22 replies to this topic

[vhirx]

I have no intention of ever closing that banner, I am appalled at the actions of the handful of people who came here to complain about that banner in the slightest way.

 

Do any of you people that came here to complain about getting something for free have any idea what the proverb "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"  means? What about the "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" one? Does that one strike any chords with you in light of this conversation/your actions?

 

Whoa nelly!

 

There are a whole bunch of schools of thought when it comes to web design.  I"m definitely in the mind that I want as much information as possible accessible in a quick, streamlined, organized sense.  For that reason, I avoid websites like ESPN.com that hide content, obfuscate the locations of content, and don't reliably organize their content... oh, and also plug up pages with massive banners.  I similarly avoid altogether now because of its nonsensical sorting practices in actually getting me feed.  Similarly, I regularly submit negative feedback to Twitter because I can't stand how they've de-chronologized the data.  I'm actually using a third party tool to re-sort my follows.  Similarly, many users, whether it be YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Hockey's Future's message boards, etc. are put off by prioritized content/promoted content, especially when it's not content that they're using/enjoying.  This isn't something I complain about.  If I see promoted content on a platform I use, I ignore it if it's small (i.e. Hockey's Future) or X it out and move on if it's large and obtrusive (i.e. Twitter even on my sorting tool). 

 

What do these have in common with Bato.to?  They're all free to use.  Any website, any community exists not as a service provided to its users but as a function of its relationship with its users.  Play with an interface enough, and you can drive off regular users or fail to attract current ones.  Do you cruise the IRC channels or visit /r/manga or 4chan?  The immediate reaction to the lack of an opt-out feature on Bato.to was far, far more vitriolic than the more civil request issued within this thread.  The implementation of the feature immediately cooled that down.  From that point of view, feedback, especially constructive negative feedback, is indispensable to the long-term welfare of any site. 

 

I know you're a fierce supporter of Bato.to, that you do your best to lighten the load of the moderation team when it comes to answering questions in a thoughtful and constructive manner. The last thing you should be appalled by is forthright feedback. 

 

Cheers. 

[svines85]

Spoiler

Whoa nelly!

 

There are a whole bunch of schools of thought when it comes to web design.  I"m definitely in the mind that I want as much information as possible accessible in a quick, streamlined, organized sense.  For that reason, I avoid websites like ESPN.com that hide content, obfuscate the locations of content, and don't reliably organize their content... oh, and also plug up pages with massive banners.  I similarly avoid altogether now because of its nonsensical sorting practices in actually getting me feed.  Similarly, I regularly submit negative feedback to Twitter because I can't stand how they've de-chronologized the data.  I'm actually using a third party tool to re-sort my follows.  Similarly, many users, whether it be YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Hockey's Future's message boards, etc. are put off by prioritized content/promoted content, especially when it's not content that they're using/enjoying.  This isn't something I complain about.  If I see promoted content on a platform I use, I ignore it if it's small (i.e. Hockey's Future) or X it out and move on if it's large and obtrusive (i.e. Twitter even on my sorting tool). 

 

What do these have in common with Bato.to?  They're all free to use.  Any website, any community exists not as a service provided to its users but as a function of its relationship with its users.  Play with an interface enough, and you can drive off regular users or fail to attract current ones.  Do you cruise the IRC channels or visit /r/manga or 4chan?  The immediate reaction to the lack of an opt-out feature on Bato.to was far, far more vitriolic than the more civil request issued within this thread.  The implementation of the feature immediately cooled that down.  From that point of view, feedback, especially constructive negative feedback, is indispensable to the long-term welfare of any site. 

 

I know you're a fierce supporter of Bato.to, that you do your best to lighten the load of the moderation team when it comes to answering questions in a thoughtful and constructive manner. The last thing you should be appalled by is forthright feedback. 

 

Cheers. 

I'm not getting into a long, drawn out conversation about this and the all those specifics you've brought up....... you criticized the presentation and the content as well.

 

Read between the lines a little bit on Grumpy's post and tell me just how it must have made them feel to see the effort they'd gone to (at absolutely no reward or payment) be criticized with "I'm not going to be reading them, so..." and "not that any of those interest me anyway..." and "this is HUGE" and "it takes up too much space"?

 

 I stand by my comment.

[vhirx]

Took my lunch break to address this:  

Spoiler

Point #1: You say that I criticized the presentation and the content.

I never said anything about the content.  I haven't read 'em.  Heh.  Can't criticize what I hve not read.  I just said I wasn't going to read them... and you know what?  Damn right I'm not going to read them.  Never.  I don't read ANY content on Bato.to, even those by people whom I know well and like, unless directly asked to for purposes of evaluation and criticism.  There are three reasons for this.

