I’m absolutely flabbergasted that this wasn’t something brought to all creators attention before being implemented, that now only patrons and creators can comment on public posts, period. Is this not interfering with our relationship with our fans? The thing you folks claim you don’t want to interfere with? Well you’re doing it again. I don’t know how many times one can say “one size does not fit all.”
You’ve absolutely messed up my interactions with not only the creators I follow and actively participate in conversations with OR the few followers that actually comment on my public posts and SHOULD be able to post on my public posts because some of it IS for all my followers to participate in!!
Please make this feature OPTIONAL. I can understand that some folks might get spammed but is that not what the block function is also for? I NEED to have access to have conversations with my followers. This needs to be optional.
If need be, make the block functions more robust to handle spam/abuse safely for creators. My followers shouldn’t be shafted, especially when I sometimes really need their feedback.
This 100% needs to be an optional feature, either per post, or per creator account in the account settings.
I’m beyond frustrated that commenting publicly on a public post, a feature that should be pretty standard, was removed with zero warning. It has caused issues with my engagement and has resulted in fans feeling like they MUST pay in order to engage with me. Not only is this a bad look, it is also a hurdle to getting those fans to WANT to become patrons, because their hand is forced in order to comment. That is not what my brand is about, and I feel that this has likely gotten in the way of encouraging fans to turn into patrons, resulting in lost income.
Its not a bug. As per a staff response in the discord, it was put in place to help creators who get spam or abuse on public posts.
They implemented it without any warning as far as I’m aware (or consideration for other scenarios, in my opinion) but it was fairly recent. I noticed it last week when trying to converse with a creator I follow but am not a patron of. Though it might have been a bug or temporary too. Its not.
From the Patreon discord on this topic:
“sorry again for my delay folks, but really apprecaite your patience! turns out this is a new update and as of about a week ago, only patrons and creators can comment on public posts. Though followers can still read public posts. When this update launched, there were a few bugs that caused creators and patrons to not be able to comment for a brief time, but this has been fixed.
this update was made due to creators facing abuse and spam with no way to control it. hope this is helpful! thanks again for your patience”
So it is working as intended, I guess, for some scenarios, and now broken for everyone else. Absolutely ridiculous that removing public comments was their solution, and not making it an option, or, as OP has suggested, a stronger block feature.
I know as someone who doesn’t have that big an income here atm that my opinion doesn’t matter (in practical business terms), and obviously for the same reason I wouldn’t be likely to face the kind of spam more popular creators would, but honestly, this just sucks. (It also sucks as someone who’s interacted with other creators in the comments on their public posts, as others have said.)
I have had the same experience, @AriaGlazki. Genuine interaction with followers is what turns them into fans who may become patrons. I do not want a paywall blocking them from talking to me.
This needs to be an option. I can see how someone with a lot of patrons and making tens of thousands a month might not be able to communicate with every single fan and want to focus on patrons, but a lot of us have a handful of patrons and are nurturing relationships with followers. Some of us just want to have access to every fan, regardless of ability to pay.
While they’re at it, they need to add the option to see when a follower comments. I’ve been asking for this for years. Those active followers on Patreon are the most likely to be future patrons as they’re already here and engaged.
Augh, yes. I’m so tired of notifications being a mess. T_T I have to have push notifications and emails turned on for everything just to get -most- of the notifications.
Yes, this completely needs to be an option! The idea of “public” posts is for public interactions! It’s a great way to engage with potential patrons and to grow a community. Many of us are trying to make Patreon our main social platform and that can’t happen if we don’t allow the public to interact with a post. And the ability to delete/hide comments would be very helpful as well.
Yeah, yet another reason that I’m going to build my own membership site and move everyone away from patreon. It’s going to take me a while but hopefully will be able to get it implemented next year. I want total control of my page and I hate the changes that are made without any warnings or that totally spoil the look of landing pages etc.
