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Nov 19, 2010 6:06 PM
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Faerie Queen

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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
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Nov 19, 2010 6:29 PM
#2

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Thanks Kineta! The Guidelines are more clear now ^^
Saks_ByenaraNov 19, 2010 6:33 PM
Nov 19, 2010 6:33 PM
#3

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How lovely, it's too bad that there will still be complaints :<
Nov 19, 2010 6:35 PM
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Nov 19, 2010 6:46 PM
#5

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Kineta said:
With the current revisions, our anime and manga guidelines are in sync with one another.
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.
JadeMatrixNov 19, 2010 6:52 PM
脱ぎません!_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .

Nov 19, 2010 8:53 PM
#6

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I've been reading the updated guidelines and I have no complaints. Actually it's d(-_^)good!!
Nov 19, 2010 9:21 PM
#7
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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
Nov 19, 2010 11:23 PM
#8
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I have no problems with this, the rules seem fair and clear.

Thanks DB Admins.
Nov 20, 2010 1:11 AM
#9

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Thanks , now it's seems it's more better :)
Nov 20, 2010 2:56 AM

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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.)
Nov 20, 2010 5:38 AM
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@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...
Nov 20, 2010 6:22 AM

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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.

Nov 20, 2010 8:51 AM

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lovelyphantom said:
Hm.. not a day after I find out about the new team and already changes are being made.. Well done.

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.
Nov 20, 2010 5:15 PM

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You'll see no complaints from me. Only makes sense.
Nov 20, 2010 7:48 PM

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lovelyphantom said:
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.
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.
Nov 20, 2010 11:35 PM

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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.
Nov 21, 2010 12:27 AM

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Well its not affecting me so i guess im straight.
Nov 21, 2010 3:05 AM

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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:
+ Do not add any person roles, including drama/game/CD/etc., in Other Info.

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?
LoxarisNov 21, 2010 6:11 AM
------------------------
Database Guidelines
Denials: anime | manga
Modifications: anime | manga
-----------------------------------
Nov 21, 2010 9:02 AM

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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.
Nov 21, 2010 9:22 PM

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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
Nov 22, 2010 6:19 AM

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Excuse me, but what is this OEL thing?
Nov 22, 2010 6:33 AM
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KenShiRo-Sama said:
Excuse me, but what is this OEL thing?


Original English-Language manga
Nov 22, 2010 11:12 AM

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Thank you, homsar. I agree with this.
Nov 22, 2010 2:30 PM

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@shin-
it is actually pretty much the other way around for me: if I'm looking at the page of a seiyuu I like and see they have made also some drama CDs (or whatever) I might get interested enough to go out of my way and look for more info/downloads/etc. On the other hand I don't think I would go search on my own if the seiyuu has also taken part in such projects if the info is not written directly on their page - I'll just use that time to watch some more anime (maybe with that seyuu as part of the cast) or read some manga. That's why I found it to be convenient.
Anyway, this was just my little reasoning as a lazy person, I understand why you made this decision and that this is not something that my two cents here are going to change. I'll learn to use more the website that you linked in the future.

About Princess Ai, I see and that's fine, I am not knowledgeable about OEL anyway, and that was more of a question without any special interest than anything else. I guess I should have known on my own that definitions go by target audience and not author nationality, so it's only natural that such entries will be removed.

You are welcome, and thank you for your explanatory replies.
------------------------
Database Guidelines
Denials: anime | manga
Modifications: anime | manga
-----------------------------------
Nov 22, 2010 3:06 PM

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This is actually an improvement! OEL's were never meant to be on this site anyway.
Nov 23, 2010 2:26 AM

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Awesome. I agree with the whole removal of OEL.

Thanks. :)
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.~
Nov 24, 2010 12:28 AM

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Getting rid of the OELs makes sense, just a shame Yonen Buzz will have to go, as it's far more Japanese in "style, content, imagery" than a lot of "real" manga I've read.

