New Feature: Life on Manga Bar

[sothis]

Many years ago, Anime-Planet launched a unique feature called the life on anime bar. Today, we're announcing a related "life on manga" bar. This bar only displays if you've marked any manga (similar to the manga rating/stats boxes on your profile)

We've been somewhat hesitant to build an equivalent manga counter, because unlike anime, how fast a person reads a chapter or volume is subjective. But many of you have asked for many years, so we've launched what is probably the best approximation (but of course, chime in if you have feedback!)

The current calculation is based on:

-1 chapter = 5 minutes
-1 volume = 30 minutes

We don't have plans to allow each user to add a custom speed value, but it's possible to update these values if need be. The current values came from ample research (long threads on sites like Crunchyroll, our own community feedback, etc).

Enjoy the new feature!

 

[xCanaxCherry]

Finally!

I've been waiting 3000 years for this. :happy:

 

[Nicknames]

Nice feature! (even if I have less than one day spent on manga )

Btw, are there plans to include this bar in the signature?

 

[Zaig]

Cool new feature.

I'm guessing novels also count as 30 minutes.

 

[sothis]

Nice feature! (even if I have less than one day spent on manga )

Btw, are there plans to include this bar in the signature?

Potentially, but imo we need better sig designs first

And indeed, my count was way lower than i expected too! haha

 

[Funari]

Excellent.

(Thank you. Manga is certainly a bit of a tricky customer concerning timing but this formula seems appropriate enough, happy to see the anime bar meet its other half.)

 

[sothis]

Cool new feature.

I'm guessing novels also count as 30 minutes.

There's no concept of manga 'types' on the site, just tags (we might change this eventually), so a vol is a vol is a vol (same with a chapter). Meaning webcomics, light novels, etc are all calculated the same way

 

[LadyPsychic]

Interesting feature. Personally, it usually takes me at least an hour (or longer) to read one volume of manga, but then again I usually take my time reading (and the time it takes varies from manga to manga). Since everyone's reading speeds differ, calculating how much time someone spends on manga would be rather difficult; so, I suppose your current formula works well enough (though if it was me, I would've made the calculation times a little longer, but that's just my opinion).

 

[Drahken]

My manga bar on't be all that accurate, because I tend not to update manga counts until I complete the series, or change it's status to stalled or dropped. .....Although, this feature might encourage me to update once in a while....

One oddity though: How is the length of the red bar calculated? I have nearly 5 months of anime and only 1.5 months of manga, yet the manga bar is very nearly the same length as the anime one.

 

[randomredneck]

This just seems wildly inaccurate. You can't guesstimate how long it takes people to read. Like me. I can finish a volume in 15 minutes, but this thing just automatically says 30? And what if there's a long chapter? I know AOT typically takes more than 5 minutes a chapter to read.

I don't like it.

 

[sothis]

This just seems wildly inaccurate. You can't guesstimate how long it takes people to read. Like me. I can finish a volume in 15 minutes, but this thing just automatically says 30? And what if there's a long chapter? I know AOT typically takes more than 5 minutes a chapter to read.

I don't like it.

Please re-read the first post, we made it fairly clear that this is an approximation :)

If you don't like it, that's fine. You don't need to point people to your score/use it in any way.

 

[Guest]

Excellent, I've always thought that the manga section has been somewhat overlooked, and the bar is a great step in rectifying this (imo).Cool feature.

 

[TonyTonyChopper1]

-1 chapter = 5 minutes
-1 volume = 30 minutes

If that's the calculation it isn't right for me by a long shot !!! if you would say 5 hours for a volume it would be closer ... yeha i'm slow ..

 

[Guest]

Time on Manga badges?

 

[Sianeka]

All volumes = 30 minutes???? Even if there are many, many more chapters than 6 per volume???? That's not fair!!!

This should at least take into consideration the number of chapters, much the way the life on anime bar takes into consideration the number of episodes, since not all anime is 12 episodes long, for instance.

(And seriously, it takes me far longer than 30 minutes to read one volume of manga, typically.)

 

[sothis]

All volumes = 30 minutes???? Even if there are many, many more chapters than 6 per volume???? That's not fair!!!

This should at least take into consideration the number of chapters, much the way the life on anime bar takes into consideration the number of episodes, since not all anime is 12 episodes long, for instance.

(And seriously, it takes me far longer than 30 minutes to read one volume of manga, typically.)

there are 18,000+ manga in the database, and finding accurate chapter counts is only possible for a small percentage. There's no way we can come up with the kind of custom solution you're looking for with this scale, hence why it has to be a rough estimate.

