Topic: Patreon and the Advertisement tags

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

Should the inclusion of the patreon and advertisement tag be more heavily encouraged if artists put a patreon|username watermark on their content? I've started adding it more and more recently as I've seen direct instructions/recommendations to go to an artist's Patreon (or other paysite, where that site's tag would be used instead) overlaid on top of art. It seems like the extremely vast majority of those kinds of posts do not have either tag unless they are very similar to a television-esque advertisement endorsing a product or mutilating the animation with whichever censoring style they choose to use with a big bold "Go to my site" in your face.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

Tagging advertisement on posts with any link to an external site to support the artist will result in half the site being blacklisted for a lot of people

donovan_dmc said:
Tagging advertisement on posts with any link to an external site to support the artist will result in half the site being blacklisted for a lot of people

I didn't mention a link anywhere in my post
Besides, that's what url is for

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

nin10dope said:
I didn't mention a link anywhere in my post
Besides, that's what url is for

I don't see what difference it makes, you mentioned patreon usernames
What is a patreon url but a patreon.com url with a username appended

donovan_dmc said:
I don't see what difference it makes, you mentioned patreon usernames
What is a patreon url but a patreon.com url with a username appended

You specified the difference. I said Patreon|Username
Not patreon.com, nor urls

Watsit

Privileged

nin10dope said:
Should the inclusion of the patreon and advertisement tag be more heavily encouraged if artists put a patreon|username watermark on their content?

patreon should only be used if some element "owned" by Patreon is on the image, like a logo or something. Similar to furaffinity or any other site or business. I wouldn't think a URL or username on its own would count, but I don't think I've seen any "official" stance on that.

I think advertisement should only be tagged if the post itself is an advertisement, or the primary point of the image/video is to advertise something. Something like a YCH base, or being plastered with an announcement that the artist is now open for commissions, or a cropped preview instructing people to go to some site to get the full version. This I think is what people largely want the tag for, to be able to blacklist incomplete/censored images that are asking for money to see the full/uncensored version, or where a post runs dangerously close to the rule against advertisements. Simply having a URL in the corner where someone can choose to go to give money, with the image itself being complete and not advertising anything, I don't think should count for the tag.

watsit said:
patreon should only be used if some element "owned" by Patreon is on the image, like a logo or something. Similar to furaffinity or any other site or business. I wouldn't think a URL or username on its own would count, but I don't think I've seen any "official" stance on that.

I think advertisement should only be tagged if the post itself is an advertisement, or the primary point of the image/video is to advertise something. Something like a YCH base, or being plastered with an announcement that the artist is now open for commissions, or a cropped preview instructing people to go to some site to get the full version. This I think is what people largely want the tag for, to be able to blacklist incomplete/censored images that are asking for money to see the full/uncensored version, or where a post runs dangerously close to the rule against advertisements. Simply having a URL in the corner where someone can choose to go to give money, with the image itself being complete and not advertising anything, I don't think should count for the tag.

When I say Patreon|Username I mean literally that as a graphic.
post #5605828
They are advertising their patreon to everyone who looks at the image
The solution to the people you say largely want the advertisement tag for, what they really want is uncensored_version_at_paywall
There are plenty of meta tags for that blacklisting service, so they just need to adapt their list to the correct tags
By definition, doing something like having said patreon|username is presenting their services/goods to attract customers (subscribers)

nin10dope said:
When I say Patreon|Username I mean literally that as a graphic.
post #5605828
They are advertising their patreon to everyone who looks at the image
The solution to the people you say largely want the advertisement tag for, what they really want is uncensored_version_at_paywall
There are plenty of meta tags for that blacklisting service, so they just need to adapt their list to the correct tags
By definition, doing something like having said patreon|username is presenting their services/goods to attract customers (subscribers)

That's more-or-less a signature/source. An advertisement should have the "visit my patreon" stuff in focus and/or obscuring part of the image.

regsmutt said:
That's more-or-less a signature/source. An advertisement should have the "visit my patreon" stuff in focus and/or obscuring part of the image.

Right above that it says "Get free commissions and early access:"
Like that post being an advertisement is not a debate, it's fact.

My main question is should the site more heavily encourage following this example or are we more willing to turn a blind-eye to this type of tagging being missing?

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

nin10dope said:
You specified the difference. I said Patreon|Username
Not patreon.com, nor urls

I feel like you know you're being needlessly pedantic, there is no difference on if there's a vertical bar or a forward slash
"Patreon|Username", "Patreon/Username", and "Patreon.com/Username" are all practically the same thing, and do not qualify for the advertisement tag, again:

Tagging advertisement on posts with any link to an external site to support the artist will result in half the site being blacklisted for a lot of people

Stop focusing on "link" for a few seconds and consider the entire thing, or better yet let me rewrite it:
Tagging advertisement on posts that mention paysites will blacklist half the site for a lot of people

nin10dope said:
Right above that it says "Get free commissions and early access:"
Like that post being an advertisement is not a debate, it's fact.

