Actually it's quite easy to simply have filters so that for example any post with Korean characters requires manual verification and if it's obviously spam then mods can select them all and delete them all. In same way you can also add various character strings to eliminate other spam. Of course all that needs to be setup by the web admin and/or IT department but with a competent system it's relatively easy to eliminate google pays $XXXXXX per month, viagra/cialis etc spam by checking the spam in question and finding key identifiers.
AnnoyingADs
- Jan 14, 2022
- Joined Oct 9, 2018
Pizz If I remember correctly GGP sold most of it to Qidian for around $1m but retained a small equity stake in GT website. That meant that he would be entitled to a portion of any profits from GT website but wouldn't be entitled any profits from webnovel website. Considering that Qidian had a majority stake and that GGP's credibility was ripped to shreds when he lied by denying he had sold out to Qidian that meant nothing prevented them from asset stripping GT so they could get all the profits.
FieryDao I agree that there are way too many unfinished novels on webnovel and it isn't helpful that dropped novels aren't indicated as such.
The main reason to avoid the unfinished novels is quite simply that you could be reaching the climax of the storyline and then it just stops... with no explanation. If it's along novel and you've invested 20 to 30 hours reading it and then it stops without any of the main plot issues being resolved it isn't really satisfying to the reader especially if there is no hope of completion.
If you want to read translations I would suggest looking up novelupdates website that tracks releases and gives links to TL sites and gives review ratings along with details about number of chapters, whether it's ongoing on country of origin and if it's fully translated.
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SusshiRoll Basically Qidian is owned by Tencent and is the largest platform for Chinese webnovels. If I remember correctly Qidian has around 70% market share with 17k and Zongheng having the remaining 30%.
So originally most CN to EN translations did involve Qidian titles as that's where most of them were hosted. Some fan translation sites licensed the rights for 6 figure sums and then Qidian thought they'd go for the whole pie when they saw how much money could be made.
Thus they founded Qidian International that was the overseas branch of Qidian that aimed to leverage their huge catalog of webnovels to gain more profits than simply licensing them out so planned to invest in market and buy out the competition. Then Qidian pretty much screwed up and got a lot of negative press when they reneged on their contracts after taking the money and issuing DMCAs etc and the Qidian name got toxic. As a result they rebranded to Webnovel in same way Lance Armstrong Foundation renamed itself to the Livestrong Foundation after the doping scandal.
Funnily enough in an attempt to boost profits most Qidian novels have been dropped as their in house translation service wasn't making enough money and most other TL sites having been burnt once are wary to deal with Qidian and so have instead partnered with 17k and Zongheng.
Now Webnovel's main competitor is Wattpad and all translations on the site are pretty much legacy projects. Considering the novels are abruptly stopped with no warning or announcement I don't think they have much interest in it and their aim is to get people to transition into original novels that don't have translation or licensing costs.
- In Annoying ads
I thought at first it was referring to me!
To be honest it's not unexpected as webnovel is always looking into ways to implement adwalls, paywalls or any other method to extract profits. They've also scaled back their translations quite substantially to reduce their expenditure. Expecting anything other than that from webnovel is unrealistic as time and time again they've shown that only thing that matters is their bottom line and user's quality of experience comes a distant second.
The only reason you don't get 5 pop ups appearing when you read a new chapter isn't a moral issue as if they thought it would make more money they'd add it in a heartbeat but a pragmatic one as even webnovel realises that making it too obtrusive would drive away readers. I can however guarantee they'll try to push the envelope and get the maximum inconvenience people will tolerate without driving away users so I suspect you'll slowly see more ads etc added a little at a time.
Scientist_113 It's mainly used to spam your inbox so you think you've got a notification where someone has responded to one of your comments or liked one of your posts but in reality it's spam promoting something you have zero interest in.
I actually tried to look up how to disable them but I don't think it's possible.
marvel0207 Actually thing I find most disheartening is that they don't just come out with the truth and instead leave readers with just enough hope that it might resume yet with every passing day the realisation that it's probably been dropped grows until they come to the conclusion that it's been dropped. It's like having a relative hospitalised in a coma and every day you pray that they'll recover and then you find out that a month ago they pulled the plug but didn't bother to tell you...
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marvel0207 It's probably dropped as standard Webnovel process for dropping a novel is to abruptly stop the chapters being uploaded. In addition there is no announcement and if you ask Webnovel support they'll deny it has been dropped. It's incredibly frustrating as people are left in limbo for weeks or months until they just give up on it.
