The Bootydoc democratic process...
I'm receiving a few emails from users who really want to see some ideas in comics but have been outvoted time and again even though they've supported for a long time.
It's impossible to please everyone, but maybe I can create some hope?
I was thinking that I could make a vote-banking system and make it available for anyone who supports 10$ and up.
Meaning you could opt not to vote for a month or two or 12.
So if you supported for a WHOLE YEAR or more without voting or nominating, you'd have all those votes to use.
The downside: Saving a vote means other projects get voted on easier.
The upside: You could totally swing the vote towards your pet project...(Especially during a slow month.)
To keep things under control, banking votes would need some rules to it.
1) Voting at all uses ALLLLL the votes you banked.
No banking 4 then saying I'll spend "1" vote on this thing I like... When you vote, you spend it all. (Helps me keep organized on who's got what.)
2)Missing a contribution payment erases your banked votes.
I get a *tonne* of folks who promise to be patrons, grab content, then default. I can't let that go for this system. (But if you foresee a problem and you message me ahead of time, I'll understand and I'll save your spot... but the month of the default isn't counted, of course.)
3) If you have 2 or more votes banked, you don't need to nominate. Just spend one of the votes as a 2nd and can include the project you want to see automatically on the ballot.
How would it work? After the nominations and after I post the ballot, you message me saying that you want to have your idea on the ballot. I'll reply to my post and say how many votes were already put towards the idea.
If you saved for 2 years, supporting all that time and never voting, you would have 23 (24 banked-1 to nominate and 2nd) votes to your idea.
I'm proposing this as a way to give hope for those who never see their idea nominated and voted on. A way for someone who can, for
just one month
, have things swing their way.
But it's just a prototype idea. Feel free to discuss this or any other idea below.
Comments (24)
I guess I will put this idea on the shelf for now. The current system seems the most fair to everyone so far. If I had more time, to work on patreon, I could offer more stories, but I'm just maxed out atm. I haven't given up on ideas for individual patrons to see the comics *they* would personally like to see, but right now, I don't see anything better than the current.
Dang, man. I could see something like this getting abused WAY too easily.
I would just like to say that I personally do not like this idea. Others have already expressed a good point in the fact that this will most likely raise chaos and disorder. There are a number of things that could go wrong: Loss of activity during nomination/voting times. Trying to figure out/keep track of who has how many votes and when said individuals have used said # of votes. Just to name a couple.. However, I do agree with Dae's suggestion and I think it could work.
I still think I'd prefer you just decide yourself on the ideas nominated. That is far less democratic, and I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me. But I think I'd rather see you draw something that sparks your creativity more than the idea that wins by vote. I also can't help but think people might just make multiple accounts and store votes to manipulate the system. Although if it requires a 10 dollar minimum to store then probably not many people would bother spending their money just to rig a patreon vote.
So would banked votes be retroactive or would they start accruing from this point forward?
Like Dea's idea. Think it would be easyer than trying to keep track if people saving up votes.
Apologies if I took things a bit off track, that was not my intention. Whatever solution you come up with I know it will be done to help level things out a bit and hopefully generates both more supporters as well as more income
How will the votes be kept track of? That's the thing that is key.
I think this is an interesting idea, but the potential for chaos is pretty high. I'm not sure how the community will react if people who normally go hard in the paint every month suddenly start running silent for months on end. Maybe what you could do is the same way we have the Unfinished Comic Ballot and the New Topic Ballot, when the Unfinished Comic Ballot runs out of unfinished comics to do, you could add a new Ballot specifically for "Runners Up" - Any topic that came in 2nd in previous months gets put on it automatically and we choose between those. Or maybe instead of that, we have a sort of "Dealer's Choice" - *YOU* pick up to like 5 previously nominated topics of your choice and then have us go at it to see which one gets done. I'm just spitballing here, guys. Throw me a life preserver.
I donno...I like the whole "Fred picks the topics" month, it gives Fred a chance to work on ideas he finds really unique and interesting plus gives people who may not be getting a lot of votes a chance, and Fred would not have to keep track of who's voted and who hasn't for however long.
Like the idea fred but you may be opening one big bag of headaches with this. Think long and hard a cast the rules in steel.
I think the idea of offering a discount to patrons on their next commission as a percent off from how much they've contributed is a better idea for how to reward long time patrons, same as how you offered the patron-only commission list.
I just wanted to address some grievances about the voting system this time.
I need to mull over this idea... mostly because I can see a lot of people going silent for yearS... to have a legitimate chance of winning a person might not participate but contribute for awhile. And that means dropping an "A Bomb" of votes. And what happens if two people choose to drop all their votes at the same time? Someone is going to be heart-broken. Fred, if you go through with this I think you need to give the votes a six month cap.
There does need to be something done about that.
Sounds like alot of extra work on your part for a minority of the people who support you. There's already over a hundred people who just don't vote anyway. Keeping track of who voted each month and paid for each month is going to get pretty darn complicated.
I know it might be a hardship on some, but if there are so many non voters maybe raise the voting level from $3 to the $10 then at least if your paying that much your more likely to vote. Or the $10 and up are the only ones who can nominate. Something to encourage more participation.
that could work, I know my voteing on Arcee/Jack keeps barly getting beaten by other ideas each month.
Honestly I'm a little confused. I'd have to go over it a few times.
Gonna have to mull over this idea; it certainly has merits that's for sure. As always awesome that you're trying to find ways to help out those of us whose ideas get passed over and over. Yeah you can't please everyone but attempting to try and lessen the disappointment is still admirable and grateful Fred.
Frankly, isn't that what a commision is for? Making sure Fred does your idea? Otherwise you're taking your chances. I'm okay with that, but I guess I could understand their frustration.
Well commissioning a whole comic even a six-pager is a tall order. A pic of two characters in static posing is nice and all, not knocking commissions don't get me wrong. However seeing your idea full comic-ized by Fred is frankly a dream for some of us on the Patreon.
wow, that's a toughie, on the surface its a great idea, the down side is if after saving for two years and your idea still loses that would be devastating.
If you lose with 24 votes you probably deserved to lose. Unless everyone else with big savings also chose that month to spend...