Website updates and collecting feedback

Possum 2020-03-05 00:57:19 UTC #104

Thank you for being so open about the whole process. I submitted the feedback on the form too, but I think I can do a bit more here.

As you've probably heard, smaller creators, under this new layout, will have a harder time having their work viewed. This is mostly due to the constricting nature of the new format. This is mainly due to the home page having a fat bar at the top, drawing they eye to the "marketable" work (tapas originals/popular/commercial works). Whilst yes, this will certainly draw more people to your site and hook them on those works--as again, they are commercial which is not a bad thing--it means you're using page space for more instant clicks rather than encouraging the user to explore. Sadly, it doesn't exactly end on the bar at the top either, you also have staff picks followed by trending which take up even more space. Again, this is good for the site as it will bring new users to the more attractive and proven commercial material, however it also has the downside of very literally erasing quite a lot of attention to other works.

That's not to say that I hate the new site, or that there's no merit because there's flaws. I honestly love the new reading mode, it's far more immersive and I find it much nicer to read on, which is massive for the site (especially for the novels side)!

Some changes I think would assist the site's homepage would be to essentially either remove the bar at the top with the scrolling work, or remove the staff and trending pages that are literally half a seconds scroll beneath it. You don't need that much space dedicated to large work, I'd honestly think moving it to the bottom would be a massive help. Fill the middle with the old catagories you used new, trending, I forgot the others. In doing this you're bringing back the space for smaller creators who are honestly quite in need of having their work viewed and read. You are sacrificing a little bit of commerciality and it might not work best for mobile platforms (that I imagine are most of your readerbase currently), but you can optimise on that later and experiment with the aesthetic (we all love a good bit of aesthetic).

Another criticism I've seen is that people think it looks a lot like Webtoon. This isn't unfounded, it does look a little like webtoon, however, that's not surprising as most reading platforms on the internet follow that look as it is incredibly good at getting clicks and having early site retention. At the end of the day, you're a business, and as a business, user retention is incredibly important, however with this new layout I think you risk having a lot of the smaller users who make up a lot of your readership and authorship, feeling a little off about the whole thing.

I really am looking forward to the aesthetic and the changes. Again, there's a lot of merit in what's around right now! And remember, these are all just suggestions from an avid reader on your site who only recently got an account (I guess I was a bit of a lurker!).

Zak 2020-03-05 00:57:29 UTC #105

I mean not like my comment will be seen perhaps. But if you are going to work on changing the site again, You can take into consideration of making it easier for smaller creators to get noticed?

I noticed on the side of my comics page list it shows the "Trending list" maybe change that to the Fresh list instead so smaller and bigger creators get noticed so its more fair? If Im going to be losing readers to other comics I rather them be lost to folks who need it more than I do.

I already submitted the form. Thank you for your understanding.

joannekwan 2020-03-05 01:05:09 UTC #106

One thing I like about the old layout was the multiple ways a creator can publish a new episode.

I enjoyed clicking on the sidebar to edit the series and add an episode that way.
But now I have to go an extra click to the series landing page and then the episode list.

Also I've never liked doing it via the dashboard as it takes an un-godly amount of time to load—which it seems to take even longer now.
(is it because I have so many series? If that's the case I wish that could be optimized some how.)

Lucca_Vendramel 2020-03-05 01:10:46 UTC #107

I really preferred the old look. The new visual looks like a webtoon clone.

Penni 2020-03-05 01:18:27 UTC #108

The feature that allows me to see where I left off in a series (sort of grayed out in that was in the sidebar) is gone and now I'm a little lost

Also, the staff picks for novels being removed from the front page of the site makes me a bit sad. I appreciated that Tapas made more efforts to give more attention to novels on the front page. Especially, non-premium creators.

I'm always an advocate for more novels on the front page

Edit: Dark mode would be AMAZING

joannekwan 2020-03-05 01:27:51 UTC #109

BUT on a positive note, and I do want to stress this even if it was mentioned earlier, I LOVE that readers can now switch between two fonts and adjust the size and leading when reading novels!

Let's hear it for whoever worked on that

FormSans 2020-03-05 02:09:44 UTC #110

Can there be an option for those that have stayed on here for a long time to have the site like previous. Like Deviantart has for their website. Still have the update version for those that prefer that but also has a switch to make Deviantart to look like how it did before the update for those that don't want to change.

I personally don't like the new layout and feels like it is trying to be a Webtoons rip off. This website is so amazing and I loved how unique it was to Webtoons. I came to this website before joining Webtoons and I preferred the old layout compared to Webtoons. I don't want this to end up like Jack Jeeved did where I mostly abandon the website and only check for those that didn't transfer to here. I really don't want to. I love this website and what is in it so much

TAMAnnoying 2020-03-05 02:14:17 UTC #111

So I'm going to put on the face of disappointed father now cause we're at that point where I have to talk to you like were part of a store, and as the store manager I hate to say it @michaelson but ya'll done fucked up a bit. Theres a long list of things to get through so i Apologize if I miss something or if its already been repeated about 30 times- these things tend to happen when you make drastic choices!