If you want an example of how hard it is to get updates confirmed look at https://forum.webnovel.com/d/52923-forty-millenniums-of-cultivation-updates where it took one and half months for someone to confirm it was dropped semi officially and apparently the decision was taken by Webnovel a full year earlier in that case but as they had a stockpile they kept it quiet.
Grasping Evil hasn't updated for last 10 days so it wouldn't surprise me if Webnovel is going through a new cull.
Hopefully your novel hasn't been dropped but signs aren't promising
aaron_bejoy I've looked it up and bad news is that the original publisher is Qidian that owns Webnovel so it's unlikely to be picked up by anyone. You may wonder how it's bad news as Webnovel already has the rights to it so there should be no obstacles but there are two problems.
Webnovel keeps dropping novels so asking them to pick up new novels that means they're unable to keep up with their current workload yet alone take on more.
Qidian has a bad track record when it comes to selling licensing rights and then reneging on their agreement once they've got the money that means non-Webnovel options are less likely.
If you want extra bad news it was previously translated by Webnovel and presumably dropped without announcement that basically meant Webnovel wasn't making enough money off it and decided to pull the plug. Once that happens it's pretty much permanently dead. Novelupdates score is at around 3.3/5 that isn't great so it's probably an average novel so there's no benefit to make up for the drawbacks. Hopefully you'll be lucky and someone translates it but it's a long shot.
Eventually MTL will get as good as human translation. Having said that I think we're probably at least 5-10 years off unless serious investment is put into it. For example in JP to EN translation I remember one character was called "Regisu" that a human TL translates as Regis and MTL opted for "Cash Registers".
It's also very difficult to translate nuanced things like jokes, puns etc. For example something like "A man walked into a bar. He said ouch!" is hard to translate if a metal bar and a drinking bar don't share the same word in the translated language. If you translate a tongue twister into a foreign language it's highly unlikely to be a tongue twister when translated. It's also harder when languages are further apart since grammar is different and in sometimes things are a lot more implicit/explicit in different languages.
I don't think any novel is likely to be picked up since the reason they were dropped was Webnovel determined it wasn't making enough money. Logically it's hard to imagine that a novel that had an experienced team and a readerbase is going to make more money when it's been dropped for 6 months and someone with no experience with the novel takes over once most old readers have given up on it and new readers have so many chapters behind a paywall they can't afford to catch up.
Incomplete series are only worth reading if you know they'll get completed as otherwise you'll just be left on a cliffhanger.
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Mute Basically translators are freelance workers assigned to a novel. Webnovel then decides the novel isn't lucrative enough and cancels all further translation on the novel. If there is a stockpile they'll keep releasing them with privilege etc and pretend it's still active until translations stop one day with no announcement. At the point the translator is instructed to stop translating the novel they can either take a chance on a new novel and hope it's lucrative enough for Webnovel, translate unpaid or quit.
With translations pie is split into many pieces with webnovel taking a large % cut, then paying licensing fees to it's parent company (Qidian), then 30% google store cut, payment processors etc so to be technically profitable to Webnovel is a steep hurdle and thus most novels are eventually culled unless they're really successful.
Instead Webnovel has pivoted to original novels as they've discovered they don't need to pay people to write them (i.e. no translation costs) and there are no licensing costs so Webnovel has no upfront expenses and a higher profit margin. This means they're actively diverting new traffic to original novels that reduces profitability of translated works even more.
Actually it's a feature of privilege whereby free chapters can only be added to the queue when X chapters behind latest privilege one that naturally means last chapters of a completed novel are held hostage. TLs don't have any control over premium/privilege etc so they are at mercy of webnovel that is notoriously slow to respond.
Funnily enough I don't think anyone can actually reliably contact webnovel. In my experience when asking about dropped novels all you get is a deafening silence and I would expect same applies when asking to remove privilege...
KeyserSoze Cultivation Chat Group he has an inner world https://www.webnovel.com/book/cultivation-chat-group_8299599706003805
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mng Well one of my favourite anecdotes for reactions is actually from beauty treatments that were popular from the 16th century to the Victorian Era in England. Women in the Roman Empire used lead makeup to whiten their faces, and in the 16th century, English nobles did pretty much the same thing. This mixture of lead and vinegar was known as Venetian ceruse, or the spirits of Saturn. While it may have smoothed a woman’s complexion day-to-day, over time it caused skin discoloring, hair loss, and rotted teeth.
Ironically enough the side effects of skin discoloring required more lead makeup and you end up in a vicious cycle...
So in conclusion when people indulge in toxic practices they're just as likely to double down on it than they are to stop it!