My main question is should the site more heavily encourage following this example or are we more willing to turn a blind-eye to this type of tagging being missing?

The post itself isn't an advertisement though. The patreon bit isn't the focus and isn't significantly obscuring the image. I don't think e6 should change how the tag is currently used.

donovan_dmc said:
I feel like you know you're being needlessly pedantic, there is no difference on if there's a vertical bar or a forward slash
"Patreon|Username", "Patreon/Username", and "Patreon.com/Username" are all practically the same thing, and do not qualify for the advertisement tag, again:

Stop focusing on "link" for a few seconds and consider the entire thing, or better yet let me rewrite it:
Tagging advertisement on posts that mention paysites will blacklist half the site for a lot of people

They do qualify for the tag, you can deny reality if you want, but that doesn't change.
Like I already said above, the issue would be resolved by people changing the blacklist from advertisement to the meta tags involving paywall/paysite
You opened your objection by immediately misrepresenting what I said.

regsmutt said:
The post itself isn't an advertisement though. The patreon bit isn't the focus and isn't significantly obscuring the image. I don't think e6 should change how the tag is currently used.

The post doesn't have to be an advertisement, just contain one. If that specifically should be changed, I'd imagine more people would need to agree considering the stigma of the tag.

nin10dope said:
They do qualify for the tag, you can deny reality if you want, but that doesn't change.
Like I already said above, the issue would be resolved by people changing the blacklist from advertisement to the meta tags involving paywall/paysite
You opened your objection by immediately misrepresenting what I said.

These posts do not always have alternate/higher resolution/uncensored versions behind a paywall though. Artists who post full-res, uncensored images publicly still often include their patreon/substar/other tipjar info. Tagging anything that mentions patreon as 'advertisement' is just straight-up not useful.

nin10dope said:
The post doesn't have to be an advertisement, just contain one. If that specifically should be changed, I'd imagine more people would need to agree considering the stigma of the tag.

i don't think just adding your url or username should count as an advertisement.

patreon isn't the only example, by the logic you want every url would technically be an advertisement, since it's "advertising" their other socials, twitter, bluesky, etc, which is just overkill. The advertisement tag should be kept for just actual advertisements, things that clearly advertise a product to be sold (IE: buy the high res on my patreon! See the full video on xxx site! buy alts on my gumroad, etc etc) a generic "check me out on my patreon" or Patreon/Artistname on a full res public release does nobody any favors.

regsmutt said:
These posts do not always have alternate/higher resolution/uncensored versions behind a paywall though. Artists who post full-res, uncensored images publicly still often include their patreon/substar/other tipjar info. Tagging anything that mentions patreon as 'advertisement' is just straight-up not useful.

Just for mentioning Patreon in a vacuum, I can agree that the advertisement tag isn't helpful.
What was said before though was that most people likely blacklist advertisement to avoid posts that do have alternatives locked behind a paywall/site. I would wager that that's the majority reasoning for the blacklist, to avoid

incomplete/censored images that are asking for money to see the full/uncensored version

.
Because if a post like my example is saying "Free commissions and early access" at their patreon, the correct way to say that is that they're advertising their patreon to the public.
Now if that example didn't have that little advertisement blurp above the logo, then there's definitely a strong argument to say that it shouldn't have the tag, just the patreon tag for using the logo. Unless it also is trying to advertise benefits to subscribers in the description, then it gets both.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

nin10dope said:
They do qualify for the tag, you can deny reality if you want, but that doesn't change.

They do not. By this same logic a post mentioning any external site would be an advertisement, especially if you can support the artist there
Post has a patreon logo? Yeah that's an advertisement
Post has an FA logo? You can support artists with some dumb shinies thing there, that's an advertisement
Post has a caard or personal website url? They could link to a paysite there, that's clearly an advertisement

This does nothing but dilute the tag. There is no reality being denied here, that isn't how the tag works

If you are just arguing that "Patreon|Username" is an advertisement, why
What differentiates this from every other way to mention a paysite in a post

manitka said:
i don't think just adding your url or username should count as an advertisement.

patreon isn't the only example, by the logic you want every url would technically be an advertisement, since it's "advertising" their other socials, twitter, bluesky, etc, which is just overkill. The advertisement tag should be kept for just actual advertisements, things that clearly advertise a product to be sold (IE: buy the high res on my patreon! See the full video on xxx site! buy alts on my gumroad, etc etc) a generic "check me out on my patreon" or Patreon/Artistname on a full res public release does nobody any favors.

