Website updates and collecting feedback

[michaelson]

There was a lot of careful thought and decision-making behind the new design, so I'll try to offer some possible suggestions for change. Perhaps Trending could have a 24 hr time limit, such as Popular did, to cycle out the series? Maybe it could be based more on the old Popular algorithm, to take into account likes, comments, and interaction, so that it would actually reflect what was trending on the site. It might also be more fair to be able to expand the list, so readers had the option to see more than just a handful of series that people were interested in!

Thanks for the feedback.

We are actively working on bringing back the Popular section with a few tweaks and also making adjustments to the Trending section. One of the difficulties is making sure that the sections are working as intended - in the past, the sections tended to be dominated by a handful of creators and we wanted to bring forth more opportunities for newer creators to be discovered. While we admit that the current iteration of Trending is no where near where we want it to be, we are still trying to give it more time to adjust.

We are exploring a few ideas for the Popular section - i.e. bringing back an older algorithm and potentially introducing a cycle of different algorithms that take effect at different points in the day to generate a greater variety of opportunities and even the playing field. Some algorithms will weigh newer creators more favorably, while others will operate purely through like-comment-subscriber ratios.

Hope that clarifies a few things and I apologize for any negative repercussions that our changes have taken.

[shiorisan]

Hi, I'm a creator and one thing I really loved doing on the website was setting one song on about four episodes so the same song can play through the whole scene. While you scroll the music will just continue where it left off on previous pages. I love setting background music for my comics but the new website update kind of made it impossible? If I set the same song for four pages now, every page restarts the song I was wondering if anything can be done for this please?

[LordVincent]

I am a little confused, it sounds like an algorithm that favors new creators would be more suitable for its own section (usually categorized on sites as "hot" or "new and upcoming", "rising stars"... stuff like that. You can make up your own name if you want to be different as long as people understand what the section contains!) whereas popular usually focuses on active content that has high stats. Then there's often also the ability to search by most popular across all time and that will bring you content that is active and content that was finished or stopped posting, alongside each other in an order that takes stats into account.

An algorithm that jumps around and switches within a single section can be confusing both for creators and readers. I understand the intention of bringing more variety and visibility, but I feel like that's what trending was always for? If you change Popular to something that isn't what people expect, they can start to form wonky theories about why the algorithm is like that (there are enough conspiracy theories everytime this site updates already :'D) and also feel cheated. I personally believe it would be better to keep the section and its function clear, but it's up to you.

If there's one algorithm I think is missing, it is one that would close up what a friend of mine on the site often referred to as the "donut hole". That is, when a series gets stuck because they are too old/have too many subs for Trending, but are not big enough to slide in on Popular. Many creators get stuck here if they don't maintain enough growth speed to get past it fast enough. If you get stuck in the donut hole, it renders your comic invisible on the site and means you purely rely on word of mouth and possibly advertisements to get past it.

As the site grows, the biggest series will almost always grow with it making it harder for those in the "donut hole" to be seen. This creates bigger differences between big and small creators and makes it hard for people in the middle to utilize the site's growing userbase. The middle also slowly becomes "just the upper part of the lower tier" by comparison to the big series. A separate category that helps the people in the middle will in most cases not bring them up to popular numbers on its own (who makes that leap or not will depend on content and how long and consistently they keep going) but it can make sure that how many subs the mid tier creators get on average grows together with the site instead of remaining stagnant. Basically... it would benefit the entire site and raise the amount of people who could make their comic a part time job.

[Alrathi]

Hey Michael!
One area your team may want to put their attention towards if you're actively trying to fix the site constantly promoting the same comics over and over again is the 'more like this' section that shows up under comics. (the 'what to read next' section seems to function the same as before, changing out occasionally with new staff picks and fresh comics!)

On every series, this section only promotes the top performing comics from that same genre. It has had the exact same comics (give or take one switching out with another, similarly titanic sized comic) since you have introduced this section! I've attatched two pictures from two genres to show this. Seriously, they haven't changed in two weeks.