One question: will Megatokyo stay or go, since it's been published in Japan by Kodansha? Just curious.

My only real critique is about this:
Chapter counts include not only the series’ chapter count [but any included one-shots, specials side-stories, prologues and oddly numbered chapters as well.

Upon first thought this makes sense. Hell, I've run into problems a few times where people are talking about different chapters of a manga in a chapter-specific discussion thread because of extra, non-main chapters, so it's good to have an official policy on "extra" chapters (it's also good to have a more realistic length listed). However, I worry about this for two related reasons:
1) Say I'm on officially titled "chapter 12" of XXXXX manga, but there have been two side-stories or "extra," oddly-numbered chapters (like 6.5 for instance). While everyone thinks of this as chapter 12, on my list it's actually chapter 14. This would get awfully confusing, especially considering the relative frequency of these "extra" chapters in manga (which would change the number offset fairly often), and would be even more confusing for people who read a large amount of manga in the first place.
2) I fear it would actually make the aforementioned chapter discussion thread numbering problem (which thankfully I've only encountered a few times so far) much, much worse, partly because of reason number 1 and partly because I just doubt people would pay attention to the policy when making chapter threads.
therubiconNov 24, 2010 12:33 AM
Nov 24, 2010 12:46 AM
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Faerie Queen

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Chapter counts aren't included on an entry until the series has completed. Thus, what tends to happen is if a series has 24 chapters and 2 included one-shots at the end, discussions will exist for chapters 1-24 and if someone really wants to talk about a one-shot, they'll tend to make a thread on it. The fact of the matter is most people don't use manga chapter discussions unless the series is really popular.

We can't have separate entries for every side-story, special and one-shot... the database would be enormous. But we need to be able to include the information for them where they've been published. While I realise the current situation isn't ideal, with our current tools this is the optimal set-up.
Nov 24, 2010 1:02 AM

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Kineta said:
Chapter counts aren't included on an entry until the series has completed. Thus, what tends to happen is if a series has 24 chapters and 2 included one-shots at the end, discussions will exist for chapters 1-24 and if someone really wants to talk about a one-shot, they'll tend to make a thread on it. The fact of the matter is most people don't use manga chapter discussions unless the series is really popular.

We can't have separate entries for every side-story, special and one-shot... the database would be enormous. But we need to be able to include the information for them where they've been published. While I realise the current situation isn't ideal, with our current tools this is the optimal set-up.

Perhaps that would not be a problem if most series only have one or two one-shots at the end, but many (the ones I was talking about) have a fair amount of them interspersed in no particular pattern in the middle of the manga. As such I can't see how it wouldn't get confusing either when making chapter discussion threads or hitting the "+" button on one's Manga List. And define "the series is really popular". I'm not sure what you mean as "popular" is pretty ambiguous, but I read a fair amount of manga that I would not normally define as "really popular" for which chapter discussion threads are used.

And I wasn't suggesting there be separate entries for all of these, that would get crazy. =/

Edit: oh, and what about Megatokyo?
Nov 24, 2010 1:52 PM

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zombieguy said:
Getting rid of the OELs makes sense, just a shame Yonen Buzz will have to go, as it's far more Japanese in "style, content, imagery" than a lot of "real" manga I've read.

Except "Yonen Buzz" isn't an OEL, since it was made in Germany and as far as I know a piece of work is considered an OEL when its " language of original publication is English" (wikipedia) and in case of Yonen Buzz, this is not the case. It's language of original publication is German.
Since there's no term for works such as Yonen Buzz, they use "OEL" although it's wrong.

Personally I think OEL are a problem, because... well, who's got the right to judge a piece of work when it comes to being 'japanese'? Or being as close to japanese manga in "style, content, imagery" as possible?
Seriously, manga as so different, I've seen some and thought those were Manhwa, while I thought others were drawn by western artists, while they were, in fact, "real" manga.