I do not want every url to be blankly labelled as advertisements, that was what dmc was misrepresenting. I felt like I was very clear and direct in my original post.
I specified in the beginning that it was about advertising paysites, which is a service that customers can "purchase" by subscribing

donovan_dmc said:
They do not. By this same logic a post mentioning any external site would be an advertisement, especially if you can support the artist there
Post has a patreon logo? Yeah that's an advertisement
Post has an FA logo? You can support artists with some dumb shinies thing there, that's an advertisement
Post has a caard or personal website url? They could link to a paysite there, that's clearly an advertisement

This does nothing but dilute the tag. There is no reality being denied here, that isn't how the tag works

If you are just arguing that "Patreon|Username" is an advertisement, why
What differentiates this from every other way to mention a paysite in a post

https://e621.net/wiki_pages/11328 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertise

nin10dope said:
I've seen direct instructions/recommendations to go to an artist's Patreon (or other paysite, where that site's tag would be used instead) overlaid on top of art.

sorry for delay e6 was stroking out for a hot minute

nin10dope said:
I do not want every url to be blankly labelled as advertisements, that was what dmc was misrepresenting. I felt like I was very clear and direct in my original post.
I specified in the beginning that it was about advertising paysites, which is a service that customers can "purchase" by subscribing

nin10dope said:
Should the inclusion of the patreon and advertisement tag be more heavily encouraged if artists put a patreon|username watermark on their content? I've started adding it more and more recently as I've seen direct instructions/recommendations to go to an artist's Patreon (or other paysite, where that site's tag would be used instead) overlaid on top of art. It seems like the extremely vast majority of those kinds of posts do not have either tag unless they are very similar to a television-esque advertisement endorsing a product or mutilating the animation with whichever censoring style they choose to use with a big bold "Go to my site" in your face.

yes but they are not advertising a product. putting a username, link, logo, etc for a paysite is not the same.

IE the difference between:

post #5623244 post #5624916 post #5623525

and:

post #5620068 post #5529634 post #5561192

the first ones are not selling you anything. they've given you a high res, public picture.

the second are exclusively designed to sell something, whether it be higher res, alts, extras, etc. these pictures make it very ovbious that they are trying to sell a product.

manitka said:
sorry for delay e6 was stroking out for a hot minute

yes but they are not advertising a product. putting a username, link, logo, etc for a paysite is not the same.

I think that what is being referred to isn't a url alone, but stuff with additional text (e.g. "Early releases on patreon" or even "More on patreon") which can be kinda grey area depending on the amount/visibility of it. But like, the zoroark example given earlier definitely doesn't fit most peoples' definition of an ad.

nin10dope said:
https://e621.net/wiki_pages/11328 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertise

I get what you're saying, I just straight-up do not agree that "More on patreon" type text qualifies as 'advertisement' for the purpose of the tag. "Is the image, taken as a whole, intended to be an advertisement?" is how the tag is interpreted.

Updated

regsmutt said:
I think that what is being referred to isn't a url alone, but stuff with additional text (e.g. "Early releases on patreon" or even "More on patreon") which can be kinda grey area depending on the amount/visibility of it. But like, the zoroark example given earlier definitely doesn't fit most peoples' definition of an ad.

Nah I get that. Still i feel like it’s easy to tell what is and isn’t an ad, i would not consider “see more on patreon” with no solid selling point, as an ad, but that might just be me personally.

——————
Also I think it’s just going to be tag bloat. Advertisement is at 3k rn. If we allow this it’s going to bloat up a non trivial amount.

People who blacklist ads usually block them because a lot of them are just censored, cropped, short, etc, versions of full pictures and the like, I don’t think most of them mind an artist url or watermark being on a fully released image

manitka said:
yes but they are not advertising a product. putting a username, link, logo, etc for a paysite is not the same.

I do agree just having a link by itself is not enough, but it's also important to remember that the product is whatever they have listed as a reason to become a patron. Like the example had the free commissions and early access advertisements in a very literal sense of, "Hey everyone, I have these services to offer for patronage" (the patronage being implied by the pseudo-link Patreon|Username)
I guess it would help to offer that that example I showed is a clear line crossed with what's just showing a watermark and what's advertising your goods and services.

regsmutt said:
I think that what is being referred to isn't a url alone, but stuff with additional text (e.g. "Early releases on patreon" or even "More on patreon") which can be kinda grey area depending on the amount/visibility of it. But like, the zoroark example given earlier definitely doesn't fit most peoples' definition of an ad.

I get what you're saying, I just straight-up do not agree that "More on patreon" type text qualifies as 'advertisement' for the purpose of the tag. "Is the image, taken as a whole, intended to be an advertisement?" is how the tag is interpreted.

We can be generous and say that ambiguous phrases like "More on <blank>" aren't a commercial advertisement. I think that's the main point of contention, whether it's advertising as in the verb for having something to show the public or commercial advertising like a price sheet and ych. I won't make too big a habit of giving a close look at posts with those watermarks, but I think that telling people what you're offering in the image/animation itself is warranted. It might not be enough of an ad to trigger people that hate seeing self-promotion, but it can form a clear standard of what's promotion and what's commercial advertising. That last bit feels weird to type because promote and advertise are direct synonyms, so the context is the only clear distinction.

manitka said:
People who blacklist ads usually block them because a lot of them are just censored, cropped, short, etc, versions of full pictures and the like, I don’t think most of them mind an artist url or watermark being on a fully released image

Which is more than fair, because url is a meta tag and I know that artist_logo is. Not sure about watermark off the top of my head or if that's a disambiguation
Edit: okay watermark also is