A check box for “send to all tiers” would be indispensable, I agree.
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That explains it a little more clearly. Hmm, this might be another case where our having the ability to add people to a tier might be helpful as this could be confusing for the patrons . . .
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@mindy, I wonder if it might be possible, using your example image, if we could click “all patrons”, and have that populate check marks in all the tiers. Then, we’d only have to uncheck those that didn’t get the content. That might alleviate some of the “too much work” grumbling.
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I think this could be pretty useful and interesting.
One thing I’m contemplated is two kinds of tiers: one that gets all the posts in a month, and one that is per post.
I’ll see about that, though.
This might help some. And my grumbling isn’t over it being too much work. 
I’m concerned that we will have trouble keeping it straight and that some things we’ll forget to give to all the patrons, and others will go to patrons that don’t pay for that post. It is usually all we can do to keep up with the work load here. Adding more details to keep straight to the workflow will not be helpful. I still think it would be MUCH preferable to let us opt out of the change.
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I was thinking about whether this would solve the problem for us. It would help a lot for our podcast campaign but wouldn’t help for my husband’s blog campaign, where the lowest tier doesn’t get posts. And there would still be a certain amount of keeping track of which of the tiers get which posts.
@LisaVollrath made a good suggestion that addresses that.
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Yes, that would help some, in some situations.
This would be very useful to me!
I concur that there’s no reason to send a message to the patrons since every creator might use this (or not) differently - let us explain it and cut down on unnecessary stresses for everybody. A month lead time is always good for alerting people to changes if they need to know.
Thanks for continuing to work on the UI - and thanks for asking us!
Tamara
- Would you prefer that Patreon reaches out to patrons regarding any changes to their access moving forward, or would you like to handle the communications independently? Please explain your answer in as much detail as you can.
Been thinking about our answer to this. We would prefer that it come from Patreon. You could send emails with direct links to the right spot in their accounts to make this change, making it as easy as possible for them to make the change. You could probably also explain it better than we could, with the right details. It would be very helpful if you could determine which patrons are not currently signed up for any reward, or are not signed up for the reward level that matches their current pledge, and tailor the emails to them. We have over 900 patrons between our 2 campaigns, and are always very stretched for time. This would be a big administrative challenge for us to figure out who needs to be told just what, to minimize confusion.
- How much advance notice would you like to receive before this change occurs?
If we will have the ability to put patrons into the right reward categories, then a few weeks after you send out the email suggesting they do it would work for us. We’ll need to wait for those who are going to make the changes to make them, and then we’ll need to comb through several hundred patrons to clean up whoever didn’t.
If we aren’t going to have the ability to place them into their correct tiers, then we’ll need considerable time to try to get this change brought to the attention of all the patrons. As I mentioned in an post in this thread, we don’t have good email addresses for a number of patrons. Our best hope for some of them would be to post something on our page and then have to wait for everyone to come see it. Some of our patrons only pop in every 2 or 3 months, catch up on many of the posts when they show up, and then disappear again.
As has been mentioned in the threads on declined patrons, getting a hold of patrons can be a real challenge. I’m not sure what Patreon can do about that, as some people sign up with fake email addresses, or junk or burner email addresses, or some people change addresses and don’t remember to update Patreon, or they just ignore a lot of their email. But we definitely can’t find a way to get a hold of a number of our patrons. 
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One other question, how do we handle it if our campaign has some people who don’t qualify to get posts? When we started our podcast campaign 4 years ago, people were allowed to sign up for small amounts, like 25 cents a creation, but they weren’t entitled to posts at that amount. We still have some of those people kind of grandfathered in on our campaign. On my husband’s blog campaign, he has a lowest tier level that also is not entitled to posts. Most of our posts on both sides will be for “all patrons that are entitled to get posts”, rather than “all patrons.” We’ll need an option for both, all patrons, and all patrons who pay enough to get posts. 
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- I love this! I specifically left feedback for this feature, so I’m very happy about it!
- I’d be happy to reach out to my patrons since it affects what they’ll be getting.
- It can be a short window, no problem. A few days would suffice.
Thank you ALL so much for the amazing feedback, thoughts, and questions. I’ve been compiling some of the questions and themes and returned with answers.
Can people sign up for multiple rewards that add up to their pledge? For example, if someone pledges $10, can they select a $5 reward, a $3 reward, and a $2 reward? Or will patrons still be restricted to a single reward?
In our proposed update, patrons would only be in one tier at a given time. @michaelprescott
Can creators control the migration of patrons to the new tier structure? Could you give creators the ability to move unselected patrons into a category that is comparable with their pledge amount and send an email to patrons to let them know what happened?
We believe we shouldn’t change the terms of a patron’s payment without their consent, even if we consider them to be strictly benefiting from the change. Creators will not be able to force-move patrons into tiers for our proposed update. Our suggestion is to message your patrons who are not signed up for the tier that matches their pledge amount. This would be patrons signed up for “no reward” or patrons who are pledging a higher value than the tier they’re signed up for. You can message patrons for both of these groups of patrons using the filters in your Patron Relationship Manager. We’d provide example copy for creators to message their patrons upon launching this update. Let me know if you’d like to talk further about this @michaelprescott
If I edit a post to select a new tier (for time gated content) could patrons who now have access to the content be notified of the new post (to them), but not tiers who previously had access? That way newly added patrons would see a new post pop up in their inbox, but higher tiers wouldn’t be double notified (like the current system does).
