512 replies to this topic

[crealque]

This sounds interesting too, I understand that Batoto is on Nginx

 

http://www.senginx.org/en/index.php/HTTP_Robot_Mitigation

[sneezemonkey]

You wish.

They get paid at most $2 per hour. In any case, the price is negligible compared to what they make.

[zuram]

Indeed they will figure a way around the registration. But as I've said, it's not to block them out completely. It's to put it to a state where it's manageable. Not every single crawlers will bother to perfect the art of crawling.

 

Are you sure that it will make it manageable? When they see their monies in peril, plus the chance to get even more monies from the increased ad revenue going to their sites, I'm pretty sure they will reach the Zen of crawling.

 

Greed is the best motivator. You also risk of more (new) crawlers appearing as the market just got juicier for them.

 

On the other hand, you might find 10x different crawlers crawling at the same time instead of just 1, thus driving up the peak loads on the server.

 

Excuse my ignorance but what exactly is the reason to use an aggregator site instead of batoto? Even the less experienced reader should be aware that releases on these sites have a worse quality than here. Only a very minor amount of series that are available on other sites are not available here so why are they reading a chapter in mediocre quality when they can have exactly the same for free in better quality?

 

Look for Naruto or One Piece here. Now go to those aggregator sites. If it's been licensed, no batoto. As it's on other sites, they already got an incentive to go there.

 

You guys are making this out to be more than it is. Literally all it means is you need to log in to see the content. It's not "private" in that you need an invite, or there's only so many that can get in, etc. There are tons of forums out there that require registering before seeing some of the forums. This is no different. And for a site like this that you would use quite often, it's not that much to ask. You people are seriously amazing complaining about this. This isn't some random forum somewhere you needed to register to ask a question once, never to go there again.

 

And you apparently miss the point entirely. It's not that the others have ads. It's that they're completely unscrupulous and without morals and couldn't give a fuck what happens to any of the series. They just want money. You're basically saying I'm apathetic, I'm going to support assholes bc meh.

 

You miss a very important point: your average manga reader doesn't care about the series or morals either. They want to read their favourite manga and they are going to go to the supplier that gives it to him the easiest way, even if it uses poor kids and kills cats to do it. And I estimate that "average" is around 90 to 95% of users (registered and non registered) of batoto (or any other site), if not more.

 

Ethics won't give you your fix. That's the reality.

 

Actually, being honest here, none of us is really that faithful to the services they use.

 

If Google does something "bad", people will stop using it, even if it's free (and the fuss will be trending topic for a while). If a torrent site doesn't provide you what you're looking for, you're going to check elsewhere.

 

Take your favourite browser. A wrong decision, you switch browsers even if they were free. It might even be a minor one, just that is a decision you didn't like.

 

Times haven't changed that much. People switched gods before, now they do it with sites.

 

 

Think that many people are used to having to switch sites. They go down, their admin gets tired, they get a lawsuit... in the end, people end up not caring (I mean, why register?) about a site that is going to disappear in a few years, like all the previous ones they've been in.

 

 

The situation is that you care about the site. Most people, don't so much. But you don't want those people leaving because it will put the site at risk as they leave, either because you lose ad revenue and or because those sites increase their ad revenue, thus making you a juicier target than before.

 

What you're arguing for is for him to do nothing and shut the site down instead. What's happening currently is imagine you run a restaurant with seating for 50 people. It's lunch-time and you have that 1-hour period to make most of your sales for the day. 45/50 are people that come in, sit down, order a water then drag out their time and order nothing then leave at 1pm. And they come in and do this every day. You're losing out on a huge chunk of your sales bc these people are clogging up the restaurant doing you no good. Even worse, they come tromping in with muddy boots and get it everywhere causing lots of cleanup. Should the restaurant kick them out? Or let them stay and go out of business?

 

The thing is not what we make out of this, but what they will make out of it. Buddy, we are talking about people that don't even know how to do a simple Google search to find their own stuff. I'm a lazy person, but those people are way worse than me.

 

And considering that we are talking about a high percentage of non registered users on the site, I see a lot of them leaving the site. Moreover if those sites start spreading FUD about batoto going private (even if it isn't true, bad news run faster and they are easier to believe, as if they were red) and maybe, going invite, paywall or subscription soon. As I've said, there are already examples of sites doing that already.