It seems like a huge wasted opportunity to have this spot not only be the top of the chain, but also be incredibly static.
Readers see this area on EVERY single episode, which is a huge chance to promote new, trending material-- not items everyone has either already read or seen.

My suggestion is to change this spot to randomly pick comics off of popular or trending! Maybe even both! The most ideal situation would be for this new area to operate based on similar series tags added by the author (since genre tags are so broad), but I'm sure that will take a lot of time to impliment. Also, unless you implement the tag feature, this section probably shouldn't be called 'more like this'. Rarely, if ever, do trending/popular comics in your genre lists have ANYTHING in common. Except the genre tag. Which is insanely broad lol.

I also want to bump @LordVincent's post from today about the 'donut hole'! Story heavy comics in the long scroll format you guys prefer on site are hit particularly hard by this problem, since it takes them sometimes MONTHS to make a decent chapter, and yet they only get promoted for maybe a day or two, assuming they even make trending.
The best solution I can think of to the problem is still author added tags for the comics, along with reccomendations based on those tags. Seriously, people will tell you what they want to read if you give them a way to do so! (I know you guys have the 'favorite genres' option on the app too, but it's still app exclusive and genre alone is still far too broad.)

(On a high note btw, the fixes so far are working great! View count numbers are beginning to steady out, along with comment engagement. The 'all comics' being sorted by sub count is also back!! YAY. Although, I'd still reccomend making such a huge pile of comics sort by pages, not infinite scroll. You guys have a loooot of content. Thank you for your hard work!)

[Croik]

Is the change to rectangle series icons for everyone still going forward on the original timeline? Or has that been pushed back?

[Iris-Grimoire]

It's just delayed, from the looks of it. Most likely the overall site update's bugs pushing things back, considering scheduled episodes randomly glitched this week and they had to hurry and prioritize that.

[nostalgicroxas]

ink and support gone

Just noticed on my novel's side/edge that there is no banner image to support someone. I have ink unlocked since I took part in the last Inksgiving, so I have the ability to have that support banner beside my series. It is not present when reading a chapter. In fact there is NO link at all to support via ink.

I just made a banner for people to see to know that I'm opening up another thing for support

And it's entirely pointless if #1 it does not appear and #2 there is no button to click to give me ink. @michaelson

[JackSherwin]

I belive you can't see ink on your own series if you are logged in. Becuse you can not give ink to yourself. Log into another account and check

[joannekwan]

The support banner and support messages feed is showing up for my account (while logged into my own account, the support button itself is not there since I can't self-tip)
But yes, check if it's visible on other people's pages @nostalgicroxas so you know if it's just a glitch for your own account or not.
Currently the only way to find the support link is the go to a series' page > details > scroll down

[nostalgicroxas]

That stuff I can see, but on other's episodes and my own, there is no Ink Support banner to appear or Ink icon like there used to be on the individual episodes.
Of note by that "Description" page you linked @joannekwan the banner listed there is not the Ink Support banner. that banner is the general artist banner that links to whatever exterior page you have set up.
The current set-up has literally made it harder for me to give ink to people I enjoy, or to receive ink, and there's no way they can see the banner. (As you can see, that banner pictured is not the one I uploaded to the Ink Support page so it literally is. not. visible.)

[joannekwan]

Gotcha. Yeah it would be nice if they put in a support button, say next to or under the like button on an episode to make it easier for people.
By the way, where did the support image show up before the site revamp? I don't recall ever seeing anyone's.

[nostalgicroxas]

It was on the left directly next to the info about the chapter/previous/next episodes. It was where that yellow highlight I put is.

[KRWright]

in the past, the sections tended to be dominated by a handful of creators and we wanted to bring forth more opportunities for newer creators to be discovered.

I feel like this isn’t what “popular” should be though. Popular should be about the raw numbers, where something like “Rising” or “Hot” are better elsewhere.