1) I can read in Japanese as quickly as I can read in English.  Why am I bothering with a mediated work?  
2) I'm very geared towards attention to detail.  And, for example... the fact that a mere handful of groups bother to read the websites of the providers of 99% of the fonts they use to understand WHY some I's have crossbars and some I's don't downright irks me. Lousy punctuation, diction, word choice, etc... don't help the matter.  
3) Opportunity cost.

You might ask why I'm choosing to not read the Chinese offerings for Saiko+ or the Chinese/Korean offerings elsewhere on Bato.to.  In light of point #2, why would I?  Why would I read mediated content when I have hundreds of JP books to read and literally thousands of English books on my GoodReads to read list?  

That's MY choice.  I've prioritized where I spend my time.  There's an opportunity cost to consumption of any medium.  And trying to read an XYZ here on my lunch break means not getting to read the next chapter in Randall Woods' "LBJ: Architect of American Ambition," my current reading material.  It's a Harvard Press book and a very, very good portrait of LBJ as a complex, contradictory, and oftentimes heart-wrenchingly insecure and troubled man.  I'd highly recommend it. ...or might you say, "Yeah, I'm not gonna read it," because of its content, its genre, its... something... and continue to read whatever else you're reading.

I don't ask the question to troll.  I ask the question because there are very specific and personal reasons for someone to choose to engage or NOT engage with any particular content.  

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Point #2 on reading/not reading:  

Spoiler

Now, as content creators, translators, typesetters, etc. creatives, we have to understand that not every work will even be given a chance by every person.  I regularly translate short fare for One Snowshoe that's won awards from various distinguished JP bodies.  Goshiki no Fune won the 2014 grand prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in manga and has been completed for around a year now.  And it still has less than 200 followers and 15 comments.  Did I invest a lot of time in it?  YES.  (How many times did I reread it before even starting the translation?  God, I really don't know.)  Do I think it's a beautifully poignant and contemplative manga that many people should read?  Yes.  Do I expect people to?  No.  Do I take umbrage to that?  No.  That's how it is.  It's their choice.  In my opinion, it's their loss. "Sucks for them."  Heh. But that's how it is.  

That's how it is for every comic on the site, whether officially available, self-published, or licensed.  And it's true for every creative work, every piece of fanfiction, erotic fiction, illustration, web novel, or etc. hovering in the internet.  Someone invested time in it, and someone's chosen to not read it.  And many times, people have chosen not to read it by the very nature of what is without even giving it a chance.  

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Point #3 on criticism:

Spoiler

This is neither here nor there, but you're feeling appalled over really civilly introduced criticism made me want to write this section.

Is it possible to be hugely critical of something and still appreciate other aspects of it?  Yes.  I generally appreciate how open Bato.to is as a forum.  I appreciate that it's been able to bring so many diverse people together from all sorts of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.  That's incredible.  

At the same time, there are a whole lot of things I don't like about Bato.to.  The communication between the administration and the community isn't as transparent as it used to be.  (There are reasons for that, I know... but the transparency and communication isn't where I want it.  And I'm comparing this to the degree of transparency in any other volunteer or community organization I have ever volunteered with.  The only ones that were worse than Bato.to were the Red Cross and Barack Obama's campaign.  And I don't support the former and won't support any other national campaign for communication and transparency-related reasons.)  I unconditionally loathe how Bato.to's genre classification system conflates genre, demographic, and plot structure.  I despise that the "tragedy" tag exists within the genre classification system because it BY ITS VERY NATURE spoils structural elements of a work of art.  Etc.  I've long been quite clear about several of these complaints.  

None of these issues can't mean that I also can't be appreciative of other facets.  I can hold a variety of mixed feelings within my head on a certain issue at the same time.  

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Finally:  

Spoiler

So no criticism of the content in the original post whatsoever.  The content is beside the point, has nothing to do with my view that I found the banner is large and obnoxious such that it was rendering my visits to the Bato.to homepage unpleasant and such that I wanted a solution.  Even if the new banner featured a rotating amount of non-Sakio+-related content, potentially even including series I had done work on, I would have searched for a way to remove it.  It's big.  It forced me to scroll before I could see the rest of the homepage interface.

I can't help but fathom that you've taken this all a wee bit too personally.  Step back and contemplate your own consumption habits in terms of what you read, how you read, and on what basis you read certain things, and maybe we can turn that "appalled" into a "disappointed" or into my, "Well, sucks for them."

... or maybe you've read the Saiko+ content?  Is it good enough that that not reading it does suck for someone relative to the gajillions of other great things they could read?  Then maybe it's only worth ever being disappointed.  

I don't know.  You'll figure it out.

Back to work!