| After a very long period of internal discussions, I would like to publicly release the updated Manga DB Guidelines. Please note these guidelines are still a working copy and I expect minor revisions will need to be made in the short-term to account for undocumented processes or improve clarity. What are the new changes?
What about Webtoons/Webcomics? Our rules regarding digital content remain largely the same, with expanded wording. Many years ago, I stated that if digital content changed in the Japanese market, then we would revisit our digital content rules. While this change is currently happening in Japan with pixiv and Twitter manga becoming more the norm, we simply are not yet well-equipped—both in team numbers, moderation administrative tools and database structure—to effectively manage the influx of digital content we would receive. I hope we can re-evaluate our digital content rules once we have addressed these weaknesses, and decide what changes (if any) we would like to make. So does this mean you're finally recruiting new Manga Mods? Yes. We are currently rebuilding our Manga Moderator application test to increase the covered areas and complexity. Once the test is finished, we will be sending it to chosen individuals from the open-applications we have received in the last 1 year. If you have not sent in an application and believe you're qualified for the position, read this post and then message this bot account. Please only apply if you are serious and confident about a long term commitment to team. If you have already sent in an application, please review these guidelines in detail as you will be tested on them if you progress to the next round. What about Anime/Characters/People? These guideline updates (and Anime Mod recruitment) will come sometime following the Manga Mod recruitment and training. I noticed a problem/have a question about the Guidelines. Please let us know! This, along with the upcoming recruitment, is why we have released them now. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the community for your patience. I know how aggravating it is that the queue is so backed up and there are titles people really want to add to their lists. It's discouraging and may outwardly appear like I don't care or haven't been doing anything. Mainly, I have been trying to fix the foundation of the Database teams so that we can build up from here with more ease in the future. This takes a lot of energy and uninterrupted time, and there were many other issues I also needed to deal with to improve MAL for the community during that time. Thank you for your continued patience and assistance as we pass over this hurdle that kind of feels more like a mountain. With well-documented guidelines, we are in a good position to proceed forward at a much quicker pace. |
| Finally MAL move for a better future. |
 Kickstarter for Rokujouma is fully funded. Good work everyone. Lets wait for the result of our hard work together. |
| Finally an update. :D |
MaoraApr 12, 2019 11:09 PM
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| These changes sure are interesting. |
| Things have become a bit more complex but MAL has taken an important step-forward towards becoming the best Manga database. |
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| users: muh webtoons/webcomics? MAL: the technology is not here yet at least there is an improvement of the rules |
| I'm hoping Webtoons/Webcomics gets some changes in the future. Otherwise, it's nice to hear an update for the manga DB! |
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| Manga mods has been in need for some new blood for awhile now. +1 I also can't wait for the revision for the anime db guidelines. :D |
 Forum set made by my secret santa, Nate! |
| What i would like is that when you go to Manga Search - Just Added what would show on page 1 was the new stuff including what could have been added before, but was still pending the approval, instead of how it is now where you can find new entries here and there on pages. Maybe it´s also a lack of technology thing. |
| RamaTheStrandedOtaku Nier and MGS fan. |
Kineta said: Manga DB Guidelines: Large-Scale Revision Nothing seems to have changed about actual manga. It is unclear to me why some manga aren't accepted, for example Junji Ito's "Shiver" or Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "Abandon the Old in Tokyo". In my opinion, if there is a release, it should be possible to add it to your list. I have to use Manga-Updates for my collection, because MAL is so incomplete. |
| will the anime DB guidelines also recieve a similar large scale reivsion in the future? |
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| Well well, those changes were needed. The most used and the best feature of the MAL is its database without a doubt. So it's nice to see improvements in that aspect. |
