# Patreon "only" accounts



## Zahur (Jul 4, 2017)

Good day FA-forum, today I wanted to talk with you about a topic:
FA profiles that are used just to spam their patreon.
Before I start the discussion, I have to say that I don't have anything against patreon when used in the correct way(to support an artist you like) and not as a pay-wall.
It is quite frustrating when you watch good artists but the only usage of the site for them is just a sort of AD-spam folder.
I mean, you prohibited journals/submission reminders(About raffles/YCH or whatnot)  because they caused spam(While, IMO, they just created some affluence to artists that deserve it, giving them a way to grow) and yet you allow this cheesy spam system?
I would like to hear your opinion about that, thanks for your time and have a nice day.


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## maxgoof (Jul 5, 2017)

I do recall a certain very talented singer on FA who would tout his latest CD just about every day. Got so bad I eventually had to stop watching him.


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## Pipistrele (Jul 6, 2017)

I would pretty much classify it as intentional spam, though considering all the YCH reminders just got legal on FA, it's not very likely that staff is going to do anything with this kind of crap anytime soon. There aren't as many of those accounts, and artists who use such methods of self-advertisement aren't usually very popular anyway, so it doesn't bother me that much.



> I mean, you prohibited journals/submission reminders(About raffles/YCH or whatnot) because they caused spam(While, IMO, they just created some affluence to artists that deserve it, giving them a way to grow)


The problem with reminders is that they have too much potential for abuse. For example, many artists used reminders to advertise adult artwork to users of SFW version of the site, to artificially increase view counter, or to just blatantly spam everything. Due to how the site works, with ticket system and stuff, it was a pain in the butt to report on bad behavior - you can't link the submissions because they were eventually deleted anyway, so you have to screenshot everything and then use some 3rd party image hosting service, because you can't link pics to tickets. As of now, reminders are non-prohibited again, and FA promised to make a separate segment of the site for them, which is a great idea, but several months later, we don't have that segment, and gallery is flooded with reminders again, so I'm just hoping it's in works now, and not the usual "ruining the site by trying to improve it" practice so common for FurAffinity folks


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## Nubfox (Jul 7, 2017)

It's getting rediculous.

30-50% of the submissions in my FA feed are....

1. Cropped teaser pictures that lead to a paywall on patreon
2. "Open for commissions" reminders.
3. Streaming reminders.
4. YCH adverts.
5. Adoptable adverts

Please get these advertisements under control. There's getting to be no point in watching people.


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## Zahur (Jul 7, 2017)

Pipistrele said:


> I would pretty much classify it as intentional spam, though considering all the YCH reminders just got legal on FA, it's not very likely that staff is going to do anything with this kind of crap anytime soon. There aren't as many of those accounts, and artists who use such methods of self-advertisement aren't usually very popular anyway, so it doesn't bother me that much.


I could say a few artists that are really followed and to that, and to be honest I don't really get why they get so many views.



Nubfox said:


> It's getting rediculous.
> 
> 30-50% of the submissions in my FA feed are....
> 
> ...


I can understand the last 3 points if they are posted just once, but I agree that spammed reminders are a pain in the...


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## Zahur (Jul 7, 2017)

I would really like admins to take some decisions about that situation...


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## Uluri (Jul 8, 2017)

If the artist you are watching is no longer posting content you like seeing, the simple solution is to unwatch them. What is the point 
of continuing to watch content you have no interest in seeing or participating in? I don't really agree with a paywall only method of 
using patreon, but it is the artists' own right to make their content pay to view if they want. If they lose audience over it, it is their 
own undoing. The same goes for YCH advertisers. Only ads are not content I like, so I unwatch or don't watch artists who do that. Super Easy.

As for Stream Banners, I'd like to see more people delete their stream banners after they are finished streaming. I enjoy
visiting all sorts of streams in the day, but I don't enjoy finding a stream that's been over 5 hours ago.


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## Nubfox (Jul 8, 2017)

It isn't just about watching people. It's about the whole site. On the front page of FA, usually about a fourth of the submissions on the "Recent Artwork" tab are advertisements. How are advertisements recent artwork?

If people are posting lots of ads instead of art, their page isn't the only place where it shows up. It shows up in "Browse" and "Search" and the front page too.


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## fallout19980 (Jul 8, 2017)

Nubfox said:


> It isn't just about watching people. It's about the whole site. On the front page of FA, usually about a fourth of the submissions on the "Recent Artwork" tab are advertisements. How are advertisements recent artwork?
> 
> If people are posting lots of ads instead of art, their page isn't the only place where it shows up. It shows up in "Browse" and "Search" and the front page too.


Good point


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## FellTheScarfDragon (Jul 13, 2017)

I find it really sad when instead of an actual description of why they did the art and the meaning like they used to, some artists just push their patreon. Someone I'm watching does that now. It's not spam, it's just really upsetting from the point of view of someone who actually cares about what the artist has to say. 

I'm glad that people are allowed to post about their YCHs now though.


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## Zahur (Jul 28, 2017)

I think this post deserves a UP and I would really like to hear about the staff's opinion


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## Dragoneer (Jul 28, 2017)

Nubfox said:


> It's getting rediculous.
> 
> 30-50% of the submissions in my FA feed are....
> 
> ...


