| Simple classic layouts aren't a detriment. They're part of the reason why MAL, Gamefaqs, and Reddit remain among the most popular choices for their respective mediums. Giving this site a modern overhaul would only damage its long-lasting appeal. |
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| I didn't know about this anilist and now that I know about it I don't think that's it's better than mal . It's easy to make a complicated website with hundred of features and new things but will people like it? probably not. Simple things are the hardest things to make and we all agree that mal is simple, easy to use and fast. It's true that mal needs more staff and mods but this is related to the community not mal itself . |
| Feel free to move to Anilist, good community. Top ranking propably is SAO season 1 2 3 + alternative season then tokyo ghoul or any trash random mainstream anime, i don't think anyone has a positive IQ on these sites (except MAL ofc, no argument for that it's just obvious that we are superior) |
| Signature removed. Please have a positive iq. |
Sephyros said: Feel free to move to Anilist, good community. Top ranking propably is SAO season 1 2 3 + alternative season then tokyo ghoul or any trash random mainstream anime, i don't think anyone has a positive IQ on these sites (except MAL ofc, no argument for that it's just obvious that we are superior) Wrong. The top rated anime there are pretty much the same as here, except less Gintama entries. 1. FMA: Brotherhood 2. Steins;Gate 3. Hunter X Hunter (2011) 4. 3-gatsu no Lion Season 2 5. Gintama (2015) 6. Owarimonogatari Season 2 7. Gintama (2011) 8. Gintama Enchousen 9. Clannad After Story 10. Haikyuu Season 3. If anything, this post of yours proved how much inferior and more toxic the community here is. Full of weebs who have superiority complexes based on the fact they watch more cartoons than others. |
Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
Skittles said: Simple classic layouts aren't a detriment. They're part of the reason why MAL, Gamefaqs, and Reddit remain among the most popular choices for their respective mediums. Giving this site a modern overhaul would only damage its long-lasting appeal. Reddit is not an example though. Considering it updated it's UI just recently. |
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
I agree with OP about everything he's said. And other sites are def a better option, since MAL's shit mods+owner obviously don't give a flying fuck for its members - and that includes paid supporters, like me. My only reason for not leaving MAL is, bc, honestly, I'm too old and too lazy to start from scratch in another website, and then waste my time getting used to it :/ |
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Skittles said: Giving this site a modern overhaul would only damage its long-lasting appeal. I know where you are coming from but a site looks like from early ages of CSS doesn't help either. You don't have to use material design or make everything bigger to give a fresh look. |
sasalxAug 13, 2018 1:17 PM
SigmaticDoc said: Due to the long down time the site experienced recently and is still recovering from it, people moved to sites such as AniList, Kitsu and AniDB and have started to notice how dated MAL is as a whole. That's their right but tbh the site doesn't feel any less active or populated than before the downtime. I don't think it's an issue worth panicking about. They'll forget lying straight to their users' faces about what's actually going on. (The fact that they clearly experienced some security breach was still apparent) If they wanted us to believe they're just ''checking out something in a more detailed manner'' then maybe they shouldn't have taken a month and then afterwards for the whole site to barely function for about another few months. I don't like DenA and how they handled the situation either but you're barking at the wrong tree. You can reach the mods here on the forums, but they are not responsible for that incident or how long it is taking to resolve it, and they most likely don't have a lot of influence on DeNa either. Try their customer service if you want to complain about how they run they side. They have the programmers, not the mod team or anyone else who reads these forums. People have started to notice that MAL's interface is dated, you have to refresh the page to even get a notification, something that happens in real time on AniList. That's personally why I love it. I don't like the modenr interface and layout of something like Kitsu. I already have userscripts running on MAL to undo some of the design changes that were made after DeNa took over. I think there's a place for a site with a more retro layout, and there have been a lot of functionality improvements already in the last few years. I'd be pretty triggered if they overhauled the whole layout for a more 'modern' look. I like it simple. You have a single limited rating system despite people constantly asking for more so they can personalize their lists more, meanwhile AniList pulls of 5 different rating systems with relative ease. MAL staff's excuses that it'd be messy are redundant. Idk how they 'pull it off' but are willing to explain? It does feel like it would be a mess so I'm curious how they make it work, or if they don't make it work and people just don't care about it being messy. For proper statistics on anything you have to use Third Party sites such as MALgraph and in cases like the current one - where MAL's API doesn't work, you won't be able to even check your stats out. Meanwhile that's built-in your AniList profile. Fair point, but I don't mind as long as third parties do provide those options. That's all there is to it. If MALGraph went down indefinitely without a replacement, that might be a reason for me to make an Anilist account. Until then it's more of a cosmetic argument. AniList and Kitsu both have global feeds, which makes up for a much more organic community. I have no idea about software/programming stuff so care to explain to me what that means and how it differs from whatever MAL is doing? While writing reviews in AniList, BBCode is enabled to help you stylize your interview and properly highlight what you need to, without it looking like a massive wall of text. There's also a dislike button to your reviews. People can know your review isn't well regarded without having to resort to reporting it only so they can get the same copy paste answer back from the MAL staff. Fair points, but again as I personally neither write nor read reviews I'm not particularly invested in it. Having the downvote button back would be nice tho. Still one of the biggest mistakes MAL made imo. AniList has an years slider, you can browse anime in a specific year range, something MAL doesn't have. Fair enough. And now on to the database. On MAL's discord server, one of the MAL staff went full petty mode claiming that AniList stole MAL's database. Meanwhile MAL stole AniDB's database initially, including synopsis of certain entries. They also pitched info from AnimeNewsNetwork for the longest time. Basically MAL staff is petty. Okay so this is where you are getting silly and spiteful without really knowing what you're talking about. I mean idk what happened in the early days before I joined but idk how you'd know either so feel free to enlighten me in that regard. What I can tell you as a former DB mod is that we were always strongly encouraged to only trust and use japanese sources if possible, and not only AniDB or ANN, although those are legitimate for double-checking. Synopses are always credited to their source as well so it's very petty to talk about 'stealing' synopsis. For a few years now there even has been an initiative to rewrite synopsis for series by MAL staff members to reduce the amount of borrowed synopsis. Idk what exactly Anilist did, but if they