Updated Site + Terms and Services

Right, so the good news is that the clause is gone. For some people that's not enough, but some people can never be pleased, yeah?

So here's the deal breaker. Obviously the narrative driven by the dev team is that they want to give creators options, and I am down with options. I think everybody is, and empowering creators is something I'd love to see, especially with future publishing/sales opportunities. But of course it has to be optional. Tapas, we WANT more tools, but of course we're gonna defend the rights to our content. We're hoping to see a very, very clairvoyant clause that would more accurately accomplish what you say you wanted, no shady business.

C'mon dude, Uzuki's comment was dripping with condescending attitude. Volunteer or not, some professional behavior would be appreciated from anybody who wants to keep the community clean/positive. Uzuki wasn't even responding to me and I felt offended, hahaha! Real appreciation for volunteer work, but please don't talk down to anybody. You're language was blunt, Cindy, but Uzuki's was much more than just blunt.

Oh for crying out loud. You know, from READER POV, you all who getting selfish and didn't care about your reader here on Tapas and don't want to hear what the staff said can just leave.

Good riddance.

And I can assure you, I am not the only one who think that way. There are many app only reader and do you think they won't get angry when you, the selfish arrogant author who didn't even want to hear what the staff say, just removing all your stuff without even giving a chance for the reader to react?

Who the heck you think you are? Sure, Tapas is build upon a creator, but you aren't the only creator in the universe you know. You want to get out from Tapas and host your own web site? Go ahead. Maybe then you will see what it means to running a comic website.

Is it that hard to just wait ONE freaking day before you decided 'oh I will have my own comic website and be king/queen' there! HUH!?

But of course, why you guys even bother care about your reader right? It's your comic. you can just take it out and don't give a shit about your reader.

And you want the mod bow down to you and do all your bidding. Wow. See the trend here?

This is just a mess... so pretty much stay if you wanna, leave if you gotta hahaha

I do agree with @Alli (I'm so sad to see TQ leave btw) it isn't Tapas' business on what contracts are being signed out there by creators. I thought it was very... monopolizing of them. How would they even know when a creator signs somewhere else? Comics leave Tapas all the time to other host websites, I don't know why now it has become an issue worth addressing.

Anyway, this whole mess has just driven me to really make a website for my comic and use Tapas as a mirror site. It was bound to happen but this has just moved things to a tighter schedule.

Oof, I should have expected some backlash from that post. Ah well, here we go.

Please, don't judge the rest of the mod staff - who are here by volunteering, not paid or affiliated with Tapas media in any way - based on one salty egg. That's unfair to the other wonderful people that have dedicated and continue to dedicate their time to this community. Judge me all you want, but leave the others alone. Thank you.

I'd like to stress again, none of the moderators here work for Tapas. We are volunteer members of the community, period. So no, I'm not trying to put a noose around anyone's neck, and I am not creating these clauses that you're all so upset about.

The mod team are creators just like you. And just like you, the members of the mod team get concerned with new updates, design changes, and ToS updates just like everyone else. We email the staff like crazy with questions and concerns, we tag Michael in the forums whenever we need him to answer a staff-related question, we also get angry and upset when we're left wondering what the literal hell is going on. Even I have considered leaving Tapas during rough periods like this. Maybe not this one specifically, but plenty of times in the past where it seemed unclear where Tapas is going. The key is not to jump ship the moment you see an iceberg - it might just be a hunk of snow.

Whoof. I'm more concerned that people are taking these as reputable sources at face value. Because the unpaid volunteer mod team of the forums are not a very official good source if you're looking for the company's morals straight from the company's mouth. See above.

Also, are people mentioning me on Twitter? Because that's awesome. I've finally made it in the world, ma! /s

But we really can't answer your questions more than anyone else here. Even the mod team have been waiting for an official statement from Tapas on this whole ToS dispute. We can answer your questions as best we can, but that's as good as it gets - as best we can. We haven't been told much else from what staff has already told you.

So in that regard, you're all just as much PR representatives as the mod team.

TL ; DR: I am not sorry for what I said, as it is my opinion just like everyone else's opinion here, whether you agree, disagree, or agree to disagree. I am sorry if it offended some of you personally, but please know that was not my intention.

Now that that's done, I'm going to switch from Tapas user mode to mod mode:

This thread isn't about me. My 15 minutes of fame is up lol Let's get back on topic please <3

I really like what the clause was offering, even if it was a complete misnomer. I'd love to monetize Time Gate to the point of being financially stable in the future - being able to leverage offers between comic platforms would be dope af if it ever became an offer/option. I mean, why take $1000 when another place is offering $3000? Imagine if that other place was Tapas - you get to keep posting to the place you love, and you get paid three times the amount you were originally going to get paid for posting somewhere else. I just hope that the removal of the clause in the ToS doesn't mean these options are completely off the table. That would suck for those who could have benefited from it

I think what @ahhvecadoes meant was that the mods are seen as PR for the Tapas community in sense of how you treat the users, even if you don't have the answers. What's being commented the most on Twitter is that people expect more professionalism from a moderator, volunteer or not. It's less about the content and more about the tone of the posts.

