Hi All
I’ve read in a few places that bots might subscribe to some series, is this correct?
If so, what do they gain by doing it?!
Thanks
Danny
created
Mar '18last reply
Mar '18- 12
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I might be wrong, but have you heard about 'buying likes'? It the same as that. You pay for the subscriber on a site (wherever it is) and you just wait for the result. Its used on YouTube, instagram, etc. You just need to pick to buy subscriber or likes.
I heard this might be the case on Webtoons but I don't think that happens here. You can keep track of subscribers on Tapastic, but on Webtoons, unless they comment, I have no idea who reads there.
Why it might be done, I have no idea.
It gives a false impression of the site by making it seem better than it really is. I am now 95% certain that LINE uses bots to help bolster its appearance. Several things overall have pointed to an indication that LINE's vastly superior readership is rather off.
1.) According to traffic information, LINE's traffic is only around 8x higher than Tapas, but people notice an influx of readership anywhere from 10-50x+ what they get here. Despite such a massive difference in subs though, many people notice that the actual interaction of readers is often lower than it is on Tapas.
2.) Because LINE doesn't give information on its readers, unlike Tapas, there's no way to tell how much of the interaction you get it real and how much is created by bots.
3.) There's a questionable motive too. LINE holds such a vast superiority of readers yet its overall design is remarkably inferior. There's literally no way for creators to have any real control of their series. There's no forum to discuss things with other people. The notification system is pretty much non-existent. Severe limits have been placed on updating comics such as only being .JPEG and being extremely stingy with its page sizes. A creator has no way to deal with readers beyond a report button. Overall, for a site boasting some of the biggest readerships of a comic hosting site, it is surprisingly lacking in even some of the most fundamental aspects.
And then something happened to me that only enhanced my views that LINE is using bots to bolster its appearance. Around February I decided to delete most of my work from LINE, leaving only a single post saying people could come to Tapas. Around this point I had about 320 subs, though very, very, very few actual interactive readers.
I returned 2 weeks later to check up on things and saw the sub count drop to 310. Already I began to question something. If these were all "real" readers, then why were so many still on? Why didn't any of them unsub, or if they truly were reading my work, leave a message.
I returned another 2 weeks later, ready to full delete the series and what I saw baffled me. Without making a single post. Without making a single update. I had jumped from 310 subs to 360 subs. That's right, I jumped up 50 subs in the span of about 2 weeks. Once again, no interaction though. I thought to myself, what is this joke? 50 some people actually went up to my work and looked at a post basically saying "Screw LINE, go to Tapas" and said.
Yeah, I want to sub to that.
I have no direct proof, but after all that's happened, I again really question the legitimacy of LINE's readership and while Tapas may have some guilt too, it feels nowhere near as bad as it does with LINE.
I definitely have some bots in my subs. They keep unsubbing and subbing again.
It's annoying really.
Same thing happens to me. Or at least I assume it is bots. (but when I lose subs it is always 5 at a time over a week period and then I gain subs again)
Let's for argument sake say this is the case. What then does this say about LINE and it's readers? As I said, since February I had deleted everything and left one little post, no illustrations, no drawings, nothing. Just a bit of text and that's it. Assuming that page isn't randomly generated, it brings up several questions.
The first question is, if these are stories that are specifically chosen by LINE, it's very clear they didn't bother to read mine or else they'd know. Then again, I won't be surprised if this is again, randomly generated somehow.
The second question then involves the readers. If those readers are legitimate then it brings up questions about them. Mainly being, why did you bother subbing to something that barely even exists? I see this and assuming the readers are legitimate, what I see is basically a big fat lie. These readers don't care one bit for my story and I know this because if they did, they wouldn't sub to what is essentially nothing. If they cared at all, they'd leave messages and seek out questions.
Sometimes, readers may read a page and sub to it, deciding later on to continue it. The fact that I got 50+ readers on what is a one page, piece of text, again makes me question either the legitimacy of the readers or how much they care. I've noticed it on other series too, far more popular than what I had also. I've seen series with 1,000s of subs barely hitting 20 likes or 5 comments.
I dare say that of the reader's on LINE, only 10% actually feel legitimate. As in, these are the people who really want to read your work and really want to support you in some way. Therefore while a series with 100+ subs seems pretty nice, only about 10 of them come off as real supporters.
The only exception to this rule may be Romance series and even then, they build up a greater number of readers so that point may still remain. Assuming these readers are real, what I see is a bunch of mindless slaves that saw a pretty avatar (and let's be honest, my avatar wasn't even that interesting or good) and just clicked on it and clicked sub.
I don't want zombies, I want readers. Which is why getting readers on Tapas has been harder, I also feel it has delivered more interaction in the long run.
Oh, that front page section is definitely staff-picked. They replaced your comic a few days after when they probably noticed it was inactive.
Back on topic, I honestly don't notice any difference in an engagement ratio between Tapas and Webtoon readers. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ People who leave likes are roughly 8-10% of my subscribers on both. I think all sites have bots, but they're probably not as big a number as people suspect.
I have half the subs here on Tapas than on Webtoons. But on Tapas, I get on average 10 likes per post and 3-5 comments from readers. On Webtoons, even though I have subs, I only get 3-5 likes per post and 1 comment every other 5 updates. It is easy to believe that most of my subs on Webtoons are algorithm ghosts.
