This is a pretty minor thing, but I just wanted to see if anyone else had been dealing with it — I’d like to use public posts more, since that’s something Patreon seems to recommend in terms of allowing potential Patrons and followers to see the value of your work. However, whenever I post public posts, I get spammy emoji-only or clearly copy-pasted “great!!” comments from other Patreon creators, usually with lingerie/adult profile pics. It’s nobody I know and generally nobody in a similar field to me. So… you know. Spam. And since my Patreon is SFW, I dislike the idea that Patron comments are being interspersed with comments from creators whose profile pics are NSFW.
I was thinking an easy fix for this might be to only allow followers to reply to public posts, since following is free & easy. Any thoughts on this? Do you guys get comments like this on public posts? It isn’t a HUGE deal by any means, but I generally delete those comments, and it’s a bit of a pain.
We’ve had this happen only once to us so far, thank goodness. Just as you describe - a very generic comment on a public post by a clearly adult creator who seemed to just want the publicity for their campaign. We have kids who listen to our podcast, so this was definitely not acceptable for us either. As you did, we deleted the comment, and just have to stay vigilant for future ones, unless there is some other fix that someone else has thought of . . .
Ugh! That sounds not so fun. Do you find it’s always the same profiles, or are they different every time? I will follow up when more folks are back in the office on Wednesday, but there should be a good way to report these creators.
I haven’t noticed it being the same user, but to be fair I haven’t been keeping track. I wasn’t sure if they were technically doing anything against the rules, so it never occurred to me to report them.
EDIT: I just got one! I’ve already deleted it but I took a screenshot. I checked her profile and she’s an adult model selling nudes/lewds, just like all the others have been.
That same person does this exact thing on just about every public post I make. There are a couple others too. I’ve been hesitating to block/ban her because I know Patreon sends them an email and the wording is a bit harsh last time I saw an example.
However, I like doing public posts because they seem to be a good way to bring in new Patrons. And I don’t mind some comments for cross exposure and support, I get it. But when it’s clearly just “hey look at me” spam, it is annoying. I’d definitely like to find a good way to handle it.
Ok! I just talked to trust and safety – you have a couple avenues:
You can report directly to the T&S team at guidelines@patreon.com. It’d be best to include a link to the page of the person adding the comments so they can address this issue, and any notes around the nature of the comment, etc.
You can also send it in through the community happiness portal (they will then assign it to Trust and Safety).
Unfortunately, it does mean a little extra work on your end (in terms of sending us a note). Thanks again for bringing this up.
What information should we include if we report? Do you need us to leave the comments up and link the posts? I’ve been deleting them so I’m afraid I might have removed the evidence.
I’ve finally reached out to the email you suggested about two I’ve had repeat issues with and wondered if you all are kind of keeping track of who has these kinds of complaints against them multiple times? The account mentioned in the screenshot above is one I’ve had issues with too and I’m guessing it’s possible even more than just the two of us have.
Maybe we (as a community) could work on a sort of “guide” for interaction with other creators in the hopes that it will help a creator gain exposure? I’m positive that’s what they’re doing and I totally get it. If the comments were more genuine and relevant to the posts I wouldn’t mind them myself. Models do that with each other all the time on Instagram and most of us are totally cool with it to my knowledge, but the understood rule is to leave a genuine comment. I understand if you want to curb the behavior altogether and it’s different on Patreon because there is no public feed or Explore page (in the sense that Instagram has), but maybe it’s just a matter of HOW they’re doing it versus WHAT they’re doing specifically. Or maybe I’m just too nice. I just understand the struggle of trying to get noticed.
@carla, I reported two of these accounts as you suggested and was told to just block them. We’ve already talked about why that isn’t optimal as they will be notified and I feel the wording that is sent out is kind of harsh (last I saw). Right now it seems like the best course of action is to simply delete the comments. I do think it would be nice to re-examine creator to creator spam and possibly the fact that people are notified when blocked (I know that’s already been discussed elsewhere so we don’t have to go into it again here, of course). Anyway, I’m more just noting this. I get that it’s a tricky issue.
Oh man- I had this happen to me earlier this week. Like some other people here I run a strictly SFW page and having someone posting generic comments with NSFW profile pics (I didn’t get a screencap, but it was basically barely covered breasts) made me a little uncomfortable. I don’t like deleting comments or blocking people but I went ahead and blocked the person since it seemed it was a ploy to get views to their page more than a genuine comment. That and I just didn’t want that profile pic showing up on my posts.
It’s nothing against NSFW creators, of course. I just don’t want those kind of images in the comments. Is there no rules about having profile pics like that? Or maybe a way to make it so that those with NSFW profile pics can’t comment on SFW content? It’s indeed a very tricky situation. I certainly wouldn’t want to see comments restricted only to current patrons but at the same time there’s got to be some solution to keep NSFW profile pics off SFW patreon pages.
The solution of blocking people just to keep a NSFW profile pic off your page seems a bit much. Maybe it’s just me.
It’s my understanding that profile pics are all supposed to be SFW whether the Patreon is NSFW or not. I have a NSFW Patreon, but my profile photo is still SFW.
And I think you are absolutely okay to expect profile pictures to be SFW, especially since your Patreon isn’t NSFW. This issue is frustrating for all of us, I think, but I can see how it would particularly troublesome for those with family or just non-sexy type content.
It’s not that I mind the NSFW creators, but again, profile picture is barely SFW – and again, no apparent link to what I do.
Now, maybe they are a knitter in their personal life (my Patreon is knitting and crochet design), but again, a one-word response and a very. . . risque. . . profile image. . . meant that I can’t have those comments up on my public posts, since there are many minors who knit and crochet!
So, deleted and blocked. I don’t necessarily like blocking them, but I don’t seem to have another option.
I got one of these too and was wondering what to do with it over the weekend! The one on my page wasn’t even trying to be subtle with the profile image and name. Just sent T&S my own email.
Probably wouldn’t have seen a need to delete/block/ban if the name and image weren’t so blatant an attempt at their own advertising. Comments are nice after all! I would have even been thrilled and taken a look at their page because “Hey cool! Someone actually found me and decided to leave a note. I should return the favor.” mentality. And yet, here we are instead…
Hey folks, thanks for the reports on this issue. I can confirm that we’re looking into this. Normally you can block patrons by following this help article.
Mindy, the link is for an article for blocking patrons. What do you do when it’s not a patron that’s leaving the inappropriate comment on a public post? We just got one recently too, similar to what others are describing (a one word comment from someone with a profile pic of barely covered breasts). I deleted the comment, but wasn’t sure how to block the person from commenting on our page again.
You can can report the creator immediately to guidelines@patreon.com - if it is clearly spam, we want to know right away. You can report here in the forum too, but it helped in this situation because multiple creators reported this one.
I just understand the struggle of trying to get noticed.
I don’t necessarily like blocking them, but I don’t seem to have another option.