Manga Recommendation Database

[senile_seinen]

Actually, one of the first things that ran through my mind when I stumbled onto this site (from a link on somebody's blog) was, "gee, it sure would be nice if there were something like a manga recommendation database."

It's needed precisely because there are so many manga out there. They vary widely in quality and theme, and essentially nobody likes all of them. So it's important to know what to bother buying/downloading.

Yes, I'm a manga reader. My last scanslation project just died, so I can arrange to have a few hours a week available for such a project. I'm a native speaker of English with commercial proofreading experience and am an avid manga reader. I'd be willing to help out with editing or writing as time allows.

To Sothis: Since you're not a manga reader, and since you're busy with the existing site, it seems the best thing you could do would be to delegate most/all of the manga data management to somebody(s) else, as was done over at baka-updates when mangaupdates was started.

My apologies if I've ruffled any feathers with my first post in the forum. Yes, I'm a newbie here, mostly because I didn't know the site existed...

[Raven]

I think that's fine. Sothis obviously is too busy and she'd need all the help she could get. Since I don't own manga series (I only have a few volumes) if she's wanting all original reviews then I might not be able to help at all. Although I can definitely fine information and tons of other stuff. It would be active if it was run by someone else though. But of course it could be great if the members could get together and take care of it. It's true it doesn't take a team to run a site but one person can only do but so much.

[SlaserX]

It sounds like a great idea. It would certainly bring in more people who otherwise wouldnt visit the site.

[Tasuki]

Oh this would be fabulous. Since I am pretty much only reading manga these days, I would certainly support the site. I cannot commit myself to any regular jobs, but I could try to write reviews or do the recommendations for mangas.

[demonlady33]

A manga data base would be heaven. I would spend so much time there because I read a lot more then i watch stuff.

[runpsicat]

Apologies for the late response/input, but would a collaboration with manga-updates and areactor(mangareactor?) be worth pursuing to assemble the initial data set? I know you've said before that you don't want any derivative content on this site, sothis, but it would significantly lower the initial barrier to getting this project off the ground if we could pull data from existing manga database sites (consider the sheer # of manga in circulation today as opposed to anime... it is mind-boggling). Even if the existing synopses may not be the best available, iirc manga-updates allow content editing by registered members (and many of their synopses are pulled from scanlation groups, anyway). Without sounding arrogant, perhaps we could offer to edit/improve upon their entries in exchange if it doesn't look very kosher as is. We can also crosslink entries the way arec and anidb do. Either way, since it'll be a manga recommendation database, I believe refined synopses and reviews can come later. We first need to get the initial data up and get people recommending stuff. You're not going to get this behemoth off the ground if you require perfection and A-grade content from the get-go. The realist in me says, just point the synopses/review type stuff to a database site like manga-updates and rework their stuff there (maybe even have users post reviews there but somehow count it here... I'm just brainstorming, sorry) instead of reinventing the wheel, but I fear the userlist function may get in the way of such collaboration due to competition for users.

[senile_seinen]

I can't argue with that reasoning - Mangaupdates has the biggest database of titles. One need only to flag the synopsys with "imported from mangaupdates" and the date of import, and not import any of the review data at all.

I don't see a problem with competition for users. The two sites provide different sorts of information. I have an account at mangaupdates, and I use it (and baka-updates) to check for new releases of manga/anime. I have an account here, and use it to check for reviews, fansub comparisons, and the recommendation database.

It's true that mangaupdates has a review function, but it's cluttered, not much used, and there's no content reviewing. In short, their reviews aren't worth much. Likewise, there's no benefit to this site maintaining a release list of a manga. We're interested in qualitative comparision here, not release data.

[runpsicat]

I was more referring to MU's list function for MU members, actually. I'm not a member there so I don't know how it specifically works or how much significant that function is for MU in terms of drawing users, but say you navigate to their entry for Monster, there is a List Stats section at the bottom. Clicking on any of the numbers listed there will show a pop-up window explaining what the stats mean and so on. While the format may be different, it does seem similar in spirit to the list function we currently have for APN users. I'd be the first to admit that I don't know how many sites offering similar services are out there, but supposing that both APN and MU wants users to add content to their sites, there does appear to be enough of an overlap that competition may be perceived. I could care less about who adds what to where the most (don't hit me, sothis!) in the interest of getting things done, but I thought it may be a concern.

[JZavala]

i know i got around 50-60gb of manga, some of it not common and some of it just unheard of(i think). i'd be willing to help out with this idea.

[Drahken]

One idea would be to use existing data from other sites to get a mangarec off the ground, flag all such entries as such, then update them with original data & reviews as such becomes available.

One thing that would make a manga DB hard to deal with though, as far as watched(read)/watching(reading)/etc are concerned is 1) It could get confusing deciding whether to break it down as chapters or volumes and 2) Manga series usually run quite a bit longer than anime series, and frequently have several hundred chapters, which might cause a problem.

On the other hand, there's a great deal of manga available on the web, and manga files are much smaller than anime clips, so just about anyone & everyone would be able to contribute at least a little bit.