stole our original synopsis without crediting, that is something to criticize, and not being petty at all. AniList's database mods can be contacted via any means including Discord, it makes it a lot easier to update the database (which grows at a faster rate than MALs) MAL database mods will NOT respond to anything database related on Discord or PMs. They only ever respond to their flawed submission system that they check out once in a decade. I had a few entries that I made in the start to middle of 2017 be addressed and another entry I made 2 years ago is still not pending. I've made a few requests and submissions on AniList and they've taken a relatively short time to respond. But what I find more likely based on that paragraph, is that they simply use MAL to confirm their entries because they trust our DB that much and don't want to spend complicated time checking with the original sources, which can only be done by mods who are fluent in japanese, which in terms are harder to find and recruit. It's easy to quickly confirm entries when you already have a huge, english DB like MAL that put in the tedious work of confirming everything with the original japanese announcements and japanese DB sites. That's most likely what they are doing, albeit maybe not limited to MAL. MAL mods take so long because the standards by which we are held are very high and they'd rather make you wait than make a mistake or not do enough research to confirm details. You don't have to like that priority, but I think it's the kind of DB site I want that prioritizes accuracy and reliability over speed. Also it should be pretty obvious that it is quicker for a database to grow when it is still in its early stages and many things are missing so I don't see how that is an achievement. MAL grows slower because it is more exhaustive already, which is a plus for MAL, not Anilist. Bottom line is, outside of a few functions, MAL loses out on the majority of the aspects and it still doesn't do anything about it. People will realize it's slowly relying on it's popularity so it doesn't do anything and that the staff just simply doesn't care. Saying the staff doesn't care is pretty preposterous considering they are doing everything they do because they care since there is zero other incentive for them. You care much less because otherwise you'd be a mod and show us all how much better and more efficient you can do their work without losing any of the accuracy and reliability, am I right? You don't care enough to put in those hundreds of hours of work. Then please don't talk about the actual mods, who do that every day, not caring. And MAL's death has been proclaimed just about every year and in the end it's still the biggest site and I don't really see any convincing reasons for that to change. Sure, some minor things can be improved, DeNa doesn't seem to care too much about the site, and some things are just a matter of preference where I'm sure some people will prefer the other options, but overall it feels like MAL is gonna be fine. |
AlcoholicideAug 13, 2018 2:53 PM
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Yeah cool, I will never leave MAL because it has the biggest database around, I don't care about anything else. |
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| Personally I would prefer it to stay dated. "Upgrading the layout of the site would ruin it imo |
| MAL looks fine to me. I just want blogs back already. Edit: It is kind of harsh some of the reactions to the OP opinion but come on, when has the people on this site ever and I mean, EVER accepted opinions that are different than their own? |
ArillionAug 13, 2018 2:20 PM
Pullman said: I don't like DenA and how they handled the situation either but you're barking at the wrong tree. You can reach the mods here on the forums, but they are not responsible for that incident or how long it is taking to resolve it, and they most likely don't have a lot of influence on DeNa either. Try their customer service if you want to complain about how they run they side. They have the programmers, not the mod team or anyone else who reads these forums. I said this to Kineta and others. Many many times actually. This is the main problem right there. You know what is funny? DeNA "created" a new account after this incident right? Nope they just take one of non-used accounts renamed it. This should be enough to prove it. "Forum Posts: 275" However the part I like it DeNA in "18+ Lovers of Anime and Manga" club. You would think they would at least create a new account and use it to answer questions in the thread... |
sasalx said: You know what is funny? DeNA "created" a new account after this incident right? Nope they just take one of non-used accounts renamed it. This should be enough to prove it. "Forum Posts: 275" However the part I like it DeNA in "18+ Lovers of Anime and Manga" club. You would think they would at least create a new account and use it to answer questions in the thread... Only that account was theirs all along though; they created it. They also used that to create the "MyAnimeList’s Official Mobile App" long ago. Also, your proof isn't much of a proof, because do you only need to post in the forums to get a post count? Even if they had hijacked it, the threads would still have shown in their history :P If they had deleted them, then there would be no big post count. You would think someone wouldn't jump to conclusions right away without having all the facts in their hands :P Not that it matters much if it was new or not, but I just wanted to correct the misinformation <: |
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SigmaticDoc said: Skittles said: Simple classic layouts aren't a detriment. They're part of the reason why MAL, Gamefaqs, and Reddit remain among the most popular choices for their respective mediums. Giving this site a modern overhaul would only damage its long-lasting appeal. Reddit is not an example though. Considering it updated it's UI just recently. Yes but if you've been literally anywhere on reddit, you'd know that almost everyone hates it. The site even allows you to switch to the old UI if you want to. Some actual data for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/96g4fx/reddits_opinion_on_the_redesign_who_loves_it_and/ SigmaticDoc said: If anything, this post of yours proved how much inferior and more toxic the community here is. Full of weebs who have superiority complexes based on the fact they watch more cartoons than others. Ouch, yet we're the ones who are petty... ಠ_ಠ |
ShymanderAug 13, 2018 5:42 PM
| i like mal its the first animie site i used to track my shit plus u can track the h u've watched i think its a great site ....hardly noticed the downtime plus they let me update my list while it was down.. life goes on the world kept on spinning ..so crazy |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
Maffy said: sasalx said: You know what is funny? DeNA "created" a new account after this incident right? Nope they just take one of non-used accounts renamed it. This should be enough to prove it. "Forum Posts: 275" However the part I like it DeNA in "18+ Lovers of Anime and Manga" club. You would think they would at least create a new account and use it to answer questions in the thread... Only that account was theirs all along though; they created it. They also used that to create the "MyAnimeList’s Official Mobile App" long ago. Also, your proof isn't much of a proof, because do you only need to post in the forums to get a post count? Even if they had hijacked it, the threads would still have shown in their history :P If they had deleted them, then there would be no big post count. You would think someone wouldn't jump to conclusions right away without having all the facts in their hands :P Not that it matters much if it was new or not, but I just wanted to correct the misinformation <: Proofs are good but only you if you can present it right. I can't see a misinformation sadly. Maybe they have taken it before this incident and I am probably wrong on this part. However, I still think my point stands. As you stated, there is a mismatch problem. Posts are shown in search and post number doesn't add up. I said the same but you somehow used this as a counter-argument. Don't know why... Thank you for trying to fix something you think wrong but at least give me a info that I can say "Oh right my bad". |
