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Mar 21

Among many of the topics I see discussed in this forum, there is one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

That is, the Promotion threads. They are inherently dangerous and damaging to one-self.

Think about it like this, the only people posting in those threads spam their comics and novels, not replying to -

anybody else. It's an endless wave of "LOOK AT ME" "LOOK AT ME", and then there's the SUB4SUB crowd...

When I get a subscriber, It puts a smile on my face. Couple seconds later I receive the dreaded message.

"I subbed to your comic, Sub to mine?" ~XOXO

---What's the point of meaningless likes and subs, if they're vain and transparent?

---How do you guys deal with this issue?

---What can be changed in the forums to resolve it?

Sorry for my schizo rant, just had to get it off my chest. It's a depressing thing here in the community. It's all about attention seeking and little to no true community values.

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Been on the forums for almost a year, kinda used to seeing promo threads coming in waves. Probably due to a bunch of new creators joining and over-excited to spam their links. But there are some genuine ones out there that will actively engage with your story(if you do the same in return, a genuine sub4sub, honestly)

What's the point? I get you on the whole meaningless likes/subs thing, but it's kinda built into the system. And I learned that likes are sorta like a bookmark tool, in case you decide to change around episode order for whatever reason or you binge-read a ton of series and get lost easily (me, lol).

How to deal with threads? Meh, I treat them like clickbait and ignore the majority of them.
There are a few that have interesting topics and actively engage with creators outside of just promoting (hats off to Leyelle for her out-of-the-box questions, among others who are more genuine)
But you can mute the Promo category through the settings, if they bother you that much. Should die down after a month or so.

Change? I doubt anything can be changed, unless maybe have sub-categories for new creators like "Introductions" - to meet new creators, cause that's where you'll find new readers; "Sub4Sub"-have it's own category, for the hivemind, and "Spam" - just to do it XD course these could get used wrongly, cause people love taking advantage of the system just for pointless gains.

*Guess my bottom line is "look into your subs/creators" before you choose the gamble. If anything, let your story be your milestone/merit. It's an uphill battle to get noticed anywhere on the internet, but if you keep telling your story, eventually you'll get the readers you deserve.

ok, why did i end on a motivational thing? i just woke up, lol. hope i made sense.

There are some things you can do about it, start interesting topics, engage in other topics, mute the promo threads.
That´s what I´m trying :smiley:

Yeah, we have already talked about this several times, to be honest.
I began to ignore them instead of thinking they are damaging or dangerous, like really, best course of action is to ignore them and done.

Some people just want to delude themselves into thinking that by doing that they'll get a loyal subscriber or just want to inflate a number so actual readers are motivated to subscribe or like, its kinda like when you have a lemonade stand and put $5 on the tip jar so people feel more inclined to buy/tip you.

Promotion threads -> I ignore them
People sending me DMs to sub to their stories -> "Sorry, its not of my liking" / "Sorry, I don't do sub x sub" / "Sorry but doing this feels shallow, I don't sub to other people just because they sub to me"

If it were my forum, I'll remove the ability to create Topics in said category and simply have 4 Topics there.

Road to Milestone (Comics)
Road to Milestone (Novels)
Share your latest update (Comics)
Share your latest update (Novels)

In Milestone, while making your goal you can do your introduction there and that's it. Then the other one can be used to spam whenever you have a new update.

To be fair, many just think that by spamming their updates on several Topics or creating their own, people will develop curiosity and check them out. Personally for me it just makes me ignore them even more. And nowadays, my DMs are only for work related stuff, so I know that if there are some compliments about my art/story I simply know someone is going to ask for a favor, usually to read them or give them something for free, so I'm already used to reject people.

Muting the promo Topics doesn't remove them from appearing on top of the Index of the Forum, besides it pushes down any other Topics, so try to scroll down and try to engage in other ones where the focus is not Self-Promotion.

Reminder once again that you can mute the entire promotions category and make the forum viewing experience significantly better:

But yeah, promotion is of course a good thing to do if you want to get eyes on your work, but you have to be smart about it. Spamming every single promotion thread + engaging in sub4sub is not it.

Please share how that works for you.

I really do like the tapas platform overall, they seem to be more community oriented than other sites, so I'm hesitant to be critical of the community. I don't do sub 4 sub myself, and it's always a bit of downer to have someone directly request a sub after they subscribe to your comic. Like, did you even read my comic or are you just here for yourself.