CrispyCritter Well way I look at it more or less any long novel is pretty much guaranteed to be dropped by WebNovel as it will have a decreasing readerbase. Looking at numbers assuming 2700 chapters at 8 coins (it's probably higher average) comes to 21600 coins and you can get 12000 coins for 150 USD so it's probably around 300 USD for a new reader to catch up at which point they can then pay for privilege chapters.
Next question you get is how many paying readers with hindsight would still pay for chapters if they were aware that the novel would get dropped regardless. Even if I could read it for free I wouldn't want to spend 200+ hours reading a novel for it to randomly end on a cliffhanger. I would be surprised if more than 5% of translations actually get completed on WebNovel and as more and more get dropped that % isn't improving.
Next problem is the lack of communication from WebNovel that means there is a lack of trust in them. For example if you look at CKtalon's post it implies a decision was taken to drop the novel due to lack of income blamed on piracy. However from the time that decision was taken it took at least 6 weeks to even tell the readers who had asked in every place available and were left guessing on the novel's status.
So to sum it up, is it worthwhile for anyone to invest time and money in a novel on WebNovel when they don't have a track record of completing them and all the thanks you'll get for your support is getting ghosted by everyone in WebNovel when the novel is dropped without an announcement. Currently I find it hard to justify the time to read anything on WebNovel as all ongoing series can in theory be dropped at any moment with no prior warning while completed novels cost a fortune in coins so when looking for a new novel to read I pretty much eliminate anything by WebNovel and prefer other translation sites that actually finish what they start.
cheekybugger They've all been dropped and I doubt there is much chance of any of them being picked up. A list of dropped novels can be found at https://forum.webnovel.com/d/40485-list-of-dropped-novels that is a bit out of date but is probably best you'll get as webnovel refuses to announce when they drop a novel leaving readers in limbo
Ekc Personally I put it down to incompetence and/or simply not caring. At the end of the day if you have novel that hasn't updated for over a month with no explanation give as to why you can expect the readers to leave in droves. It's terrible management as it doesn't manage reader's expectations and thus they'll lose interest and leave.
I'll also note that while support staff say it's not been dropped I've actually never heard Webnovel ever say that a novel has been dropped (to Webnovel all their works are ongoing or complete). From my understanding they simply say it's stopped updating but may resume should a TL who wishes to translate it joins Webnovel. I think they do that so that if another group wants to TL it then Webnovel can go and sue them as they have the mentality that if we can't get it then no else can!
Actually from what I can gather even junk novels will start to get culled. Currently their entire business model is based on getting people off translated novels and onto original stories from authors they poach off Wattpad as it's cheaper for them as they can skip translation costs and licencing costs from the original novel.
Just to give an example when I tried to look up look up power rankings to compare translated and original novels. I then noticed I couldn't many translated novels. I then noticed a filter and it was only selecting original novels (instead of all) despite the fact that I have never read an original novel on Webnovel. It may not seem a big deal but it means that all new readers are being diverted to original novels and thus translations end up not gaining new readers so total readerbase can only go down and then they cull it cause it's not profitable enough.
I can also confirm Forty Millenniums of Cultivation is a great novel and would definitely recommend it to anyone if it was being actively translated.
It's a shame but I think it's pretty much dropped. Considering 2761 of 3335 chapters were translated it does feel like a waste but that's nothing new here.
It's pretty much standard practice on Webnovel that when a novel is dropped it's as if TLs have been abducted by aliens or have disappeared like Jack Ma to give a more Chinese example. I find it incredibly frustrating that they don't have the decency to announce it and consider it disrespectful to leave the readers hanging.
That's also why I don't start any new novels on Webnovel as I don't want to invest time into story to have it arbitrarily dropped one day when to get to chapter 2700+ takes over 200 hours assuming 5min/chapter to be left on a cliffhanger...
At the end of the day if you don't like Webnovel but still spend money on it then you're just encouraging them to continue their current practices as they're gaining money from you and thus have no reason to change. If you're not spending money then you're not a revenue source so they won't care about you.
I would imagine they track things like how often users login etc but whether you're happy with them isn't really easy to quantify. I'll also add that even if users are declining in numbers they can come up with any number of reasons that suits their narrative. For example an easy one to use is people are coming back to work after Covid-19 so have less time to spend on Webnovel and hey presto any incompetence is swept under the carpet.
Tomoyuki It's definitely the case with translations as many novels went premium without the TLs even being aware of it and now they're all premium. I believe it's also the case with authors who sign contracts with Webnovel as they do that to monetise it but as I've not experienced it first hand it is quite possible it has changed and if you say that is the case I don't really have any valid reason to doubt you.