[ARCHIVED] Lotims Patreon Campaign

Summary:

Thoughts?

Lotims Patreon Campaign

Zyn 08 Oct 2014 04:00

I got a PM from Lotims regarding a kickstarter-like campaign that they've set up for the SCP youtube videos they're working on edit: fixed as per PM, "The campaign is not for SCP videos specifically, but for the content we make in general. Not specifically only SCP related." They also made a post on the mainsite forums (it's here) but it doesn't look like there's been much response to that.

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Hey Zyn,

I wanted to get your opinion on something.

I recently launched a Patreon campaign. In case you don't know what Patreon is, it is a crowdfunding platform that lets people support creators on a project per project basis, like a mini-kickstarter almost, and they get awesome rewards. You can contribute any amount you want, and get rewards for contributing as little as $1.

The reason I am doing this is because I fund every project out of my own pocket, have put extensive time and resources to make sure the promo does the game and community justice, as well as any other project, and made sure each project had cinema quality. In the end, no one has all the money on earth, and I certainly do not. This is to not only help us achieve even better quality for each project, but to also help Lotims sustain its cinematic quality by putting up the content for free.

I would like to get your opinion on our patreon campaign. If that is okay of course.

I would also like to get your opinion on whether anyone on the wiki would be willing to share it? One share on anything goes a long way in helping me.

In all honesty, since I put my content up for free and do not charge for any of it, and fund everything myself, I may not be able to continue this much further.

Your opinion on our campaign would mean a lot, especially in helping us improve it and such. I am asking some other members if they would be willing to let me know their thoughts on the campaign as well.

Let me know your thoughts

Regards,
Gage

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I mentioned that they should talk to the Licensing Team, and I'd ask around to see if any staff running the mainsite-run social media sites (twitter, tumblr, facebook?) would be up for promoting it. The campaign link is here: http://www.patreon.com/Lotims

A more recent PM with more details is as follows:

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Zyn,

In terms of your opinion, does everything look as if it is worth contributing $1? I am going around to find out whether what we offer in terms of cinematic quality content and rewards is worth contributing to a general audience.

Opening this up to staff would be great, since it would give me an even better idea on whether our campaign appears to be worth it to a general audience.

I talked to Roget about getting an opinion, and he said he thinks its pretty cool and supports it, and that he might share it on the social media sites, but said that due to the controversy of the foundation having their own kickstarters and patreons, it would be hard to get staff on board in any official way. I responded to him saying that I do not need to have anyone on board officially or anything, if they want to be, great! If not, then that's fine. It is totally up to everyone on staff and in the community. Getting everyone's opinions is what is important to me. Sharing it goes a long way in helping me find anyone willing to contribute $1 a video, but not necessary of course.

Thank you for being very open about this. Feel free to do whatever you are comfortable with in terms of which route you take. Anything helps.

Thanks again for the response

Regards,
Gage

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Given that I have next to no experience with this sort of thing and I've never contributed money to things like this (gotta buy textbooks and food >.>), I was hoping to get others' opinions on this. I got the okay to make this thread so Lotims can see what other staff have to say.

Thoughts?

Last edited on 08 Oct 2014 04:47 by Zyn Show more

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

anqxyr 08 Oct 2014 08:10

Lotims is adhering to CC on everything SCP-related, as far as I know, and our license allows commercial usage. Also I think it's completely fair for him to want to be compensated for putting time and effort in his stuff. So I don't have any problems with this.

Whether his stuff is actually good enough for people to pay for it, I don't have strong feelings on that one way or the other.

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

Eskobar 08 Oct 2014 10:41

Concurring with what anq said. Also, if I recall correctly, Lotims was the one who did the Containment Breach: Run trailer, which was pretty sweet, actually. I'd give him a dollar if I had one to spare.

Now, the secondary question is "does the SCP Foundation endorse any outside projects at all". I'm not sure if we ever really have in the past, other than the Wanderer's Library and the approved translation sites. I wouldn't object to at least having the option of endorsing outside projects that we like, and Lotims has done us enough favors in the past (with the Izumi Kato thing) that I can see this being a worthwhile way to give back a little.