I try to add disclaimers for people to only sub if they actually enjoy the comic. Still, It seems like spamming the forums is one of the most surefire ways to get exposure on the cheap, but it would be awesome for there to be more avenues.

If anyone knows of good places to share our work, I'd love to see some examples.

-Mark

I don't know if that feature is broken but Promotions's Topics do appear in Latest even if I have the category muted.


Even from Settings on my profile, it just doesn't work.

That's why my best recommendation is to learn to ignore 'em

I use the promotion threads regularly, but very few of the interactions I've had seem disingenuous. I don't really do sub for sub so I find that the people who learn about my comic this way usually are there for genuine reasons. Overall it's been a good way for me to show my work to new people.

That being said, any "sub for sub?!?!" messages I receive just get ignored lol

Strange, it works for me. Maybe something in your settings is glitched?

Actually, have you been posting in the promo threads? Because I also immediately set every topic I post in to "normal" instead of "tracking."

I doubt it, it has been like that for almost 4 years now. I tried switching back or test another categories and it simply doesn't work. It won't surprise me it was due to certain updates.

And no, its been a long while since I've used the threads and I removed the tracking as well

Hm, I have no idea then, because this is what it looks like for me:

EDIT: Maybe this is it? I'm allergic to notification numbers, so I turned this off:

In a few words people around here like fake subs like if that was going to anything for them...

When Tapas was starting out/smaller, there were lots of thoughtful discussion threads to balance out the promos, but as time went on and the user base grew and grew, more new creators came here to promote.

I think there has also been a shift where once the forum was full of regulars, some of them found other places to talk like discord with their own enclosed servers. There they could get away from promo threads entirely.

A lot of newer users aren't posting "craft" threads either. There used to be a lot of "how to do this better" and critique threads, but those have basically dried up. I will say though, I used to provide critiques along with some other regulars, however, often those were brushed off. With this discouragement, we've essentially stopped.

The other thing that might influence it is that Tapas actively links new creators specifically to the Promotions board. The "share in the forums!" link on my dashboard was the first I ever heard that there was a forum here, even. :thinking:

I´m not sure what you mean with "please share how that works for you"
:slight_smile:
works great for me, but my motivation to visit the forum is only to communicate
with artists, nothing else

YES, this is one of my biggest issues with the forums. I just find it totally unnecessary. Is anyone actually getting any viewers out of these promotions?? I imagine a social media post would get you a lot more traffic than 20 forum posts. And besides that: why post so many times here anyway? If someone scrolled past your first five promotion link posts, what makes you think they’re going to click one of the next fifteen? It’s especially confusing when threads are nothing but links, with no descriptions or anything. If I wanted that, I could just go to uh… Tapas, lol. No shame to the creators who are using the promotions threads, but it’s such a strange thing to me.

And for those who feel like the promotions forum is their only hope, consider Discord promotion channels, Comic Ad Network, story/comic directories, and social media. These all get MUCH more exposure than the forum, and they’re either free or super cheap.

I too wonder. Perhaps because it's just so easy to post a link on the forum. For even a social media post you have to have an account, post a minimum of one image, a couple of words, and maybe find relevant hashtags.

But you can see how many of the links on the forum actually gets clicked. A little number will appear next to it.

The forum is kind of a shell of what it once was. With the rise of Tapas' official Discord server, and regulars leaving for greener pastures, this place has become neglected. It used to be pretty fun here, folks actually conversed like normal people rather than promo machines, and the higher up staff actually made community posts sometimes. It used to be closer to how Comicfury's forum is, with a more obnoxious layout. I sometimes wish it were still like that, but oh well, things change.

I have to say, as someone who was here for a little over 10 years now, I'm definitely much less motivated to interact... there isn't much to interact with, and I'm not interested in posting promos all the time. Even attempts at discussions are "Say 'X' about character, AND PROMOTE!" Like, damn, I'm so bored with it! The only thing I can think of that could start return to an actual community would be to put in effort to make more real discussion threads (Making it a rule in the thread to not promote where you want real discussion.), but that's easier said than done imo. I myself am a bit socially anxious, and have no idea how to start conversations. I'd probably just guinea pig off threads on Comicfury, then abandon the thread when people start talking. Lol