We’re exploring right now a more granular set of notification options for when posts get edited. It’s still in progress, and no firm decisions have been made. It used to work like this, but then we changed it (in response to creator demand), and now we’re considering changing course due to the same type of feedback.
Could there be a second category for polls which also says “Who can vote on this post?” so that I can encourage people to pledge to higher tiers to participate in polls by allowing them to see the kinds of polls I post for my voting tier, but keep the voting itself exclusive?
One part of this update will include a new component to posts where any post that isn’t visible to someone will specify what tiers do have access to it. This will certainly entice patrons to pledge to higher tiers in order to receive access. @Watsup
I wonder if it might be possible, using your example image, if we could click “all patrons”, and have that populate check marks in all the tiers. Then, we’d only have to uncheck those that didn’t get the content. That might alleviate some of the “too much work” grumbling.
"All Patrons” truly means all patrons. But when the creator instead checks “Select Tiers”, all tiers start out initially checked. That way creators will only ever have to deselect tiers. @lisavollrath
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Thanks for answering some questions, Mindy. I have 2 questions about what you’ve said. One is that you assume that we can actually get a hold of our patrons to nudge them to select a reward tier (or put themselves in the correct tier). This is a bit of an assumption, as we often have trouble getting a hold of people (as I detailed in an earlier reply on this thread). Two, how will this system work for our grandfathered-in patrons that are not in any reward tier because they did not pledge enough for a tier? (Our lowest tier is $1 and we have several patrons who pledged years ago for smaller amounts, back when that was allowed.) If we choose “all patrons” there is no way to deselect this group. (I had also detailed this in another comment on this thread.)
Thanks!
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One other question, hopefully you’ll be explaining how to use the Relationship Manager to find the people who are pledging a higher value than the tier they are signed up for. I’m not finding it obvious how to do that, but possibly I’m just overlooking it.
@FutilityCloset you raise good points!
One is that you assume that we can actually get a hold of our patrons to nudge them to select a reward tier (or put themselves in the correct tier). This is a bit of an assumption, as we often have trouble getting a hold of people.
If patrons did not successfully receive a message, or are signed up for no reward tier, they will be able to see a message on creator posts that says “Unblock this post by selecting a tier at no additional cost.” If a patron provides an email they don’t check, it makes it very hard for anyone to communicate with them so unfortunately that isn’t something we can help with at this time, but we are currently looking into ways to ensure emails that patrons provide are 100% real.
How will this system work for our grandfathered-in patrons that are not in any reward tier because they did not pledge enough for a tier? (Our lowest tier is $1 and we have several patrons who pledged years ago for smaller amounts, back when that was allowed.) If we choose “all patrons” there is no way to deselect this group.
For patrons paying less than $1, the “All Patrons” option will include everyone that is a paying patron, regardless of pledge amount. If you want to deselect those patrons, then select which tiers should gain access, even if that’s all tiers. This question was a little confusing, please LMK if I haven’t answered it how you intended.
Hopefully you’ll be explaining how to use the Relationship Manager to find the people who are pledging a higher value than the tier they are signed up for.
We took some time figuring out how to do this and you have to use 3 filters in PRM. Select “Active Patrons”, then choose a tier, and then enter a pledge dollar amount that’s higher than the selected tier. We’ll make sure it’s included in help articles when this feature launches. Thank you so much for bringing this up 
I had asked this question in an earlier post on this thread in more detail. I had said that for those of us with a lot of tiers, having to make sure we remember to check all the appropriate tiers for each post will be confusing. Someone answered that we can check “All Patrons” and then deselect some tiers, to make it simpler. I replied that this won’t work for us as we have patrons who pledged less than a dollar, back when that was allowed. There isn’t any way to deselect this group if we select All Patrons, as they aren’t at any reward level (they pledged an amount lower than the lowest reward level). So the new system will be rather complicated for those of us with several tiers, and with patrons who are below any reward level.
Glad to hear there is a plan in place to make sure patrons provide real email addresses, though I’m guessing that will be for going forward, and not for all the patrons we have now? But I like that they will see a message on the appropriate posts telling them to select a tier.
Overall, this new system seems much more complicated than what we’re using now. For some of us there will be all downside and no upside, that I can see. Though if someone can explain how this will benefit all creators, I’m all ears!
Oh, one more question: if there will be a notice on creator posts that lets them know they can unblock the post, how will that work for people who get our rewards primarily through other means, such as the RSS feed? There are some of our patrons who pretty much never come to the site but get their rewards in other ways. I’m kind of concerned about this as we have more than 70 patrons who aren’t signed up for a reward level. Thanks.
Hi!
I’m new here. The checkboxes are pre-checked so you don’t have to uncheck them. This means you can easily post to all patrons by simply selecting “All Patrons” (one check) OR post to some subset of patrons by unchecking the tiers that should not get the post.
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Thanks, Thaniya, but that won’t work for patrons who aren’t in any tier, and we have a large number of patrons who aren’t. Some of them just didn’t select a tier when they signed up, and some of them don’t qualify for a tier, as I’ve explained in more detail in some of my earlier posts.