Volume covers should be as current as possible :maybe:

[HawkGoggles]

I don't know if there is a way to be able to freely change the vol. cover image so even newbies can be happy, but as someone who is currently reading a manga a, I want to be able to view the most recent vol. cover art. Most series are taken from their weekly or monthly scans so the likelihood of seeing those covers are slims so I appreciate it whenever they do get updated. I know where people are coming from but when I even start to see these complaints on slice of life covers I loss all of my empathy. The people who push for this more than anyone else are people who have already read the manga and have context for the cover art. No manga cover truly spoils anything for someone who hasn't started reading it, and if they want to avoid after they start catching up they can get to it from their fallows tab. This is more so a movement than an actual feature and i think there is a debate to be had so this is just me expressing my two cents.

 

[Zephyrus]

There's an ongoing discussion about this amongst staff. We may make our own ruling or put it to a vote amongst the users. Not sure how we'll solve this just yet.

Moving to maybe due to ongoing discussion.

 

[tathra]

current with raws or current with scanlations? theres a lot of series that are being scanlated that have been completed for a long time in their original language but are only now being scanlated, there's about a 40 volume discrepancy between the 2, raws and english, in one series i follow.

pesonally I'm good with either, but others have said that they'd prefer the covers to match translation progress.

 

[jokerxhisoka]

no, they shouldn't. Most covers give hints about what happens on the volume, meaning they can greatly spoil the reader even before they start to read it.

 

[tathra]

so people shouldnt ever go to bookstores, or buy tankobans online, cuz they might accidentally get "spoiled" by seeing book covers?

 

[Teasday]

I don't think there's a real consensus or anything yet, but personally I've been saying that

1) Most importantly of all, the cover should be accurately representative of the series
2) It's recommended to use the latest cover, unless
2.1) the latest cover features prominent and significant spoilers that would ruin an actual surprise in the plot (for example a neutral illustration of a character introduced later in the series is not a significant spoiler, so it has be at least better than that)
2.2) the latest cover doesn't represent the series as a whole, almost to the point of misrepresenting it (it happens)
3) If the latest cover isn't an option, then either default to the first volume cover or if that would break rule 2.2 as well (for example due to being an old series), just use whatever else that fits well enough (see: the Detective Conan debacle)

 

[jokerxhisoka]

@tathra can you even come up with a relevant comparison? When you go to a bookstore to buy that certain volume, you are already up with that story, meaning the cover won't matter that much to you, but here, on MD, the cover is the very first thing every reader will see, even if they just started reading the series, when they open the page of that series, do you see the difference? To make this clear for you, on a bookstore you don't need to see the cover of the latest volume to start reading a series, but here you would if this suggestion was accepted.

 

[tathra]

@jokerxhisoka so bookstores ONLY feature books that each individual in them is current with? people don't see covers to stuff they don't read, or go to look for new series to start? ditto for libraries, do you throw a fit at librarians because they have books beyond the first in a series and "zomg, spoilers!"? this site is a library/bookstore, if you don't throw fits about "spoilers" on covers at either of them then you lack the behavioral consistency to pretend they're an issue here.

 

[HawkGoggles]

When I first brought this up I meant that covers should be up to date with the current scanlation of chapters.

@Teasday I agree with most of this list but consider things like tags and descriptions the covers don't have to be the main back bone of a series description. Other than character deaths or traitor reveals, I can't think of things that would be major, story changing spoilers. My main problem is that people will change a cover over the smallest things and get in tissys over things that they either don't understand, or worry over people who honestly don't care or will forget when they really get into a manga. Me personally, I keep that stuff in tabs or bookmark the last page I was on, so chances of going back and seeing the cover are slim.

 

[ununseti]

One possible compromise may be to have a rotation system set up, sort of like the banners on r/manga, or the desktop slideshows you can have on various operating systems.

 

[Teasday]

_{HawkGoggles posted:}

When I first brought this up I meant that covers should be up to date with the current scanlation of chapters.

Who decides what's the current scanlation? If we go with the one that's the furthest ahead, that's not any different for the other languages than the latest available cover is for the furthest language. We're not going to give preferential treatment to English specifically either.

