Too many notifications

That, or breaking them down into separate feeds. Which could potentially be messy. But I feel like for a lot of people the annoyance is exacerbated by the disappointment over it not being feedback when you click to see what that "1" over the heart is about <'D

I'm not happy about the idea of it being possible to opt out of wall notifications... though on the other hand, people who aren't gonna look, won't look either way.

I honestly just ignore 'wall posts' unless they're by a creator I personally know.
I have only notified subscribers to, like.. 2 wall posts, and both were important, about comic updates not happening that day or asking for opinions about format changes.
But at this point, I worry that when I do really want to tell my subscribers about something (maybe for instance a Q&A), so many of them will just ignore the notification as 'another wall post' and not see it ;_;
At the same time, for some gag-comics, the creators kinda make a big thing about making jokes or interactive games on their walls? So IDK how that would really be fixed without taking it from the people who seem to like that kinda stuff..
But I totally second thing about Tapastic alerting us to useless news now. Before when I got a notification from Tapastic I was like 'oh is there a problem with the site', now I'm like 'urgh pls I don't even have the app I don't wanna hear about some author..'

I wish there was at least a separate thing for notifications like that. It gets annoying because I assume someone's commenting on my comic and it's just subscribers saying they're going on hiatus.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I really hate how my Activity feed shares likes, comments, and notifications of wall posts/when someone has edited their comic. I would really like to have Likes and Comments on one feed, and update/wall notifications on another.

No offence to creators, but sometimes (at least during my posting day or the day after) I don't want to see a number on my notification feed which gets my hopes up that someone left my comic feedback, only to see others spamming their walls with updates. Other times, I genuinely do like to hear of updates from creators about what's going on, but I need to be in a reading mood for that. If I've spent the week working hard on a page and I just posted it, I'm more interested in hearing what other people are thinking of it at the moment (especially during a dry spell where I'm not getting much feedback). So really, I would just love to have them split up for the sake of convenience. There's a time and a place for each type of information, and there's plenty of space on that black bar to add one more feature.

EDIT: Just to put things into perspective, my last 5 notifications on my activity bar are all creators notifying their subscribers of something. Every single time I see that I have just one lone, new notification I know that 95% of the time, its someone's notification to subscribers.

I apologize for that, I'm still testing things out, trying to see what works and doesn't work.

Hm, we're still in the process of figuring out how we should utilize the announcement tools and tracking what the engagement of these announcements are like. Whether it's linking to site-wide update notes on the forums, to soundcloud for the podcast, medium articles to boost our SEO, or giveaways - we're still in the early phases of tracking what the open + click through rates are.

We ask that everyone be patient with us while we figure out what works and what doesn't.

The wall post system and notifications kind of evolved away from it's intended use, which is great. We wanted to design a mechanism to better engage with readers whether it was hiatus announcements or posting additional artwork. But as the site grew and reader retention increased, it made a lot of sense that creators began to use it like a social media tool to drive readership back to their wall and/or series page.

But I agree, that there have been lots of instances where people have been utilizing this feature very aggressively. Hm, I don't think unsubbing is a great form of self moderation, I do believe that there should be layers to how much you want to interact with certain series (i.e. sometimes you like the creator and not the series they create, or sometimes you like the series they create but don't necessarily want to engage with the creator). Adding layers of granularity would definitely help like what @joannekwan outlined.

This was an idea that has been tossed around here for a while. Basically breaking it down into a creator feed and reader feed. We had some mock-ups that never got past the design stage that was kind of like a hub where creators could sort of filter through their notifications and respond to comments without having to exit the hub. It was a pretty cool idea, but we just couldn't execute on it.

The problem we face right now is that the current system actively punishes good behavior, which is the last thing we intended to do. If you're a creator that actively participates in your own comment section and routinely post on people's walls, then there's a high likelihood that many of your readers are going to like your episodes, which tends to clutter your notifications, possibly even burying more important notifications.

We need to eventually do a complete overhaul on these aspects, whether it's creating separate feeds, creating a hub, or finding out better ways to collapse and expand certain notification families.

Please give us your feedback on some things that you'd like to see changed and we'll be happy to take the general consensus and try to apply that to future iterations. Thanks.

There are two opposite problems with wall notifications -- (1) that nobody ever looks at them, and (2) that they're annoying to get notified of. Fixing the first problem (making them harder to ignore) exacerbates the second and fixing the second problem (options for opting out) exacerbates the first. I feel like maybe the real problem is the fact that they are notifications.

I don't know how doable it is, but in theory, I like the idea of something that more closely resembles a news feed -- whether that's on the main page when you log in to tapastic, or somewhere on the comic page so that you see a feed of news when you visit the comic, like those websites that have a twitter widget on the side. Then you could have a thing where you opt in or out of being NOTIFIED of news posts from certain creators, without necessarily muting that creator's ability to communicate important things.
Like, if I log into Tapastic and see on my news feed that Creator A posted "Hey guys, I'm streaming this weekend!" that's not obnoxious at all. Then I could be like "dang!! I really want to catch Creator A's streams, lemme opt in for notifications so I'll be alerted next time he's streaming."