| @sasalx I thought the same when I saw the forum posts count as 275. Well, there's a possibility that he/she posted 274 times in the clubs they've joined... It's a "possibility" since the clubs can't be accessed right now... |
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changelog_ said: You have a very biased, unfair and selfish views on recent events. Yes, MAL has failed a large number of its users, but that doesn't mean that they haven't tried. Could you try to show slightest bit of empathy to the team who did painstaking work to get MAL back online, for people like you to complain about it? "trying" simply isn't good enough for a site as large as MAL, it's completely unacceptable that MAL was completely unusable for 3-4 weeks and that the forums are only now back online months later |
phantom881Aug 14, 2018 12:59 AM
J_LEE_C said: Swagernator said: No one is holding your ass here, you're free to go. ^^completely agree with this. Also OP, if people forgot their passwords in the first place, that's on them. That's in pretty much any online entity's TOS/Agreement. its a forum... people should be able to vent their very valid frustrations over a site as large as MAL being offline for a month and still only bringing back core features such as the forums months later without people like you being passive aggressive and shutting down dialogue by simply telling him to leave |
Swagernator said: No one is holding your ass here, you're free to go. its a forum... people should be able to vent their very valid frustrations over a site as large as MAL being offline for a month and still only bringing back core features such as the forums months later without people like you being passive aggressive and shutting down dialogue by simply telling him to leave |
| @phantom881 What makes it "unacceptable"? You talk as if you've some kind of right on accessing this site. If MAL doesn't meet your "requirements," then you're free to leave this site. No one's forcing you to stay here. |
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changelog_ said: phantom881 said: "trying" simply isn't good enough for a site as large as MAL, it's competently unacceptable that MAL was completely unusable for 3-4 weeks and that the forums are only now back online months later I really don't mean to be rude but I have a problem with what you're saying. MyAnimeList is a free-to-use site. If you believe that their service "simply isn't good enough" then you are being really ignorant. Access to this website is a privilege, not a right. You are not spending a penny for 99.9% of MAL's features and you feel that you have the right to complain because of some downtime. If you were paying for MAL's services, however, it would be a different story. It would be a different story for MAL Supporter's or people who have bought manga from MAL. As far as I can see, however, you have done/are neither of those. I understand that lots of people are frustrated but posts like these just show ignorance and arrogance and they really annoy me. If this website has failed you, then you are free to leave. No one is stopping you. Just don't go around making more needless posts complaining about the downtime. What's happened is happened and ranting about it won't reverse anything. You're not contributing to anything and venting your anger online isn't helping anyone. Edit: Re-worded some stuff. “MyAnimeList is a free-to-use site. If you believe that their service "simply isn't good enough" then you are being really ignorant.” How is someone ignorant because they believe a service isnt good enough??? I didn’t say the service simply isnt good enough, I really enjoy MAL actually, I was saying that the development teams actions simply weren’t and aren’t good enough for a site as large as MAL which they aren’t, For a site as large as Mal to be offline for 3-4 weeks is absurd and to still be bringing back core features such as the forums months later is ridiculous, are you really trying to tell me that the current development team is doing a good job?, they should be fired and completely replaced as they’ve made it abundantly clear that they aren’t prepared to effectively deal with situations like these “You are not spending a penny for 99.9% of MAL's features and you feel that you have the right to complain because of some downtime” 1. How do you know that I wasn’t a MAL supporter which cancelled their subscription? 2. There’s many people who are paying for the site 3. Yes I do have the right to complain actually…. it’s called freedom of speech “I understand that lots of people are frustrated but posts like these just show ignorance and arrogance and they really annoy me” I truly don’t understand that you can’t see why people are complaining about a site they use daily for updating their anime lists going down for 3-4 weeks and then still recovering months later “If this website has failed you, then you are free to leave. No one is stopping you.” 1. It’s a forum were conversation and dialogue is encouraged why are you here if you’re just going to shut people down by telling them to leave 2. I don’t think you understand the people complaining, were complaining (well I wont speak for everyone) but I’m complaining at least because I love this site and I truly want to see it succeed and I don’t want to leave this site for another, I’m a very loyal person and im not going to jump ship as soon as something goes wrong “Just don't go around making more needless posts complaining about the downtime” Haha really? This isn’t Nazi Germany I will do and say whatever I like, you don’t even know me don’t tell me what to do… “What's happened is happened and ranting about it won't reverse anything. You're not contributing to anything and venting your anger online isn't helping anyone.” That’s really really flawed logic, not “ranting” about something enables that behaviour to happen in the future, let me give you a hypothetical example if Walmart released a KKK t shirt with a racist slogan on the t shirt and nobody complained about it or “ranted” about it then Walmart wouldn’t see an issue with their actions of releasing that t shirt and would likely do something similar in the future. Not complaining when a company does wrongdoing makes them think their actions were justified What I don’t think most of you defending MAL see is that you’re actually hurting the site as defending MAL in this situation make them think their response to the downtime was justified, a lot of people are even congratulating MAL and saying good job which goes farther to make them think they done a good job taking months to bring back the site which is mind blowing Anyway to finish this up I really like this site and want it to do well and i am not going to jump ship and leave just because some guy on the internet told me to and the reason i seemed annoyed throughout this whole reply is because I’m a huge supporter of free speech so you telling me to “stop” making more posts about this really annoyed me. |
KatsutoSaki said: @phantom881 What makes it "unacceptable"? You talk as if you've some kind of right on accessing this site. If MAL doesn't meet your "requirements," then you're free to leave this site. No one's forcing you to stay here. 1. It’s a forum were conversation and dialogue is encouraged why are you here if you’re just going to shut people down and shut down dialogue by telling them to leave 2. I don’t think you understand the people complaining, were complaining (well I wont speak for everyone) but I’m complaining at least because I love this site and I truly want to see it succeed and I don’t want to leave this site for another, I’m a very loyal person and im not going to jump ship as soon as something goes wrong |
