The Community Tab on Our Patreon Pages

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1. How often do you see activity in the community today?
Never. Nobody knows about it.

Do you find the community tab valuable?
No – it might be if rethought, but it strikes me as a feature that was put in when the site started, and then neglected and never really matured.

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?
Personally zero. My patrons are few and for the most part not the type to hang out on the Patreon site. This does rejoin one of my constant complaints: if the site encouraged people to hang out, by being a real art community where you can browse freely and cross-pollinate, then the community tab would have more chances of being useful. It will take bigger changes for that to happen.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?
I’ll be back with thoughts on that…

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22

How often do you see activity in the community today?

Almost none. The only time it’s been used is when a patron has emailed, asking how to share photos, and I’ve walked them through the process of posting there.

Do you find the community tab valuable?

It’s fairly useless. I don’t think patrons know it’s there, or what it’s for.

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

None. The last time someone posted on mine was over a year ago.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

Better threaded comments.

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23

Thanks for the info, @erin. I think I agree with @joumana on all counts. Currently, my Community tab has one post with a picture. It’s not been a greatly used feature! (Even when I had more patrons…).

I would second the idea of developing some sort of genuine community forum. However, if it were for creators, then isn’t this what we have here? (or could be)

Personally, I would favour a community for patrons. I know Patrons can chat on the feed, but the posts on the feed don’t feel like discussion openers. Maybe if it had a cosier feel, and was just for discussion/announcements? I would use it to discuss the books in my book club, and I’m sure other creators could think of other uses for it.

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How often do you see activity in the community today?
Noone knows what its for so they don’t use it.

Do you find the community tab valuable?
If it had a purpose, yes. I personally use it to give reviews to projects i’ve pledged to. Sometimes creators will exchange reviews if they are mutually pledging to one another but that’s about the only use for it that i’ve ever heard anyone come up with. Patrons who leave non review comments end up talking about private content or asking questions that (imo) they should be directly asking the creators via DM. (I think this tab should literally just be changed to be a review tab so people know what its for, and can give reviews that would make projects look more interesting to potential pledgers. Reviews are great.)

Examples of some i’ve left:

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What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?
Not much i don’t think. I guess we could fish for reviews elsewhere and put it on public posts or sites, etc. It’d just be nice to have a review tab imo. But if it wasn’t there? No big deal really because at this point, it has no clear purpose. If it HAD a clear purpose, a clearer name and a tool tip on the page to explain it when people visit, it would be valuable.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?
Review tabs as stated above, pinned posts, etc. (This stuff has been posted a bunch on other threads here so i don’t want to just rehash it all in this answer. :confused: )

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25

1. How often do you see activity in the community today?

Almost none at all.

2. Do you find the community tab valuable?

Sadly, no. Right now, fans don’t seem sure whether to use it as a way to communicate with the creator (poorly, because I don’t see notifications for it?) or with each other (poorly, because there’s no way for patrons to get notifications of other patrons posting on the wall). For a while I had some interaction going, but that was only because someone cobbled together a discord bot that would post a link to new community posts, but one of Patreon’s last API updates appears to have broken that pipe and it doesn’t work anymore. So no one looks at the community tab.

3. What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

No impact right now. Actually at this point it would probably be a distraction from me developing a formal fansite forum.

4. What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

  • Real comment threading? I have a lot of people reporting they don’t bother opening the Patreon app or going to the Patreon website to see my updates because they don’t see any purpose in trying to respond to them. No one I’ve asked about the posts has liked or even felt neutral about the comment system.
  • Pinned posts would be great.
  • Real search tools (like ‘search within a creator’s posts’).

Honestly at this point, I think y’all should ditch the community tab, which is confusing to users and of questionable value to creators, and just concentrate on developing other stuff.

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26

I like this idea!

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27

How often do you see activity in the community today?

Rarely, but it’s not entirely unused. I have a total of 9 community posts across 3.5 years.

Do you find the community tab valuable?

I actually do! Although it’s rarely used, it’s always used for really nice stuff. Most of the posts are patrons offering congratulations on meeting milestone goals, and there’s also some really heartfelt comments and even a piece of fanart in there. One of my patrons, who is now a beta reader and a great friend, first contacted me through the community tab to tell me she loved my work.

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

I think it would be kind of a bummer, but it wouldn’t destroy my business. Currently the impact would be pretty small, but I think that if patrons just knew about it, it would be used more often. If I’d known it was commonly overlooked, I would have included info about it in the welcome/thank you email that gets sent to new patrons.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

To me the most important thing would be just informing patrons that they’re able to and allowed to make posts. I’d love for there to be a little instructional passage sent out to new patrons, the same way one gets sent out about Discord rewards, telling them how to navigate through the Community tab AND telling them how to navigate through the Posts tab and sort by tab/date/pledge level - because that’s a super important thing that my patrons often have no idea exists. (I could also just revise my thank you/new patron email to include this info.)

I also think it would be easier for creators to jumpstart the activity on their community tab if they were also able to post there too, even just to post a welcome message and explain what the space should be used for. Also, I don’t know if patrons are notified when someone posts to the community section, but if not, I think it’d be a nice option - provided they could unsubscribe separately from creator post emails, or maybe if it was a weekly digest type format. And maybe give them access to the “polls” format type? I think they could have fun with that.