DarthSomebody said: https://myanimelist.net/manga/44751/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Namekuji_no_ShoujoKineta said: Manga DB Guidelines: Large-Scale Revision Nothing seems to have changed about actual manga. It is unclear to me why some manga aren't accepted, for example Junji Ito's "Shiver" or Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "Abandon the Old in Tokyo". In my opinion, if there is a release, it should be possible to add it to your list. I have to use Manga-Updates for my collection, because MAL is so incomplete. https://myanimelist.net/manga/46626/Daihakken I found two series you are mentioned. It fall under compilation category. |
| Kickstarter for Rokujouma is fully funded. Good work everyone. Lets wait for the result of our hard work together. |
| no changes to webcomic and webtoons. tower of god added when? kek seems like manga db position is only getting more of a pain in the ass, people with actual commitment are needed for that. wish much patience and keeping as many nerve cells as possible to all the applicants |
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| The manga db can surely use a lot of changes to improve itself. Regardless, looking forward towards the new changes and moderator recruitment. Good Luck to everyone applying for Mod positions. |
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| ayy, this is good to hear! Even if webtoons are still in limbo it's good to see the manga DB getting some love |
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| Thanks for your hard work as always Kineta! What you people are doing is nothing short of revolutionary already. To have a complete database of everything related to anime, manga and the culture of Japan in a single place is just amazing, time saving and highly informative. Even if I were speaking from a perspective of an outsider and not an avid anime fan, I still would be very much appreciative of you. I believe only MAL has the complete information of manga/series that are connected to each other (For eg: prequels, sequels or spin-offs) that are easily accessible and readily available to see. I can't stress on how much useful that is to a newcomer to any sort of medium, which has been my own personal experience and I believe for many others for whom MAL is an integral part of. No other movie, TV shows, music etc. databases, in my experience, have all that much information gathered in an easily accessible way such as how MAL provides for the anime medium. This is a sincere and heartfelt appreciation to you and all the tirelessly working staff behind the MAL website. It is not an exaggeration to say that you are the ones that make us more of the 'weebs' that cling on to MAL than our shared love for the Japanese medium of anime and manga. :) You rock, guys! And while the new additions in visual novels, light novels and in future the webtoons will indeed take a lot of manpower to keep track of, I sincerely hope one day MAL has grown to an even bigger team which can successfully boast of, if possible, all the artwork that is associated with the Japanese medium of anime, manga and such. It's true that the advent of the digital age has made rapid strides in the emergence of several independent artists and their works spread it on all forms of social media and websites. And also the anime fandom has grown tenfolds in the last decade and virtually most of the teenage and several of the adult population around the world have become a part of this medium. It is kind of re-assuring in a sense that Japan is still sticking with the production of physical manga and not going completely digital. It may still be possible to keep tab on all the new creations that comes out and will come out in the future even if it goes completely digital and several new artists emerge. Imagine how cool it would be if one day MAL had a complete tally of everything included and related to anime ever! |
karlstein12Apr 13, 2019 11:18 AM
| Finally an update. Hopefully we'll see more updates to the site coming. |
| Excellent news. I'll resist the temptation to flood you with new submissions, though, seeing how big the backlog is. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
| I read through all the new guidelines, and it really is a doozy... There's a lot of really important stuff under the hood that the mods will have to know, so I really hope that there aren't too many growing pains. |
NeoAnkara said: DarthSomebody said: https://myanimelist.net/manga/44751/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Namekuji_no_ShoujoNothing seems to have changed about actual manga. It is unclear to me why some manga aren't accepted, for example Junji Ito's "Shiver" or Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "Abandon the Old in Tokyo". In my opinion, if there is a release, it should be possible to add it to your list. I have to use Manga-Updates for my collection, because MAL is so incomplete. https://myanimelist.net/manga/46626/Daihakken I found two series you are mentioned. It fall under compilation category. Those are not the same. There are overlaps, but they contain different stories. |
| Good Work! And please separate the novels from the manga category, That's all I'm asking. |