| Expressing frustration is perfectly acceptable, as we ourselves have felt our own frustration over things. That in itself is fine. For the most part, OP's post isn't about the downtime of MAL but rather MAL in general. The issue here is making baseless claims and directly insulting staff members without properly understanding our position and work, but attacking back doesn't do anyone any good either. It's absolutely unacceptable that the site was down for this long and in this way, but this is where people need to understand our side of things. We as staff were also hit in the same way by the owner DeNA's decisions, but worse since we had to face the direct backlash of that despite it being out of our control and yet continue to have an angry finger pointed at us. That's something that we'd like to be widely understood. Keep in mind that it's easy to make assumptions and things aren't as simple as they may seem at face value. Edit: We give up our time willingly for this site and arguably care about it the most, but we're users just like you. We feel the same way for the most part. We haven't just sat back, we've actively expressed our disappointment with how things have gone down. |
ShymanderAug 14, 2018 1:55 AM
Qio420 said: i like mal its the first animie site i used to track my shit plus u can track the h u've watched i think its a great site ....hardly noticed the downtime plus they let me update my list while it was down.. life goes on the world kept on spinning ..so crazy You obviously don't use MAl much if you "hardly noticed" the downtime, There was a period nobody could update their lists for 3-4 weeks so this is a lie, you just mustn't of been updating your list in that time, the period the site was completely down was around 2 months ago |
phantom881 said: Qio420 said: i like mal its the first animie site i used to track my shit plus u can track the h u've watched i think its a great site ....hardly noticed the downtime plus they let me update my list while it was down.. life goes on the world kept on spinning ..so crazy You obviously don't use MAl much if you "hardly noticed" the downtime, There was a period nobody could update their lists for 3-4 weeks so this is a lie, you just mustn't of been updating your list in that time, the period the site was completely down was around 2 months ago i guess ur life was over in those 3 weeks then huh |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
phantom881 said: Qio420 said: i like mal its the first animie site i used to track my shit plus u can track the h u've watched i think its a great site ....hardly noticed the downtime plus they let me update my list while it was down.. life goes on the world kept on spinning ..so crazy You obviously don't use MAl much if you "hardly noticed" the downtime, There was a period nobody could update their lists for 3-4 weeks so this is a lie, you just mustn't of been updating your list in that time, the period the site was completely down was around 2 months ago Updating anime lists was re-enabled only 5-6 days after the maintenance started, so this is a lie. Maintenence started: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMyAnimeList/posts/1976559609044660 Dev update thread: https://myanimelist.net/announcement/201806 |
ShymanderAug 14, 2018 2:06 AM
Shymander said: Expressing frustration is perfectly acceptable, as we ourselves have felt our own frustration over things. That in itself is fine. For the most part, OP's post isn't about the downtime of MAL but rather MAL in general. The issue here is making baseless claims and directly insulting staff members without properly understanding our position and work, but attacking back doesn't do anyone any good either. It's absolutely unacceptable that the site was down for this long and in this way, but this is where people need to understand our side of things. We as staff were also hit in the same way by the owner DeNA's decisions, but worse since we had to face the direct backlash of that despite it being out of our control and yet continue to have an angry finger pointed at us. That's something that we'd like to be widely understood. Keep in mind that it's easy to make assumptions and things aren't as simple as they may seem at face value. Edit: We give up our time willingly for this site and arguably care about it the most, but we're users just like you. We feel the same way for the most part. We haven't just sat back, we've actively expressed our disappointment with how things have gone down. I hugely respect this post, i very much respect that a staff member can admit that this prolonged downtime was unacceptable even though somehow a lot of the users cant^ Keep in mind though i would say most of the users angry about the prolonged downtime arent angry at the mods or admins or "Social media team" such as your self as were fully aware you're not responsible for the technical development and maintenance of the site, it's the development team that i'm angry with, i don't understand how a development team of a site as large as MAL has taken months to fix the issues were facing and has still not completely fixed the issues months later, i mean its unheard of for a site as large as MAl to be unusable for 3-4 weeks and then only bring back the forums which is a core part of the site months later. Im not informed as to Dena's decisions on this whole situation so ill look into that more anyway huge respect with your post |
Shymander said: phantom881 said: You obviously don't use MAl much if you "hardly noticed" the downtime, There was a period nobody could update their lists for 3-4 weeks so this is a lie, you just mustn't of been updating your list in that time, the period the site was completely down was around 2 months ago Updating anime lists was re-enabled only 5-6 days after the maintenance started, so this is a lie. Maintenence started: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMyAnimeList/posts/1976559609044660 Dev update thread: https://myanimelist.net/announcement/201806 What do you mean? i was trying the site each day trying to update my list to update the episode counter of each anime i was watching and everytime i tried to go to go onto MAL it gave me an error and each time i clicked my profile it gave me a error and that was a lot longer than 5-6 days, my friend who im talking to on discord who is also a regular MAL user is saying the same thing that it was much longer than 5-6 days were we couldn't update our lists and couldn't even access our profiles |
Qio420 said: phantom881 said: You obviously don't use MAl much if you "hardly noticed" the downtime, There was a period nobody could update their lists for 3-4 weeks so this is a lie, you just mustn't of been updating your list in that time, the period the site was completely down was around 2 months ago i guess ur life was over in those 3 weeks then huh No but a big inconvenience? yes |