Of course, if the community tab was used more often and patrons were notified when people posted, I might get concerned about frequent posts feeling spammy…

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It would be completely maddening. If I started receiving emails about posts made by complete strangers simply because I follow the same creator, I would be livid. I’m web-savvy and can navigate my settings to switch off the offending notifications, but this is particularly complicated on patreon because you have to do this separately for every creator you support. Not all patrons could or would want to deal with or know what to do about it. Far better, when someone signs up for the very first time, to send a brief email explaining some on-site features, in this case “this is the community tab where you can post etc etc, and if you want to be notified when new posts are made there, click here.” Maybe not the perfect solution, but any new notifications should be opt-in, not automatically applied.

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Yes, I agree. It’d have to be an “opt in” situation rather than being auto-subscribed and having to opt out. But even then, I can imagine the possibility of some patrons getting overzealous with their posts, which is why I thought a weekly digest type format (again with an opt in) could be an option.

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Thanks for the shoutout here, Sarah :grin:

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How often do you see activity in the community today?

Never!

Do you find the community tab valuable?

Nope!

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

Nothing, go for it.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

Decent comment threading and a good search function (for creators too, as we’ve asked for 9023183092813 times). Review tab would be awesome, but given that nobody knows about or uses the Patreon community tab… I dunno what that would add or do.

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FWIW the community area is the only way for a “staff” member who’s not actually the creator to post something.

Granted, I would rather be able to allow those people to post to my main feed of posts, but if that’s not going to happen, removing the one way they CAN post would be a bit of a problem.

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How often do you see activity in the community today?

Pretty much never.
Do you find the community tab valuable?
Not at all.
What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?
None.
What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?
I like the idea of changing the community tab to a reviews or testimonial tab. My community is all congregated over at Discord, and everyone ignores the community tab.

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I agree; review tab would be awesome but of most use for new visitors to our profile, whom we would hope to convert into patrons. And that brings us back to better browsing/searching-for-creators functions, to generate traffic to our pages.

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35

I don’t see the point in posting this feedback. It gets ignored, swept under the rug, and pushed aside for more ‘requested functions’…that I never see anyone asking for…

The community tab is a useless spot and a waste of code.
No matter how many times it gets asked, a proper search function to allow for a community to grow, doesn’t look to be an oft-requested feature…despite appearances…

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While I agree that Patreon’s search leaves a great deal to be desired, I don’t think it will ever be useful to grow a community. People don’t come to Patreon to search for creators to support. They find them elsewhere, and follow them to Patreon.

And since @erin is specifically asking for feedback on the Community tab in this thread, I’m thinking we should all give it. :sunny:

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37

How often do you see activity in the community today? Very little

Do you find the community tab valuable? No.

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator? No impact at all

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

Hmmmm! Thinks - What WOULD be good is proper pictures in the tag tabs and proper side links to important posts or indexes to point the way to material that would be hard to find otherwise. I’ve set one tag tab for one page only as an index. Not the best way to do it, but it sort of works. Would love to add a Gift saying “Start Here”.

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38

This is currently true, but it can change. I keep asking the team to make Patreon a site where visitors will want to stay, and the ability to search for creators is part of that. Why do people (creators and non) flock to online art communities? To look at art they like. Give them tools to easily navigate that art, and find more creators for the same kind of stuff, maybe even be notified when there is more stuff of their liking to see, and they’ll spend a lot more time there, and even return regularly. And that is how you create a community, and increase chances of “native patrons” as opposed to being completely dependent on outer followers. Patreon doesn’t need to burden itself with all the features of a full-fledge art site, since it already has the special feature that is the ability to pledge and become part of a creator’s exclusive club. But it does need to have the basic features, or it will remain a cherry with no cake.

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39
  • How often do you see activity in the community today?

No activity at all

  • Do you find the community tab valuable?

Actually I would love to use it and encourage patrons to post there, but I don’t because it has some big flaws. So today I don’t find it very valuable.

  • What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

No impact

  • What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?

Actually, just being able to make posts that are more comment-friendly and encourage discussion! That would be hugely helpful. Often comments I write and post disappear, and I have to write it all over again only for them to go into the void again :laughing: (has also happened to my patrons when they comment).
Also it seems only possible to reply to someone elses comment max 2 times or something?
This does not encourge to have a dialogue with my patrons.

Hope that input was of help!

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How often do you see activity in the community today?
I have one post there that I asked one of my patrons to write since I can’t even write in there until someone else does. Other than that, nothing.

Do you find the community tab valuable?

As it is now, not at all.

What would be the impact of removing that tab to you personally as a creator?

None, the way it is now.

What sort of community tools would you be excited to have (if any)?
  • Better threaded comments.
  • Ability to browse creators other than the top few. I think this would build a community within Patreon, not just on individual pages.
  • If the community tab remains, please allow us to post, not just reply to our own community. Right now being called “community” with no posts inside is more harm than good, especially if creators can’t even initiate topics of discussion. In other words, make it more like a forum. It’s very intimidating to patrons to go in there and not know what it’s for, not know what’s expected of them, and for them to be the first one to post.
  • It would be great if it were customizable by creators. That way we could name it what we wanted. Then those that want to encourage reviews could name the tab PATRON REVIEWS or whatever wording they like and utilize it however they see fit for their particular campaign.
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