Related Anime/Manga Section Changes

@flammeur
The low scores are the original scores. They increased regularly over the past couple of months and have been returned to normal. It's possible bots were involved. I wish the admins would put out an official statement, because it's basically gaslighting if they pretend that nothing happened.
https://myanimelist.net/stacks/44765

@YoshiYogurt
There are three things that are annoying about the change.

1. The inconsistent design style,
   
2. the bad readability of the "important" relations,
   
3. and the fact that you have to fold out to see all relations.
   

1. This makes the whole thing look weird and disorienting because of how different the style is, as if the two parts aren't actually the same section - but they are. The "big" style is instead consistent with the unrelated character and creator sections, that are separated by the rest of the relations and then a row of MxJ ads from their design "sibling".
2. The "important" relations are not in a list but a two-column design, making them harder to parse as you have to check the type for each one and then see what the entry is, while not offering any real value in the small preview images provided. It's the same issue as with everything that's not a straight list.
3. This means a lot of extra clicks, and because it hides some of the most important relations because they're not deemed important by default (e.g. Macross: Do You Remember Love is the most important relation to Macross, and it's in the dropdown, while decades-later novelizations that nobody has read are featured in the big section.), it'll lead to confusion, especially among newer users. Not everyone will always go out of their way to check all relations, especially when they're now more hidden.

Now I agree that the previous design was not great, just being a big run-on of titles in each category, and I think that the new one-per-row compact style with proper release order is much more readable and intuitive, while adding new information (show type). It's just unfortunate that it's ruined by the "important" relations section that dominates the section now while not at all fitting into it. If it was all the more compact style, this would be a universally positive change, but as it is, it's self-sabotaged.

So I'd recommend just changing the whole thing to the new compact style, leaving it expanded (at least up to a bigger size, maybe 10-20 entries - 4 isn't a lot, and in the compact style 8-10 titles will fit into the space of 4 big ones, depending on relation type, and it'd still be considerably smaller than some of the large relation lists in the old style). Those changes would make it way more useable, and the only real cost is no images that nobody needed anyway.

@YoshiYogurt It is because now I need to click to expand pretty much every time just to see sequels/related content when it was fully visible before.

@YoshiYogurt
There are three things that are annoying about the change.

1. The inconsistent design style,
   
2. the bad readability of the "important" relations,
   
3. and the fact that you have to fold out to see all relations.
   

1. This makes the whole thing look weird and disorienting because of how different the style is, as if the two parts aren't actually the same section - but they are. The "big" style is instead consistent with the unrelated character and creator sections, that are separated by the rest of the relations and then a row of MxJ ads from their design "sibling".
2. The "important" relations are not in a list but a two-column design, making them harder to parse as you have to check the type for each one and then see what the entry is, while not offering any real value in the small preview images provided. It's the same issue as with everything that's not a straight list.
3. This means a lot of extra clicks, and because it hides some of the most important relations because they're not deemed important by default (e.g. Macross: Do You Remember Love is the most important relation to Macross, and it's in the dropdown, while decades-later novelizations that nobody has read are featured in the big section.), it'll lead to confusion, especially among newer users. Not everyone will always go out of their way to check all relations, especially when they're now more hidden.

Now I agree that the previous design was not great, just being a big run-on of titles in each category, and I think that the new one-per-row compact style with proper release order is much more readable and intuitive, while adding new information (show type). It's just unfortunate that it's ruined by the "important" relations section that dominates the section now while not at all fitting into it. If it was all the more compact style, this would be a universally positive change, but as it is, it's self-sabotaged.

So I'd recommend just changing the whole thing to the new compact style, leaving it expanded (at least up to a bigger size, maybe 10-20 entries - 4 isn't a lot, and in the compact style 8-10 titles will fit into the space of 4 big ones, depending on relation type, and it'd still be considerably smaller than some of the large relation lists in the old style). Those changes would make it way more useable, and the only real cost is no images that nobody needed anyway.

