I think last volumes' covers are spoilerish...

[N0Mi0]

Guys, it's always been bugging me how most manga sites use the last volume's cover in the title. It usually contains some kind of spoiler which would somewhat ruin a new reader's experience. It's especially prevalent in case of romance. Just check this Love Hina's cover!
http://beta.mangadex.org/images/manga/2404.jpg?1531479104
I don't even need to read the manga to know how it's going to end. Or in case of To Love-Ru it seems like MH doesn't choose anyone, and it's a harem end (I still didn't read it, though, but it gives that kind of vibe)
http://beta.mangadex.org/images/manga/732.jpg?1525324032

I mean, I could understand using the last one's for an ongoing series, but once it's finished, why would anyone present a series with its last volume? Every new reader starts to read from the beginning, not the other way around. Hack, even Wiki shows the fist volumes' pics, and, strangely, MAL has the same practice. If you were to go buy a whole pack of a series, the first pic will always be the one of the first volume, as a defining one.

While some could think that it doesn't matter, I myself got spoiled more than once just by seeing the last cover of the series I am about to read. It's a real issue, and I'd really like to know whether there's a real point in using the last cover for a finished series.

Also, I'd like to note that a lot of older series have the fist volume, here in MangaDex too. Kimagure Orange Road, for instance
http://beta.mangadex.org/manga/1044/kimagure-orange-road.

So, what, is it just random, there's no rule or something?

Presenting it from a different angle, imagine presenting a 24-episode TV show (or anime) with the last episode's cover? Who in their right mind would do this for a finished series?

 

[ununseti]

Since any user with Contributor or higher privileges can change the cover image, I would imagine that the choice of cover image is mainly at the discretion of the uploaders or frequent readers of a manga. For people who are following a manga closely, I guess they would prefer a more up-to-date volume cover, since it's nice to see just how far you've progressed since the start of a series.

There's been a previous discussion on this topic, with no clear consensus: #6978: Volume covers should be as current as possible

Note that the current Mangadex rules do have an entry about volume covers:

1.8.2: Content: use a cover image of a later volume, unless it doesn't fit the overall art style or theme of the comic nor has major spoilers.

Similarly, Mangaupdates, where the cover image is also editable by any user, also has these guidelines in bright red text (emphasis mine):

Please do not use sexually explicit or overly graphic images. Also, please do not put up covers which spoil the series!

I'd imagine that older series get less activity, so that could be why the cover image choices for those ones are inconsistent with more recent ones.

I don't particularly mind spoilers, so I don't really have a strong opinion either way. However, I will say that when browsing the front page, it's the primarily the manga cover image that I look at when deciding whether to check it out or not. So, the choice is important. For example, I would say that Hinamatsuri volume 14 is more likely to catch my eye because of its bright colours and wider range of characters compared to volume 1. On the other hand, volume 1 has a more unusual juxtaposition of elements, so perhaps volume 1 is better after all! I don't know.

Also, some volume 1s are relatively poorly drawn compared to later on in the series, perhaps because the artist was still improving, and there are also some volume 1s that just don't give an accurate impression of the series as whole. I think the current guidelines are fine. Just let the followers of a series use their discretion to select the best possible image. Perhaps just enforce the non-spoiler clause a bit more.

I haven't read Love Hina, but I do agree that the volume 14 cover of Love Hina looks a bit spoilerish, and it should be changed to a different cover.

As a future suggestion, I think it'd be cool if we could have a gallery of all of the cover images for a manga series. Perhaps readers could vote on which covers they like they best and how spoilerific each volume is, and perhaps the decision could be made based on those metrics. Just throwing some ideas out there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Teasday]

_{N0Mi0 posted:}

I don't even need to read the manga to know how it's going to end.

To be fair, it is Love Hina

 

[Alph4Xerxes]

I second this, and specifically I wish the first volume cover was used by default, or at least as an option.

Unlike some others as it seems, I absolutely hate spoilers (after having some irritating experiences in the past), even minor spoilers. And even though there are rules in place to prevent them, some covers which the people posting might not deem as particularly spoiler-ish still contain information about what happens later on in series just from characters appearing on the covers and their apparel, such as a character who was previously in the background getting characterisation and coming to the foreground, hence appearing on the cover (like I remember happening in a specific sports manga).

Another reason to use the first volume's cover, a significant amount of the time people drop manga, it's in the first few chapters when the art style hasn't changed that much so the idea of art style changing later isn't necessarily that relevant. In fact, the information you get from the first volume is going to tell you more thematically about the start of the manga, and hence is more relevant to people who are starting to read the manga than a more recent cover.

Finally, if the cover of an ongoing series is changed around for whatever reason, it does make it more difficult to recognise on the home page or otherwise, for example when you're looking through the new updates to see if there's anything interesting.

I know this all sounds somewhat pedantic, though this is legitimately my biggest gripe about MangaDex at the moment.

 

[totallynotmike]

Dude, it's already been rejected as mandatory requirement for database entry. Right now it basically comes down to whether a person setting up or modifying title's page is using their brain at the moment, and-or whether said person is a cunt.

Battle's been won, it's time to go home. The only thing left to do is to keep an eye out for occasional rebel.

 

[Pokari]

As a low-effort conformance-improvement measure, one could add the words "Avoid spoilers if possible." to the image-upload text entry field.

(like in Edit, the one that currently reads "Leave blank if no change to image. Minimum aspect ratio: 1:1.5, ideal minimum resolution: 300x450. Max 1MB". Although... in Firefox at least I had to inspect source to get that full sentence because of how the text field was set up, but, er, that issue aside...)

 

[monkey123]

I don't care about spoiler cover. This topic is just like first world problems...