_{HawkGoggles posted:}

I agree with most of this list but consider things like tags and descriptions the covers don't have to be the main back bone of a series description.

Most people are only going to see the tags and the descriptions after they've seen the cover image on the front page and decided the series looks relevant to their interests. On the contrary, I would argue the cover is one of the most important aspects.

 

[tathra]

why not give preference to English? after all, the site "info" says:

"MangaDex is a manga reader, primarily for English scanlation groups"

so it should already be a given that English scanlations get preferential treatment.

 

[Plykiya]

@Tathra
Holo initially thought the site would only serve an English based audience but saw the benefits to being completely international. There are plans to add localization/translation to all of the UI on the site. Manga pages will change dynamically based on the language you have set as well. I don't think it'd be that difficult to have a different cover image depending on the language setting, or defaulting to the already set current English cover if a different one isn't uploaded. We don't have to show preferential treatment if there are other solutions.

 

[Teasday]

_{Plykiya posted:}

I don't think it'd be that difficult to have a different cover image depending on the language setting, or defaulting to the already set current English cover if a different one isn't uploaded.

Probably not difficult, a little wasteful maybe.

 

[Prime32]

It would be nice if you could click on the cover image to view a list of all covers for that series. Maybe with a blank space for volumes that don't have an image uploaded.

With multiple cover images, you could also add an item to Settings that lets users toggle whether the first/latest cover shows up by default.

 

[HawkGoggles]

Most people are only going to see the tags and the descriptions after they've seen the cover image on the front page and decided the series looks relevant to their interests. On the contrary, I would argue the cover is one of the most important aspects.

Yes, it's the first thing you see but at most it will peek your interests. It makes you asks questions on what the manga is about that further gets answered by tags and descriptions. After scouring the front page and seeing volume covers ranging from 1 to 74, or just covers of magazine scans because the volumes aren't out yet, just made me double down on how much the cover doesn't tell you anything. You have to click on the manga page anyway if you even want to get to chapter one because it's rare to catch the first upload of a series anyway.

Volume covers are important, that's why I want to see as may of them as I can, but I don't think they actively ruin the experience for someone who truly wants to enjoy the story for what it is, instead of what it does. Sure, they can contain spoilers but they almost never contain context. Sure, they might misrepresent the series, but that might be the point, (ex. Sharif Evans). This is extremely selfish but I think the people who care about the volume cover the most are the people currently reading the manga, so I think the covers should cater to them for putting in the time to read.

As for the matter of, "most current". I say the cover should be up to date with whoever is ahead in scanning it. Be it English, Russian, or Spanish, let it rock.

 

[tathra]

With multiple cover images, you could also add an item to Settings that lets users toggle whether the first/latest cover shows up by default.

i like this idea. have a user setting for "Display Latest Covers" or "Display Volume 1 Cover", even better if "Display Volume 1 Cover for series I'm not following, latest cover for followed series" is also an option.

 

[Fenor]

Cover should be the first one released, putting the last one might be spoiler for people coming to read the series later.

or add an option for first/last in the user settings and it will load the one preferred.

 

[tathra]

until a 'better' method gets implemented in the future, can users get an option to turn off the manga image display? that way the people convinced that volume covers display "spoilers" can turn them off instead of continually vandalizing manga pages by reverting them to volume 1 every single time they're updated, breaking the rules (rule 1.8) and forcing their views on every single person that views the site regardless of what they think.

if somebody is convinced that volume covers have "spoilers", then they can't be ok with the cover of the first volume or any other image since its just as spoilery as every other cover*, so being able to turn off the manga image display should be ideal for them.

*not counting the extremely rare cases where they legitimately do spoil a character "death" or something, but this is an insanely rare occurrence and it isn't relevant to the discussion about the rest of the tens of thousands of volume covers that exist

 

[ununseti]

With multiple cover images, you could also add an item to Settings that lets users toggle whether the first/latest cover shows up by default.

i like this idea. have a user setting for "Display Latest Covers" or "Display Volume 1 Cover", even better if "Display Volume 1 Cover for series I'm not following, latest cover for followed series" is also an option.

I also like this idea.