So lets first chat about all the UI stuff- these complaints are coming from both creators and readers. SOME of which are programmers so i feel like their knowledge is helpful. First off the staff picks "see all" is broken, it just takes you to the front page rather then anywhere else. You've added "free to read" and "pay to read" columns which is useful to people who just want to read without a pay wall- However it seems you've done away with the idea of looking for comics by GENRE! Which is incredibly backwards. Why even have Genre tags if we cant search through FRESH/POPULAR/TENDING with them?? People have particular things they want to read- Some people want to read romance, some action, some drama- taking AWAY UI is a horrific idea- How the actual hell are people supposed to get their fix if they can find it?? This problem is doubled by the fact you TOOK AWAY fresh! Which is the MAIN way readers FOUND NEW COMICS.

Please understand that this is the exact reason why people think you dont actually care about non premium comics when you've gotten rid of FRESH and replaced with your premium new releases great effort, but swing an a miss when it comes to making us small creators feel like you give any shits about us. Trending is nice but youve taken away genre searching and if im going to be completely honest- your algorithm tends to make "trending" a different kind of "popular" without the genre search. People who get a spike of veiws will be on tending for maybe an hour before they are Completely removed from the bar- which might i add got a lot smaller!

I think enough people have already pointed out you've taken away the side bar so you can see where you are unless your WAY at the top or WAY at the bottom. people have pointed out the hidden sub bar, the lack of a banner which means lack of a personality for each individual comic making you even MORE of a copy of Webtoons while also making everyone's comic very similar and less personal. broken text for novels. so on and so forth.

Now. There's nothing inherently wrong with your UI at first glance by the untrained eye- infact- its pretty great! Looks clean and pristine! However, I have absolutely no idea who the hell your looking to get an audience from with this UI. IF your looking to loose some readers who liked Tapas for being... you know... NOT webtoons- and trading them out for Webtoon readers- im sorry to tell you I cant imagine this working out for you in the long run, the UI in webtoons is simply better then your copy pasta you made- and im sorry if this hurts your feelings- but you copied it. thats it, please dont try to gaslight us on this. You have copied webtoons UI and made it WORSE. So i can only imagine Webtoon users looking at Tapas from afar and shrugging when they say "oh hey look Tapas is discount Webtoons now... neeeeat." and then continuing on there marry way on Webtoons. All i can really see happing here is you're either gonna loose people to webtoons cause the UI is better or your gonna loose people to some other new and hopeful comic website. Cause the only people who are impressed with this are people who hever NEVER SEEN WEBTOONS. sorry not sorry, this is an unfortunate reality.

On that note im also really upset with the idea that you think DESKTOPS and IPHONES should ever have the same UI setting. People who sit at there desktop have a diffrent screen, diffrent hardware, and a completely diffrent reason to sit down and read at a desktop then their phone. People at a desktop wanna sit down in their chair and stare at there screen with their keyboard and mouse in hand ready to do some work. You dont WORK at your phone- you're leisurely doing things- relaxing- playing a phone game. When we sit down at our desktop we want things to be optimal and we want to be making the least amount of clicks and the most of our time when we're working. People make keyboard shortcuts in photoshop for a reason. Id LOVE to see your raw data of why people want to do away with Desktop UI for EVERYTHING to be phone UI cause its always fun to hear people say "data shows" without showing any data, cause guess what?

I can hack this up to tell you only 7% of your user base is satisfied with this choice you made.

Honestly it just feels like your making excuses and gaslighting us that this is totally fine and we're definetly getting what we've been needing/asked for, even tho the things we HAVE been asking for are never done such as night mode, two genres and being more clear about how the INK system works with our audience.

I honestly Cant imagine how you can be confused that people are upset and dont want to do the job of BETA testing your sight for you when you've made mistakes that (from what my programmers have told me) is an easy to find and easy to fix mistakes such as missing italics and bold- which really THAT should never get to us as users. You want free beta testers? thats chill, im all for that- but at least try to make a mirror site first so that we can test it while still using the VERY usable and actually still good older site without forcing both us and our readers to deal with things breaking.

I hope you dont take my words too hard because im honestly just upset for everyone here- People are upset and you're not the only ones who could suffer for this. creators can suffer for this because readers who liked you because you where TAPAS and not WEBTOONS. could leave, and as many new Readers have stated before hand- it REALLY SUCKS when they're the last ones to hear about ANYTHING going on with the website that they should really be the first ones to know about- because THEY are the ones who are giving both you guys and us creators the ability to keep going.

I don't think we need to got back to the old site and stay there but maybe we need to go back till things are fix and we can do some actual beta testing? cause this is pretty bad for the PR from what a lot of readers have been explaining to me. I honestly think the new look could be a really good new beginning but its A. WAY too much like Webtoons and B. already showing a lot of problems taking AWAY intractability such as looking for genres, having some separation between desktop and phone, and taking away really simple and spice of life things like knowing who liked your comment and having a freaking FRESH section. We had more in the old site then we do now- we LOST a lot, and youve given us no choice to go back- So its very upsetting when you pikachu face at us.