Still, I heavly disagree with the removal of OEL, because this is a site for Anime and Manga. Of course, first comes anime, it's the main theme here, thats obvious, but it's also a place for manga and OEL are the western versions of manga.
Manhwa and Manhua also differ from Manga in terms of style, content and imagery, it's just that those differences aren't this huge, because they're from asian countries as well.
When it comes down to it in terms of differences, it's exactly the same thing with OEL. They come from a different culture, so of course content, style and imagery are different and this is also the case when you take a look at Manhwa and Manhua.

To be fair, if OEL are removed, Manhwa and Manhua should be removed, too, because those aren't manga as well and it's usually pretty easy to tell a Manga and a Manhwa apart, because of certain differences. Nobody would ever begin to think about removing Manhwa and Manhua. Why? Well, I guess because they're more accepted in general?

There's a huge difference between OEL and "real" western comics. Western Comics can stay away, this is no place for them, but OEL are made to be "western" manga - intentionally and it's only natual western culture/tradition/imagery flows into it, but this doesn't change the fact those things are intended to be a western verson of manga.
And this is because I think they should be here.

Bash me, if you want to. This is just my opinion, but it's not intended to provoke someone.
I know perfectly well I wont change anything and the removal of OEL doesn't really affect me that much, because I haven't read this much OEL, but I still wanted to share my thoughts with you.
I perfectly know Mahwa and Manhua have a different background and their own history, but I think this is exactly why OELs are actually closer to being manga than those, because (unlike Manhwa and Manhua) OEL are inspired by manga. The others "do their own thing" and pretty much just.. happen to resemble manga? Just a guess.

This is such a complicated matter, but you have to look at the whole picture and not just OEL vs. Manga / color = black/white / japanese way of treating the "first time" vs. western standarts (seriously, nobody would behave like this here) / and so on. There's just more to it. There's the intention of the author, the audience who's supposed to read this, the influence of manga in OEL and so on and so on. I'm not really satisfied with the explanation: "It's not enough japanese-like in termns of imagery, style and content."
This just doesn't work out for me.

Like I said: just my opinion, you don't have to like it.

/sorry for mistakes, guys. It's late here and English is not my mother language...
kennikittyNov 24, 2010 1:57 PM
Nov 24, 2010 2:53 PM

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kennikitty said:
Since there's no term for works such as Yonen Buzz, they use "OEL" although it's wrong.

There actually was a specific term for those works on MAL, and that would be OFL - Original Foreign Languages. It got removed (along with all the OFL not published in English) with the first introduction of the Manga DB guidelines, as you can see here.
Then, the remaining OFL that were also published in English all got merged under the label OEL.
------------------------
Database Guidelines
Denials: anime | manga
Modifications: anime | manga
-----------------------------------
Nov 24, 2010 7:24 PM

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From what I've heard, most OELs are crap anyway. I didn't think they belonged on the site, to be honest. But whatever.

I'm fine with these changes, honestly. And on the dub thing, I reckon we should have an option that lets us choose whether we watched the series subbed, dubbed or both. If that's possible.

I mean, I don't watch dubs nowadays, but I used to. I'm sure many of us did when we were just getting into anime.
Nov 28, 2010 6:56 AM

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Lots of overhauling lately. I like.
Nov 28, 2010 3:16 PM
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Kineta said:
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


The bit I understood, I agree with. but please stop talking gobbbly goog and use proper English and not abbreviations such as OEL, as not all of us are up on the slang
Nov 28, 2010 11:36 PM

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zombieguy said:
Kineta said:
Chapter counts aren't included on an entry until the series has completed. Thus, what tends to happen is if a series has 24 chapters and 2 included one-shots at the end, discussions will exist for chapters 1-24 and if someone really wants to talk about a one-shot, they'll tend to make a thread on it. The fact of the matter is most people don't use manga chapter discussions unless the series is really popular.

We can't have separate entries for every side-story, special and one-shot... the database would be enormous. But we need to be able to include the information for them where they've been published. While I realise the current situation isn't ideal, with our current tools this is the optimal set-up.

