what if Tapas had a section just for completed comics and novels? so that new and ongoing comics could have some time in the popular or trending section. idk there could be too much room for error like that
13 days later
I was actually thinking that too!
It’s also great when you just want to bringe read a story, especially since webcomics tend to be “neverending”, whether they’re ongoing or just dropped midway
Maybe something along the line of Staff's favourites. This list would include new favourites Staff have personally found and liked that week. So it would change every week.
If this is too much work for staff maybe there should be weekly nominations for favourites that aren't already popular.
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but what if Tapas had a blast-from-the-past kind of section? It would show what was hot a certain number of years or months ago, while exclusing titles that are still ongoing.
As a reader and an artist it kinda sucks that finding less known comics actually takes a lot of effort. The Trending section on the front page is something I check often, but now that's on the bottom of the page again. The Popular section is probably great for attracting new visitors but for regulars it's kinda boring to keep running into the same comics over and over again.
I personally like the idea of a recommended comics based on what the user has liked or read. That would make it easier to find something completely new and but also interesting. A chosen list of recommendations is also nice but it's more limiting than algorithm based recommendations.
I think it would also be a good idea to have a list of just updated comics/novels next to the popular and trending sections. At least that list would be constantly changing, so even if someone couldn't get to trending or popular they'd still have a change to get noticed.
I was thinking in these lines too, @joe_galindez mentioned.
I know the tapas staff can't hand-pick each curator-comic, but what about a random list? up to 10 completely random comics/novels can be displayed on front page, either completely mixed or by Genre? =) This should technically be possible <3
They won't do completely random because of the risk of bots or porn comics appearing on the front page.
Personally I wonder if there's some way us users could help whoever it is that picks for Daily Snack. They're often fit into a theme, so maybe a thread that's "Rec us comics that have MICE" and then the mice fans toss in a link so they're not scrounging for themes?
But then there might be a fierce temptation for a bunch of mice to appear in everyone's latest update 
12 days later
Hurray- people like yourself are exactly what we need! I was thinking there just wasn't an audience for long-form comics here.. prove a point that there is- it's just they aren't seen amongst a mass of one-panel, joke a day types.
1 month later
A computer can't reliably choose high-quality comics and novels; there's far too many interlacing factors that make a series "good" to the audience.
I have a hint of doubt that even human curators truly know what a "good" series is (then again, maybe i'm just being pessimistic.)
I'm making a story webcomic right now, and I wish there was a bigger audience for long-form, story-oriented series. Simply put, it takes a lot more emotional investment and time to get into a story series.
I don't know if it was actually mentioned before but I think that it may somehow solve the problem and it's not like a big problem to introduce to the site.
Leaving the front page aside as it will always promote popular comics (hey, I know that everyone wants to be popular with their comic BUT actually some of the comics have that thing that made them become popular! I've seen people who seek attention but sadly to say that - their comic is just no good, so people won't read them, cause for example the story and art sucks - sorry to say that but I think that someone should even though it's awful - it's true [and tapastic won't list them on the front page cause people actually look for quality comics])I'd like to suggest something that was on Tapastic BEFORE the ad revenue program - that is: when you've been reading a comic in the place where now ads are listed - there were random comics that you could read. And I think that something like the whole: "you liked that story? try to read these too! they are somehow similar but also a different kind of comics!
I mean that maybe a little thumbnails should appear somewhere with random comics based on genre what we are reading at the time. I like visuals so I love to choose to read a comic when it's hidden behind a smartly used icon. Or just looking to read some similar stories, right? Cause we all seek for what we already like and then we find some new good stories to enjoy.
EDIT: And please don't say that creators need to be promoted to get better - I think that we should learn at least basics about making comics/art/science/sport etc before actually doing some kind of work. And by just doing it without learning we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again. People put high hopes in their work, especially if they are young but that doesn't mean that a not good enough comic should land on first page just because it needs some readers to define that. I really don't like when someone do a half-assed job and then complain about it not working how it should. But I also think that many of the good stuff is probably not being seen because of lack of advertisement although Tapastic shouldn't be the only one doing it's job. It's creators work to deal with advertising their own work! Remember that!
