August
This month I've released Export functionality, allowing you backup your list in a CSV format. It also kicks off the gradual removal of now unsupported series + other changes
The star of the show is, of course, the newly added ability to export your lists. If you head over to Settings, you will now see this new section in the Discovery tab (previously Manga List), that lets you export your list.
After exporting finishes, you will get an email with the export attached, but you will also be able to come back to Settings and download the latest export, for up to 30 days.
As a recap, while this functionality can be used for backing up your series (although I don't think that is necessary), this was a necessary functionality to allow for better control over the series added to Kenmei -> for example when certain series need to be removed or adjusted in one way or another.
As a result, in the export, you will see a column with source_to_be_removed_at, which shows the date the source (not necessarily the entire series) will be removed. In the near future, I will add ability to easily export just the series that are scheduled to be removed, so that you can retain record of those, to migrate them elsewhere.
With the Export out now, I am starting to gradually remove series that have either never met the Kenmei requirements or do not anymore. One of the main offenders has been Webtoon Canvas - which is a self-publishing arm of Webtoon. Below you can see some of the series that end up being added to Kenmei...
Kenmei does not plan to support the majority of self-published work (with some exceptions like long-running manga on Twitter). Moreover, there are also no plans to support series that are not manga, manhwa or manhua - and naturally, western authors fall under that category. While there will be exceptions for extremely popular western-made series, that are close to one of the allowed categories - for example, The Beginning After the End, the majority won't be supported.
With that in mind, Webtoon Canvas violates both of the above points, which is why I am starting with the removal of those series first. In total, at least 369 series will be removed in 2 months' time, so I urge you to export your lists if you want to preserve your tracking details with regard to those series.
I've had a chance to address quite a few bugs and throw in some QoL improvements as per usual. The most notable one is the overhaul of chapter timestamp logic -> it should reflect the actual release time a lot better (no more released 8 hours ago, for a chapter that just came out) and also provides me with the ability to fix timestamps manually if required.
Secondly, I've had a chance to make Premium subscription changes work in real-time -> If you unsubscribe or go overdue, that would be reflected immediately in your dashboard. I still need to speed up whenever Premium members go from being overdue to active subscriptions, as that still requires some time to pass before it's reflected.
Another thing to note is the expanded list of series suggestion rejections. Hopefully, this will provide extra transparency as to why a particular series has been rejected and whether it might be suggested again or not.
There's more, of course, so head over to the Changelog to see the full list ->
I've been happy with the progress made this month -> I've implemented Exporting as intended, although I didn't quite have enough time to add the new Smart Suggestions to go together with it, which will be the main focus in September.
Moreover, I am going to be rolling out a comprehensive blacklist functionality, that is required to further improve control over which series can and cannot be added to Kenmei. With those features out of the way, I will be finally able to start removing all the series that should have never been added to Kenmei, so that when Discovery launches later this year, you'll have access to a well-groomed list of series.
Source Deprecation Smart Suggestions
Comprehensive blacklisting functionality
Discovery Improvements
Bugs & Other Miscellaneous
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