Perhaps that would not be a problem if most series only have one or two one-shots at the end, but many (the ones I was talking about) have a fair amount of them interspersed in no particular pattern in the middle of the manga. As such I can't see how it wouldn't get confusing either when making chapter discussion threads or hitting the "+" button on one's Manga List. And define "the series is really popular". I'm not sure what you mean as "popular" is pretty ambiguous, but I read a fair amount of manga that I would not normally define as "really popular" for which chapter discussion threads are used.

And I wasn't suggesting there be separate entries for all of these, that would get crazy. =/

Edit: oh, and what about Megatokyo?

So anyone going to answer me or what?
Nov 29, 2010 12:32 AM
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belldandy2009 said:
The bit I understood, I agree with. but please stop talking gobbbly goog and use proper English and not abbreviations such as OEL, as not all of us are up on the slang
OEL is proper english and you could have googled it faster than it took you to make a post. This is like saying "I don't know what manga is, use proper english." Not to mention if you bothered to read the thread, you'd see a few posts above you did the googling for you and included a link to wikipedia.

zombieguy said:
Edit: oh, and what about Megatokyo?
We go by target audience. Megatokyo's target audience is not Japan/China/Korea and therefore is considered OEL even if it was subsequently published in Japan.
Nov 29, 2010 11:25 AM

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No complaints here. It also looks like the website/DB is running a little smoother now!
Keep it up! =)

Nov 30, 2010 2:53 PM

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Standard complaint concerning the exclusion of anime made for export. Consequently, while I do not personally lament the heralded removal of Twighlight from the database, I still maintain any work where the artwork (really the defining characteristic for anime/manga) was done by a Japanese company should be included. I'm not familiar enough with OELs to know if any such specific instance exists, but I'll object to it for the sake of the hypothetical.

At the very least, the guidelines for anime and manga are now in-sync with eachother (if not quite consistent in and of themselves). Satisfactory progress.
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Dec 1, 2010 5:08 PM
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I get why the OEL had to be removed. It was either that, or let Avatar: The Last Airbender be listed as an Anime of the OEL variety. And I can tell you, some people aren't ready for that, and some people have such huge disagreements on the matter that at this point, it is the best option.

I do have one question though. As the staff is going through removing the OEL, would it be possible to move the threads that are attached to a different spot so that people can still discuss them. Twilight's going to be removed, but I wouldn't mind discussing it with other people.

I am also going to guess that the Marvel/DC based Anime are going to stay due to them being geared towards a Japanese audience despite the originals being American?
Dec 1, 2010 7:41 PM

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Western comics have been discussed (usually in contrast to manga) in the manga discussion, so I bet the Twilight thread can be moved to the general manga board. BIANAFM (but I am not a forum mod).

Richard Gere starred in a (very boring) movie about Hachiko. Does that mean it's a Japanese movie? No, it's not.

And this is mostly in reference to earlier, but I'm not going to reply to every title posted where the answer about its removal was clearly given in my earlier statement. Target audience. And yes, that is the general "official" response.
Dec 3, 2010 12:59 PM

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The only one I care about is "Manga panels with voice acting" since thanks to that I lost one of my favorites from my completed list.

I completely agree with OEL being removed, in Japan that can be considered manga since they call all comics that, but not here. There are plenty of Western comic book and graphic novel sites, we don't need them invading MAL. I don't see the need for people to use MAL to track their progress in a non-Japanese (or Chinese or Korean if you really must) comic book just because it's "inspired by" manga. Like someone just decided to draw big eyes and add a couple Japanese names and call it manga.
lostintokyoDec 3, 2010 1:10 PM
Dec 4, 2010 12:45 AM

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zombieguy said:
My only real critique is about this:
Chapter counts include not only the series’ chapter count [but any included one-shots, specials side-stories, prologues and oddly numbered chapters as well.