16 days later
I wouldn't call my comic "great" or "a hidden gem" but not a lot of people have seen it hero on tapas.
8 days later
I originally thought that's what the tags were for and it kind of confuses me that they don't do something as simple as that instead of showing everyone the same comics. For example, if I've shown 0 interest in romance comics but I'm always being shown romance comics in my daily snack that's just a waste of everyone's time. but if they would just automatically show you comics with related tags from the get-go there is a much higher chance of the reader seeing comics they like artists being discovered and tapas getting to profit from it (everyone is happy). to me, it seems like common sense but I'd like to think there is a reason they haven't done it yet.
TL;DR
It's a great idea, it just needs to be executed well. Staff doesn't have the time right now.
Tags are currently not functioning so we just use them to put in gags and other Easter eggs for the hard core fans to look for. At some point they probably will have a use, it just seems very low priority... 2020?
Something far more simple would be just to do 30-50 genres that creators can select on their dashboards. "Romance", "Science Fiction", "Boy Love", "Superhero" etc. Creators get to select up to five per series. Readers select as many as they want or "All". Then their feed is automatically curated to fill based on that reader's preferences.
It all sounds very simple but it's not. It takes a lot of back end work to make this happen and staff already has a to-do list a mile high which is why it's going to be a while before it happens. Monitization stuff that makes the site and creators money are much higher priority and web tipping and coin purchase just got added after months of creators requesting it.
Also the Daily Snack at that point would have to be automated because right now its all done by hand. Someone on staff picks the series in advance and does their thing on the back end. If you start excluding certain things then the Snack becomes very challenging to do. Let's say they pick four things that you're filtering out. So your snack would have only one thing in it?
Also what if a reader only selects "Mystery". How many "Mystery" comics are there on Tapas? The snack would quickly run out of content to provide or it would have to dig deep down into the MS Paint drawn stuff with poor grammar, no story line, and only five subscribers. Staff probably doesn't want that sort of stuff to be featured by the system.
One other concern is that the system could make the community very segregated. If someone selects "Action" only they could miss out on some really great "Romance" stories, and vise versa. How many times have you accidentally stumbled upon something outside of your "likes" and ended up finding something new you enjoyed?
I have a feeling the daily snack, along with many of tapas sales and direct marketing attempts, would override any recommendation system. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to have a tool like it. However a recommendation system would also, on top of their current marketing methods, allow them to target some direct marketing to the audience that actually wants it. Possibly also get an idea of if a certain genre has readers that are more active during a certain part of the day. If they can figure that out, they can schedule direct marketing targeted at people with those preferences to be sent out at a peak hour so more people see the notification.
Regardless, it's all stuff that takes a lot of back end effort and needs to be done well. If done wrong it can straight up break the site for everyone. Or it could be as shitty as youtube's recommendation system, which heaps of people have done their best to deactivate just so youtube will stop putting toxic or annoying content in their faces. I wouldn't want that for tapas.
And as you said, it's not top priority. Top priority is making sure creators can benefit financially off of the site. It's pretty much been one of Tapas' absolute main goals for a long time, after all. And we should be happy that this is the case, because considering how unlikely the young webcomic audiences are to buy print books or support a patreon, it is the thing that can make or break a creative living for many of the site's creators. It is good for small creators too. The better the revenue tools become, the less popular a creator has to be to make proper income (assuming they are ready to make use of the tools in a profitable way).
17 days later
I agree with most of what you said but you really think it's ok for them to keep a system where the cherry pick what does and doesn't get to be popular based what they decide is "good content" I get that it's not gonna happen overnight but this reasoning for why they haven't done it yet is the entire reason this discussion is happening right now.
if your reasoning is actually correct then that confirms all of our concerns on this thread. those concerns being that the staff doesn't really care about allowing smaller comics to gain exposure because they want to prioritize the content that they consider is good.
I would like to think this isn't true but if that's the case then the majority of creators on this site would be better off just creating their own site with Wix or uploading it somewhere else and they would probably have a higher CPM as well.