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Almost a year after their initial release, we have made some changes to the database guidelines. Of particular note is alterations made to the doujin anime rules and the removal of OEL from the allowed manga on this site.

Please review them as they will be brought into effect in quick order. For convenience they are linked here:
- Anime DB Guidelines
- Manga DB Guidelines
- Character & People DB Guidelines

While I suspect few (if any) will have qualms about the doujin changes, more users may be upset with our decision to remove OEL. I would like you to know that this was not an easy decision and there was an extensive discussion among the staff that lasted for many months. The problem with OEL stems from two key issues. First, much of what is marketed as manga by North American groups, such as TokyoPop, is actually closer to graphic novels than any kind of manga due to style, content, imagery, etc. and it is impossible to write guidelines to only include true OEL series. Second, our anime guidelines specifically restrict any animated media that is not Japanese/Korean/Chinese and FAQs specifically state Avatar is not allowed. As anime is the main target of the site, this demonstrates that OEL is truly outside of our scope. With the current revisions, our anime and manga guidelines are in sync with one another. Other factors certainly played into this decision, but these were two of the key points.

If there are any questions regarding these updates, please post in this thread. If you disagree with something in one of the guidelines, please keep in mind that you must present solid arguments for us to reconsider these rules. Any trolling or blatant abuse found in this thread will be addressed by our wonderful new forum mod team.

As always, we hope that these guidelines will make submissions move much more efficiently through the queue and will help to further communication between users and moderators.

Thanks,
MAL Staff

Thanks Kineta! The Guidelines are more clear now ^^

How lovely, it's too bad that there will still be complaints :<

In the light of the changes the following Touhou anime have been added to our database:

http://myanimelist.net/anime/9874/Touhou_Niji_Sousaku_Doujin_Anime:_Musou_Kakyou
http://myanimelist.net/anime/9875/Anime_Tenchou_x_Touhou_Project

Well finally. Even though I may disagree with one point or another (just details, mind you), I always thought it odd that the two teams didn't seem to be communicating / have been on the same page.

I've been reading the updated guidelines and I have no complaints. Actually it's d(-_^)good!!

Its too bad that OELs are going to be removed, but if its for the better of the site and everyone in the MAL family ^^ then I'm all for it. Great job as usual everyone :D

I have no problems with this, the rules seem fair and clear.

Thanks DB Admins.

Thanks , now it's seems it's more better :)

Has a decision been made on overall titles yet? Still a lot of variation with them in the DB. ("Neon Genesis Evangelion" instead "Shinseiki Evangelion" but "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu" instead of it's English title, etc.)

@lolita_mistrix: The decision has been made and initially this update was supposed to introduce the new rules with regard to the main titles as well. We decided to wait with that for now though, but at the same time we also wanted to release the rest of the updates today. That second Touhou entry had its premiere today, so it was a very good time to have both entries added...

Hm.. not a day after I find out about the new team and already changes are being made.. Well done. The rules are a bit more clear now, and the OEL thing.. well I think a great deal of us were wondering why it was on here, but a bit happy now that it was removed.. though I am not too happy that one of my best reviews was removed, oh well.

Now I wonder if there will be a system where we users can review both subs and dubs. After all the voices does decided somewhat of the enjoyment of the series. I can't tell how many times an anime was ruined for me because of the dubbing. 'shrugs' Brava.. now I am waiting for any changes in the forum guides.

These two things are unrelated--the db admins and db mods have been discussing these changes for a long time. Look forward to the forum mods contributing to the new forum rules.

You'll see no complaints from me. Only makes sense.

I think it's safe to say a large majority of users on here are rather antagonistic towards almost all forms of dubbing, making this a bad idea. A quick look at any discussion involving dubs on this forum will show you they rarely result in respectable posts and we can expect such behavior to spill over into even more parts of the site if your idea was ever implemented.

Honestly, MAL sure likes to turn a nice feature into "Serious business" >_>
I mean come on, I just use the site to add stuff to my list, who cares if you guys had OEL manga, it's just a plus to the site, it can't hurt to have it. But nooo, we must remove it.

Well its not affecting me so i guess im straight.

I'm a tiny bit sad about OEL going but I agree with this decision, it makes a lot of sense.
Clearer guidelines are always appreciated, good work everyone.

What I'm not very happy about would be this rule:

I understand why drama roles and such would not be listed on MAL, but does this apply also for drama CDs made from manga? Or anime -> game adaptations?

Edit: I think you should add to the Manga guidelines that no foreign titles (English aside) are allowed on MAL, as you did with anime.

Searching the DB a little, I also have a question: what about this and this? I see Ai Yazawa as one of the authors, will they get removed nonetheless?

Loxaris--

There's a few issues with listing drama CD (or video game) roles. The first being it's outside of our scope as mentioned. We don't list drama CDs, games, or voiced manga panel projects, so it's not relevant. The second, just where is all that information going to go? It was being shoved in the corner of people profiles and was practically unreadable and certainly unsearchable. You'd have to search out the voice actor directly and since we list nothing about those projects, you'd need to go off-site anyway. There's just better places to find this information. For example, I used this site a lot for BL Drama CDs, which are a huge part of that market.

And yes, Princess Ai will be removed. We always define by target audience--who was this manga/comic written for originally? In that case, the US. It's not uncommon for companies to hire illustrators as a marketing strategy, but that doesn't change this fact. This works both ways--it ensures works like Peepo Choo stay. After all, it runs in Morning 2, so why wouldn't it be manga like the other series running in that Japanese publication? Or writers who might live abroad, but still publish their works originally in Japan, like Yamazaki Mari, who writes one of the newest manga hits... from Lisbon. Nationality of the creator or where they live isn't as important as just who a work was written for and what company published it.

Hrmm.. I thought I mentioned that we needed to add the thing about foreign titles in on our side at some point. I'll look into it. Thanks.

This actually clears up a lot of things, no complaints what so ever ;)

But i was wondering whether scanlators would be ever listed like the fansubs :O