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

Vincent_Redgrave 08 Oct 2014 20:22

I would have to see the quality of the finished piece before I could weigh in on an endorsement, but like Eskobar, I could understand if we wanted to give this guy a bump based on his assistance in opening communication with Izumi Kato.

My question for this, also like Esko, now that I think about it, though, is whether we have a defined "will we endorse your offsite work?" policy in place or not. I was under the impression that we had standards for the translation sites, but WL was only thoroughly endorsed as a spinoff/offsite work based in the SCP multiverse because it was (and still is) largely ran by SCPF staff. Should we continue on a case-by-case basis for these sorts of things, or do we have some sort of minimum expectation laid out somewhere I've missed?

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

(account deleted) 08 Oct 2014 21:14

I'm uncertain as to why we're discussing any sort of endorsement at all. If this person wants to post a forum thread notifying our membership of this crowdfunding project that's got a tangential relationship to us, vaya con Dios. Which is what he's already done. People who think it's cool can speak up in support.

Anything beyond that is the site making some sort of official recommendation of a third party's funding effort. I don't think it's really worth the neccessary amount of time required to investigate Lotims' operation to the extent that we can feel comfortable doing that, and given the nightmares that can accompany crowdsourcing initiatives when they go wrong, I don't know why we'd go out of our way to associate ourselves with that kind of thing.

Also, there's the issue of associating ourselves indirectly with Containment Breach. Do we really want to do that?

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

weizhong 09 Oct 2014 19:23

Pretty much this. It's really not something that we should have to endorse (or even should endorse). A hearty "good luck" to lotims and a check to make sure that any SCP references are following CC By SA 3.0 is all we need to do.

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

RJB_R 10 Oct 2014 04:07

Everything else aside, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't pursue a closer association with the CB game folks. Regardless of any opinion on the game's quality, it's been the driving force behind the uptick in popularity. There's nothing wrong with pursuing a closer relationship with the main thing bringing people into the community.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

RJB_R 08 Oct 2014 22:28

This is the outreach team policy for project recognition:http://www.scp-wiki.net/extra-community-scp-sites-guide

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

Riemann 09 Oct 2014 20:47

I don't think we should be giving explicit endorsement here, but at the same time, I have an urgent desire to stay out of the "should we officially endorse offiste things" discussion.

What I do think we should do is wish him luck, or the like. I'd like to see us foster an environment where good offsite projects are encouraged.

I might edit this later to explain my reasoning but I'm running late as is.

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

Zyn 10 Oct 2014 02:27

Hey, everyone. Got a PM from Lotims; the beginning and ending are snipped, but here's the important bit:

I was reading what people were saying, and I think there has been some misunderstanding.

This is more or less aimed towards the 05 post. I wasn't talking about any endorsement at all for this campaign. I was asking for opinions on the campaign, whether the rewards or whether it seemed worth it, and if they wanted to share the page then cool! If not then that is cool too.

He's just asking what staff think about the campaign. Main reason I put this on O5 is for visibility—they've got a thread up on the mainsite, but like I mentioned before, it's sort of buried now. Also, I felt that it'd be prudent for staff to weigh in here in case there might have been potential CC issues, which it looks like there isn't.

Given that Lotims helped with contacting Izumi Kato and they've put together something awesome for SCP out of pocket, I felt that we should be willing to give feedback when they embark on other projects. That said, what are staff's opinions on this campaign?

Last edited on 10 Oct 2014 02:27 by Zyn Show more

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

RJB_R 10 Oct 2014 04:04

I think his videos, at least the ones I've seen, have a high enough quality to be worth paying for, and if I weren't saving my money for a trip, I'd probably give him some. Since proper crowdfunding is outside my knowledge, I'd just good luck to him on getting all that done.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

anqxyr 10 Oct 2014 08:21

That's actually how I've read it initially and what I had in mind with my first post.

Re: Lotims Patreon Campaign

weizhong 10 Oct 2014 20:00

OH.

This changes things immensely. I saw the one trailer for this, and I think that it was very well made. Overall, it's quite a promising project, and best of luck to lotims.