Un-Discovering Canvas?

[Rodimus13]

Hey, so Webtoon updated, and I know I'm not the only one wondering what ELSE webtoon may have updated and how it will affect us discover- I'm sorry, "Canvas" - creators now. Besides noticing that largest change, as well as them recommending titles, as well, at the bottom of our episodes, has anyone else seen any changes? Our comic is Destiny Oblivion, and coincidentally we recommend a couple titles that the app also recommended, but I doubt that is related. Anyway, anyone notice any tends, c…

So yes it was noticed a while ago. Also I believe its seasonal drop. Last year there was a contest going on about now so no one noticed the drop cause people wanted to vote for their fav comics.

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[Rodimus13]

So this means the ones that aren't in the original section are what, unoriginal copies?

Well to be fair, on cavas you can post whatever you want. Including fan fic. Two examples I have are (from my section of it)

So they aren't 100% original, even if they are considered quiet good! (don't read them but near the top of popular)
Anything on Webtoons originals was probably meant to convey they aren't fanfic or a spin off, but something for webtoons and webtoons alone.
Doesn't mean it comes off this way, but I can see where their marketing team was coming from.

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[Rodimus13]

.... >.>

I don't like those people... they put themselves in post apocalyptic and won't even put those type of pics in their stuff. It's why I tried to chose ones that seemed to be proper comics.

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[sekabead]

Non-premium comics? Do you mean "premium" comics as in comics which offering fast pass episodes?

About changing the name, they already did that before didn't they? "Discover" was once named "Webtoon Challenge". In some languages it's still named "Webtoon Challenge" though, so I guess the renaming has something to do with the amounts of self-published webcomics uploaded to the platform in a certain language. Hell, how can I even compete with, what, ~21K comedy titles or ~16k slice of life titles? Even though most of them is stalled/abandoned comics I believe.

[sekabead]

Yeah it's frustrating to see those low-effort comics steal many subs.

[JRHoch]

Do you mean steal subs as in take up space so that other creators get less visibility?

[sekabead]

more or less... they bumped to the front everyday while drowning other creators to the bottom because completing an episode in a day is just too hard / downright impossible

[nixxusnibelheim]

because they don't have a forum or community

I always wonder why Webtoon didn't have a forum for creator and reader.
For creators alone, I think it will do a lot of good, specially if we can share advices, feedbacks etc, it'll elevate the quality/standard for everyone which is good for webtoon.

For readers, the authors can interact with them in a personal level, they will feel and be involve in the process which is good for the engagement and webtoon.

Maybe it's too much to support so I get it in a way but I don't know, the tapas forum is great but kinda small, most of authors don't know this community even exist.

[sekabead]

In Korea they actually have: Naver FanCafe I believe (which also have communities for Kpop idols). Wonder why they don't import that ideas to us, and we run to tapas forum instead lol.

[JRHoch]

I've stopped asking "why" questions and just hope one tries to shoot me when I leave my house.

[Zugaikotsu]

Webtoons is insanely crowded, like, more than 50k titles? its hard to thrive there now even if they give you a spotlight! Also, as someone said, we're entering the slow season

[Cabbage]

Note the following is all my speculation.

Though I do think the name "Canvas" is kind of weird, I think the change to originals was great. Before, featured was a confusing name. You could say "I got featured on the front page!" when you're not actually featured, but when you got on the small recommendations or a banner. Now there is no such confusion- Originals is a good title.

For discover, I believe the new name is simply to further differentiate the titles uploaded onto there from the ones Webtoons specifically edits and curates. "Discover", before, sounded like you could find more Webtoon-supported and curated titles like on Originals, which was not true. Canvas makes it clearer that it's a lawless land where anyone can upload to, the word canvas is kind of reminiscent of deviantArt whose process for uploading most people are familiar with- It's uncurated. I do think, despite that, canvas is not the best word they could have chosen. I don't have a better one though.

Regards to why Webtoons doesn't have a forum and stuff, I think it's not a good thing to constantly equate Tapas to Webtoons. Webtoons doesn't want to be a community site. They don't want people to come to Webtoons to see work from X author, they want people to come to Webtoons to read Webtoon branded comics. They're a company that pushes their own branding very hard, and it is not in their best interest to shift more towards a community-focused landscape. And it's working- Their readers are trending upward drastically and the "Webtoons" app is become more and more of a household name. I bring up Webtoons to basically any of my normal friends from High School and they instantly know what is it.

Webtoons wants to be seen more professionally, I don't see Webtoons as a community-upload site like deviantArt at all. It see it more like Shounen Jump, or any kind of manga serialization, except Webtoons also allows you to upload to their site albeit with a clear line between you and their Original titles. Some of the stuff on Canvas is to put it honestly, either hot garbage or sometimes straight up offensive, containing material Webtoons does not want to promote. They put that clear line between the two titles so readers know which content is curated and edited, and which titles are just some random person uploading whatever the heck they want.

I can say pretty confidently though Webtoons will probably never get a forum. I don't want one either lol, Webtoons is FULL of children who would just be fighting constantly in the forums. I think there is kind of this idealization that if Webtoons had a forum it'd be where all the featured artists and editors hung out, and it'd be a great opportunity to network and get noticed, when in reality it'd be 700 thirteen year olds tearing each other's hair out over what ship they want to be canon in whatever Webtoon : ^ P

[Jenny-Toons]

Tell it like it is.

The reason Tapas can have a forums is because its smaller and more focused on its creators. That, and a lot of readers are ALSO creators, as opposed to readers being JUST readers.

It's why you get more "do longer update" comments in Webtoons. The atmosphere is just different.

[JRHoch]

Your last paragraph is the scariest thing I've ever read.

[Zugaikotsu]

But it's very accurate, trust me! Read sone comments in the last episode of I Love Yoo or Lumine and you'll see the level of some kids, there... also, in discord chats (unnoficial), some readers love to trash talk discover titles, even the big ones, so... I think webtoons is being really smart in not having forums.

[claiborneart]

Yeah, from what I've seen there's a large enough 'webtoon community' that it has created its own multitude of spaces outside what a single forum could offer.

Readers tend to group in discords, aminos, subreddits, etc. around specific series; creators tend to either come over here (I think many of us canvas/discover people crosspost on both sites, after all), or other generalist comic creator communities.

It's interesting to see spaces like the webtoon subreddit where posts are basically split halfway between readers and creators - you definitely get a range of topics and people, and it doesn't really feel like a cohesive community.

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