 

I agree with you that there is a problem, just that I disagree that the solution given is a good one.

 

 

Let's see, using metaphores. It's like being a doctor and diagnosing a bloodletting treatment for a disease that doesn't require it, because "something has to be done or he dies" (in fact, it was applied in ancient times under those premises, for almost everything; with obvious results registered in History). The problem is that all that blood loss is weakening your patient and you're going to end up killing him; before the disease does.

 

We (as in, users who oppose this) know that there is a disease, just that we don't agree with the treatments given.

 

 

At the end of the day the current model is not sustainable. Something will eventually have to give. We either do something about the current model or go on a donation drive periodically to pay for hardware. Note that the full members only option is not viable. What Grumpy is saying is that there needs to be a way to limit the impact of these bots that are making lots of request at once because current measures don't work coz they are using a pool of different IPs.

 

As I've said, ads could be inserted randomly (it can be one, or two, or three...) in the chapters.

 

And being honest, those ads would have a higher value than normal ads because:

 

- You get the revenue from normal users (that don't use adblock, lol).

- You get the revenue from people who download it. Even if it's to see it so that they can delete it.

- And while you don't get the revenue, the ad is more valuable if crawlers get it, because it will also expose their users to your ads (plus you just advertised batoto to them and may flinch some users away from them).

 

About clicking the ads... anyone in their sane mind has clicked an ad unless it was a mistake? I don't even use adblock, I just ignore them.

 

 

And the thing about making it easier to download the chapters zipped sounds a silly one, but in the end, if you know that your ass is going to get raped no matter what, you might be able to convince the other guy to use lube so that it only hurts your pride, if you do it willingly. Of course, don't look so willing or others will ask for their turn too.

 

If you can't make crawlers disappear and it's not sure that your load will be manageable, maybe giving them an easier way may reduce the loads on your servers as you can control the speed of those downloads, limiting the speed and DLs per IP (and maybe use compressed files so that the files are smaller, like scanlators do).

 

And you could even have an incentive for your users to register (you allow DLs for registered users, for example) and to even take their users away from them. Just saying.

 

This can also be used as a give and take option: you make people have to register for older files (semi-private, or whatever is the scheme), but the registered members are allowed to download chapters (again, with inserted ads) instead of reading them.

 

 

You see, when you design something that works with water (like a dam or a water network), you can't contain the water forever. Either you leave it a way to exit, or water will find a way to get out, usually from the side that deals most damage (and that kills five thousand people).

 

You don't oppose the water, you direct it the way you want (and you can).

[VawX]

You have my full support, there're just too many cancers out there, better suffer a little bit for the good of everyone mmm...

Edited by VawX, 21 October 2015 - 03:19 PM.

[Gopper]

im a member so it doesnt affect me... do the change 

[Bobby W.]

Oh well, a couple of weeks ago I actually had to use an Android application, which is Manga Rock, to browse Batoto because my laptop was broken. So back then, it would have been an issue. Though not right now, since I've already gotten my laptop fixed. So yeah, to be honest I'm actually fine with this change. I'll probably have to code a few extra lines for my 'tweet remote image' web application though, but I don't think that'll be an issue. If it's for the good of Batoto, I'll vote yes.

[Aoshiroi]

Excuse me for I have not read all 12 pages of the discussion so far. I'm sorry if I repeat something which has already been posted. I'm also not an admin of any site so I'm not knowledgeable about the technical side of the issue.[/disclaimer]

 

I don't see any real problem with people having to register an account to read manga on Batoto. It's free and it only requires an e-mail address or so. Is it really that much to ask? We all come here to get our manga fix. If we want it badly enough, registration won't stop anyone.

 

Whether people will just go to another site to read manga is a question of supply and demand. Scanlation groups decide where their releases will be available. If we assume that the crawlers are stopped (or greatly impeded), the manga posted on Batoto, stays on Batoto. If people can only read it here...well, their choice is really between reading it or dropping it. It's in the hands of the scanlation groups. If Batoto offers them a safe haven where their work won't be easily pulled by multitude of aggregator sites, I don't see why they won't agree to post their releases exclusively here. I would.

