A gripe as a potential Patron. I thought I’d pay it forward a little and chuck a couple of $ back into the system…
As a photographer and former college photography lecturer I thought I’d like to look for someone maybe I could offer help to as well, someone just starting out perhaps (in the end I haven’t found anyone thus far).
I was quite put off as a potential patron for two reasons…
So I searched on photography (naturally). The top twenty (or however many it is) were largely not actual photographers. The majority of top supported ‘photographers’ appear to be young women dressed in provocative animal or superhero costumes and the like (cosplay - sic) - and one couple were offering bondage pictures and ‘lessons’. Really Patreon if this stuff is not exactly soft porn, it’s verging on it. It has little or no artistic merit IMHO, it’s ‘titillation’ more suitable for Instagram. I appreciate Patreon is making money off this stuff so probably highly unlikely to drop it. So, at least maybe it should have it’s own category… ‘adult’ perhaps?
The number of dead or unloved Patreon pages is horrendous. People have set up pages, set them live and left them, it’s such a shame to have to wade through inactive and unfinished pages. Surely there could be some reset where if a page has zero support and has not been touched or logged into in x period of time they could default to ‘draft’ following a couple of email warnings.
Just my observations as a potential patron sifting through at random.
I agree that curation is in order. There is quite a lot of straight out hard porn (the fact that it’s illustrated rather than photographed doesn’t make it anything else), and with the addition of abandoned accounts, the place is starting to loo increasingly like deviantART: a hot mess where you hesitate to send new people because if they look around too much, it will reflect negatively on you.
I think Patreon should look at Bandcamp, how to do things that are fair to creators (even if they don’t output content on too regular basis), not become an elitist club (anyone should have access to a platform like Patreon), and to create a great entry point (langing page) for customers who want to see and support creations.
They have sections on their front page: “Bandcamp Weekly” (podcast), “Bandcamp Daily” (articles, interviews), “SELLING RIGHT NOW” (animated stripe of album covers), Album of the Day, “New and Notable” and a great, trully functional discovery system with proper filters for location, genre, format, and time.
I think Patreon shouldn’t throw off the platform less active accounts, but should really work towards a multilayered and multidimensional Discovery system on their front page.
It would be great if the folks who do adult or NSFW stuff could have their own categories.
And yeah, I don’t need to see nintey-seven pages of people who have zero patrons, and haven’t posted an update for a year, when I search for stuff. How 'bout just not listing pages in search until they have a post and a patron? Or not listing pages in search if they haven’t been updated in X number of weeks or months?
How 'bout just not listing pages in search until they have a post and a patron?
I am all for options. Options are cool. Options taste yummy with vinegar and without.
Option a) “show me patronless patreons looking for patrons including dominae”
Option b) “show me patronless patreons looking for patrons excluding dominae”
Option c) “only show me people who already make so much money that they don’t give a dime for my dime”
Option d) “only show arbitrary search results that have no connection to what I am looking for, just like google”
Or not listing pages in search if they haven’t been updated in X number of weeks or months?
Did I mention that I am a fan of options? Here, though, I’d go for “only show active patreons”, where “active” means: At least one post within the last 29.53 days (one gummibear for knowing the number)
I apologize for being unbearable. I ran out of them today and try to survive the week on withdrawal.
I believe by default NSFW is filtered from searches. If they’re not listing themselves as NSFW yet are posting nude photos, they’re mislabeled.
Granted, saucy images don’t count as NSFW. Maybe a more dynamic rating system would be good, e.g. a ‘suggestive’ category. Alternatively, giving NSFW creators (like myself) their own separate categories (rather than just a single catch-all) would also work.
The gripes with pages like that though shouldn’t hinge on the type of content they make, but rather if there’s reason to believe they’re skirting around rules. If they’re competing with more professional photography, maybe a category like “Pinup/Portrait photography” would be good.
That all said, truth be told I had never really considered the prospect of finding patreon pages through Patreon itself, just because if I know a creator I like, I’ll find their page direct through them. Hiding a 0 patron page in that sense would work–Patreon isn’t a media platform by itself, it’s meant to supplement other platforms, and you’re meant to bring in followers from other locations.