phantom881 said: What do you mean? i was trying the site each day trying to update my list to update the episode counter of each anime i was watching and everytime i tried to go to go onto MAL it gave me an error and each time i clicked my profile it gave me a error and that was a lot longer than 5-6 days, my friend who im talking to on discord who is also a regular MAL user is saying the same thing that it was much longer than 5-6 days were we couldn't update our lists and couldn't even access our profiles Profiles themselves were down for 3.5 weeks, but lists weren't. An interesting thing we learned during the maintenance was that a surprising number of people didn't know that this button existed that takes you straight to your lists:  phantom881 said: I hugely respect this post, i very much respect that a staff member can admit that this prolonged downtime was unacceptable even though somehow a lot of the users cant^ Keep in mind though i would say most of the users angry about the prolonged downtime arent angry at the mods or admins or "Social media team" such as your self as were fully aware you're not responsible for the technical development and maintenance of the site, it's the development team that i'm angry with, i don't understand how a development team of a site as large as MAL has taken months to fix the issues were facing and has still not completely fixed the issues months later, i mean its unheard of for a site as large as MAl to be unusable for 3-4 weeks and then only bring back the forums which is a core part of the site months later. Im not informed as to Dena's decisions on this whole situation so ill look into that more anyway huge respect with your post One of the things behind-the-scenes that a lot of people don't understand is that to DeNA MAL is merely a side project and thus has a small dev team. If you check them out, their primary business is in mobile apps. And believe me, you won't be hard-pressed to find staff who aren't happy with DeNA :'D |
Shymander said: phantom881 said: What do you mean? i was trying the site each day trying to update my list to update the episode counter of each anime i was watching and everytime i tried to go to go onto MAL it gave me an error and each time i clicked my profile it gave me a error and that was a lot longer than 5-6 days, my friend who im talking to on discord who is also a regular MAL user is saying the same thing that it was much longer than 5-6 days were we couldn't update our lists and couldn't even access our profiles Profiles themselves were down for 3.5 weeks, but lists weren't. An interesting thing we learned during the maintenance was that a surprising number of people didn't know that this button existed that takes you straight to your lists: phantom881 said: I hugely respect this post, i very much respect that a staff member can admit that this prolonged downtime was unacceptable even though somehow a lot of the users cant^ Keep in mind though i would say most of the users angry about the prolonged downtime arent angry at the mods or admins or "Social media team" such as your self as were fully aware you're not responsible for the technical development and maintenance of the site, it's the development team that i'm angry with, i don't understand how a development team of a site as large as MAL has taken months to fix the issues were facing and has still not completely fixed the issues months later, i mean its unheard of for a site as large as MAl to be unusable for 3-4 weeks and then only bring back the forums which is a core part of the site months later. Im not informed as to Dena's decisions on this whole situation so ill look into that more anyway huge respect with your post One of the things behind-the-scenes that a lot of people don't understand is that to DeNA MAL is merely a side project and thus has a small dev team. If you check them out, their primary business is in mobile apps. And believe me, you won't be hard-pressed to find staff who aren't happy with DeNA :'D Oh damn, i didn't know you could get straight to your list that way, i thought the only way to get to your list was through your profile ie by clicking your profile picture at the top right and my MAL bookmark on google chrome brings me straight to my profile so that explains why i couldn't access MAl for a month Yea i didn't know that about Dena and the small dev team, thats unbelievable that he only employs a small dev team for a site as large as MAL :P |
phantom881Aug 14, 2018 2:36 AM
And now on to the database. On MAL's discord server, one of the MAL staff went full petty mode claiming that AniList stole MAL's database. Meanwhile MAL stole AniDB's database initially, including synopsis of certain entries. They also pitched info from AnimeNewsNetwork for the longest time. Basically MAL staff is petty. Pullman said: Okay so this is where you are getting silly and spiteful without really knowing what you're talking about. I mean idk what happened in the early days before I joined but idk how you'd know either so feel free to enlighten me in that regard. What I can tell you as a former DB mod is that we were always strongly encouraged to only trust and use japanese sources if possible, and not only AniDB or ANN, although those are legitimate for double-checking. Synopses are always credited to their source as well so it's very petty to talk about 'stealing' synopsis. For a few years now there even has been an initiative to rewrite synopsis for series by MAL staff members to reduce the amount of borrowed synopsis. Idk what exactly Anilist did, but if they stole our original synopsis without crediting, that is something to criticize, and not being petty at all. MAL has plenty of synopsises ripped straight from AniDB still laying around though. Which makes their whole reason for criticism extremely double standards and hypocritical and makes it seem petty, the whole reason why Sarroush (MAL staff member) even said this to me is because I was being positive about AniList on MAL's discord. It's not like I went out of my way to claim how superior or whatever AL is either, the topic just came up. (If anything that was the reason why I became way more blunt with my claims afterwards). Plus, AniList does credit MAL Rewrite in the bottom of the synopsises. I don't know when you were a DB mod but MAL's news section used to be constantly filled with articles ripped straight from ANN. I stopped noticing ANN articles from around the time DeNa came into play. (If you've already noticed my join date, just to clarify, it's not my first account. I've been aware of MAL ever since 2012, I was just never on forums in my old account). |
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
phantom881 said: Shymander said: Profiles themselves were down for 3.5 weeks, but lists weren't. An interesting thing we learned during the maintenance was that a surprising number of people didn't know that this button existed that takes you straight to your lists: One of the things behind-the-scenes that a lot of people don't understand is that to DeNA MAL is merely a side project and thus has a small dev team. If you check them out, their primary business is in mobile apps. And believe me, you won't be hard-pressed to find staff who aren't happy with DeNA :'D Oh damn, i didn't know you could get straight to your list that way, i thought the only way to get to your list was through your profile ie by clicking your profile picture at the top right and my MAL bookmark on google chrome brings me straight to my profile so that explains why i couldn't access MAl for a month Yea i didn't know that about Dena and the small dev team, thats unbelievable that he only employs a small dev team for a site as large as MAL :P Yeah, you could update your list even if you couldn't do anything else in the vegetative state MAL was in. The only real time you couldn't do this was during the real ''down time'' period. Where the whole site was off for a few days. It was like 5-6 days I think. Although it's not like I knew about the icon that leads to my anime list too. I accessed it manually via writing down the entire HTTPs link in the search bar. lul More like, I knew about it but never thought about it. Because when the site's fully functional there's really no reason to go to your list through there. Most people prefer going through their profiles first, not many care about their list more than they do about their profile's page. |
AzurealXAug 14, 2018 2:52 AM
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