I know everyone has their own opinions, but someone labeled as a moderator is seen as having some kind of endorsement from Tapastic, so there's some responsibility there.

So this, basically.

Today has been a mess and a lot of people are stressed out, but I think we can keep the discussion respectful! (this goes to everyone, there are people being rude and/or mean on both sides of the issue, that's not going to get us anywhere)

I won't bother reply, I will just leave this link here with my reply and my screen shoot as proof.

http://forums.tapastic.com/t/tips-for-charity/17204/263

D'aw, look at how much less salty the conversation has been, especially compared to the forums when the support system was removed. I'm proud of you Tapas community, I'm proud <3

Stay fresh

insert Callie and Marie

you know i should stop engaging people and telling them to chill on twitter people are really really bent out of shape about this-- this whole thing is a huge out of proportion misunderstanding and i seem to be on the unpopular side of this argument what shouldn't even be an argument BAH

I am saying this as a person who isn't inclined to automatically agree with Uzuki: I don't think they had attitude at all.
Especially not when compared to the person they replied to. The person they replied to made passive agressive (and sometimes plain agressive) remarks to people in this thread, kept saying "I WANNA LEAVE HOW CAN I DO THAT YOU ARE KEEPING ME STUCK!!!". Uzuki's reply was simple and to the point since apparently this person doesn't do too well with legalese. People kept saying that posting on other places or leaving wouldn't be a problem and they refused to understand so the way I saw it they were basically demanding a clear cut reply.

I am not surprised that people are spreading that reply taken out of that context though, still not even recognizing that the "offensive" part is gone. People like to spread drama and burn witches, and they hate to have to recognize that there is no longer a reason to do so. Noone dares stand up to them because then they, too, get burnt.

This type of behaviour is primitive, immature and unprofessional. I can understand being paranoid or worried for your rights, but if that's what you truly were you would look at the facts:

1. Tapas has stated their intentions. Multiple times.
2. Tapas has proven those intentions by not using this part of the ToS maliciously. Seriously, if they DID intend to sneak something like this into ToS with malicious intent, they wouldn't have made an unusually huge announcement about the ToS changing and they wouldn't have waited these 2 weeks before using it. The intentions you guys imply are more likely to kill their business than help it and the only way they could actually have benefitted from it would be if they struck fast and hard on the creators that get the best stats. They didn't do this, which is why I wasn't the least bit worried.
3. Even considering all of this, the clause has now been removed.

Looking at this, anyone who was worried about their rights should no longer be worried, and they should realize there is no reason to spread out-of-context comments and other crap to make it seem like tapas is a corporate asshole that's trying to kidnap your mother and sell her to the mafia or something. If you still want to leave, then just do so. Of course tapas doesn't want to lose site users and creators, but if you are only hanging around to be passive agressive to other users and ask how you can leave or talk about how tapas is just trash no matter what they do and is "going to shit", then you obviously don't have much hope for this platform and you aren't very nice company for us other creators and users. Do everyone a favor and move somewhere you feel more comfortable, but do this in the mature manner: Without overblowing things on twitter and spreading rumors. You are killing opportunities for tapas creators that are staying.

The amazingly crazy thing about this whole ordeal is we went through this very madness weeks ago when the revised ToS first came out and the website went from Tapastic to Tapas. No one really seemed to notice the changes then...

Talk about delayed response. Anyhow, we're essentially weeks into the future vs. most of the community right now and it's all good out here in Tomorrow Land.

Just breathe everyone.

If anything we just wish that staff would spend more time communicating prior to doing these huge changes to the website and stuff. People are putting 1000s of hours and $1000s into their webcomics and staff really needs to become more sensitive to how important these works are to us.

Guess when there's 30,000+ series it can get to the point of taking creators for granted . . . or something.

Really can't answer this one. Only staff can.

I can't speak for others, but I did not receive any notification of these changes having been made, and I have been in a mad deadline crunch on freelance work for the past couple of months, and have therefore not checked in regularly on the forums either. I had entirely missed this addition to the ToS.

It is entirely possible that whatever notification I was supposed to receive just never made it all the way to me, but the fact remains that it didn't. I can only assume I am not alone in this - and it is probably contributing to this delayed response to the change.

I am glad to see the clause has been removed, as I do not feel it belonged in the ToS to begin with. It is too broad, and I don't feel comfortable giving Tapas blanket consent to Right of Refusal to my work in that manner. First Right of Refusal is, in and of itself, not a horrible idea, but it is normally part of a contract negotiation and is something that a publishers pays the creator for, which is not what this was.

If Tapas wants to help creators, then there are better ways to go about it than this ToS-change. Creating a separate submissions-service, or restricting this type of clause to the Premium-content creators only would be good steps. And I agree that in general, Tapas needs to be better at communicating these things prior to the change being made.

I have not yet decided whether to keep my comics here or take them elsewhere, but this whole thing - the ToS-changes, the response from Tapas, etc., - has certainly made me consider my options.