A lot better, tbh. Just pushing the popular/trending/new back up top, and for the love of god, adding the link to the forum to the header bar, would do a lot.
There are a few smaller things - like the colours of different notifications, etc. - but re-arraging some elements on the front page would go a long way towards solving my biggest issues. I'm definitely not against the idea of changing things, but this current layout has some serious problems.
thanks @PotooGryphon for the info!
I could see this a year ago with the app update. Personally I dont like the app, the microtransactions, the choice of books etc etc
I would like that, definitely. My gripe was that only premium stuff is shown, free comics pushed away, and a simple rearrangement would fix that.
That being said, I get the feeling that this update kind of "confirmed suspicions" a lot of creators have had about tapas ditching free comics in favor of premium stuff, so there is some deeper hurt here that might warrant some attention in the form of... Dunno, some statement about where the company intends to steer tapastic, or some actions to boost the forum and creative community.
If the site only pushes the premium content it will entirely change what the Tapastic website is and they'll lose a lot of their current readers/writers/users and gain different ones in a smaller number. Way less people are willing to spend money or jump through the hoops required to get keys than would just like to read regular, indie content. From the way the front page is now, it's not even clear that there is free, indie content available on the website.
I also agree with @elixiadragmire that the choice of books they push doesn't appeal to me. I've always been under the impression that only premium books even exist on the website. If they allowed indie books as well I think that would be fun and would appeal to more people.
is there any reason why activity notifications haven't made it to the mobile site? reading list is there.
I asked Michael about this too recently. The response I got was that it's in the works. Notifications and push notifications are a bit tricky w/ iOS in particular and they're still seeing what is and isn't allowed. They're still trying to find that healthy balance between immediate feedback and collecting multiple notifications into one push notification.
I'd be really happy to see notifications make it to the app too. Perhaps that'll be another thing made easier with the brands merging.
Yes, staff could make these adjustments and it would help, but the most disconcerting part of this whole update matter is that staff actually believed that the new format in its current condition was good enough to push out live.
Why?
It's not like they promised creators something on 4/17/17 and had to rush a half finished job to meet their promises. They had all the time they wanted, all the time they needed to make sure independant creators didn't get buried, that the forums didn't get nearly eliminated, that premium series didn't dominate the site, to check with creators and get beta feedback, etc.
Supposedly (according to Twitter) staff showed the website last week to some creators. Who? The premium peeps? Seriously, what independant creator with less than 10K subs signed off on this?
It feels like so little consideration went into this update without considering how it would impact the 99%.
Agreed 100%. Is this update a "freudian slip" and it shows what staff really thinks of creators? It's hard not to be seriously wounded by this unexpected change.
Suddenly now everything we do for Tapas.io (Independents Obsolete?) feels like we're just hamsters turning the monetization wheel for another big corporation.
Are we all just "feeder comics" for the premium peeps?
lol if there were plans to shut down the forum we would know (the mod team would at least be notified, which we haven't sooooo).
The forums just aren't the main draw to this site. They need to make conservative decisions about their layout and the links to comics and books (especially the money making ones) are undoubtedly more important to have up there than a community forums link (and let's face it, the forum community is much, MUCH smaller than the main website community).
Totally agree, there was no rush and they could have fine tuned things better, however botched ill-thoughtout updates are sort of how Tapastic rolls. lol In fact I think each one has had its share of rocky road drama storms. I'm so used to them by now, and did used to get upset by it.
I don't think the staff is out to put creators down. Share holders may have a say in site design, but idk. More than likely with all the flood of feedback, they get the message and the site will definitely be changed. And as for the sneak peek of the design I think it was a site slip that happened, much like how sometime the banner feature accidentally gets changed and such.
I'm just thankful that with this update, scheduled episodes sitewide weren't released with no way of creators deleting them. lol Cuz that was a thing.
Y'know, since I started uploading Daniel here I've gotten a ton of awesome new readers, and this was the first webcomic forum I've been to that was full of nice, open-minded people that hasn't turned to a bunch of snippy a-holes (yet). XD
As the forum gets more people I expect it to change, but gosh it's getting harder and harder to defend Tapas as a website now that it's all about those behind a pay wall, and I used to kinda try. XD I realize they can't work like Webtoon since THEY have the equivalent of Google behind them, but maybe Tapas should consider looking at the free uploaded comics who become popular as they do instead of only going by the people who submit to them or they have personally found and decided to use as their special babies. XP That would be better than sweeping the popular freebies completely under the rug, hoping they're not as noticed as your main babes.
EDIT: Or heck, if making tons more popular comics into Premium ones isn't an option, then show off Patreon pages for popular comics on the main page or something. Just, y'know, try to show the love for the big freebies somehow! =P
Even if they don't fix up the layout, I'd still probably stay here since I already have a fanbase here and leaving wouldn't really benefit me much, but yeah, if it stays like this then newcomers are either going to turn away or be screwed from the beginning, no matter the quality of the comic. And when people are allowed to upload their own written works, will they get any consideration from Tapas if their story becomes popular? Heck, will it even be possible for a freebie written work to be noticed at all here?
Basically, yeah, gettin' way too hard to defend Tapas as it is. XD
Also, if this site is really about independent creators, then you should embrace your community aspect; your forums...don't you think? Put that link back in an obvious spot! XP
i hope you don't mind me chiming in instead of making a new thread of my own.
I actually couldn't be bothered with the new font, i can live with that. But i find the new front page to be:
1) Way too cluttered.
2) Top 10 will always be Top 10, so i personally feel it's very unfair to push Trending and Popular TOO FAR DOWN in favor of the Top 10s that never really change : ( give little guys a fighting chance, haha!
