Are artists and creators not welcome in this community?

I decided to do a bit of a dive into this platform, and while I think it is an interesting idea, I am yet to find a space on Lemmy where I am welcome. I am an artist. I have a Patreon that pays my bills and puts food on the table. Generally, I give the majority of my stuff away for free to the community, but that usually comes with a link to my Patreon, which is optional, but is there for people if they want to support me. I need to eat too. As far as I understand, that is not allowed here. Or pretty much any other instance I've come across on Lemmy. The obvious solution is to create my own instance, I suppose, but I am already running two communities on Discord, and generally work ungodly amounts on my art, so adding running an instance on top of that is just not feasible. I also lack the needed technical skills to run something like that. In the meantime, I am constantly seeing people complain that there isn't a lot of content here. Guess who's good at creating content? Creators. But you need to allow us to eat in order to create content for you. Am I alone on this?

TheDude, (edited )

I agree with all of you and think artists and others alike should be able to share their work and allows other to contribute to their passion. Should we just remove the No Ads from the rules? Maybe the answer is to modify the rule. I just to make it clear that I don't want users aimlessly ad spamming the communities.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

I would like to assume that most moderators would delete posts that are purely for advertising purposes, with no other value. But one of the interesting differences between Reddit and Lemmy/Kbin is how instance owners are likely to be more involved in moderating so I'm curious to see how this ends up evolving.

Domille,

Thank you for taking a look at it! I really appreciate it! I don't think you should remove the "No Ads" rule, but maybe specify that self-promotion is ok and maybe let community moderators define how much self-promotion is ok in their own communities? I am not sure how much power / trust there is in community mods here though. Another option could be something like: no more than one post per creator per day / week etc (whatever folks here decide they are comfortable with) per community.

Cracks_InTheWalls,
@Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works avatar

Rule to clarify that self-promotion is cool while pure ads/eBegging/spam isn't, some language to try and define where the line is (from what I've seen from you specifically, you'd be above board), and a commitment that artists must participate in good faith (see: posting a dope-ass map you want to share along with a link to your patreon is cool, just saying "I make dope-ass maps, click this link to see them" probably isn't).

I think with a little definition for clarity, this isn't a problem.

Domille,

Posting a quick update: I reached out to one of the admins. We'll see what they say.

Domille,

Not sure if this will work, but I haven't been able to respond to any comments for a while - I think the servers are probably chugging and my responses just hang.

atzanteol,

First - that's beautiful work.

Second - I wish more open source folks would make a distinction between "advertising" and "self-promotion." I've never minded the latter as much as the former.

That said - nuance makes for more argument and difficulty in moderation. It's the same question of "tasteful nude photography" or "porn".

Domille,

Thank you! Glad you like my work <3.

I agree - I don't think that spam is good, and I don't think it should a part of the community. I do think that some sort of guidelines or rules in regard to self-promotion would work. A limit to posting either once a day or once a week in communities with your work, or something along those lines.

Otherwise, there just won't be artists, writers, musicians and other creatives here.

atzanteol,

Yes - some guidelines would be good at least. And I think there is room to allow exceptions within a community. Maybe even some sort of 'flag' that indicates "self promotion is allowed" so people could exclude them if they wanted.

There are definitely some possible options other than "Allowed/Not Allowed".

DekkerNSFW,

There is, of course, a difference between a post that's pure ad, and a post that's art that contains a Patreon link. One provides nothing to the viewer, the other is a normal post with a little self-promotion added.

It's good to err on the side of caution in this, but the admins should really add a note about self-promotion to any rule about ads, to clarify this.

Domille,

I really do hope that they do. Otherwise, I do not think that, at least this instance, is going to have any artists, musicians, writers and other creatives be active here.

DekkerNSFW,

Have you contacted any instance admins about this yet?

Domille,

no, I haven't. Any idea how to go about it?

DekkerNSFW,

For any community, you can easily go to its page on its own instance by clicking the gray link right under the community name. For this community, it looks like "!main". From there, you can click the instance name on the top left to go to its home page. On the right sidebar, it'll show the instance rules, and below that is a list of admins. You could just pick one from there to send a message to, about this.

Alternatively, you could post about this on the "main" communities of various instances. They don't necessarily have the same name but they're usually not hard to find.

Domille,

I posted this thread on the main on my home instance. I will see fi I can reach out to them.

DekkerNSFW,

While FMHY isn't an art-focused instance, I've had a pleasant interaction with one of its admins before, so I poked them (Kaizen) about this.

Domille,

would be interested to hear what they have to say!

