Some changes have been made to Mangahelpers forum today with some new forums added and old favorites moved to new locations:
- The International Resort has been moved to Member Zone and renamed International Hangout.
- We have added a Conventions and Meetings forum to Member Zone. Anyone interested in meeting fellow members in real life can come to plan and discuss. Many of the current threads were moved from the Getting in Touch forum.
- Meet the Moderators has moved to Mangahelpers Community Center, formerly known as "headquarters".
- The Getting in Touch forum is no more. As noted above meet the moderators, convention and meeting threads have both moved. Meet the Translators and Meet the Scanlators have moved to the Staff and Project Resources Forum. Staff and Project Resources is a one stop to recruit staff, recommend new projects, and meet the contributors.
- Manga Reviews has moved from manga works to a new category: Manga and Anime. It joins the Otaku Cafe general manga topics forum and the Otaku Theater, now an independent forum. Otaku Theater is Mangahelpers anime, drama, and Asian movies discussion forum.
- We now have a forum dedicated exclusively to Manhua as well as the new Manhwa and Manhua Cafe, dedicated to general manhwa and manhua topics. They will be joined in a new category by the Manhwa forum.
- The completed series archive will no longer be accessible directly from the forum index. Threads for Eyeshield 21, Full Metal Alchemist, Psyren, and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles have been returned to the shounen forum. Discussion can resume there, if desired. The old forums are still accessible via the menu, with a link under the forum tab. Links are also available in the first post of their respective threads.
Now that we are introducing "Manhua" and "Manhwa" as a special case on the forums, I guess I'll have to add Chinese news in relation to its comics and animations. It will be a challenge but I'll try my best to add stuff related to those aspects of news.
As for the Manga Reviews, I'm confused. Don't we have a section like that on the main site area? Since MangaHelpers has a manga information database (for example: click Naruto ~and scroll down), should it not be where reviews are placed? The only problem would be how users could automatically add a series that MangaHelpers may not have on the info database. And how it will be seen publicly as a notice for those who view both the forums and the main site.
Better integration between the manga details page, reviews forum, and reviewers usergroup is a good idea. Having two sections of the site designed for the same function but without any integration does not seem optimal. It's one of those things I can't promise to take care of soon but given the time I would like to see done. It would need coding changes, something I could never promise.
The reviews forum actually predates the website portion of mangahelpers, created in January of 2008. There has always been a (relatively) rigorous set of rules in place to ensure that reviews are actual critique and criticism, rather than summary, opinion, comments, or discussion typical to the series forums. Having a reviewers usergroup reflects how much work is put into writing a review, that it is more than a simple forum comment. When the website was created in the spring of 2008 rather than put a "comment" button on the manga details page a "reviews" button was substituted. Maybe the intention was to encourage more high minded posts, I do not know for sure. But the posts that have been made over the years have more in common with posts made in the manga discussion forums, rather than reviews. There is nothing wrong with that, and that is what encouraged by the structure of the website. But despite the name attached there has never been much in common between the reviews in the forum and the reviews posted to the manga details page.