As for filtering inactive pages, maybe an option to sort pages by post frequency, or at least for Patreon to temporarily de-list a page til it starts posting regularly again. (Granted, the time threshold for this should be a couple of months, not just a few weeks. Patreon pages for creators such as animators may not post an update for months at a time as it’s such a big endeavor. Setting this time period too short would hurt them unfairly in reference to search.)
I’ll take my gummibear, it’s the lunar synodic period. Astronomy Ph.D for the win!
Although that would have excluded my patreon as I only produce a quarterly magazine and don’t always post every synodic month (although I’m getting better.)
Well as a NSFW comic creator I used do the same thing. I fell like I’m being more active, but as of recently my creator page has been stagnant lately. If anyone can care too look at my page to see where I can improve. I don’t have enough to make it look pro , but I am more than happy to improve it just a little. And I would like to know the best places to advertise for my patreon.
I’m not sure how many people reading will be sympathetic to this, but the fact is people who create even mildly erotic content face a lot of structural barriers already-- yes, they can make a lot of money on Patreon–but they wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of outlets for even mildly not safe for work content are collapsing.
This kind of content is frequently pirated and artists and models are frequently banned from PayPal if they have any past work with adult content (including having worked in the past as a stripper et cetera) and have to go through friends just to take advantage of an online service most people take for granted–or go through more expensive online pay services which, in effect, are a tax for having ever done adult work, even off the platform.
Social media has repeatedly shown that if there is a not safe for work bar in front of any of it, then soon you face the situation where anyone creating something with any kind of remotely sexual content–say even just a memoir that happens to include everyday sexual elements, like a chapter where two people wake up in bed–then there’s a constant back-and-forth about what does and does not belong behind the (less lucrative, less-browsable) nsfw barrier. People get kicked off without warning and have to build up professional networks from scratch.
Many other platforms create a situation where the standards are never quite articulated and what happens is a chilling effect where creators are never quite sure what is and isn’t across the line–a drawing? a cartoon? a fully clothed sexy picture?
And so everyone steps way back and adult work gets harder to make even for people who want it. Patreon is supposed to be here to help Independent Artists of all kinds in what is perhaps the most brutal financial environment for creative people in the last 50 years. If this becomes one more place where your content is policed and the quote “artistic Merit” of what you’re doing is evaluated by some moderator you can’t talk to or respond to, or placed behind barriers because of a trolling complaint (which happens to artists models constantly) then it’s just one less way that people who make a variety of content can survive.
I understand that not everyone wants to see this content but for instance if you’re a comic artist and you make 900 drawings and three of them are sexy commissions I don’t think that person should have to plead their case in front of some patreon committee or lose traffic because they’re behind a wall in order to be able to do their work and represent the variety of what they’re capable of.
Please recognize that what for some of you may be cutting down on an irritating inconvenience is affecting the lives of real people–some of them may be talentless hacks, but they are just as likely to be doing something they believe in as any other artist on Patreon. The line is not easy to police–and so far there’s been no solution that hasn’t made the lives of adult content creators harder in the last few years.
I’m sorry you saw things you didn’t want to see–but there are people paying rent and creating work that (in many cases) is real and fulfilling for them on the other end of that, and Patreon is probably saving their life right now.
I feel like I have to defend myself. Since I have opened up another thread that may sound like a threat to people who believe they are creating “adult art” (whatever that is - I was way more interested in “erotic” when I was a kid in my mid-20s than I am today, that I finally think I am almost an adult - many decades later).
It is not about banning “erotic” art from Patreon. It is about giving people a choice - not even necessarily whether they have to see an uncovered naked underarm (beware, your kids may die from seeing that!), no - but to be allowed to see something else, too! I used to say that I am not interested in Facebook because there’s only pictures of cats in there. Now I feel like a picture of a cat every once in a while would be a relief - and that tells me there is something wrong.
The problem that some - sorry, I have to say this: ADULTS - are having is not with “sexy images” (whether an image is “sexy” or not is another debate and whether it is enough to show a tanned buttom to call a picture “art” is yet another one). The problem is that you get drowned in ever-the-same stuff. The web is full with “sexy art”, from half naked men selling dish washers to half naked women selling SUVs.
It is BORING. At some point in life you just want to have some variety in what you see.