DekkerNSFW, (edited )

FMHY now has an updated rule: "4. Self-Promotion is fine, but please keep “donation” links in your bio."

I have replied, asking about watermarks and other ways of reminding people to look there. Though I think watermarks are pretty much gonna have to be accepted anyway, as they're necessary to deal with people reposting without credit anyway. So you could just have a visible artist tag somewhere on the art, have a link in your bio, and it should be alright?

Edit: So yeah, watermarks are totally fine. And other reminders to check the bio for a link might also be? Just got a "yeah that's fine" and I'm not sure if I can actually re-read my own messages to Kaizen. Anyway, the main point is to prevent people from spamming links, apparently.

Domille,

Thank you!

jerrimu,

This isn't a advertising platform, it's a community for discussion.

rosatherad,
rosatherad avatar

As a fellow artist, I'd love to say otherwise, but sometimes we have to admit that not all platforms are built for growing your art business. Sure, you can probably get away with plugging links to your patreon/etsy every time you share your work, but you're not going to get very much revenue from it. You'll be squeezing a square block into a triangular hole.

It's not that artists aren't welcome, it's just that the threadiverse (and reddit by extension) wasn't designed for the purposes you're describing, so you're not going to find the success you're looking for. There's nothing wrong with finding another platform that suits your needs better.

Kichae,

There's !vart (pf-soc allows self-promotion).

!dnd, !pathfinder2e, or !rpg are probably worth looking at, too (lemmy.ml disallows spam and advertising, but many Fediverse instances make distinctions between advertising and "self-promotion").

dnd@lemmy.world (though .world's policy on self-promotion seems to be a little more forceful).

Also maybe look at !ttrpgs

Finally, others have mentioned kbin.sopcial, and there's !RPG, but if you create an account there, you can also hit up and (as well as and other visual art and design hashtags) on the microblog/"Mastodon" side of the Fediverse without juggling multiple websites.

epw,

If you're in a position to ask the mods directly, I do think that's a good idea. It seems like a lot of places have had broad, sweeping policies trying to keep ordinary advertisers away, and norms about individuals like you or even just smaller operations haven't been worked out.

It's not quite the same, but I really liked this (very long, sorry) Mastodon thread specifically about how there's a lot of unexplored potential approaches to "commercial entities on the fediverse," and how we might be able to set some good rules and community norms. It might be too focused on Mastodon and on larger companies for your use, but perhaps it will be a helpful input?

https://universeodon.com/@siderea/110488978072270532

trash,
trash avatar

I don't think it's not welcome as much as no one has really started a "magazine" or "community" for it yet. Kbin/lemmy as fairly new to the masses and it just needs a little time to grow. Please post your art. I followed many art subs on Reddit.

narF,
narF avatar

Why do you think that artists or patreon links aren't welcome?

redsky,
redsky avatar

Would love to see more art popping up around here. Just the thing we need.

j4yc33,
j4yc33 avatar

And more folks using Patreons or less-enshitified Patreon-alikes.

Literally the owning of your own labor.

speck,

Are there any concerns around image hosting? I'd be up for more art too, but curious if a standard should be put in place around image hosting - namely to not overwhelm an instance's servers during a period of already meaningful growth

thesoloist,
thesoloist avatar

This is dope. Our dnd master uses a lot of influence from art like yours. He would love this

demvoter,
demvoter avatar

Agree with others that I believe kbin will welcome you with open arms. Personally, the more artists the better. Having a patreon or some other link to support your work only makes sense. Heck, all the admins ask for donations to keep the instances running. What’s the difference if you do the same?

Parallax,
Parallax avatar

Come on over to the kbin instance. I see at least one magazine so far and no rules about Patreon links: https://kbin.social/m/art

Personally I would WELCOME you to post your Patreon. It's just a link, it's not an ad or spam. You put a lot of effort into your work and that's only fair. In fact as we push for a more decentralized web, I think it's critical content creators are able to receive funds independently of ads or platforms. Many of my favorite YouTube channels are only possible because of Patreon subscribers.

BilboSwaggins,
BilboSwaggins avatar

Couldn't agree more. You throw a street musician a coin in their hat when you walk past, and I think the same is only fair on the web. You make good art, something I enjoy and want to see more of, I make a small donation to you (which I like a lot better than having 'sponsored by evil corporation' written left, right and across your picture)

iorale,

This post could have been a message to the admins. Just contact them, ask if you could have a community for the kind of art you sell and how you plan to keep it from being/becoming too spammy with the links.

nickajeglin,

Seems like this post is helpful for other people with the same question, and a good basis for discussion about what the community sees as acceptable norms with regards to self promotion.

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