As some of you may know, I am a subscriber to webcomics.com, a resource for webcomics creators to congregate and discuss the craft. It has helpful articles 4 days a week, and an active forum full of helpful people. This site has helped me out of many a pickle.
Recently, the site has come under attack due to this: [Edit - link removed, see below!]
I couldn’t read the thread, and the vitriol that it contained without responding. So here are some points that were left out/ignored.
1) Webcomics.com is a huge community. Not as huge as reddit, sure, but large enough that the actions of a few individuals do not represent the site as a whole.
2) While these upvoting threads did appear in the forums, they were user created, and not sponsored by the site itself.
3) The VAST majority of threads and posts on webcomics.com are about how to improve your comic, with the idea that a quality comic will provide an audience far better than any artificial inflation.
4) While some people caught on to this, I would like to make it clear: the title of the post on reddit is at best poorly worded and at worst intentionally misleading. People did not recieve money for upvoting. People pay webcomics.com for a membership to the site. Then, once members, they decided to form an upvoting ring. The exchange of money and the upvoting are not at all related; they are two separate encounters with two separate parties.
So, should the offending parties be banned? Probably. They broke the rules of your site. I, personally don’t think the offense was that egregious, and I think there are people on that list who run a quality product that would have done very well on your site even without the 5-10 upvotes that were recieved wrongly. The good ones still did well, and the bad ones still did poorly. I, personally don’t see the problem, but you guys can run your site however you wish. That’s beyond my control.
But please, know that webcomics.com is so much more than this. In fact, this sort of “get readers quick” scheme is actually counter to the core advice given by the site. The site has helped hundreds of webcomics creators improve, and in turn has helped their webcomics improve, raising the quality of webcomics across the board. And that’s something that’s good for everyone.
So punish the individuals if you must, but please, keep the hate towards webcomics.com to a minimum. It’s a fantastic site.
Edit: Reddit has removed all links to the offending post, as well as deleting the original poster. I have replied in kind by removing the link to the article as well.