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Denji said: @DarthSomebody Shiver is a best-of collection taking one-shots from the following volumes, with the addition of a 10 page extra which someone has already submitted here. https://myanimelist.net/manga/44757/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Ayatsuri_no_Yashiki https://myanimelist.net/manga/44751/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Namekuji_no_Shoujo https://myanimelist.net/manga/44749/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Souichi_no_Noroi_Nikki https://myanimelist.net/manga/44745/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Kao_Dorobou https://myanimelist.net/manga/44765/Ito_Junji_Kyoufu_Manga_Collection_-_Tunnel_no_Tan https://myanimelist.net/manga/912/Tomie https://myanimelist.net/manga/3126/Yami_no_Koe The Tatsumi volumes published by Drawn & Quarterly are similarly taken from one-shot collections previously published in Japan, though almost none of them have been submitted to the database. Anyone who knows Japanese can check out this page for specifics (ex: The Push Man takes most of its one-shots from a 1970 volume called Hitokui Sakana). Yes, but this is extremely inconvenient and doesn't make any sense to maintain it like this, since those manga are not re-issues, but completely different anthologies of already existing one-shots. This case is not mentioned in the guidelines. (Though even if it was, it should be changed.) As it is now, I would have to add 1 or 2 chapters of each manga you listed there, just so that I can have the Shiver anthology in my list. I can't understand this design-choice. It is inconsistent. Either list all anthologies, or list all one-shots separately. Not some anthologies and some one-shots. |
What about Webtoons/Webcomics? Our rules regarding digital content remain largely the same Why just why? |
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| good news! glad to see mal moving forward! |
| @Jicetus (first anime mod name I saw) @Kineta and any other database managers; How would y’all feel about removing Shoujo/Shounen/Senien/josei from the “genre” part of an anime’s information? I don’t think the publisher of an animes source material really says anything about it’s genre and it’s misleading. People all to commonly avoid those tags because of some false preconception about them and this leads to people potentially missing out on things they might love. Edit: if anything I think putting those tags under “source” would be more accurate and fitting, although I still think people should disregard them all together. |
| Lolicons are scum. BABYMETAL is more metal than Metallica. Naruto is objectively the best anime ever. HxH 99' is decent. HxH 11' is bad. |
| > III.4.1 The field is currently limited to 255 characters; if the synonyms list exceeds that number, only romanized variants will be used. Does "only romanized variants will be used" imply that the synonyms can have non-English/non-romanized titles? And that if there are too many titles the non-English/non-romanized variants will be the first to be kicked out? Asking b/c I sometimes see them https://myanimelist.net/manga/115751/Daughter_of_the_Emperor |
| I understand that part about Web-based manga. If you're not ready with the number of people yet, then it will be a huge chaos to moderate it, because that's a bigger work than physical manga. Glad that MAL finally expanding to non-adapted novel. Not everyone here because of anime and manga, but also comes for Light Novel. |
deg said: users: muh webtoons/webcomics? MAL: the technology is not here yet at least there is an improvement of the rules meanwhile every other site like MAL has them 🤔🤔 |
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| Looking forward to join the mods <3 |
| Good news! Keep up the good work! Good luck to all participants for Manga DB moderators positions =) |
| Post-DeNA Era! 歌う賛美! Good work, keep up! Moving into Century 21! 山岳の努力は高く評価される。 |
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| Since all LNs are allowed now, maybe it would be a good idea to move novels into their own separate third list? It does feel a bit weird to see them share the list with manga, and it can sometimes be tricky to find the correct entry when both LN and manga exist for a title - worse when only one is in the database and it's not the one you need. |
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| @kineta My biggest frustration with this site is the wait between submission, pending changes, and approval for manga, especially when it comes to Shonen Jump titles that shouldn't even be questioned due to how big it is. Would it be possible to apply for a mod position just to handle that side of things? And if not, if new mods are hired, would changes be allowed faster in general, similar to how fast anime are added to the database? |
SIOPAOBUN said: @kineta And if not, if new mods are hired, would changes be allowed faster in general, similar to how fast anime are added to the database? I assume the slow updates on the DB is due to lack of manga mods. |
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| I really hope that LNs are better distinguished from manga entries. At the moment, with them mixed up with manga, one can only rely on tags to "separate" them from each other. |