We're looking into better options to handle it, but part of the philosophy is a "vote with your watch" scenario. If you don't like the content an artist is posting vote with your watch, and let the artist know why. I do find the excessive postings frustrating on a personal level and a professional one. Trying to find the best way to handle it, however, is a bit of a tricky situation.


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## jayhusky (Jul 29, 2017)

@Dragoneer I actually have a 3rd party script for hiding such submissions, sure it doesn't remove them directly from the inbox, but just hides them on the screen.

You specify keywords and it searches the title of the submission and hides it using CSS..
If you want it, you're welcome to a copy to examine and see if it can be adapted for FA. So far I've found it very friendly and effective in hiding content I don't wish to see.


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## Pipistrele (Jul 29, 2017)

Dragoneer said:


> We're looking into better options to handle it, but part of the philosophy is a "vote with your watch" scenario. If you don't like the content an artist is posting vote with your watch, and let the artist know why. I do find the excessive postings frustrating on a personal level and a professional one. Trying to find the best way to handle it, however, is a bit of a tricky situation.


In that case, while efforts of FA staff are admirable, permitting reminders and other "spam" submissions by AUP without offering a good way to categorize/hide them in advance was a rather counterproductive thing to do. I mean, while ticket reporting wasn't very practical for handling such submissions, it was certainly better than eliminating the way to handle them at all.


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## Dragoneer (Jul 29, 2017)

Pipistrele said:


> In that case, while efforts of FA staff are admirable, permitting reminders and other "spam" submissions by AUP without offering a good way to categorize/hide them in advance was a rather counterproductive thing to do. I mean, while ticket reporting wasn't very practical for handling such submissions, it was certainly better than eliminating the way to handle them at all.


There actually is a way to categorize them in the upload system. Getting people to use it, however, is the challenge.


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## killermeow (Aug 4, 2017)

Dragoneer said:


> There actually is a way to categorize them in the upload system. Getting people to use it, however, is the challenge.


Well there's another huge problem with that- there is no way to filter it out of a general search or browse. I still see YCHs pop up when browsing material themes I want to see, even if they are correctly categorized- until we get a way to filter out categories by default, giving things like this their own categories isn't going to do jack to stop the root of the problem. We will still get bombardments of things we don't care about whenever we look at new submissions, no matter what. If we could filter out the 'Other Stuff' categorized submissions as a whole across the site, we wouldn't have this issue for the most part- at least those of us who don't care/don't ever have money would be. Until we get something like that built into the site though, this will always be an issue- no matter how many categories you put in, if we can't get a way to not see those submissions, there's literally no point.


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## jayhusky (Aug 4, 2017)

@killermeow 
While its not officially part of the site, you can grab a script which runs on FA and put in keywords (such as YCH) and it will filter them out for you.
It doesn't remove them from inboxes, you'd still have to manually delete them, but it hides them from view so you don't have to see them again.

If you're interested the link is down below along with the recommended add-on to make the script work

Add-on: www.tampermonkey.net
Script: greasyfork.org: SubFilter


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## killermeow (Aug 4, 2017)

Issue is I like to use IE11, and if there's a manual deletion problem then there would be no point either way- not to mention any completed YCHs would get caught in the crossfire. What I'd want is something on the site itself to block the entirety of the 'Other Stuff' category by default, or at the very least some way to filter it out of my searches/browses.


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## Ciderfine (Oct 31, 2017)

Why can the site, excluding those who do the spamming vote on it and have the admins decide the outcome to accept the vote or not? Spamming occurs in not just ychs and all that crap I hate that offers no real artistic merit but in forms of art that have meaning being abused for clicks.

Asset flipped models being porn into sfm with genitals glued to them to make "animations" or such is a horrible pain for someone who is a 3d artist and animator who has to fight to have their works seen in the flooding or fake animation content. What is real is all we are seeing is fake spammed content that just wants money? Not people or the original form of artists this site was know for thats what.


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## Nanominyo (Nov 5, 2017)

To get people to post the right places do I only think on how dA don't let you submit before you chosen a folder. 

Anyway, Yes I am tired of spam and in my online hours it's like half of the posted content when i browse art wich I find highly annoying. 
As much as I enjoy Furaffinity do I have to say that one's artwork is just covered under spams so it really doesn't get seen unless someone go into categories. 
There should be a rule about it that if you do advertising spam, like to paywalls and such... some consequence is needed, like example only being able to post once a day or 2 or 3 times but not every 10th minute. It should properly be a general thing, I know some newbies wanna post all their art, but seriously, even I can survive with the max 5 post a day or something,most people between the serious artist only post a drawing or two every week or every second week depending on it all. It would hold a lot of spam down as people would have to use their brains to what times would then be right to do these advertisement posts and other art still have a chance to be seen.
Of cause this just being an idea.


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## Ciderfine (Nov 19, 2017)

I think in all that is very fair and makes sense. You see not counting the artists that become back listed on the dozens of commissions they take and make, I roughly upload  about 1 or images a month really. I do buy a lot of art, even in the past it was around 10 submissions a month but really I think a limit would make stable sense. I mean its just a speed bump for a day. 

