Only today three of the comics that I read have deleted their comics or have announced they are leaving. Please don't act as if this problem is solved.
Suggestion: give again more attention on the home-page to the free and unknown comics that made your site great.
Y'know...with all the creators (some of them big) who emotionally overreacted to this weekends shit storm completely jumping ship before they gave Tapas an opportunity to explain themselves, (or not because I guess stirring up your own shit storm on Twitter is better than having a logical discussion with other creators) it'll be their loss and our gain for those who've chosen to stay with Tapastic.
And no...that does not make us "dick suckers" according to SOME creators over on Twitter. (My god did this weekend show lots of creators true colors.)
Honestly yeah, especially since the whole Comic Panda thing was brought up by one of the Big Names in webcomics. Like it sucks that that had happened to them, but they brought it up for the sole purpose of fear-mongering without even bothering to check if the original staff of Comic Panda were even still around. Michael already confirmed that the staffers who were around at that time were no longer with tapas, so its not like tapas was trying to sweep troublesome history under the rug when the current staff had nothing to do with it
it sucks that people become openly hostile towards those who don't think tapas is out for our blood :/ but theyre the ones screwing themselves over because tapas is probably the only other active and big webcomic hosting site asides from webtoons.
Michael already confirmed that the staffers who were around at that time were no longer with tapas, so its not like tapas was trying to sweep troublesome history under the rug when the current staff had nothing to do with it
CEO of comicpanda (Chang Kim) is still here at tapas as CEO
http://www.cbr.com/comic-panda-offers-satisfying-chunks-of-webcomics-in-a-vertical-format/3
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oh. well then, that's interesting??
At the risk of sounding like a defender, I don't think the CEO himself runs the website. Maybe he did have some hand in what had happened back then, but there were surely other people who were more involved in the fiasco itself. Again, it sucked what happened to the people who had their comics stolen and such, but iirc Michael (? maybe I'm wrong) said that the purpose of it was to show a beta of the website to potential investors. Again, on the other hand it was probably not the best way to have gone about it.
Well just because they're co-founders doesn't mean they curated the content of the beta version of Comic Panda.
As higher-ups usually do, they delegated the task to people under them. And these people fucked up.
EDIT: And I checked Michael's exact words. He said the "content team at the time wrongfully used actual comics without permission." So those were the staffers that did the wrong, and those were the staffers that aren't here anymore.
It would be nice if the CEO got in front of this with a "State of the Union" speech, but based on what others are saying about what's going on in private circles (we're not following the Twitter storm because we have more important things to do with our time) it's almost at the point there is nothing that Tapas can do to offer an olive branch and mend fences.
It's almost as if some creators want to attack Tapas and are looking for any reason to. Since the ToS is now fixed they're trying to find anything else to attack with, including bringing up Comic Panda and TokyoPop and whatever else fits their narrative.
Do creators want Tapas to fail? It certainly seems like it.
Tapas has a dedicated staffer who works hard at trying to grow the site day in and day out. We sent a bunch of personalized emails to a list of news curators that the staff member gave us, trying to get the word out about the tipping feature. None of those news curators even sent a "we're not interested" response. And now some of them are going double barreled shotgun on Tapas. What the heck?!
Only negative news sells these days? The tipping feature was created to try to help creators get ahead financially and no one seemed to care in the industry. Now Tapas makes a gaff and the barbarians are at the gates.
If Tapas fails, then what? LINE Webtoons? A website solely dependent upon the goodwill of a larger company that could one day decide to cut the umbilical cord? Then what? Sorry to say it but Webtoons is an Inkblazers time bomb. One day some day the books have to balance. Not saying its going to happen any time soon, but the math does not make sense.
So then what, Hiveworks? Which is gated... so most of us can forget about that avenue.
It's not like there are a ton of good options out there for creators who don't want the responsibility of running their own dedicated website. Tapas provides a large reader base, gives 85% of tips, 70% of ad revenue, provides a mobile reading experience, and takes care of the back end. Name something better.
Not saying that we liked what was in the ToS. Quite the opposite. But to err is human. For those who want to choose to believe that Tapas is trying to do good, their hearts were in the right place, they just didn't execute it properly.
But it seems like a lot of creators want to think the exact opposite, that Tapas is out to get them. We could understand someone being on the site for a long time, bringing in lots of new readers, but never getting featured as having some pent up resentment. But one of the creators who insta-nuked their series, they got major play by staff, including Staff Pick, a Spotlight, and possibly even a Daily Snack (think so but can't remember exactly). Their subs count went O.O in no time. What the heck? Staff fell all over this creator and then the creator doesn't even give staff 24 hours? Talk about a total lack of respect.
Tapas made a mistake. Creators make a mistake. Where's the mutual understanding?
We aren't thrilled 'bout the whole Tapastic to Tapas change and how the homepage went novel heavy, but the company has to make money. Not many seem to get that point. Tapas isn't here to serve at our pleasure. It has to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Tapas makes a mistake and out come the pitchforks? Geeze. "What have you done for me lately" to the extreme.
Yes, Tapas should have come forward and said, "in two weeks we are going to make changes to the ToS" and offer a public comment period rather than just pop this on everyone. But on the other hand, creators need to get a grip and act like professionals, not short fused arsonists.
Absolutely! This whole fiasco has gotten me more wary about connecting with artists, especially after hearing about all the mudslinging on Twitter and attacks against specific creators.
Now I'm unlikely to trust any sort of artist unless I've interacted with/observed them for some time. I don't want to know anyone who sees something I do or say at face value/out of context, not ask me about it to get the facts, and go dragging my name through the dirt in a gossipy corner of internet high-school.