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| This is great news!! Thank you so much for working on the DB. I currently use mal to keep track of everything but its been getting a bit complicated so i had to make a separate list on my phone of mangas not yet added/glitched. |
My Candies:  |
Rama_pt said: That page sorts by ID and IDs are assigned to entries when they are submitted to the queue, not when they are approved. So yes, it's a code thing. If it's possible to get a lot of the development we're hoping for, it may be possible to change this.What i would like is that when you go to Manga Search - Just Added what would show on page 1 was the new stuff including what could have been added before, but was still pending the approval, instead of how it is now where you can find new entries here and there on pages. Maybe it´s also a lack of technology thing. StormSky92 said: I'd like them to have separate lists and rankings. Ahmad_o said: And please separate the novels from the manga category, That's all I'm asking. luinthoron said: Since all LNs are allowed now, maybe it would be a good idea to move novels into their own separate third list? It does feel a bit weird to see them share the list with manga, and it can sometimes be tricky to find the correct entry when both LN and manga exist for a title - worse when only one is in the database and it's not the one you need. Orix said: Rankings are probably feasible, but separate lists is quite complicated if you think about it.I really hope that LNs are better distinguished from manga entries. At the moment, with them mixed up with manga, one can only rely on tags to "separate" them from each other. I think we can consider options to distinguish them better... romagia said: Yes.will the anime DB guidelines also recieve a similar large scale reivsion in the future? rokxx said: We removed OEL (Official English Language) Manga in 2010 and, for similar reasons, we will not be re-adding any foreign language series in the foreseeable future. Like with the Anime DB, it's a similar argument of "what is manga: origin or style". We structure our databases by origin because it is much less subjective.What about French manga? It's a really prominent scene, Radiant for example. kuuderes_shadow said: :cookie:I'll resist the temptation to flood you with new submissions, though, seeing how big the backlog is. DarthSomebody said: The rule resulting in inconvenience for you is:This case is not mentioned in the guidelines. (Though even if it was, it should be changed.) IV.1.3 If a chapter appears in multiple volumes, it will only be counted as a chapter in the first release. I've noted your concerns and will discuss them with the team. Thank you. Hokage_Jason said: You're correct that anime producers very rarely specify these demographics. Aside from the "Kids" tag, demographics for anime almost always come the source material: which are published in magazines or under labels that do have specified demographics.How would y’all feel about removing Shoujo/Shounen/Senien/josei from the “genre” part of an anime’s information? I don’t think the publisher of an animes source material really says anything about it’s genre and it’s misleading. People all to commonly avoid those tags because of some false preconception about them and this leads to people potentially missing out on things they might love. Edit: if anything I think putting those tags under “source” would be more accurate and fitting, although I still think people should disregard them all together. If people are going to be silly and refuse to watch an anime based on a demographic, then they'll find another silly reason: like it looks like a shoujo/shounen/seinen/josei. In the end, we wholly agree (and have for a long time) that demographics do not belong under the "genre" field. Unfortunately, this requires code to change. lanblade said: That... entry has quite a bit going wrong for it :') Romanized variants means alternate romanizations of the main title. This rule mainly applies to anthologies that have huge lists of one-shots and long LN series with different titles for each volume. Here, the Korean title should be in the Japanese field. We may want the official JP title for Manhwa/Manhua since we are JP focused (I'd need to discuss it with the team), but otherwise we currently only discuss foreign language titles in the Background Information section. What we really need for both Anime/Manga DBs is an alternate titles list by country/language, much like AniDB has. We're hoping this is one of things Media Do will plan to improve upon.> III.4.1 The field is currently limited to 255 characters; if the synonyms list exceeds that number, only romanized variants will be used. Does "only romanized variants will be used" imply that the synonyms can have non-English/non-romanized titles? And that if there are too many titles the non-English/non-romanized variants will be the first to be kicked out? Asking b/c I sometimes see them https://myanimelist.net/manga/115751/Daughter_of_the_Emperor SIOPAOBUN said: This is due to a sheer lack of manpower. Once we get a better team in place, we'll be able to hack through the backlog and hopefully return to a reasonable wait time. I'm also hoping that Media Do will be able to put some development effort into streamlining our tools (for example, a manga completing shouldn't require 3 separate edits: status, chapters/volumes, and publishing date) and preventing duplicate submissions (so we don't get the above 3 edits x20).My biggest frustration with this site is the wait between submission, pending changes, and approval for manga, [...] Jicetus said: I'll remind you of this when we're in the thick of minor details that no one can agree on and we all want to push each other into a lake (:I also can't wait for the revision for the anime db guidelines. :D |