We finally have LN and Mangas indicated properly on the anime page, although I still don't like the "alternative version" crap on manga/ln pages for the same series. It's a manga adaptation of a light novel, not an alternative version. An alternative version would be let's say a reboot or a retelling from another perspective, not an adaptation. I like the images though, it looks nice on the page.

Also it would be cool if there was a LN List on one's userpage and the "chapters" counter disappeared from LN entries as it's completely useless (who thought that was a good idea? LNs don't have a global chapter count listed anywhere. They start like "Vol. 5, ch. 1", who knows how many chapters have there been in preceding volumes?). But hell will sooner freeze over than those common sense things get implemented.

@Lucifrost
If you look at the scores individually it was just the score average from all users independently from who scored and if the anime was in watching, completed, dropped, etc... It was a very logical score system so there's no way that MAL was virtually increasing them.

Now you may be right that bots were involved, I saw a lot of people talking about it too but how are they spotted by the scoring system, does mal have a list or did MAL made the bot accounts themselves (for what reason would they do that???).

In the end it's very frustrating that we had no official statement about it and that the scoring system became weighted in a way or another, if they published the new scoring algorithm it would help a lot but with the trend of hiding the algorithms for social network nowadays we may never have a clear answer.

@Lucifrost
If you look at the scores individually it was just the score average from all users independently from who scored and if the anime was in watching, completed, dropped, etc... It was a very logical score system so there's no way that MAL was virtually increasing them.

Now you may be right that bots were involved, I saw a lot of people talking about it too but how are they spotted by the scoring system, does mal have a list or did MAL made the bot accounts themselves (for what reason would they do that???).

In the end it's very frustrating that we had no official statement about it and that the scoring system became weighted in a way or another, if they published the new scoring algorithm it would help a lot but with the trend of hiding the algorithms for social network nowadays we may never have a clear answer.

@flammeur
MAL has used weighted scores for ages, and you should not expect it to agree with the average you calculate from the stats page of a show. This is not new, and it is mentioned and explained, e.g. in the "How do we rate shows?" link on the Top Anime page, in the hover over a show's score or in the statistics section on the left of the anime page.
Here's the direct link to the explanation:
https://myanimelist.net/info.php?go=topanime

The only changes to it that I can remember are that MAL has started filtering out illegitimate votes, and that around the same time the minimum number of votes was increased to further reduce manipulation. This was like 5 years ago though.

In this specific case, the botting was most likely done with accounts that had their list hidden, so their scores fed into the calculation but only MAL admins could actually see the accounts responsible. It was noticed due to the anomalous score rises since mid-April, and confirmed with data that tracked user numbers and score over time, and it clearly showed unnatural member growth along with unnatural score rise. This information was fed to MAL staff, and presumably they have identified the accounts responsible and have started filtering them out now, which is why most shows returned to scores around or slightly lower than they were in early April 2024. Some shows have had larger rebounds, and it's not quite clear why, but it may have to do with other bots getting filtered as well, or that factors in the weighted calculation have shifted in such a way as to lower the score further. MAL obviously keeps secrets when it comes to detecting and filtering bots, so we'll likely never know, but it's presumably something like this, and not an actual change in the scoring formula.




Yes, it can improve, my critique is explicitly pointing out how they can improve it. I hope they change it, but MAL's previous actions when it comes to polarizing changes aren't confidence-inspiring.

I also don't think people are delusional for not liking an update that is worse than the previous implementation in more than one way, even if it is better in other aspects. And it's not like seeing the type of an entry in the related list is all the info one would want to know about an entry, so you'd have to open it anyway, so you aren't even saving that one click (that you invested to open the dropdown).

@flammeur
MAL has used weighted scores for ages, and you should not expect it to agree with the average you calculate from the stats page of a show. This is not new, and it is mentioned and explained, e.g. in the "How do we rate shows?" link on the Top Anime page, in the hover over a show's score or in the statistics section on the left of the anime page.
Here's the direct link to the explanation:
https://myanimelist.net/info.php?go=topanime

The only changes to it that I can remember are that MAL has started filtering out illegitimate votes, and that around the same time the minimum number of votes was increased to further reduce manipulation. This was like 5 years ago though.

