etc, would they be barred from attaining a "Staff Pick" or any other kind of sight recognition because Tapas wouldn't want readers to find their other series?

Tapas wants readers to find all of your series! Sadly we have to abide by rules of app providers when it comes to series that are being featured. Your other work does not influence our selection process in any way.

I have some concerns over the staff using the "trending" tab to find new content for Staff Picks, since I've observed a change to how it works in the last few months coinciding with changes to "Popular" now seeming to work more like "Trending" used to (Tracks surges in likes).

Trending is a very small part of the research that our team is taking - I wouldn't get too hung up over that.

I'd really just like to be told "we don't think you're a good fit here, queer action comics lady, we're not going to feature you no matter how hard you work."

I fear you will never hear that from us The Tapas team is very diverse and would likely be rather upset if creators from their own community would be sent away.

I've just assumed for a while and made peace with the idea that the Tapas staff maybe don't like my comic, since I tick all the boxes:

We have so many high quality comics on this site with very limited ways to feature. Only with our recent site update we finally added additional spots, allowing us to spread the love a little more - yet it's still a drop of water on a hot stone. We have so many great creators!! So I don't recommend believing that we don't like particular series simply because they weren't featured. There are simply too many series and not enough ways to feature them.

With the dev team working in the background, creating more opportunities for creators to share their work, our community focused team is doing as much as we can to ensure a wider variety of creators can showcase their series. I believe our recent updates and planned initiatives have provided you with a good amount of insight to our goals and I'm looking forward to further improvements.

[darthmongoose]

Thanks for listening to my concerns, I really appreciate the response, and the steps the team are taking to improve things.

[ryoko]

Since Tapas needs to abide by the rules of app providers, maybe they could consider a way to promote creators exclusively on the desktop or mobile versions if they are interested in having readers find different series? Since there is already a mechanic in place to block series from being seen on the apps, helping creators be more visible on the non-app version might be doable since they'd already be invisible on the app?

[Aykay]

Piggybacking off your idea maybe they could do something like app favorites. And then they could do mobile/desktop favorites. Or something like that.

[Cavechan]

They could look to the forums to find comics to feature too. There is definitely a community here where forum users follow each other a lot so helping one comic could help boost other comics if they cross promo. Not to mention as @darthmongoose said, she and others contribute a lot to the community here so there could be a bit more giving back in that respect for those who are active community members and their comics fit the other requirements.

[ratique]

They could look to the forums to find comics to feature too.

AAhhaaa! Soooomeebody didn't read my post in detail!

Since Tapas needs to abide by the rules of app providers, maybe they could consider a way to promote creators exclusively on the desktop or mobile versions if they are interested in having readers find different series?

Desktop and apps are connected and will feature the same content. There are many reasons behind it, like limited resources and functionality of our backend.

That doesn't mean that we may not find a different solution in the future though.

[ryoko]

But they don't feature the same content since some content is hidden, unless this means that content that's hidden on the app is now hidden everywhere?

[vothnthorvaldson]

Yeah, it's difficult to understand why staff picks could not encompass ALL stories, including these who are censured on app, as they could only appear on the website. I can see how it could be an issue if the fact to be curated content overrides the way the censorship is applied, but if it's the case, that's really something that should be taken care of (and should already have been taken care of. We were promised some vague improvements after the Apple censorship was applied, and I don't really see any).

[joannekwan]

We were promised some vague improvements after the Apple censorship was applied, and I don't really see any

What I've noticed from the initial culling is that mature series are actually searchable now in the app.
I was successfully able to find my own among a few others through the app's search bar by typing in the titles.

EDIT: Also noticed that there is no longer the little pop up box that says the mature series can be found on desktop and the whole series can be read on app (without having to be subbed to it beforehand).

[ratique]

But they don't feature the same content since some content is hidden, unless this means that content that's hidden on the app is now hidden everywhere?

I feel like you're talking about multiple things. Staff picks are the same on app and site and that will likely not change.

Yeah, it's difficult to understand why staff picks could not encompass ALL stories, including these who are censured on app, as they could only appear on the website.

As mentioned, there are multiple reasons for that not to be possible - please see my previous replies.

[vothnthorvaldson]

But does it serve any purpose? I mean, maybe for searching for the story when it's advertised somewhere else, but that's not really Tapas doing anything to promote these stories. Is there a way this search opportunity is actually helping these stories inside Tapas?

[vothnthorvaldson]

Well, there is no explanation, just several occurrences of saying it's not possible.
We know why it's not possible on app.
We can imagine potential technical difficulties to make a different curated content for app and website.
But we have no explanations on why it is not possible at all- and apparently, not desired by Tapas (that around the same time, opened a mature section...). There is a huge inconsistency, and a transparency problem, that are so undeniable that we cannot just ignore them.

[ryoko]

Sorry, maybe I misunderstood because you said

Desktop and apps are connected and will feature the same content.

and didn't realize you were just referring to Staff Picks. What I didn't understand was the inability to have something (not specifically Staff picks) for creators that can't be featured/recognized on the app to only appear on mobile/desktop as there already is a method of segregation being used. Like the code already exists for preventing certain comics from every showing up on the app. Sorry, I'm bad at trying to explain my thoughts ^_^;

[ratique]

We can imagine potential technical difficulties to make a different curated content for app and website.But we have no explanations on why it is not possible at all- and apparently, not desired by Tapas (that around the same time, opened a mature section...). There is a huge inconsistency, and a transparency problem, that are so undeniable that we cannot just ignore them.

Tapas is a small company with very limited resources. We can either spend money and time on features that will have a minor effect on a few creators or focus our time on major issues that have great effects for all users.

I wouldn't say there is a transparency issue, but a misunderstanding how large the Tapas team is and what we can feasibly do with the resources available. That's what I've been mentioning before - it's a resource issue.

[joannekwan]

I mean, this mostly only applies to series with explicit content, and creators that make explicit content are pretty used to it by now. Patreon hides mature content creators from its search bar, only a few social media platforms even allow non-sexual nudity nowadays, paypal cracks down on transactions that have certain keywords in them. It's just part of a larger zeitgeist that isn't likely to change in the near future. So creators of explicit material just learn to roll with it and take any step forward, no matter how tiny, as a positive.

[vothnthorvaldson]

I can understand the resource issue, but we should not have been promised anything then. I feel we were tricked into staying on Tapas after the Apple fisco by being given hope that Tapas could do something about the loss of visibility.