Again, in case this didn’t make it through:
I am fine with “erotic” art. I am fine with naked people. I love being nude in my house and in my garden. I give a damn if a neighbor sees me - they have their houses, they can look the other way. As a kid I was used to seeing naked people at the beach (I guess that’s not possible any more today?) or in the pool. If you think that nudity gives your drawings/photos/whatever a touch of art - COOL. Be as nude as you want to.
But allow me to be not interested. Allow me to see the flaws in the drawings, see the bad lighting in the picture, see that you didn’t care for the background enough, see that the montage doesn’t work, see that your body posture hints at you having or soon having a hurting back. Allow me to see MORE than just nudity.
I am really, honestly sorry if you or your friends or colleagues are getting banned from anywhere because they show “erotic” pictures, nudity or whatsnot (I am not talking about porn, I do get the sentiments about that). I wish I could help. Again, just because someone is half-naked doesn’t make a picture of him/her art, but that’s not for me to decide: If you need my paypal address to get money for showing your grandfather in shorts for the erotic touch, I volunteer to cooperate with no fees attached.
Don’t misunderstand my original point. I am absolutely against censorship. I don’t mind whatever people do (although there are some things I like to choose to not see at times - which makes sensible categorisation necessary).
My original point is, that young ladies dressed up for titillating selfies or for photo shoots (or people hawking ‘bondage training’) should not be categorised as photographers… Nothing wrong with a bit of titillation, but let’s call it what it really is…
These two issues are wildly unrelated, but I’d still like to address them.
Tackling the issue of neglected Patreon projects, I think these projects naturally float toward the bottom of the search results, but it is something that Patreon can address at their own leisure. I don’t think this is a serious enough issue to require any urgent action on Patreon’s part.
As for creators of NSFW content using Patreon as a method for supporting their work, this is a much touchier subject. Given everyone involved in these exchanges is an adult I am inclined to say they should be allowed to do whatever they want with their art or money. I get a slight impression of jealousy from the lamentation that many of the top Patreon pages contain at least some NSFW content, but I don’t think that is the crux of the issue. It’s really up to Patreon’s discretion whether they want to allow creators who do NSFW content, just as it is up to the patrons discretion whether they want to support said creators. While I understand your frustration in finding a purely SFW creator, the reality of the situation both within and without Patreon is that virtually all artists create NSFW content at some point in their careers and consumers enjoy seeing this content both for education and titillation.
Under NO circumstances should Patreon outsource curation of their content to third parties outside of Patreon itself. At that point Patreon is no longer a company in control of their own website and are going to have to spend more time moderating their moderators than they would actually moderating their website without them. As it stands, the fact that Patreon allows a wide variety of both purely SFW, NSFW, and everything in between from their creators is a good thing for both the patrons and the creators.
It should also be noted that you already will not see NSFW creators in your search feeds unless you opt-in to see said NSFW creators (now some creators not properly tagging their pages as being NSFW is more of an issue for the moderation staff to politely address rather than a more heavy handed response).
Don’t be ridiculous… That assertion is quite insulting. It also seems to suggest you have missed the entire point of both my original post and the message above this one.
Honestly, tl;dr, more category and subcategory options would be good.
It gives creators more ways to classify themselves, and an easier way for users to find creators they want. A ‘cosplay’ category would be great and keep things distinct from the photography category.
This discussion shouldn’t have so much to do with NSFW. The issue of the cosplayers with less professional photography appearing in the photography category has little do to with the fact that they’re NSFW, and more with the fact that it’s not the best classification for them.
Just a quick note that this is something Patreon has been researching and exploring. I don’t have any timelines on when this will change, but there is a wider range of creator types than one could possibly anticipate and the system has to be usable. I’ll share once I have any updates on that.
As long as NSFW work is still allowed here I don’t think many people will complain about it being divided (though kept equal) with SFW stuff.
I write things which can be NSFW sometimes and I believe when I signed up I indicated as such so my Patreon isn’t searchable, I believe you can only get to it knowing the URL or having a direc link. I might be wrong though.
What previous people were saying is true though. The options for honest and hard-working creators of NSFW work are very limited.
My two cents: Make people opt IN to having their searches scrubbed of adult content. If somebody’s really going to get offended by seeing some skin (real or drawn), they can proactively CHOOSE to see only a child-safe feed. Putting creators of NSFW content into an adults-only ghetto is a sure-fire way to cut them off from people who would happily support their work.