On a different note, i honestly could not find "forums" tab anymore? i typed it into my URL bar and hoped it was still saved in there (which it was, thankfully)
where did the forum tab went to? how can i easily access it again?
oh God, i just found it. Why is it pushed way down like this? i schemed through the comments and clearly i wasn't the only one lost here : (
thanks for the response all the same.
For now, yes, I think that people would calm down, but honestly, this reaction from creators seems to be a symptom of a much deeper problem
I agree with @devika s response that
even before the app was created, creators seemed to still have a fair amount of difficulty promoting their comic on the site. It may have been frustrating and all, but I feel that creator apprehensions really ramped up with the release of the app. the app primarily consist of A) paid comics or B) extremely popular content (maybe 20ish series). With all of that relegated to the front, and trending and browse all (the main ways the majority of creators get seen) being not really easy to access (you have to click through at least one or 2 pages to get to them) nor having any flashier colors to incentivize clicking on it (like the trending tab looks similar to all the other tabs in browse all, no more importance is brought to it through design or color unlike banners present on the front page), promoting a comic on a platform that was already tricky to promote on just became a lot harder.
Even after the app came out though, at least there was the website which remained relatively unchanged, but after the new update, I think the reaction that came out of trending/popular being moved to the bottom of the front page was a result of seeing a trend where promotion is becoming an increasingly difficult task and for fear that this trend will continue in the future.
Honestly, I don't think too many creators have a problem with the paid for content being part of taptastic, but to me, the ratio of paid/popular content to everything else is a little alarming. There's tons of categories for paid for content including top books and tons of collections, but rather few for the majority of creators (pretty much trending and browse all are it). I don't know if it's the same for others, but I can't help but see it as "there's pretty much 2 categories that help promote the majority of comics and yet all of them are buried under other content. How hard can it be to promote just 2 categories?" If you bury those two underneath everything else no one will see it, yet if you promote those two they take up a pretty small space, they're just 2 after all, and anyone that looks at the app for more than 5 seconds is still going to see all the other promoted content. I mean, i'm not an app designer so i'm sure there's more complexities to making a website or app than I think, but i'd be lying to myself if I denied the sentiments I expressed previously.
This sounds brutal but i think many of us need to emotionally walk away from the platform. Countless of dodgy updates have shown were not a priority here, were they're feeder comics as Plume put it, were doing their marketing. That's why since they're company statement didn't match my own i stopped promoting the site as the main place to read and started to push my own site and other mirrors. I'll stay for my readers as long as my readers are still around but I'm not comfortable pushing new readers to THIS SITE when i feel it's not a good place to read. I mean i will still let people know, along with other mirrors incase they're already using the site but i no longer push it as my MAIN site.
It's heartbreaking when your invested but at the end of the day, they're a business, and Thier investors are more powerful than us. It's best if we steal our shelves as a community, support each to create outside of host sites since like partners, they come and goes but friends remain 
For me it's difficult to bite the hand that feeds as my readership on Tap trumps my tumblr mirrors.
I'm not opposed to trying out other sites but at this point in time I don't really want to start afresh again. Having my own site sounds nice too, however I really don't have the time to maintain a domain as well as work on updates for multiple series. Unless Tap does something egregious (claiming rights to our work, shutting down completely, etc.), I'll stay here and still continue to support them.
I'm just glad the staff, especially Michael Son, are here to listen and are open to suggestions.
Same. I'm thankful that Tap exists and brought me the readership I have, but what has motivated me most to draw my comics is ...Tapastic itself. The website, the community, the thrill to be part of it as it all grows... It has really fueled me a lot. But since the end of Support Program and the ongoing panics about every new update my feelings have been seriously shaken. I only wish for this platform to grow strong and nice for everybody, but I recognize myself less and less in it. I'm getting alienated and the thrill of submitting pages is dying.
Putting Trending/Popular to the bottom was a massive faux pas and terrible signal sent to the entire community. It's not something we're going to forget so easily, I'm afraid. And I say this as a person who has a hard time holding grudges or remembering traumatic and negative things.
I myself don't have a self hosted site, i have my tumblr page with a custom domain and a comic theme. And i do hold on to negative feelings (broken home on the bread line, it becomes a point of survival to remember)
I won't be high tailing it out of here as some of my friends have done in the past but it's important for self preservation to understand they're a business. This is free hosting, a nice thing to offer but it's not guaranteed to remain that way forever for as and when the companies strategy changes or Thier overheads become too large. Self preservation is crucial.
I will admit my sub number is highest here, chased closely by WT and thirdly by tumblr, but another thing I've become aware of is that not all my readers will want to use a certain site or will primarily remain on a different site. Using mirrors and promoting my comic over promoting only one host is a better in my opinion.
First of all, I want to thank the admins that they listened to us and made some changes regarding the main issue (the placing of "dynamic trending indie content" vs "static paid content") rather quickly.
Yes, it did send a wrong signal in the first place. But you were willing to listen to us and changed it. And let's face it: This is something you don't see on every website.
That being said, I hope that the font will fixed soon as well, so I can express my love properly again <3
PS: The untitled section that seems to offer tshirts and a bunch of series also confuses me ^^
PPS: And also hoping that the forum link will be put on the top again as well ^^
That being said, I hope that the font will fixed soon as well, so I can express my love properly again <3
Can you tell me what exactly the font issue is (+ o/s and browser information)? If I can recognize the font issue you talked, I can fix it.
Thank you!
PS: I updated font files (we're using google webfonts instead of hosting one; before we were hosting ourselves but I changed it yesterday.)
FYI: We're always trying to listen to you guys.. but sometimes it's hard to react right after hearing you guys voices!