Upon first thought this makes sense. Hell, I've run into problems a few times where people are talking about different chapters of a manga in a chapter-specific discussion thread because of extra, non-main chapters, so it's good to have an official policy on "extra" chapters (it's also good to have a more realistic length listed). However, I worry about this for two related reasons:
1) Say I'm on officially titled "chapter 12" of XXXXX manga, but there have been two side-stories or "extra," oddly-numbered chapters (like 6.5 for instance). While everyone thinks of this as chapter 12, on my list it's actually chapter 14. This would get awfully confusing, especially considering the relative frequency of these "extra" chapters in manga (which would change the number offset fairly often), and would be even more confusing for people who read a large amount of manga in the first place.
2) I fear it would actually make the aforementioned chapter discussion thread numbering problem (which thankfully I've only encountered a few times so far) much, much worse, partly because of reason number 1 and partly because I just doubt people would pay attention to the policy when making chapter threads.
zombieguy said:
Kineta said:
Chapter counts aren't included on an entry until the series has completed. Thus, what tends to happen is if a series has 24 chapters and 2 included one-shots at the end, discussions will exist for chapters 1-24 and if someone really wants to talk about a one-shot, they'll tend to make a thread on it. The fact of the matter is most people don't use manga chapter discussions unless the series is really popular.

We can't have separate entries for every side-story, special and one-shot... the database would be enormous. But we need to be able to include the information for them where they've been published. While I realise the current situation isn't ideal, with our current tools this is the optimal set-up.

Perhaps that would not be a problem if most series only have one or two one-shots at the end, but many (the ones I was talking about) have a fair amount of them interspersed in no particular pattern in the middle of the manga. As such I can't see how it wouldn't get confusing either when making chapter discussion threads or hitting the "+" button on one's Manga List. And define "the series is really popular". I'm not sure what you mean as "popular" is pretty ambiguous, but I read a fair amount of manga that I would not normally define as "really popular" for which chapter discussion threads are used.

And I wasn't suggesting there be separate entries for all of these, that would get crazy. =/

So am I not going to get a serious response to this? Since it said in the OP provide a good argument and it seems I wasn't taken seriously, I did a little research.

Of the first 100 series listed one Mangafox that have at least 20 chapters, 52 had at least one strangely numbered (henceforth referred to as "extra") chapters of at least 5 pages for a total of 247 (average: 4.75 per series). If you take out the series with only extra chapters at the beginning or end of the series (which Kineta seemed to imply was the norm), the number only goes down to 48. Only 9 of those chapters at all were at the beginning or the end of a completed manga. 38 of the series had two or more extra chapters, 29 had three or more, 17 had five or more, and 7 had ten or more. Bleach alone had 21 extra chapters. If you take into account that more than 2/5ths of these series were unfinished and extrapolate, the count would be higher, considerably so for some.

Furthermore, if we're suddenly really picky about accurately measuring the length of a manga, chapters are a bad unit anyway, since the number of a pages in a chapter sometimes varies wildly from series to series or even chapter to chapter.

I just can't see how this would not get very confusing, and I'm not going to repeat myself, but my original post and response is quoted above. I would greatly appreciate it if someone would take the time to more adequately explain to me why they feel otherwise. I mean absolutely no offense towards Kineta when I say this (I understand the last thing she probably wants to do is give a drawn-out explanation when she probably has far more important things to deal with in real life and otherwise), and it is not intended as a flame at all, but she didn't address the first half of my concern at all, and in my opinion her response to the second half seemed to only bring up vague non-relevant points that I already knew.

Again, I don't mean to seem like a whiny ass. I know you guys put in a lot of work to maintain the database, and it is greatly appreciated. oh, and sorry for the wall of text. =/
therubiconDec 4, 2010 1:40 AM
Dec 5, 2010 8:12 PM

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Jan 2010
40
freedoleen said:
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


I've never understood why ATxTP couldn't be added to begin with. It's a professional project by ufotable, not a doujin circle's work. Maybe it's just me, but the updated guidelines aren't very clear about what finally "allowed" it to be added to the database.
Dec 6, 2010 12:58 AM

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9157
Since I add quite a number of characters in the MAL database each season, the guidelines were good enough to refresh my idea. I usually followed the majority of guidelines by following the already available Character Descriptions. The only thing that I wasn't making sure was

Section III: Character Pictures

* 225x350 pixel dimensions pictures preferred.