Now I know people get OCD about waking up one morning to find one artist that has not been active for a year upload 50+ images but its really the spam content that bothers me.  As a 3d artist I've stopped uploading my wips because of spam. The tag system for FA is not perfect and its bleeding like a pig so the only real chance someone would see my work is shifting through the search results for a few hours or catching it on the front page.

Its harmful when we have fake artists covering up the real ones. And sadly spam isn't artwork, it has no integrity or care to be art. No meaning I think a limit would be wise to have people chose what they feel represents the form of the fandom in their own hands and mind. And time limits let people cool down and think things off! When I joined I was a terrible artist, the norm of seeing anthro artwork brainwashed me into uploading crappy works. they were mine, and yes they were bad but they really didn't offer people anything and that felt so destructive to look back and have me post 20 images going nowhere. No criticism, no real conversation.

Real artists don't be upset by this spam limit because they will always have content to push out even as they are working on new things. I think it would be a boost for the site. One that may be taken as a bipolar attempt to clear things out in some name of "censorship". As a 3d artist it takes weeks of work for me to pull out something even remotely complete to show. Biased for me say that, a limit would not harm me but encourage me with "Hey, you got 3 magic slots to throw into today's Fandom system to be seen by people! Chose what 3 get to be adored, pondered or critiqued. Feels more like a game  that way. But I cant speak for everybody.


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## Diretooth (Nov 19, 2017)

Nubfox said:


> It isn't just about watching people. It's about the whole site. On the front page of FA, usually about a fourth of the submissions on the "Recent Artwork" tab are advertisements. How are advertisements recent artwork?
> If people are posting lots of ads instead of art, their page isn't the only place where it shows up. It shows up in "Browse" and "Search" and the front page too.



As a writer who feels weird about outwardly advertising that I exist on-site, I rely on people seeing my written works when they appear in the browse section. Luckily for my written works, there are much less YCH and Patreon ads, but the times that I post a bit of art that I've made and would like criticism on, I see within moments my art getting pushed away by ads that shouldn't be there. Part of why I've been as active on the forums recently is because I want people to see me, see my posts, and think, 'Hey, this guy's pretty decent, I wonder what his art's like.' I don't like having to feel like I must socialize to get views, I don't like feeling like having to be at my best at all times so that people will click a signature link. I've managed thus far to be fairly geniune to who I am, but at what point will it become a point where I have to stoop to making threads asking people to notice me? To critique my writing and my art?
At that point, I would be doing the same thing, except here, and nobody wants that.


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## Firehazard (Dec 4, 2017)

I'm totally on board with artists never letting anyone see their art for free again (if incredulous that it'll work out for them in the long run). But FurAffinity is not for those kinds of people, any more than it's for posting reaction images and screenshots of your frag videos. And we already have rules about that stuff. Even fucking Jeremy Bernal has a gallery that's almost all actual pictures.

Hey, while we're at it, can we get a ruling on people who never delete their stream notification pics and YCH templates?


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## Ciderfine (Dec 11, 2017)

Got some good insight on all that, I like and dig it all.

It always bothers me *sarcasm* that so many people thing its a way of life and easy way to make money. But So many artists end up being cry babies and wondering why patreon doesn't work. Paywalls are a form of censorship and entitlement since the history of artwork is about being free, and open to all. Censoring it...makes the leaking of content happen massively.

I think that's a good rule to make, to many galleries have dusty old skeletons of such things lying around its like they dont even need any new submissions since there are so many corpses lying around to fill up the page. Im mostly just annoyed OCD wise for seeing a gallery not cared for like a messy study room. Feels....spamlike to me.


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## Zahur (Dec 13, 2017)

Firehazard said:


> I'm totally on board with artists never letting anyone see their art for free again (if incredulous that it'll work out for them in the long run).


I hope you are trolling, I respect your opinion, but art is made to be share, "patreon" the site and what patronage should be are two different stuff (taking it as example)
I suggest you to give a read to the very first few lines of this: Patronage - Wikipedia
Art since the history is NEVER meant to be a thing of few people (unless the artist wants that BUT, that mostly happens in literature, using a more difficult style)



Ciderfine said:


> I think in all that is very fair and makes sense. You see not counting the artists that become back listed on the dozens of commissions they take and make, I roughly upload  about 1 or images a month really. I do buy a lot of art, even in the past it was around 10 submissions a month but really I think a limit would make stable sense. I mean its just a speed bump for a day.
> 
> Now I know people get OCD about waking up one morning to find one artist that has not been active for a year upload 50+ images but its really the spam content that bothers me.  As a 3d artist I've stopped uploading my wips because of spam. The tag system for FA is not perfect and its bleeding like a pig so the only real chance someone would see my work is shifting through the search results for a few hours or catching it on the front page.
> 
> ...



I think you are wrong and right: If an artist does... idk, 30 picture in a month, finished, and you do just 1, he has the right to have more visibility than you, he is working harder and making more stuff, and probably getting better and as well spending a lot more time than you on arts.
While people that post WIPs bothers me way too much


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