I really wanted to stay in the shadows on this 'icky' drama since I am a newbie and don't have that many readers. I think the people that jumped ship and left without warning their readers was pretty selfish. I know that we all like to say we make our comics for ourselves and it's fine to have that mind set, but think of the people that donate and get up everyday excited to read the next chapter or page of your comic and find out it's gone and not there to read anymore and no one knows why. Don't get me wrong I don't have nearly the amount of followers for my comic, but I am grateful for everyone that reads it. At the end of the day and as a creator, it is your choice if you want to leave or stay. Knowing that it would be hard for me to start from scratch off Tapas, I am staying and my mindset after this is if I can't trust to have my comic on the site for any reason I will inform my readers and upload else where. At the end of the day, Tapas made a mistake as we all do, apologized and fixed it. Everyone has the right to feel the way they do. As for me, am I upset and shaken over what they did without informing us? Yes. But, I'm staying on Tapas and continuing to enjoy making my comic and knowing other people enjoy it as well.
Agreed. Read some of the reader comments left behind and you can see that it was traumatic for some. Some readers mention how they did a lot of tipping and suddenly the comic they enjoyed has just pulled up stakes and took off. Doing that really leaves a sour taste in readers mouths. Who is to say they won't just give up on webcomics entirely?
This scorched earth policy ruins things for everyone. And to those creators who did this, it could very well follow their professional careers for the rest of their lives.
There are only five major publishers left. There aren't that many bridges you can burn. If a publisher starts researching a creator, sees the kind of Tweets and crap they pull, do you really think they are going to want to sign with that creator vs. one who is professional?
All that can be said is that for some people, there's a certain excitement behind martyring oneself. In this case, wanting to see Tapas fail so they can say "Look, I told you so!" and to anyone who disagrees, acting as the lead for the witch hunt, even if it means looking bad in front of others. They just want something to hate on, and if something, no matter how small, just so happens to go wrong, even if it's COMPLETELY unrelated, they'll find it, and become the head of the hunt, all for the sake of agreeing with oneself and saying "Look, I told you so! I'm smart! I outwitted all of you!" All the victory is in the self-serving pride . . . a pride that doesn't get anyone anything but a spattered reputation. It's really not worth it.
saying that creators leave tapas to destroy them, or that they just find a reason to leave, is a very arrogant remark. The same with saying 'good riddance' to them. The same with calling them Martyrs. There are just to many of them.
I have the impression that lots of them are just panicking.
Also, a lot of them have Not Yet left the sinking ship but have stated their intention. This means that Tapas should do something. Like really stating their priorities in actions, not only in words.
There is clearly a problem of trust that goes further than the making and removal of one rule in the tapas-rulebook.
I wasn't referring to all of them lol I understand that if one wants to leave, there shouldn't be anything to stop them. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be forced to stay somewhere I don't like. But it's another thing entirely to turn on that site during one hiccup where they didn't even give proper time for explanation to be given. Instead of saying "No, I don't want any part in this" and respectfully leaving, they sought out to drag as many people along with them as they could. It was a mixture of panic and all around bad blood. Not all the creators have done this, but the ones that have has been quite a disappointing thing to see IMO those are the ones I've referred to as martyring themselves.
Ultimately, the decision to leave Tapas was on them, and I'm not going to blame them for their reasonings whatsoever - but it's rubbing unnecessary salt into the wound to take it any further than that, in the toxic way they did. They could have left peacefully; they could have burned their bridges; but instead, they outright destroyed them with heaping pounds of C4 and TNT, over something that was really quite minimal and didn't require such an overblown reaction. It was blown way, way out of proportion, to an unnecessary and frankly unhealthy level. In a real life sense, it's like breaking up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, but instead of calling it a day and going to the gym, you send them threatening letters/text messages, leave passive-aggressive posts on Facebook, tell all their friends and family all their deep dark secrets they once trusted you with, and then leave a heaping pile of flaming poo on their doorstep. Sure, the latter is an option, but only if you're really fine with painting yourself in a terrible light. You have to ask yourself, is this worth it?
It was just an unfortunate situation all around. And though I hate to see some of these creators leave (or plan on leaving) a lot of their true personalities were revealed during these recent events, personalities that are quite becoming for people who often have to play the role of professionalism in a business that's still fighting to be taken seriously.
But maybe I'm a hypocrite for saying that lol
Either way, this is getting into touchy territory and it's sort of off-topic. I think it's safe to cut this discussion here.
Otherwise, I'm interested to see how Tapas approaches this. I know they're looking into hiring someone specifically for community relations, which is great - while Tapas has been doing great in terms of building their content and reputation through the app, their relationship with the community has been suffering to some degree as a result, and this whole ToS debacle was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back. But to be perfectly honest, if it wasn't the ToS issue, it would have been something else - anything to let them know that the community hasn't been able to trust them as much as they could for a long while.
I don't care about the personalities of the creators, (I am sure that lots of them are very nice and that lots of them are ***, like in any community). I don't care about how they leave and about the salt and the pepper. I don't care about Comic pandabear's and Beehives. I only care about the fact that they are leaving.
Ans this is where this discussion should focus on:
* how to persuade the creators who are still making their decision to stay.
* how to help smaller comic makers to become bigger
* how to focus again on the diversity that was, and at the moment still is, IMO the biggest asset of this site.
Hi @michaelson -- is there any word on when we might hear something from this staffer?
Thank you.
wait, what?? Is this another drama? Ay dios mio! I'm really frustrated at how some creators reacted to all this
8 days later
xD
Seeing this topic pop back up on my "unread posts" page does remind me of this though:
@michaelson @STAFF
I understand you guys are probably crazy busy with the novel platform being introduced to the website, but is there any word on the clarification of the ROFR or ROFO thing?