What you suggest still isn't a one-size-fits-all solution and would still be inaccurate, as well. Often vols that have 12 chapters are because the chapters are really really short (10 pages or less), often with comedy series. So if we somehow were able to get chapter info for all 18,000+ series (literally impossible with the vast majority), giving time based only on chapter count would be equally as inaccurate.

The only way to do a 100% accurate solution would be to manually set some sort of time/duration for all 18,000+ manga individually. Coding that would be a complete nightmare with extremely low payoff in comparison, but beyond that we don't have the massive resources needed to actually go fill in all of that data, test it, etc.

tl;dr I realize it's not 100% accurate, but hopefully this strengthens the reasoning of why it's just not possible to do it any other way.

 

[Sianeka]

I guess there is really no good way, and your estimate is as decent a method as any, but still, MOST manga I have read (may be only the limited genres I have read, I admit) have way more than only 6 chapters. And take a lot longer to read than 30 minutes...

I guess what you are saying is that this is doomed from the start to be wildly inaccurate, by its nature and design. Maybe it WOULD be an easier option to have people able to opt out of displaying this on their page?

 

[sothis]

I guess there is really no good way, and your estimate is as decent a method as any, but still, MOST manga I have read (may be only the limited genres I have read, I admit) have way more than only 6 chapters. And take a lot longer to read than 30 minutes...

I guess what you are saying is that this is doomed from the start to be wildly inaccurate, by its nature and design. Maybe it WOULD be an easier option to have people able to opt out of displaying this on their page?

I wouldn't call it 'wildly inaccurate'. Based on the research I did, 30 mins is a solid/accurate average for a volume of manga. There might be outliers, and there might be people who read way faster or way slower, but this is a 'best approximation' for the standard bell curve of users.

 

[Armani]

Well, I'm glad to see that the manga section is getting some more attention. Now if only there was a way to change my sig over to life on manga rather than anime, then I'd be happy. Not that I don't mind the "Life on anime" bar on the sigs, its just that I sort of prefer reading a little more.

Wow... Such a reaction....
There's no way for a reading time to be completely accurate, a given person might read really quickly one day but very slowly the next, or read an interesting manga very quickly and a boring one very slowly. Aside from having everyone record exactly how long they spent reading something each & every time, the best anyone can do is make approximations

Exactly. No one can gouge another person's reading speed. As Drahken pointed out, some people may read a manga they are highly interested in faster, and some may read it slower, and in vise versa. On top of it, forcing them to keep track of that would be very annoying. So approximations is a necessity here.

However, I do agree that five minutes on chapters and 30 minutes on volumes is a little too quick for some. I don't think the fact that site errors could hinder how quick one may be able to read, or that the person may be doing other things at the time was taken into consideration. So I think the time approximation should be heightened a little. 10 minutes for chapters and maybe an hour for volumes might be more reasonable. Just a suggestion.

All volumes = 30 minutes???? Even if there are many, many more chapters than 6 per volume???? That's not fair!!!

This should at least take into consideration the number of chapters, much the way the life on anime bar takes into consideration the number of episodes, since not all anime is 12 episodes long, for instance.

(And seriously, it takes me far longer than 30 minutes to read one volume of manga, typically.)

Thinking about some chapters being 40 pages, or over, long maybe that time for chapters should be upped to 15 instead now.

Eh, I never really cared about the whole "life on anime" stuff really. My life on anime on Hummingbird is lower than it is here. Don't know about manga there since they don't have a measurement for that yet. So I don't really mind how my life is measured on so and so really. But I can see why people are upset with such a low time approximation, reason for the suggestion of heightening it a tad.

(Speaking of chapters, I need to head over to the Manga thread to update some of the ones I am reading ).

Now the only other thing I am holding out hope for, apart from the character edits/additions becoming open again, is for a Not Helpful button in reviews, even if it is beyond hope at this point. (One can dream can't they?)

 

[Drahken]

Some mangas do indeed have long chapters, but others have short chapters that even the slowest reader could burn through in about a minute.
As far as volumes & the number of chapters in each, as sothis mentioned, the ones with lots of chapters tend to have very short chapters. Manga volumes are all close to the same physical size (not counting special bunko editions & the like), and they simply adjust the number of chapters in accordance with the length of each chapter. Using a set time for all volumes is perfectly reasonable.