3 replies to this topic

[odinlowejr89]

For some odd reason, that I'm sure makes sense to whoever coded the site, you cannot view any chapter but the most recent if you aren't logged in to the site. Even worse, there's no way to find this out until you are already logged in and can finally access earlier chapters.

 

On any rational site they would include that fact both on the chapter list page and in the banner that pops up explaining the benefits of logging in but instead they just talk about things like bookmarks... At the very least you would think there would be a stickied thread about it somewhere in the support forum, but no, that would be too simple and wouldn't allow the site to punish people who dare to want to read manga anonymously.

 

Even worse, if you try to follow a link to an earlier chapter (by selecting it in the chapter drop down list once you are viewing the most recent chapter) it just gives a 404 not found error which would usually mean the page has been deleted/moved/corrupted/etc. from the server.

 

This is, needless to say, a pain in the ass for new users and makes it appear that this site is missing/lost/removed a shit ton of content compared to the many other free manga viewer sites available.

 

So obviously, my suggestion is to fix this. Preferably the site would stop requiring you to create an account to view manga like every other manga site out there.

 

If, for some reason, that's not possible I would suggest adding a note on the homepage and chapter lists explaining that you can only view the most recent chapters if not logged in and instead of a standard 404 error page redirect such users to a login page indicating that viewing the page requires the user to be logged in (like any other site does when trying to follow a link to a page that can only be viewed when logged in)

[OMGWTFBBQPONIES]

For some odd reason, that I'm sure makes sense to whoever coded the site, you cannot view any chapter but the most recent if you aren't logged in to the site.
(...)
Preferably the site would stop requiring you to create an account to view manga like every other manga site out there.

Judging by your account's age, you slept through this whole big thing:
https://vatoto.com/forums/topic/23683-batoto-becoming-registered-only/
(TL;DR, necessary as a mean of reducing the amount of chapter-stealing bots from these every other manga sites out there which were effectively DDoSing the site)
 
 
I guess Grumpeh thought these two (emphasis mine):

"Register now for full access!"

"The thing you're looking for is unavailable. It may be due to:
◦You do not have sufficient permission. Try logging in or registering"

... would be enough. Might have been in addition to there being more talk about this at the time, but you're right that it should be worder more clearly.
 
Not sure if there's any other message around because I'm here for the forum and thus always logged in. I gueeess the lack of "no chapters" tag where all chapters are old uploads (and thus hidden from guests) is an indirect hint too but one would have to know about this tag in the first place (so it doesn't work on a first-time, via-google visitor).
 
Something for Grumpy to take care of.

[odinlowejr89]

Judging by your account's age, you slept through this whole big thing:
https://vatoto.com/forums/topic/23683-batoto-becoming-registered-only/
(TL;DR, necessary as a mean of reducing the amount of chapter-stealing bots from these every other manga sites out there which were effectively DDoSing the site)
 
 
I guess Grumpeh thought these two (emphasis mine):
... would be enough. Might have been in addition to there being more talk about this at the time, but you're right that it should be worder more clearly.
 
Not sure if there's any other message around because I'm here for the forum and thus always logged in. I gueeess the lack of "no chapters" tag where all chapters are old uploads (and thus hidden from guests) is an indirect hint too but one would have to know about this tag in the first place (so it doesn't work on a first-time, via-google visitor).
 
Something for Grumpy to take care of.

 

Mmm, I apologize for how salty my original post was. However, I had just wasted half an hour (not an exaggeration) trying to figure out why it appeared batoto was missing massive chunks of content.

 

As far as my account's age goes, I stopped reading most manga 2-3 years ago and just today decided to see what new manga (or updates to old ones I used to read) were available. I had honestly forgotten I even had an account until I finally tried to login thinking that might be why I couldn't see chapters.

 

For the notification below the chapter, when it says "for full access" and then continues on to say "You'll be able to follow (bookmark) your favorites, get updates on new releases, and more! It's completely free and only takes a minute." I assume that since viewing missing chapters is the most important benefit of having an account it would have been mentioned if that was the case. I assumed that the listed benefits were the major use of having an account.

 

When it comes to the error message given upon trying to access a direct link to a chapter that requires being logged in to view, I admit I didn't notice/think about the part that said "Try logging in or registering" I really only skimmed the message once I realized it was basically a '404 page not found' type of message.

 

The 'no chapters' tag, even if you knew about it, wouldn't apply anyway because you can still view 1 or 2 of the most recent chapters. Just not any others

 

Personally, if the issue is bots scraping the site I don't understand why rate limiting page requests to a reasonable amount while ip banning any connections from known manga aggregators or temp banning any that appear to be robots (i.e. requesting pages at too regular a rate over extended periods of time or making more page requests over shorter periods of time than a human would if they were actually surfing the site and not just spamming links) with eventual perma-bans for repeated infractions wouldn't be the solution used.

 

You'd need some sort of "you've been banned because of 'xxxx reason'. If you feel this is in error please contact us via the below form to explain the situation and you MAY be unbanned" walled garden page to help filter out innocents. Preferably, also with a warning popping up once you get close to exceeding the rate limits but that shouldn't be that difficult to do. From what I know that's the common solution most other sites that have similar issues use.

[Natureboy]

Grumpy did a lot of what you suggest, to the point where off-line reading apps for Batoto were partially crippled. It was an arms race with the bot writers.  As a volunteer, without unlimited time to devote to the battle, Grumpy was losing--with effects ranging from sluggish reading performance to potentially un-affordable server costs.  Some bots were checking everything on the site for new/changed content, including chapters that had been up unchanged for years.  Because of the race to post new content on the for-profit pirate sites, the bots were doing this increasingly frequently. 

 

It wasn't an easy decision.  I do think most potatoes who followed the debate ended up agreeing that Grumpy was proposing the only practical solution for a prominent site without a paid, full-time IT staff.