 

Some communities have questionnaire-based quarantining methods for new members to weed out bots and other undesirables. The approval could take weeks. The question again is, "How bad do you want it?" Compared to that registration is really soft-core.

Edited by Aoshiroi, 21 October 2015 - 03:27 PM.

[sneezemonkey]

This sounds interesting too, I understand that Batoto is on Nginx

 

http://www.senginx.org/en/index.php/HTTP_Robot_Mitigation

If this can solve it, great. Just make sure to remind people to accept cookies.

 

As I've said, ads could be inserted randomly (it can be one, or two, or three...) in the chapters.

 

And being honest, those ads would have a higher value than normal ads because:

 

- You get the revenue from normal users (that don't use adblock, lol).

- You get the revenue from people who download it. Even if it's to see it so that they can delete it.

- And while you don't get the revenue, the ad is more valuable if crawlers get it, because it will also expose their users to your ads (plus you just advertised batoto to them and may flinch some users away from them).

 

Sorry but could you clarify by ad do you mean a notice to get people to read here or a literal ad trying to sell people stuff?

 

A lot of groups already have a credit page included that tells people to read here. Has only helped so much.

 

But if you're talking about literally inserting an actual ad image as if it were an actual page of the chapter, then sorry that is a terrible idea.

 

Anyway what is trying to be done is not to make crawlers disappear but to find a way to limit the rip speed to something more manageable which is doable. The problem is if the cost to the user base is justifiable. Btw the API thing might also piss some of the groups off so no.

Excuse me for I have not read all 12 pages of the discussion so far. I'm sorry if I repeat something which has already been posted. I'm also not an admin of any site so I'm not knowledgeable about the technical side of the issue.[/disclaimer]

 

I don't see any real problem with people having to register an account to read manga on Batoto. It's free and it only requires an e-mail address or so. Is it really that much to ask? We all come here to get our manga fix. If we want it badly enough, registration won't stop anyone.

 

Whether people will just go to another site to read manga is a question of supply and demand. Scanlation groups decide where their releases will be available. If we assume that the crawlers are stopped (or greatly impeded), the manga posted on Batoto, stays on Batoto. If people can only read it here...well, their choice is really between reading it or dropping it. It's in the hands of the scanlation groups. If Batoto offers them a safe haven where their work won't be easily pulled by multitude of aggregator sites, I don't see why they won't agree to post their releases exclusively here.

 

Some communities have questionnaire-based quarantining methods for new members to weed out bots and other undesirables. The approval could take weeks. The question again is, "How bad do you want it?" Compared to that registration is really soft-core.

As I've said before, never underestimate the laziness of the average user.

[DVerde]

He was clearly not talking about 4chan.

 

 

So clearly that I forgot to understand... Apparently.

 

 

As to everyone complaining abvout passwords... You do realise every modern browser has a password memorizer/keeper, right? If it's such an inconvenience to hit another button, or to come up with a different password from the other 10+ sites you registered with, well...

 

Seriously, people need to stop supporting lazy.

Edited by DVerde, 21 October 2015 - 03:34 PM.

[aviar]

 

<snipped>

 

Anyway what is trying to be done is not to make crawlers disappear but to find a way to limit the rip speed to something more manageable which is doable. The problem is if the cost to the user base is justifiable. Btw the API thing might also piss some of the groups off so no.

As I've said before, never underestimate the laziness of the average user.

How so?

[arimareiji]

Are you sure that it will make it manageable? When they see their monies in peril, plus the chance to get even more monies from the increased ad revenue going to their sites, I'm pretty sure they will reach the Zen of crawling.

 

It used to amaze me to see how much work some people will do to avoid doing work. Now I just take it as a given.

[Aoshiroi]

 

As I've said before, never underestimate the laziness of the average user.

 

I apologize if this sounds harsh but it's just my opinion as a translator/scanlator. Personally I don't care if somebody is too lazy to get to my releases. I do what I do for those who care enough to do something reasonable like registering to get to them. My job is not to market my releases to the average user.

[zuram]

So clearly that I forgot to understand... Apparently.