SigmaticDoc said: phantom881 said: Oh damn, i didn't know you could get straight to your list that way, i thought the only way to get to your list was through your profile ie by clicking your profile picture at the top right and my MAL bookmark on google chrome brings me straight to my profile so that explains why i couldn't access MAl for a month Yea i didn't know that about Dena and the small dev team, thats unbelievable that he only employs a small dev team for a site as large as MAL :P Yeah, you could update your list even if you couldn't do anything else in the vegetative state MAL was in. The only real time you couldn't do this was during the real ''down time'' period. Where the whole site was off for a few days. It was like 3 days I think. Although it's not like I knew about the icon that leads to my anime list too. I accessed it manually via writing down the entire HTTPs link in the search bar. lul More like, I knew about it but never thought about it. Because when the site's fully functional there's really no reason to go to your list through there. Most people prefer going through their profiles first, not many care about their list more than they do about their profile's page. yea it was a really bad situation overall and i think the fact that MAl is a side project for Dena and that its only a small dev team that develops the site really shows that Dena doesn't give a @#!@ about the site and its sad really because its going to be the mods and admins on the site thats going to be taking the frustration head on who have no control over the development or maintenance of the site and most people rightfully complaining about the downtime arent singling out the development team they're facing their anger towards the staff team overall |
phantom881 said: SigmaticDoc said: Yeah, you could update your list even if you couldn't do anything else in the vegetative state MAL was in. The only real time you couldn't do this was during the real ''down time'' period. Where the whole site was off for a few days. It was like 3 days I think. Although it's not like I knew about the icon that leads to my anime list too. I accessed it manually via writing down the entire HTTPs link in the search bar. lul More like, I knew about it but never thought about it. Because when the site's fully functional there's really no reason to go to your list through there. Most people prefer going through their profiles first, not many care about their list more than they do about their profile's page. yea it was a really bad situation overall and i think the fact that MAl is a side project for Dena and that its only a small dev team that develops the site really shows that Dena doesn't give a @#!@ about the site and its sad really because its going to be the mods and admins on the site thats going to be taking the frustration head on who have no control over the development or maintenance of the site and most people rightfully complaining about the downtime arent singling out the development team they're facing their anger towards the staff team overall I'm mostly angry at the staff team for being so irresponsible to their community. It took a lot of criticism from people until they actually updated the text on the downtime wall to be actually sort of representative on what's going on. |
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
SigmaticDoc said: I'm mostly angry at the staff team for being so irresponsible to their community. It took a lot of criticism from people until they actually updated the text on the downtime wall to be actually sort of representative on what's going on. The text on the downtime wall was on DeNA's side of things, not ours. It got changed because we went to them about it from our own frustrations with it. I'm not sure where these criticisms from people were, but we had it changed because of how we felt about it and we wanted it to better reflect the situation before any of that. It's frustrating when these kinds of assumptions against us keep being made without basis. Throughout the whole process, we made an effort to keep the community in the loop on everything we could and bring things back as fast as possible. One of the best pieces of evidence of that is how exporting lists was one of the things we made them bring back first so that people could rest easier about the safety of their lists and could move sites if they so wished. |
ShymanderAug 14, 2018 3:18 AM
Shymander said: SigmaticDoc said: I'm mostly angry at the staff team for being so irresponsible to their community. It took a lot of criticism from people until they actually updated the text on the downtime wall to be actually sort of representative on what's going on. The text on the downtime wall was on DeNA's side of things, not ours. It got changed because we went to them about it from our own frustrations with it. I'm not sure where these criticisms from people were, but we had it changed because of how we felt about it and we wanted it to better reflect the situation before any of that. It's frustrating when these kinds of assumptions against us keep being made without basis. Throughout the whole process, we made an effort to keep the community in the loop on everything we could and bring things back as fast as possible. One of the best pieces of evidence of that is how exporting lists was one of the things we made them bring back first so that people could rest easier about the safety of their lists and could move sites if they so wished. About the criticisms, I was mainly referring to MAL's discord. People there were fussing a lot about it. But yeah ,if what you're saying is true then there's another issue. (Which was always there since DeNa came). A lot of people don't know about what the staff did to ease the situation because of a huge lack of transparency between the community and the staff. |
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
SigmaticDoc said: Shymander said: The text on the downtime wall was on DeNA's side of things, not ours. It got changed because we went to them about it from our own frustrations with it. I'm not sure where these criticisms from people were, but we had it changed because of how we felt about it and we wanted it to better reflect the situation before any of that. It's frustrating when these kinds of assumptions against us keep being made without basis. Throughout the whole process, we made an effort to keep the community in the loop on everything we could and bring things back as fast as possible. One of the best pieces of evidence of that is how exporting lists was one of the things we made them bring back first so that people could rest easier about the safety of their lists and could move sites if they so wished. About the criticisms, I was mainly referring to MAL's discord. People there were fussing a lot about it. But yeah ,if what you're saying is true then there's another issue. (Which was always there since DeNa came). A lot of people don't know about what the staff did to ease the situation because of a huge lack of transparency between the community and the staff. I'm not sure what you mean by "huge lack of transparency" or what you expect from that. We updated our Facebook page and Twitter at every step of the way with whatever information we had. We also reassured users through our irc, put out announcements in the discord and even answered when staff members were personally asked questions. I myself and the rest of the social media team answered questions about it in comments on Facebook posts, even ones that weren't related to the maintenance. If you didn't ask questions nor checked our social media (which we referred people to), then that's on you. We gave as much transparency as possible. |
ShymanderAug 14, 2018 3:49 AM
| Abyway I don't think that MAL needs to improve, I think you should adapt yourself to MAL or just leave this site. |