I feel the same as the others here. I won’t repeat those things as they’ve been well stated, but I will say that every time I’ve had issues with spam comments it has been from other creators. We’ve discussed this in the threads about blocking/deleting and the message that is sent to those blocked. Of course it’s not a lot of fellow creators and much more often I get supportive comments. I also enjoy interacting with fans who perhaps can’t pledge and rarely have had any issues there. The small number of spammy comments I get have been fellow creators (usually NSFW female model type accounts).
I think the ability to block people without them getting an email with a reason (unless we could choose the reason) would be much more helpful than blanket limiting comments like this.
At the very least, I’d like to see those following creators be able to comment.
This definitely needs to be optional and turned off by default (for those who tend to not mess with settings/unaware of its existence). In the modding community for Sims 4 there are some creators who almost stick exclusively to Patreon for engagement/posting, and they need to be able to have users comment about issues or help them figure out what went wrong, get feedback, etc. Today I couldn’t warn a creator to not spend hundreds on Python books because there were resources and deals to be found elsewhere. Please be swift and make the changes before this has a negative impact on creators and followers.
I basically don’t ask to be paid for the thing that brings in most of the people who use my page, so I don’t see why people should pay to talk with me… comments are important to report bugs with mods in the area I create for, by removing the ability to comment for everyone, you remove the ability for people to get support and help. I don’t see why this shouldn’t be optional.
Hello folks, thanks for sharing your thoughts and feedback here.
A few weeks ago the team did remove the ability for fans/followers/non-patrons to be able to comment on public creator posts. This was in direct response to a few cases of continued harassment and abuse creators were facing by not having control over this. However, we have since shared the feedback from creators that it was not a great experience to have this change suddenly happen with no warning nor the ability to control whether you want your fans to be able to comment on your public posts or not.
Very soon we are going to re-introduce the ability for creator accounts to be able to comment on other public posts by creators to encourage collaboration and community. I will keep you all posted when that change goes live.
Thanks again for sharing your feedback here, I really appreciate your candor. Please keep it coming as the team is reading!
Personally, I’d like to have the ability to turn off the option completely… I can manage spam and harassment myself in case I’d need to, and I want people to be able to comment on public posts without needing to pay, not only for creators accounts but for everyone.
I appreciate re-enabling creator to creator commenting for now, but what about our followers, or the option to turn it off completely? I would hope you guys are still considering/looking into that for those that need it. The majority who engages with my posts aren’t a patron or creator themselves, a couple weren’t even followers, and were the ones to let me know they appreciate my work or that something was wrong with the mod, etc.
Agreed here. Creator to creator is nice but lots of us NEED to communicate with our followers. Just because they aren’t paying doesn’t mean I don’t need their input and I shouldn’t have to do more work like making social media posts and other stuff to link in the post just to get stuff in front of their faces that they can contribute to because patreon refuses them access without my permission.
I understand wanting to help with spam/abuse cases but this is ridiculous to just turn it off entirely for everyone. like, how many folks use patreon? That’s a lot of people to force into something and interfere with their relationship with their fans. You folks beta test stuff, why couldn’t you put those folks having issues into a group where it’s turned off until you can expand the function?? It needs to be optional entirely. Different permission levels would be great (being able to choose can and cannot comment on a post. Post by post, not per account) but forcing us all into this is not cool.
We still need and want the ability for any fan - patron or not - to be able to comment on public posts. In my opinion that’s kind of the whole point of it being a public post. I can reach and engage with a broader audience and hopefully turn those fans into patrons, but forcing them to pledge in order to comment leaves a bad taste for those who are not interested, thereby losing fans and losing money. PLEASE make it optional for this. I have not had spam/trolls but if that became a problem later I could then decide to turn off public comments.
The majority who engages with my posts aren’t a patron or creator themselves, a couple weren’t even followers, and were the ones to let me know they appreciate my work or that something was wrong with the mod, etc.