So, I will make sure to do that in the future. Not that I was adding insanely off the preferred dimensions or anything.

Some of my sample Character Additions are:
Example 1. First Impression: Minakami Mario (RAINBOW)
Example 2. Character Development: Susukihotaru (Otome Youkai Zakuro)
Example 3. General Information (/w source): Minazuki Sayaka (Glass no Kamen)
Example 4. Containing Major Spoilers: Nukku (Kemono no Souja Erin)
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Dec 7, 2010 1:58 AM

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Dec 2009
1464
Why the "/Korean/Chinese"? In what cases are these included in the database?
Dec 7, 2010 4:12 AM

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640
XTApocalypse said:
Why the "/Korean/Chinese"? In what cases are these included in the database?


It's called Manhwa: http://myanimelist.net/manga/595/Id
Dec 7, 2010 5:11 AM
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1824
Daverost said:
freedoleen said:
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


I've never understood why ATxTP couldn't be added to begin with. It's a professional project by ufotable, not a doujin circle's work. Maybe it's just me, but the updated guidelines aren't very clear about what finally "allowed" it to be added to the database.

The problem with ATxTP was that ZUN did not approve it. We would probably add it anyway, yet there still were some doubts about it. Latest update made the entry a little more "legitimate".

XTApocalypse said:
Why the "/Korean/Chinese"? In what cases are these included in the database?

If you're interested in the reasoning behind allowing Korean/Chinese animation and manhwa & manhwa, I recommend you reading my posts in this thread. I explained it there.
Dec 11, 2010 5:59 AM

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Dec 2010
27
YES! Down with OEL!! And anything else that is not Japanese. Also korean manhwa has no place here!
Dec 17, 2010 4:26 PM

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900
I'm not going to get an answer, eh? So much for "further(ing) communication between users and moderators."

It would be nice if all those new moderators would actually answer people when they have problems instead of just wondering around looking for any possible infraction they can discipline. But then, I guess that would be the productive thing to do..
Dec 17, 2010 7:24 PM

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Aug 2008
3197
Not all of us like typing out responses to things decided years ago that make our system work better than if they weren't in place, but whatever. That means you’re stuck with me I suppose.

Who are all these new mods are you talking about? I must be out of the loop—we got new forum mods, who have nothing to do with the guidelines or answering questions about them.

First—that policy has been in place a LONG time, long before I ever became a mod. So I don’t know the “official” reason, but I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what Kineta said—it would be an unruly mess with every little thing having its own separate entry, showing up in multiple places, etc. We don't like ambiguous messes in the data in general.

And what’s the big problem with forum threads? Specific, multiple examples are needed if you expect us to actually address something (another reason it was passed over and given a vague response as you claim). So instead, I get to hand-wave.

If I was going to start a chapter discussion of Chapter 6.5, I would actually call it “Chapter 6.5” in the thread title, not 7. The number we list is the TOTAL NUMBER OF CHAPTERS and has nothing to do with the thread names. So a manga entry with a total of 63 chapters can have 60 story numbered chapters, a oddly numbered one like 6.5, and two separate oneshots, whose discussion threads can be titled with the oneshots’ respective titles. Total = 63. That little checkbox to automate the thread name is there to help you--it’s not absolute. If it is ambiguous (honestly, users are pretty clueless and/or don’t care/certainly have zero thought towards accuracy when they start these things), report it and a forum mod (one of these new mods you’re talking about) will use a little common sense to sort it out. Poorly titled chapter discussions are a rare case of a secondary function (forum discussions) and will not control the primary information about vol/chapter counts.
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