| Signature removed. Please have a positive iq. |
Sephyros said: Abyway I don't think that MAL needs to improve, I think you should adapt yourself to MAL or just leave this site. Oh, no, there's always room for improvement and MAL is no different. There's a pile of things that need to be updated and changed, it's more that there's some suggestions that aren't that necessary. |
| Obviously MAL is improving but the site wont adapt itself to 4-5 whining users |
| Signature removed. Please have a positive iq. |
KatsutoSaki said: @sasalx I thought the same when I saw the forum posts count as 275. Well, there's a possibility that he/she posted 274 times in the clubs they've joined... It's a "possibility" since the clubs can't be accessed right now... Hmm I see. That would make sense yes. However, if it's true that's not a good sign either. You are the caretaker of a site but only answers problems related to mobile. Oh well. |
Sephyros said: Obviously MAL is improving but the site wont adapt itself to 4-5 whining users How can something be ''improving'' if no real change has happened in like 8-9 years beyond the digital manga shop? The time it took them to answer submissions was way faster in the beginning of 2017. I had like 7 entries or so approved in a quick succession after I submitted them. And then I submitted some shit in mid 2017.... when did it get addressed? Last week. gud stuff And that's in the People database. There's still that one Light Novel that I submitted about 2 years ago without a single reply to it at all. It wasn't declined, it wasn't approved. It's still there. Hell, I submitted a LN entry in late 2017 and it got added in about a week or so. So it's not like they haven't scrolled past the LN several dozen times without even checking it out. Nothing's really ''improved''. It's just changed, and for the worse in some aspects. Adding a manga shop is not an improvement. It's just them wanting to make a bit more money. Considering they have nothing exclusive I could always buy what they offer from another place, on a physical copy too. And that's the only real change they did which wasn't necessarily an improvement nor a downgrade. But what about them removing the dislike button to reviews to enforce false positivity? ''B-Buh people could dislike just cuz'' well, they could always just hit ''report'' on a review anyway, it doesn't really matter. Instead it just helps reviews like ''Dis anime gud, very enjobleable with medium art' reach the top because the ''report'' function is about as useful as a windowed door with a peep hole. |
| Anime List|Manga List | Discord: Azureal#2963 |
SigmaticDoc said: And now on to the database. On MAL's discord server, one of the MAL staff went full petty mode claiming that AniList stole MAL's database. Meanwhile MAL stole AniDB's database initially, including synopsis of certain entries. They also pitched info from AnimeNewsNetwork for the longest time. Basically MAL staff is petty. Pullman said: Okay so this is where you are getting silly and spiteful without really knowing what you're talking about. I mean idk what happened in the early days before I joined but idk how you'd know either so feel free to enlighten me in that regard. What I can tell you as a former DB mod is that we were always strongly encouraged to only trust and use japanese sources if possible, and not only AniDB or ANN, although those are legitimate for double-checking. Synopses are always credited to their source as well so it's very petty to talk about 'stealing' synopsis. For a few years now there even has been an initiative to rewrite synopsis for series by MAL staff members to reduce the amount of borrowed synopsis. Idk what exactly Anilist did, but if they stole our original synopsis without crediting, that is something to criticize, and not being petty at all. MAL has plenty of synopsises ripped straight from AniDB still laying around though. But credited tho, right? So I don't see the problem. Plus, AniList does credit MAL Rewrite in the bottom of the synopsises. Then that's not a problem either. Why are we talking about this again? I think borrowing synopsis and crediting the source is very basic stuff. I don't know when you were a DB mod but MAL's news section used to be constantly filled with articles ripped straight from ANN. I stopped noticing ANN articles from around the time DeNa came into play. DB Mods have nothing to do with the news either way so it doesn't matter but it was for like 1,5 years directly after DeNa took over. With the news articles it's the same as with the synopsis, no problem if you credit the source. Do you know how news in real life works? There's huge agencies writing articles and a lot of smaller ones just repeating the stuff that the bigger ones already researched and investigated to bring it to their own audience because they don't always have the manpower and money to be everywhere and research everything to a satisfying degree. Another very basic concept. As ANN is primarily a news website it's their job to bring new news to the table. Us other sites only have the responsability to inform our users of whatever news are out there, not to create our own news. To me what you're complaining about is a literal non-issue. You seem way too obsesses with every site doing everything on their own. To me, expecting 5+ different anime websites to all do equally much work on every single issue is just silly and inefficient. Why does the same work have to be done multiple times by different people? It's a nice way to brag if you can afford to have people do ton of work that has already been done but that's a luxury at best, not something to expect or to harshly criticize when it's not the case. So yeah, some of your points were valid criticisms but all this stuff regarding 'stealing' (aka crediting the source) news or synopsis just sounds like you're making a big drama out of basically nothing. I'd focus more on the areas of your suggestion that make more sense and that people care more about, like the review issues, improving the search engine or implementing more statistics in the main site rather than relying on third parties for that. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| Agreeing with OP in many things. And don't really get people who say "it's all fine. it you dislike it leave!" the maintenance took ridicolously long (and the clubs are still not back), I think everyone have the right to be frustrated about it. Not because paid for the site, but it shouldn't be said it's a "privilege" to use MAL. MAL would be nothing without its members. if all people would leave, the site would be empty. (of course that won't happen with a site this huge, but that's another thing.) People expressing concern over things are worrying for the site. They care about it, and want it to improve. If you are content with the situation (which is clearly not perfect) it won't lead to anywhere but stagnation. If our ancient ancestors would been content with their situation we would live in caves, or wouldn't even came down from the trees, IMO. Another thing where to direct the frustration over things - first, the maintenance at hand. If the moderators had no power over the whole issue either, obviously they're not at fault either, but I think it wasn't necessarily communicated well, prior the forums getting to work again. So members could easily assume it's mods' fault. It would been better told at the start, it is not. and not on Facebook, Twitter or anything, but here on MAL. It's natural members are frustrated over the long maintenance, no one should say them to shut up, everyone should be able to share their opinion (and frustration too). As for other things that should be improved... I don't know about the "stolen synopsis" thing, I never really looked deep into that, but I think whether they are "stolen" or not, if credit is given, it's all right. and I think I seen