What Happens When You Report a Book or Booklist on DaoSearch

DaoSearch lists about 5.9 million novels, read from six platforms and translated by machine. Some of that is going to be wrong. A title comes out garbled, a cover goes stale, the same book turns up twice, a booklist's name makes no sense in English.

We can't read five million pages. You're already reading the ones that matter to you, though, so the Report link is how you tell us. A person on the team reads every report, decides what to do, and tells you what happened.

Where the Report link is

On every book page it sits at the bottom, on the line that says when the book was last refreshed and which engine translated it. On every booklist page it sits beside the list's figures.

You need to be signed in to send one. Sign in with Google or Discord from the top of any page. Browsing never needs an account.

What you can report

Pick the reason that fits. For a novel:

• Wrong information: the status, word count, genre, author or anything else on the page is off
• Bad translation: the English title, synopsis or pen name reads wrong
• Duplicate book: the same novel is listed twice
• Broken source link: the link to the book on its own platform doesn't work
• Wrong cover
• Other

For a booklist the reasons are Wrong or garbled title or description, Bad translation, Spam or inappropriate, Broken or missing books, and Other.

There's a box for details, up to 1,500 characters. It's optional, but it's the difference between a fix and a guess. Some things that help:

• Say what the right value is, not only that the current one is wrong. "Status says ongoing, the author posted the final chapter last week" is perfect.
• For a duplicate, paste the link to the other copy.
• For a bad title, give the English name readers use if there is one. That's how most fandom names end up right.
• Check the refreshed time first. If the page says it was refreshed an hour ago, the source hasn't changed yet. If it says weeks ago, a report is exactly the right move.

The book or list you reported from is attached automatically, so you don't need to explain which one.

Your report is public on our Discord

The dialog says this too, but it's worth repeating: your report goes to the #reports channel on our Discord, with your username, where members can read it until a moderator decides it. Once it's decided the post is cleared from the channel, and the pinned stats message at the top keeps the running count of reports reviewed, fixed and turned down. Keep it about the listing and leave out anything personal.

Your username is a generated one unless you've changed it, and nothing from your Google or Discord account is shown. More on usernames and profiles.

Limits

You can send 20 reports a day, or 5 a day while your account is less than a day old, and one a minute. If you report the same thing for the same reason while your first report is still open, you'll see "You already reported this. We'll let you know what happens." You don't need to send it again.

What we can fix

When a moderator approves a report, they pick the fix. The ones you'll see named are:

• Translation redone: the English title, synopsis and pen name (or the booklist's title and description) are translated again right away. How the translation works now.
• Refreshed from the source: the book or list is read again from its platform, which fixes stale status, word counts, covers and members.
• Title corrected: a novel's English title is set by hand.
• Removed from DaoSearch: for true duplicates, spam lists and things that aren't novels.

Sometimes the answer is to leave it as it is. The data might match what the platform itself says, or the "wrong" genre might be the one the author picked.

How you hear back

Either way you get a notification. An approved report comes back as "Fixed:" with the book or list name and the fix that was applied. One we didn't act on comes back as "Not changed:". If the moderator wrote a reply, it's in the notification. Report notifications can't be switched off, because they're answers to something you asked.

The notifications live at Notifications in the account menu. There's a dot on your avatar when something new arrives.

Your report history

Reports, also in the account menu, lists everything you've sent, newest first. Each one shows the reason, when you sent it, your details and where it stands:

• Pending: waiting for a moderator
• Fixed: approved, with the fix named. It says "(in progress)" while a retranslation or refresh is still running.
• Not changed: looked at and left alone
• Closed: closed without a change for some other reason

It keeps your latest 100.

Credit where it's due

Approved reports show on your public profile, the page at /u/ and your username. It lists the listings you've helped fix, up to your 20 most recent, and says how many there are in total. That's the only activity a profile shows. Your shelves and saved searches stay private.

One last thing. If an account uses reports to spam or harass, we may stop its reports from reaching us. That has nothing to do with sending reports we end up disagreeing with. Send the ones you're unsure about. Most of what gets fixed on this site gets fixed because somebody noticed.