This feels 100% backwards to me!! I enjoy likes! I want likes to clutter my notifications -- that's the thing that I want to see and am excited about!
(FRANKLY, I'm often frustrated that there's no way to see everyone that likes my page unless I stalk Tapastic while it's happening -- the notifications get collapsed into "Person A, Person B, and 34 other people liked this page" and there's no way for me to expand that list and see who those 34 people are! but that's a bit of a tangent)
Then when other stuff shows up in my "likes, subscribes, replies, and comments" list, that stuff becomes annoying clutter -- and that's the actual problem. Because it's an interruption of fun & nice things, not only do informational posts feel annoying, but we creators feel guilty about posting them -- our only non-comic way to engage followers -- knowing that it's an annoyance. I don't think "reduce the number of fun & nice things so that the annoying things are harder to ignore" is the correct answer here. You gotta find some way to make them Not Annoying.

One last minor point -- if nothing else, wall post notifications really shouldn't make us go to the creator's wall to find out what they are. I still say this is like leaving your friend a voice mail saying that they should come by your house so you can ask them a question -- why doesn't the voice mail just ask the question? Why doesn't the notification say "Shazzbaa posted on their wall: HEY GUYS HIATUS TIME, I really....[read more]" so that I can at least see whether it's relevant to me before I click on it?

It's so true. Many people on Tapastic don't bother reading wall posts and a high portion get frustrated receiving wall post notifications. Perhaps there can be a way to have a widget on the actual comic series, sort of like how some websites have twitter widgets, showing snipbits of the latest few wall posts, or possibly brief call out headlines that creators can use for series news, "No Update this week" "Livestreaming now" "Visit us at ____ Con" "Book # is now on sale"

Currently it seems like creators have to make wall posts, use episode descriptions, and sometimes add an extra announcement image at the end of a comic page inorder to update readers on series news so that it even gets seen.

I'm not sure what's the best way to help this issue.

I do agree with this point. I'd probably be more inclined to check out artist's wall posts if I knew a bit more about the message. I think this could also save on the frustration of clicking the notification to find it's an artist post that doesn't interest you.

There really should be different folders for different notifications, I think all notifications directed at you or your comic should get their own space.

I hate how tapas sends notifications to the activity feed when people add to an existent episode instead of having it go to the "your comics" tab. I update several pages to one episode but I have had multiple people tell me now they have been missing my updates just because of where they get the notification. I also follow a few comics that also update this way and I have missed their updates too because of this. The activity feed is just too cluttered when other peoples updates/edits are thrown in there too.

I feel this too, on average I get at least 2 notifications a day from others posting updates/ wall posts

omg I agree, why can't you see the whole list of people who have liked an episode?! I also enjoy likes, and I don't mind that they are compressed in the activity feed, but I wish there was a way to open up the list even after its all lumped together.

YES OMG pleaseeee stop the notifications! It deters me from commenting sometimes! There should be a feature to stop notifications on certain posts!

I feel like some kind of opt-in/opt-out system would be nice, because a lot of us have different desires when it comes to notifications.

Shazzbaa for example wants to see the like-notifications, whereas I don't feel it's necessary for me personally; I'm more interested in comments and subscribers, since those are notifications I can do something with (like reply, or thank them for subscribing). Likewise with wall-posts, though in that case it would perhaps be better if it's individualised, so that you can opt out of wallposts by certain creators? Because there are a lot of creators who use them sensibly - posting hiatus announcements, the launch of storefronts, competitions for readers, etc. - and it would be a shame to miss out on that - but there are creators who wallpost constantly with things that I as a reader might not be interested in.

Not sure how that would work out, though, since we subscribe to comics and not to specific creators.

Would this look too cluttered? thought it might help without changing too many existing things.

To echo @AnnaLandin while I might follow a series, I might not necessarily want to follow the artist (their posts). If Tapastic wants to foster the social media aspect of this, maybe it might make sense to separate the two out. Creators can maybe choose to make a series announcement (that's done in the UI for your series) vs. a general artist announcement.

Err... What about a "follow" button? I think the current system goes:
Subscribe to a series -> Automatically gets update on everything (creator's updates on their wall, if they edited an episode, or if they make a new series.)

I, myself, don't really mind that much on getting updates from creators but I can see why some would get annoyed. So, why not make a system where if you subscribe to a series, you only get the usual update notification. And if you enjoyed the creator so much as well then you can go to their page and click "follow" so you can get the creator's updates and everything in that package.

Yes please. I get 15+ notifications a day, and they're always creators sharing things. Most of the time the same people talking about stupid shit that has nothing to do with their comic as if their wall was a glorified Facebook. If the topic they want to discuss is important enough they can make an announcement post, if not they should leave it to their separate blog/art sites. Don't get me wrong, people can do whatever they want with their stuff, but at least give me the option to not see it or separate it from the stuff I really want to see. (i.e. Notifications related to my own work)

I feel like the only option i need would be to follow/unfollow notifications for specific users. I know which users post relevant stuff and I like receiving their notifications, it's rare I follow someone who is spamming like crazy.

I would honestly just like a separation between notifications about my comic and posts by those I'm subscribed to.

I don't often read other people's posts unless I'm really invested in their work, and having a pretty low number of subscribers means I get excited at every notification. It gets pretty disappointing when it turns out to be someone else's post. So if you want to introduce more "layers of granularity", by all means go ahead. But please, PLEASE, keep the notifications about my comic separate from everything else =]

I like @shazzbaa's news feed idea. But fix the separation issue first before you start a big project like that =]

Dear Tapastic official notifications.

Stop. ****ing stop it.