Patreon, a subscription platform, is introducing community chatrooms where creators can interact with their audience, and the audience can talk to each other outside the comment section.
Chatroom customization and profiles
Creators can have four chats running at the same time; each chat can be limited to a specific tier. Creators are able to share snippets of their work on the chat, and their community can send text, photos and emojis. Patreon says the community chat is available on the app, but the desktop version is in the works.
Additionally, subscribers can customize their profile and add a picture, bio, name and social media accounts. Sometime in the future, they can add their role and community contributions. Looks familiar? Many have made comparisons to the community chats to Discord servers. Patreon itself acknowledges this. There’s already a Discord integration in place for paying subscribers. However, Patreon wants to offer more choices to creators, especially after the Vimeo debacle.
According to blog post from Patreon, “There’s no surefire way to stay in touch with the creators you care about and find the work that moves you, which means that the communities built around these creators may be lost altogether.”
“That’s why we’re committed to giving fans a space where they can truly experience community by introducing new features and tools that’ll bring fans closer to creators and to each other,” Patreon adds.
Chat moderation tools
The existing Patreon guidelines will still apply. The chats will also come with moderation tools the creators can use. Members of the chats can flag content that violates the guidelines, and the creators can review them. In the future, according to Patreon, the creators can enlist community members as moderators.
Patreon chats will be available to select creators. It will be rolled out to more communities in the coming months.