Yo why does it seem like everyone on the internet hate tapastic?

[birdsketch]

Honestly, I feel like different comic hosting sites appeal to different audiences? Like, I generally know what kind of comics tapastic has (lots of romance / YA comics) vs... Smackjeeves or Drunk Duck. So it makes sense certain people may dislike tapastic if they don't like to read certain genres. I don't think it has to do with the community or anything.

Though, there are some artist circles who distrust tapastic a lot after the TOS debate a few months ago, but that's creators and not readers.

[LordVincent]

Except only 3 BL comics ever got the spotlight, of which one was never played off as a BL in the spotlight, but rather a psychological horror comic since it was spotlighted during Halloween week..??

[NanettesClouds]

If this thread IS going to continue and people still want to have a discussion about this I would like to see the topic shift more towards what creators and community members can do to help improve tapas's public image, and perhaps also discuss things we as a community can do to improve the site and make it more accessible, as long as that part of the discussion isn't centered around BL again.

cough If we could please move the conversation forward instead of rehashing the same conversation I would appreciate that.

[Kura]

I don't know about everyone, but I do have a lot of friends that really hate it, as well as a lot of readers that absolutely refuse to read on it. I don't bother to ask them to go into detail on why they dislike it, if they don't wanna read or use it I'm not going to harass them to.

Though a few have complained to me on it being a 'smut site' as opposed to a comic site. On the reader end they don't want to get in trouble for reading in public/at work. On the creator end they don't want their series associated with what could be easily mistaken as a porn site because it will influence badly where they are working or trying to get work.

[keii4ii]

Though a few have complained to me on it being a 'smut site' as opposed to a comic site.

I wonder if that's got anything to do with the log in --> NSFW glitch that got fixed very recently...

Unrelated to NSFW, but I do know some people who don't want to read on Tapas (among them at least one person who used to be an active member, but left) because of the scrolling glitch.

[Kura]

Oh yeah that was a huge issue, I lost a good number of readers to that glitch now that you bring it up.

Heck I know I stopped reading as much on the site compared to what I used to because of it.

[Luminosophy]

What's this right of refusal thing people are talking about?

[heterodont]

ye' months ago someone noticed that tapas added a clause that basically boiled down to you had to approach them first before pitching your story to any other publisher and you had to wait 30~ days before they said yes/no to your pitch. Typically the same amount of waiting time that any other publisher would take to get back to you.

However, with the combination of the incorrect terminology (right of first refusal vs right of first offer iirc), people reading far too into it, and fear mongering, people took it to assume once you uploaded your comics to tapas they had ALL the rights to your story and you couldn't leave to pitch it to say, hiveworks for example.

After a day or two, the staff removed the clause entirely from the TOS yet people still think the website is just out to steal intellectual property.

[Luminosophy]

So basically like the TOS scare that still circles tumblr about Deviantart's clause on their rights to your work. Realistically they're just covering their butts in case people try to sue them for hosting thumbnails of your art where as people have taken it to mean DA can sell your art to clothing companies and what not.

[Herofeeder]

i dont understand what you are saying

[NanettesClouds]

Spotlight =/= to Trending. Over Tapastic's history, only 3 BL comics have been Spotlight-ed, and in one of those cases the comic was marketed as Horror and not BL.

Also while I'm at it I wanna say that maybe only 40% (I'm being generous) of the trending tab at any given moment is BL, and the remaining 60% is a diverse mix of Comedy, Horror, Sci-fi, Fantasy, ETC.

[PaulDevers]

I LOVE to see comics with LGBTQ representation as an afterthought rather than as the focus. I adore adventure comics or science fiction comics that just say "hey, her wife did this thing" and then move on with the story.
This. This is the important part, honestly. I think if a comic/story's whole point is that X character is LGBTQ, then it's kind of missing the point. An entire character shouldn't be built around them being gay, for example. If I presented a character whose whole point was to shout about how heterosexual he was, that'd be ridiculous.
Though, thinking about that, that may just be a kind of funny joke to make in general!