| How can I trust MAL with something so big when they can't even accept a user submitted character pic? Well, all the best to the mods. |
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Kineta said: StormSky92 said: I'd like them to have separate lists and rankings. Ahmad_o said: And please separate the novels from the manga category, That's all I'm asking. luinthoron said: Since all LNs are allowed now, maybe it would be a good idea to move novels into their own separate third list? It does feel a bit weird to see them share the list with manga, and it can sometimes be tricky to find the correct entry when both LN and manga exist for a title - worse when only one is in the database and it's not the one you need. Orix said: Rankings are probably feasible, but separate lists is quite complicated if you think about it.I really hope that LNs are better distinguished from manga entries. At the moment, with them mixed up with manga, one can only rely on tags to "separate" them from each other. I think we can consider options to distinguish them better... I may not be an expert on databases and such, but seeing how novels already have their type set as "Novel" in the database, it should be easy enough to automatically export/remove them from the manga database and set up a new one just for them. The new list page would similarly be easy enough to simply copy from the existing manga list page. |
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| A good future comes around. |
Kineta said: Rankings are probably feasible, but separate lists is quite complicated if you think about it. Having another list for LN's is literally the one thing I have wanted since joining this site nearly 8 years ago. I understand it is probably an extremely hard feat, but the majority of the leg work is there in terms of database content with most novels being tagged with (Novel). Now I am not a website developer in the slightest but I am in school for database design and I can't see how hard it really would be to mimic the manga or anime style and import items that have (Novel) into it. Now again this is coming from the mouth of an outsider with no real knowledge of how MAL's DB is set up. But from what I have learned in school over the past 4 years I can't see how it would be that hard when you have the hard part, the data already tagged. With the upcoming changes to LN's this is literally the perfect time to implement it, because you can import the LN's already into the new list and have the new manga or LN DB mods put the new requests into the new DB. I am not trying to be rude but there are a lot of sites out there that do anime and manga lists, some with easier to use UI's etc. Most of us use MAL because it was the first list we used but times are changing and you need to differentiate yourselves from the other sites. Light Novels are becoming more and more mainstream to Western Audiences. With the Rising of the Shield Hero anime tons of new people are diving into the LN scene. I have watched the anime and manga trend for 15 years. I saw when it started to get more mainstream with westerners and I am seeing the same trends with LN's. Y'all really need to get a step ahead of the competition and do this update right. The first site that does this will be the site that keeps the LN readers. If that means we have to wait a few months for a new list so be it, but every single LN reader has been asking for a separate list. Please do this right. If you need help with DB work please reach out to me I would love to help. |
ZaerickApr 15, 2019 1:22 PM
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| @luinthoron @Biggus It's not just about moving everything with a Novel tag into a separate DB. That's the easy part. Nearly every page on the website would need to be edited and/or re-designed. Completely random list off the top of my head (and non-exhaustive): - the header menu - the quick add page - list settings - profile anime/manga list buttons - profile stats/updates - recent history page - favourites on the profile - updating favourites - how anime/manga pages link together (adaptations) - the review index page(s) - the recs index page(s) - rankings - character pages - editing character pages - the character index page design - club pages - the forum index - new subforums ... etc. It's not "just" adding a list + DB. It would touch almost every page and aspect of the site. Whereas I think better filter options on the list and the database, plus better statistics, could achieve similar end results without needing to redesign almost every page on the website. |
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