Gonna be honest, I’m one of the creators who got absolutely buried this month. I’ve been side-eyeing hard because my money is on the line here and I’ve seen hits/subs/etc plummet along with Patreon as well.

I’m really unhappy. I loved Tapas because hard work was rewarded by the site. Now it doesn’t matter if I update or not - my works don’t really change their reach at all. Growth has stagnated completely for me.

[LordVincent]

Very much this ^

But also, I'd like to add this:

Now is NOT the time to mess with algorithms. As of right now I am still doing fine because I still gain new patrons at a rate that is similar to the loss rate, so at least I keep my earnings in sortof the same place. This probably would not be the case if Tapas started cycling algorithms. In that case, I would need to rely on webtoon more. You really don't want to push your main earners to that point!

Also another point I forgot to add earlier: besides people expecting a certain thing when they look through the popular section, it also serves an important purpose for the site. Popular series are free marketing for you. It's how you gain new users through word of mouth. When someone is recommended a comic/novel (or several) and they are completely new to the site, it can be hard for them to navigate. But if it's as simple as "just check the popular section, you can usually find most of them there" you move the learning curve from being right away with no instant reward, to instant reward with a gradual learning curve. Only after the average reader has passed that learning curve will they begin to look for more niche, lesser known content.

Popular is a marketing tool and your "first level", so to speak. If you skip the first level and throw your users straight into boss fight, most of them will just give up and use another site we live in a digital age, you need to make it easier to say "yes" than "no", or there will be a million other entertainment alternatives for them to turn to.

[TAMAnnoying]

Now wait what you just shown is people reacting to the >pandemic< not the algorithm. This is why I keep telling people we need to wait sevral weeks before we can determine anything is better or worse and due to the pandemic it’s going to take much longer to understand if these new algorithms are better.

People are trying to stay connected right now and feel like the world isn’t falling apart around them. I’m sorry to say this but that means luxury items like comics and other art pieces are gonna get hurt pretty bad along with every other business that’s Gonna be in the red by the time this is over.

EVERYONE is hurting from the pandemic not just comics. We really need to chill and let things get better before we can even start asking about algorithms.

[LordVincent]

You're missing my point. I'm not saying the financial loss I showed is Tapas' fault.

What I am saying is that messing with the algorithm during the pandemic will make an already unstable situation worse.

My point was: Right now, I am just barely getting out of this without a major drop in finances. If Tapas messes up the algorithm of popular, they are gambling with mine and a lot of other creators' livelihoods in a time that is already putting a lot of strain on us.

[TAMAnnoying]

No I don’t really see your point, this choice was made by someone on the high end of things and right now the Tapas Team is working over time during A pandemic just to fix all the bugs. Right now with the lack of veiwership that will be happening I’m much more concerned that tapas focuses on fixing bugs then trying to change an algorithm that we >cannot< say is or is not working right now cause it’s has not been long enough to know and their is a pendemic happening.

[LordVincent]

I think you are missing the entire point here because Michael was not talking about a current algorithm, but a potential plan of cycling algorithms within a single section. We are not telling them to fix the current one while they are still working overtime, we are begging them not to mess it up further to begin with.

[TAMAnnoying]

I still don’t know how they would be “messing it up more” since again we don’t have any real data that things are better or worse but yes I agree that the algorithms are the least of their concern over fixes.

[KRWright]

we don’t have any real data that things are better or worse

I think you're not realising that a fair few larger creators are getting together and comparing details because they're worried - rightly so. A fair few have been whispering to each other to see if it's 'just them' or if it was the Tapas redesign, or if it's COVID. The thing is - if it's COVID - those same creators can compare it to their data on other sites and see if it holds up. If it only holds up here - as it is increasingly showing to be the case - then Tapas needs to move fast. The last thing that Tapas wants is for their larger creators to be forced to leave, whether they want to or not, in order to make money. Especially as many of those creators are going to be relying on that money more than ever due to COVID.