[isaacfriedman]

I've seen this exact joke used from time to time, but usually as a throw-away gag from College humor or Seth Macfarlane. It might be legitimately funny to see a recurring secondary character whose entire point is "I'm STRAAAAAAAAAIGHT!!!"

[GoldenPlume]

Also while I'm at it I wanna say that maybe only 40% (I'm being generous) of the trending tab at any given moment is BL

The data gathering and processing is probably far more time consuming than what its probably worth, but we would be interested to know if BLs are taking up more and more "market share" of the homepage tiles month-over-month vs. non BLs. When we first joined in April 2016 it seemed like BL was less common than it is now but that is a observation hampered by recall bias.

[Testaccount]

I didn't even know this was a thing.

I know some writers who are uneasy about joining Tapas. They don't like the coin system and charging readers for chapters. Basically, if they sell their stories, they are losing first rights.

I did notice a lot of BL in the comics section, which seems to be the opposite of the novel section.

[Testaccount]

That's interesting. I used to write on Wattpad, and that website has a reputation for producing poorly written stories. And yes, those same stories are getting premium on here and are getting published in real life.

I feel most story sharing websites get bad raps once more people know about them. Wattpad used to be and still is a bunch of sex stories.

[Kura]

Written porn is handled a little differently than visual porn, and since the visual porn in question is drawings, and atm western media thinks drawing/cartoons are mostly for kids, if you're trying to break out in that industry you're starting gate will likely be children's media, because of that it does affect poorly depending on what job you're getting or looking into.

But yeah, have been asking around for more on this because I became curious after this thread popped up, and the issues people have with the site that make them refuse to use it are 95% of the time NOT related AT ALL IN ANY WAY to the ToS issue.

In fact, the most common concern seems to be

• errors with the site or ap
• not being able to read because of site formatting or site errors
• not being able to find series or see their own series anywhere on the site unless searching specifically, fresh not granting enough exposure time of the options available.
• not being able to find series or know how to make your series visible because of how bad the search functions are, tags not working, genres being limited.
• getting a bad auto redirect ad
• tumblr-esk fanbase in concerns to creators and commentators (??? I don't really understand that one as I mostly don't understand the tumblr issue?

With the two most common being

• the porn and not wanting that associated with their portfolio (with those that do use using the site while working in art jobs or jobs with children, using the site like a second personality / different person so that people will be less likely to guess it's by them. This goes for creators with and WITHOUT smut series)
• featured series. (doesn't have to be porn) user uploaded content just doesn't get enough traction, they can't compete against featured series seeing all the promotion. Artists without existing fan-bases to bring over from somewhere else , especially of it doesn't fit into what they (not the site, the creator in question) view is popular here (BL pretty boy smut) have a hard time making it here and eventually dump it for other options.

[Testaccount]

You bring up a great point about an established fanbase to bring over here and featured works. I know for a fact most of the Premium stories here are from Wattpad, with an already established fanbase.

The Wattpad writers who are now posting their work here are still offering their work for free on Wattpad. In a way, I feel that's screwing over your readers, but whatever.

I totally agree with you about the Premium stories and the ads promoting them. I've only been on this site for a week, and I've seen how they promote the Premium stories so much here. I was hoping to gain a new fanbase on Tapas, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen.

As for the artists worried about their reputation, I can understand that. That's another reason I left the old writing site I was on.

I was hoping things would be better here, but who knows.

[blackopsracing321]

Is Taps synonymous with porn? I've been on the site for a while and I think I've only seen one series that was blatantly porn, although to be fair I'm not actively looking for it. I thought the staff would shut down any comic getting too...adult...

[joannekwan]

They have shut down adult porn comics before! Notably Playfur.

They e-mailed the creator and then took down the episodes, but left the series in tact so that subs weren't lost and the creator could upload censored versions.

I haven't seen any really explicit stuff since.
But I guess there are people out there who automatically lump BL with porn even if it's far from it.