In this specific case, the botting was most likely done with accounts that had their list hidden, so their scores fed into the calculation but only MAL admins could actually see the accounts responsible. It was noticed due to the anomalous score rises since mid-April, and confirmed with data that tracked user numbers and score over time, and it clearly showed unnatural member growth along with unnatural score rise. This information was fed to MAL staff, and presumably they have identified the accounts responsible and have started filtering them out now, which is why most shows returned to scores around or slightly lower than they were in early April 2024. Some shows have had larger rebounds, and it's not quite clear why, but it may have to do with other bots getting filtered as well, or that factors in the weighted calculation have shifted in such a way as to lower the score further. MAL obviously keeps secrets when it comes to detecting and filtering bots, so we'll likely never know, but it's presumably something like this, and not an actual change in the scoring formula.




Yes, it can improve, my critique is explicitly pointing out how they can improve it. I hope they change it, but MAL's previous actions when it comes to polarizing changes aren't confidence-inspiring.

I also don't think people are delusional for not liking an update that is worse than the previous implementation in more than one way, even if it is better in other aspects. And it's not like seeing the type of an entry in the related list is all the info one would want to know about an entry, so you'd have to open it anyway, so you aren't even saving that one click (that you invested to open the dropdown).

Many manga don't have their chapters listed anywhere either.

@Darkerplayer Big thanks for the info and sorry about my ranting.

I had been completely unaware of the bot hunting that happened in the last few years, I would have appreciated an announcement about such a big amount of illegitimate accounts discover since it affected so many entries though.

@Lucifrost I'm not sure you understood what I'm saying. Do you have an example of a manga series where the number given for the chapter isn't the number for the whole series, but internal to the volume? Most manga are released in magazines and later compiled into volumes, which is why they have a chapter number representing the total chapter count for the series.

For example, Gabriel Dropout volume 13 contains chapters 90-97. On the LN side, An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride volume 13 has a Prologue, chapters 1-4 and an Epilogue. It's pretty obvious which one needs a chapter counter and which one doesn't.

@Darkerplayer Yeah, especially the last part is what I wish for the most. Just show everything in the compact style. In fact, I already wrote a script for that since it bothered me so much, it requires you to have the tampermonkey extension installed in your browser, but that's pretty much it. Feel free to use it.

I would have liked something like this, why complicate the format?

@Darkerplayer Yeah, especially the last part is what I wish for the most. Just show everything in the compact style. In fact, I already wrote a script for that since it bothered me so much, it requires you to have the tampermonkey extension installed in your browser, but that's pretty much it. Feel free to use it.

Thank you, but your script seems to have one small bug. The More videos link is unfortunately missing.

awful and unnecessary change. I shouldn't have to press a button(more related entries) to see sequels and related anime. Please revert the change or give us options to change how we want it to be like.

@RobbiRobb It doesn't work for https://myanimelist.net/anime.php?id=51215 links so I've just changed the first match to https://myanimelist.net/anime* for now.
EDIT: Actually should probably add another match for https://myanimelist.net/anime.php?id=* instead incase it breaks anything :/
If you're wondering how I got those links, they are the ones given when navigating from MAL watch history.

@MysticalMagic Hm yeah, it seems like it's not working there. I pushed the small fix for those cases, so in theory tampermonkey should realize that there is an update and automatically notifiy and update the script for everyone who uses at least version 0.2. Thanks for letting me know ^^

@RobbiRobb It doesn't because you didn't set the // @downloadURL

Thumbnails do nothing for me. One of the benefits of this site was the simple design and navigation. Now its a pain to read each thumbnail as it feels disjointed and on a 4K monitor with this site zoomed 140%, I still barely make out what the thumbnail is.

Plus, If I am looking at anime, the related items should be anime listed first on the left and the source (manga, LN, etc) should be second and vice versa. There should be a line break as well differentiate between each mediums. Now, it looks cluttered when you have more than two related items.

Have an option to revert to the old setting please.