 

 

As ti everyone complaining abvout passwords... You do realise every modern browser has a password memorizer/keeper, right? If it's such an inconvenience to hit another button, or to come up with a different password from the other 10+ sites you registered with, well...

 

Seriously, people need to stop supporting lazy.

 

Do not underestimate the laziness of the average internet user. They can't use Google, they can't make a new password. I was going to put an "if" before the first "they", just that I realized it's not necessary.

 

Sadly, those lazy people are needed too. At least, I'm pretty sure that scanlators would rather have them reading their stuff in batoto than in mangafox, for example. Batoto loses it's purpose if people end up leaving to other sites.

 

 

 

Sorry but could you clarify by ad do you mean a notice to get people to read here or a literal ad trying to sell people stuff?

 

A lot of groups already have a credit page included that tells people to read here. Has only helped so much.

 

But if you're talking about literally inserting an actual ad image as if it were an actual page of the chapter, then sorry that is a terrible idea.

 

Yes, I meant a literal ad (one ad at least, more than one in the page is possible too) inside the "come to batoto" page at least.

 

It might be a bad idea, depending on what scanlators and users say. It's something that would have to be talked with scanlators and ad networks first.

 

Anyway what is trying to be done is not to make crawlers disappear but to find a way to limit the rip speed to something more manageable which is doable. The problem is if the cost to the user base is justifiable

 

Of course that is doable, up to some point. The thing is how it can be bypassed and even go back to previous ripping speeds (use multiple user-crawlers where you used one) and as you say, the cost to the user base.

 

It would be quite bad if in a few months you end up with the same ripping speed but with a cost involved to the user base, wouldn't it?

 

The thing is that the users that would be affected most by this change aren't even aware that such thing is happening. Or don't even care, they will just go elsewhere.

 

And that, while it's their loss, it's batoto's loss too...

 

 

Still, the cost to the user base can be waived if with registering you give something too, apart from existing features. Many people want to download their chapters, just let them do it even if it's in a limited way (one download at a time, limit the DL speed to "reading speed"). That DL page could have the ads that you wouldn't have from them reading the chapter (like lockers like mediafire have).

 

 

 

I apologize if this sounds harsh but it's just my opinion as a translator/scanlator. Personally I don't care if somebody is too lazy to get to my releases. I do what I do for those who care enough to do something reasonable like registering to get to them. My job is not to market my releases to the average user.

 

Well, years ago, some member of a reputable fansub told me: "your job doesn't finish until the chapter has been downloaded by the leecher. Translating, editing, timing, karaokeing, compressing and all the work involved are useless if your user can't watch the chapter because the torrent doesn't have the seeds".

 

Your may think that job isn't be to market your releases to the average user, and you may be right, but then don't complain of others read them in sites that are profiting from your work and you hear that the quality is crap.

 

Because they will find their ways, just that in a way you won't like.

Edited by zuram, 21 October 2015 - 03:51 PM.

[kanadaj]

If they actually happen to use human farms, there is nothing in this world anyone could do.

[sneezemonkey]

How so?

When Batoto starts to help the for profit sites aggregate content from groups that care and oppose these sites' raison d'etre and that have been actively encouraging people to come here instead using a variety of ways, some will understandably be upset.

 

 

I apologize if this sounds harsh but it's just my opinion as a translator/scanlator. Personally I don't care if somebody is too lazy to get to my releases. I do what I do for those who care enough to do something reasonable like registering to get to them. My job is not to market my releases to the average user.

Yeah but when you look at this pragmatically, they fund this site (╥_╥)

Edited by sneezemonkey, 21 October 2015 - 03:50 PM.

[DVerde]

Do not underestimate the laziness of the average internet user. They can't use Google, they can't make a new password. I was going to put an "if" before the first "they", just that I realized it's not necessary.

 

Sadly, those lazy people are needed too. At least, I'm pretty sure that scanlators would rather have them reading their stuff in batoto than in mangafox, for example. Batoto loses it's purpose if people end up leaving to other sites.

 

 

What is Batoto's so-called "Purpose", then? If it's *just* to read/host illegal-fan-scanlated manga-that-may-be-horribly-translated then...  