TAMAnnoying 2020-03-05 02:20:47 UTC #112

The one positive thing i have to say tho is that the readers can FINALLY see the fourms- see what we see and interact with us like they are finally people and not a number so like... super happy about that! Good job with that one

ravenpotter333 2020-03-05 02:26:40 UTC #114

i wish that there was a dark mode option because this bright white background is very hard to look at for long periods of time and tires out my eyes. thank you!

Azifri 2020-03-05 02:41:42 UTC #115

This

I mean, you can't tell me that this horrible block of color that looks like an unfinished website:

Looks better than this:

The last 2 are premium comics from webtoons that do have a banner. The banners are slightly different in web vs app versions so no excuse about compatibility there.

Imagine how nice it would look if we still had our banners in the new Tapas website design

TAMAnnoying 2020-03-05 02:51:45 UTC #116

apparently theres a limit on likes XD But yes! I'm glad you pointed that out! its stuff like this that makes me worried if tapas is just gonna make a lot of the features that where really nice for us small creators and make them premium only later down the road when they bring them back.

Cavechan 2020-03-05 02:56:26 UTC #117

I do want to say thank you for making the form where we are able to submit feedback and have our voices heard. This is honestly more than I was expecting so I am pleasantly surprised by that.

However, after reading the responses in this thread I do have to say this is about what I was expecting and am thoroughly disappointed by it. The responses can be summed up as "This is how it is now. We'll fix bugs. MAYBE we'll add some features in later." It also doesn't help with certain ahem rumors flying around already concerning Tapas's future.

There are reasons why people don't like Webtoon and it isn't just their incredible lack of features. It's also the lack of personality and customization. With Tapas before, we knew we were on Tapas. We knew we were on a different site. We knew Tapas is a smaller business that listens to its users.

And then this happens. Did you not learn from the Smack Jeeves disaster? Complete site overhauls like this should be taken extremely seriously and in cases of webcomics where people are spending their time, money, livelihoods here, we should be made aware and allowed to have a voice BEFORE these things happen. That is why I feel betrayed as a creator here on Tapas. The users were not taken into account at all when this happened. There are too many features missing that we desperately need back and from what I'm hearing now... it doesn't sound like we'll have endless scrolling again. It doesn't sound like we'll have banners - our ONLY method of customization - again.

I am just incredibly disappointed that these things were not considered. I have lost my trust in Tapas staff. I have defended you guys. I have lost face so many times with other people talking in your favor and propping you up as "Not nearly as bad as WT". I can't do that anymore with this.

I mean, really. How could you do this to us AFTER WHAT HAPPENED WITH SMACK JEEVES? What did you not learn? Just how? HOW?

Ajhaynes420 2020-03-05 03:09:29 UTC #118

Just wondering. The new update has erased some of my sentences, and has messed up the Chapters, so will I have to rewrite everything, or will it be fixed on it's own?

ratique 2020-03-05 03:12:50 UTC #119

I recommend waiting for updates from the dev team as they may be able to fix this. It would suck if you would put in work that isn't necessary.

Cavechan 2020-03-05 03:14:24 UTC #120

Nav bar dance - Watch Video

Come on............ was this even tested with different size comics? Or was it just some ploy to try and force people into more vertical formats? There's no way someone looked at this and thought "Perfect!"

EDIT: Hold on. And I just realized. Okay, first I clicked the notification in my alerts. Then it... brings me to the comic profile...... which alone makes me have an aneurysm. So then I click "Continue" (TOO MANY CLICKS)

And it brought me to the comic I already read............................

..............................................

I'm done.

EDIT x2: And another one brought me back TWO episodes. Fantastic.

michaelson 2020-03-05 03:21:12 UTC #121

Updated parent post with list of hot fixes we'll be addressing immediately:

michaelson 2020-03-05 03:34:55 UTC #122

(included in the parent post)

Thank you every one for providing us feedback. We'll be diligently working on addressing the concerns expressed by the creator community and hope to implement changes both big and small in a timely fashion. We appreciate your patience and cooperation during this time. Again, I'd like to reiterate our appreciation for the passion, criticism, and support of the community. We are dedicated to making necessary changes to ensure more readers and creators have a fun, engaging, rewarding, and unique experience whenever reading and creating stories on Tapas.

We apologize for any hurt we have caused with today's update, again, it's never our intention and we completely acknowledge our need for improvement. I hope you understand that we are trying our best to be as accommodating as possible and want to create a relationship with you all that reinforces our willingness to engage in healthy discussions and enact positive changes. We will always do our best to answer questions that arise and be candid in what we can and cannot do.

Thank you again for your continued support, we'll be continuing active correspondence in this topic, updating this parent post with additional changes, and keep you as up to date as possible.

I'll be taking a break tonight but will be back to answer more questions and concerns tomorrow.

Ajhaynes420 2020-03-05 03:38:14 UTC #123

Isn't that the truth, I was so hurt lol

pkholcombe 2020-03-05 03:40:28 UTC #124

What rumors are swirling about Tapas's future? I'm a casual reader so I'm not as close to the business as creators might be.

It really looks like Tapas has become Smack Jeeves. The site looks almost exactly the same, just with a couple slight color changes. Its awful