credits to other sites, if the synopsis were from other places. as for other issues though... there is the tag system that's clearly no good. Like many other members, I told it in suggestions several times. but it appears (tell me if I'm wrong, but it do appears so) that mods never even react to that idea (except sometimes merge similar threads). I did realised it through several threads like that, that there is another thing making the solving of the basic problem more complicated, that is, members don't agree, how should it be solved, what new genres should be added, what are redundant, etc., so in the end, they turn into arguments, and lead to nowhere. But MAL's genre/tag system is clearly broken. there are tags like cars with only a handful anime/manga, while we have no tags that are actually genres like Mahou Shoujo, or Isekai (this wasn't a genre back when MAL born, but nowdays, it clearly is), and some other things could be very useful too, like sub-genres of other, like we have (but for manga only, which is also questionable why) the "gender-bender" tag, which is a huge umbrella with lots of things under it, making it totally useless if you're looking for something more specific or want to avoid something. crossdressing, futanari, transgenders, stories where random alien randomly changes MC's gender, and many more things are all under it, making it very useless if looking for any of these types specifically. then there's the other question about "shoujo ai"-Yuri & "shounen ai"-Yaoi redundancy. putting aside that the words "shoujo ai" and "shounen ai" doesn't even mean in Japan what they used for in the West (or so I read), it can be found redundant, why to have 2 tags for the same thing? - okay, some would say "it's not the same, because one is "tamer". If members want all 4 tags to be able to find what they want better, all right, I do accept that they have a place here on MAL, but then so would be other, more classified tags too. To help users find what they want to read/watch. I think, in the end, no tags should be removed - even "cars" is useful, even if only has a few things under - but just like that, more tags would be very, very useful and helpful. Of course, in the end of the day, many users use other sites' tags to find what they want, but wouldn't it be nice and useful, if MAL's tag system would be actually useful? Another issue I'm rather annoyed with is the thing with the manga database. I don't know a lot about the things in the background, but I heard there was a time - or maybe right now too? - there were/are no manga database moderators. which, if it's true, is a very big issue. I prefer to add manga to my lists right away when I'm reading/finished them. sometimes I run into manga that aren't in the database, which is kind of annoying. even more annoying, when I look them up, I find the entry, but I can't add it to my lists, because it's "pending approval". some of them are since many, many months. and since those entries weren't even sent to the database by me, I won't even getting a notification when they get approved, so all I can do is bookmarking the pending database entry, and check it at times. there are some that I bookmarked ages ago, and still pending approval. if they aren't meet the database's standards for whatever reason, decline them, and if they met, approve them please. Why does it takes ages to accept new manga to the database, when it goes much faster with anime? - and I think it used to be much faster with manga too, in the past. Some could say "but you're not a mod, you don't know how hard they work, don't say they don't work hard enough or anything" I didn't questioned they are working hard. but some issues are here since quite long, and I heard nothing about them would getting fixed anytime soon. expecially the issue with the manga database, which I don't get how even occured. The tag system used to be the same since ages, I'm not surprised about it staying like this, (though would be great if it would be improved), but when parts that used to work fine, stop working so fine, it's, something that should be taken care of, I think. ever since I joined MAL, there were many-many things the site. there are changes, some are for the better (like the notifications), some are for the worse (removal of not helpful button from reviews), but many issues were never changed (like the broken and outdated tag system). There were crazy times, like when [img] didn't work for long, or when the site got hacked, but MAL did always overcome them, just like as it overcome this issue of maintenance too, (but why does it took so long...), I guess I am a loyal type too, and I really, really love this site, and that's exactly why I tell my opinion. Because I care. not questioning that others wouldn't. I know many of us, members and mods alike, care a lot about this site. That's why, issues should be solved, and site improved, and improved and improved, slowly but surely to be better, up-to-date, to not lose in the "race" with other similar sites, and keep being our MAL for decades and centuries and anything to come. |
Pullman said: SigmaticDoc said: MAL has plenty of synopsises ripped straight from AniDB still laying around though. But credited tho, right? So I don't see the problem. Plus, AniList does credit MAL Rewrite in the bottom of the synopsises. Then that's not a problem either. Why are we talking about this again? I think borrowing synopsis and crediting the source is very basic stuff. I don't know when you were a DB mod but MAL's news section used to be constantly filled with articles ripped straight from ANN. I stopped noticing ANN articles from around the time DeNa came into play. DB Mods have nothing to do with the news either way so it doesn't matter but it was for like 1,5 years directly after DeNa took over. With the news articles it's the same as with the synopsis, no problem if you credit the source. Do you know how news in real life works? There's huge agencies writing articles and a lot of smaller ones just repeating the stuff that the bigger ones already researched and investigated to bring it to their own audience because they don't always have the manpower and money to be everywhere and research everything to a satisfying degree. Another very basic concept. As ANN is primarily a news website it's their job to bring new news to the table. Us other sites only have the responsability to inform our users of whatever news are out there, not to create our own news. To me what you're complaining about is a literal non-issue. You seem way too obsesses with every site doing everything on their own. To me, expecting 5+ different anime websites to all do equally much work on every single issue is just silly and inefficient. Why does the same work have to be done multiple times by different people? It's a nice way to brag if you can afford to have people do ton of work that has already been done but that's a luxury at best, not something to expect or to harshly criticize when it's not the case. So yeah, some of your points were valid criticisms but all this stuff regarding 'stealing' (aka crediting the source) news or synopsis just sounds like you're making a big drama out of basically nothing. I'd focus more on the areas of your suggestion that make more sense and that people care more about, like the review issues, improving the search engine or implementing more statistics in the main site rather than relying on third parties for that. You're still addressing my whole point in the sense that I'm the one claiming that they ''steal''. It's MAL (sarroush to be specific, with Brandon kinda nudging at it) who went and stated that in a salty manner on their Discord. I'm just pointing out that it's extremely hypocritical and double standards. I don't mind them getting stuff as long as they cite the source. |
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