Edited by DVerde, 21 October 2015 - 03:56 PM.

[sneezemonkey]

If they actually happen to use human farms, there is nothing in this world anyone could do.

Except some way to reveal their real IP NSA style or what Grumpy is proposing.

 

First method is if you are hell bent on wiping them out, the second if you want to limit rip rate to something closer to human read speed by tying limits to accounts instead.

[aviar]

When Batoto starts to help the for profit sites aggregate content from groups that care and oppose these sites' raison d'etre and that have been actively encouraging people to come here instead using a variety of ways, some will understandably be upset.

 

 

Yeah but when you look at this pragmatically, they fund this site (╥_╥)

Reality demands compromise. More importantly, in whats been said so far in terms of options, it seems like it might appease the scanlators that just want to get their work out but can't foot the bill for hosting (understandable) and the site/service adminsitrator who needs to bring the bots under control so that service costs are manageable. Furthermore, maintaining a level of consistency in terms of release quality would be simpler if there was some simplified way to check for changes. Yes, it means having to facilitate an undersirable behaviour, but it also puts one in a position of power in terms of said behaviour. The alternative is to play a game of cat-and-mouse (just look at modern software security news to get an idea of how thats going) or bury ones head in the sand. The former is expensive, the latter is unrealistic.

 

In terms of party interests in membership it seems:

• The administrator wants to bring bot use under control to lower resource usage. That means at _least_ having accountability of usage (which entails detection of) for bots.
• The average member doesn't much care (they are members already after all) or are against it because they are worried that a change might lead to a negative impact on growth/stability. The fall in users would in turn mean less revenue and less interest from scanlators in terms of batoto as a release platform.
• Scanlators/Release Groups are either for it, to have greater control on their releases (single platform), or are against it because it limits their exposure.
• Anonymous users, the ones that are impacted, don't have a say because they are anonymous (go figure).

Taking into account those criterias a solution should consider:

• Transparency. Interrupting users while they are utilizing the site impacts experience. This is more a general rule for a good user experience, but probably flexible.
• Cost. Money is always an issue, and in this case the problem is exactly the cost of maintaining bots, if it costs as much or more than maintaining bots do, its obviously out.
• Accessibility. Exposures big for scanlators, they do things so others can enjoy a work they otherwise might not be able to, limiting exposure goes contrary to this.
• Ethics. Apparently ripping is bad, so a solution shouldn't facilitate this if possible, ideally it would render ripping/scraping/copying unfeasible.
• Collateral impact. A good solution targets a single group effectively without altering the experience of another. This sort of ties into heuristics and categorization.

In terms of recommended solutions throughout:

• Delayed updates for nonmembers.
• API for accessing data.
• Member access only.
• Limited anonymous reading.
• CAPTCHAs.
• Donation drive.
• Increased advertising. Ads in manga pages.
• Magic.

So far only magic satifies all the criterias. Also people turning off adblock. I mean seriously, why would you even use it here?

Edited by aviar, 21 October 2015 - 04:36 PM.

[Aoshiroi]

Your may think that job isn't be to market your releases to the average user, and you may be right, but then don't complain of others read them in sites that are profiting from your work and you hear that the quality is crap.
 
Because they will find their ways, just that in a way you won't like.

Never complained about that .

 

 

Yeah but when you look at this pragmatically, they fund this site (╥_╥)

 

True. However, it seems that sometimes the easier you try to make something, the more you devalue it in the eyes of the "customer".

[Trieste]

I think a short recap is in order.

 

1) Batoto doesn't want to prevent downloading altogether, because this is impossible.

Whatever man makes, man breaks.

 

2) Instead, they are looking for a way to reduce the bandwidth hogging of crawlers which update frequently.

Reducing their potential footprint to the latest chapters would cut off probably 80-90% of the traffic generated by these crawlers, so that's a lot less load on Batoto servers.

 

3) The biggest difference (I think) is that humans take time to read the pages before clicking, bots do not.

If it were possible to somehow implement a delay system in loading pages - like say, a 5 second timer before the next page is allowed to load,

that might slow down the bots pretty significantly, since they are forced to wait no matter what, thus reducing their bandwidth load.