April
Reporting v2 completed, PWA-compliant app as well various bugs and data inconsistencies fixed
Last updated
Reporting v2 completed, PWA-compliant app as well various bugs and data inconsistencies fixed
Last updated
This month I've focused on finishing the Reporting v2 work, which has now concluded. While there are various minor improvements that I'd like to do, the system is fully operational. Apart from that, I've tried to focus on fixing data as well as various bugs, which you can check out in the Changelog:
Reporting system I started working on last month is finally finished. There are things to improve, but I have been using it for the past 2 weeks and already seeing amazing results!
When I receive new series suggestions, I am now able to review all available information, update a cover (and in the future other fields) and then decide on whether to approve or reject said series depending on Kenmei content criteria. This has massively improved the speed of reviewing suggestions and will in the future be used by Data Moderators.
Even better, the new duplicate reporting system has also been finished, saving me a lot of time in the process. Previously, reviewing and fixing a single duplicate report could take up to a minute or more. With the new system, it takes a couple of seconds. As will be mentioned below, I've already gone through over 500 duplicate reports, in just 2 days, which previously would have taken weeks. With this in place, expect rapid data improvements in the coming weeks and months.
Next on the agenda would be adding new report types (specifying which data is incorrect or providing a generic report) as well as providing Rejection reasons to the report submitter, sent to their email. Currently, the person submitting a report doesn't know if it was accepted or not, resulting in the same report being made multiple times. Sending an email providing the report outcome will go a long way
Another huge piece of work I've done, which I've been working on and off for months, is making Kenmei completely PWA-compliant.
What does that mean? Well, technical term aside, you can think of it as making Kenmei even more app-like, while still remaining a site. That comes with a couple of improvements:
First of all, the app now technically supports offline mode. You will currently see this new page, but in the future, I plan to make it possible to use the app without an internet connection (where possible)
Secondly, it acts even more like a mobile app - if you are visiting for the first time, you'll get prompted to 'install' Kenmei on your device. If you decide to dismiss this message, you will still be able to do it from the menu.
Thirdly, there is much better support for making sure you've got the most recent version of the app. When new updates are released, the following prompt will be shown. I've had a long-standing issue of having people still using days or even weeks old code (due to various reasons), but this makes it easier to update and even if you don't, the site will auto-update after 24 hours.
This was a blocker to adding the long-requested feature to refresh your list, without actually reloading the page. This has now been released as well, allowing to seamlessly reload your entries, while preserving selected filters, sorting and page
Finally, if you use Chrome, you will actually be able to install the app on your desktop - both Windows and Mac. While it's not quite the native experience some have been requesting, it still works just as great
P.S. I've had some reports of being annoyed over the Update Prompt being shown very often. Due to the price of success me working on the site a lot and releasing updates very frequently, many of you would get a prompt daily or even multiple times a day, which ends up being annoying for some. I am thinking about how to make it less annoying, but have no ETA on improvements just yet.
Going back to the new reporting system, it has allowed me to drastically improve the existing data. As already mentioned, I've fixed over 500 duplicates and will continue doing so in the following months. I still estimate that around 1000 potential duplicate series still remain.
One other major improvement I've done is removing 18+ titles from the search results. Kenmei always had a policy of not allowing 18+ series on the platform, but due to MangaDex having an extensive amount of such content, it took me too long to realise and as a result, close to a thousand titles have been added over the last 2 years. I've stopped allowing suggestions of such titles the other month, while this completed the work by removing the results from the search entirely.
If you have been tracking such series -> You will continue having access to those titles and I am still deciding whether I will remove them completely. But if I do, it will only after providing a way to export your list as well as giving ample time to migrate said entries elsewhere.
Next on my agenda, apart from fixing the remaining duplicates, is making sure every single series has a cover associated with it and starting to gradually add new data points (think genres, descriptions, and more). I will need to have quite a bit more data before I can launch Discovery Mode
I am very happy with the work done this month - Reporting system was an essential piece in preparation for building Discovery Mode. With the foundations set, I am going to double down on fixing and populating missing data on Kenmei
I got most of the pieces I need to start scoping Kenmei Discovery work. While working on improving the pipeline and adding more data to Kenmei, I plan to slowly start building Kenmei Discovery, while focusing on improving the overall experience across the app.
I also plan to finally start adding some new official sources, as quite a few sites have gone down in the past month and need replacing. Tapas is the first on the list, with hopefully one or two more added shortly after.
Here's the breakdown of the priorities for the next month:
Data Pipeline Improvements
Populating missing and/or invalid data
Adding new sources (primarily official sites)
Kenmei Discovery
Bug fixing & across the board improvements