Patreon Channel

[labrint]

I wish the main contributors to this forum, set up a patreon channel;

a) Where Patreons of different level of programming knowledge can submit topics which they would like explained with examples on video
b) Financially support people who spend so much time dedicating to helping us learn and resolve our queries
c) Bring many people up to a higher programming level, thereby increasing contributors to AHK
d) Directly funding projects, development of libraries etc, scripts that patreons feel need addressing incorporating them in newer versions of AHK
e) Evolve a structure where one can join as a contributor and is rewarded financially
f) Organize a few real live events, that could bring people in this community together

Correct me if there exists such a paid channel made up of consortium of net contributors already. This would not replace the forum of course, but only serve to enhance it.

[gregster]

Anyone can offer their services for money already (or add a donation link to their signature, for example), and anyone is allowed to offer money (at least this has been tolerated, if done modestly - and moderately). I just don't think that this should be a main part of these forums, or something that we should organize or actively support. I doubt that something like this would only enhance these forums. Instead, it would massively weaken these forums, if the "main contributors" would really move to this "channel". I also doubt that a majority would want to do this anyway.

In my eyes it's not the task of the AutoHotkey Foundation to monetize support or to create the impression that certain help is only or mostly available for money. It would be against the community spirit of these forums and the AHK Foundation, imho, and fundamentally change the way these forums would get used. I am afraid that this would harm the popularization of AutoHotkey more than it would help.

Again, if you want to hire someone for a bigger (or smaller) project, you can already do that - without the direct involvement of the Foundation. But I wouldn't like to see constant negotiations or "well, for something like that you have to join our patreon channel". There are already other websites which offer to get demand and supply sides of professional programming jobs together. If an AHK contributor wants to offer their services there, I welcome that. But in my eyes, this has not much to do with our general support forums here, and should be kept separate.

[tank]

In my eyes it's not the task of the AutoHotkey Foundation

Correct, but I don't think that's the suggestion. I think the suggestion is to organize a separate organized learning situation where people can or not contribute to the 'teachers' financial needs

Again, if you want to hire someone for a bigger (or smaller) project

And while I also agree I don't think this was specifically targeted at specific project for hire so much as crowd funded Learning by example with an instructor

[gregster]

Well, the suggestion above actually doesn't sound like a pure learning platform, it's actually a mixture of very different things.
I am not generally against crowdfunding some good learning materials, but to me this all sounds too much like a potential way to cannibalize our current support system (if this would work and take off the way it's suggested).
And from some personal experience from the pedagogical field (learning and teaching in different settings), I have strong suspicions that some people who might feel attracted (most) in a setting like this, won't be the greatest teachers (or programmers). That might not matter so much for things like d); developping libraries has nothing to do with teaching, and requires different skill sets. Sure, for some people there will be a certain overlap, but these fields don't belong together in the same structure.
Other questions are: How would money be distributed among a larger number of people, and what kind of wrong incentives and ways of manipulation are you introducing with that tbd payout scheme?! Without doubt, this will add some unwelcome overhead, competition and disappointment - which would need to be handled. I admit, I have no idea what Patreon exactly offers for situations like this, one channel (?) with many creators who contribute irregularly. So far, I had only contact with solo creators on Patreon.

If a good teacher would produce a few nice demo videos, and then say, okay, to continue with this kind of skill level and production value, I need some patrons - or if a group of people would create such learning materials together - sure, great! I understand that concept, and people will chip in, if that's the content they want. The internet is now full of this kind of content production. But why should we organize a channel or platform with a number of competing contributors? I doubt that this would enhance quality - just quantity. Or that it would put more into the pockets of the good teachers.
I am just saying that you'll have to be careful which incentive structures you'll be creating (just in case there will be any meaningful incentives).

[boiler]

I am also not in favor of the idea of contributors to this forum organizing a paetreon channel or another paid site for their services. Most of the reasons why were already stated very well by gregster. I would also point out that AHK falls way down the list in the rankings of programming languages by popularity. It doesn't even come close to appearing anywhere on most lists. The current and potential userbase just isn't there to provide sufficient demand to support a group of experts and teachers spending the time necessary to produce quality, packaged content. I think a paid site would be lucky to attract 1% of the traffic that the "Ask For Help" sub-forum enjoys. That's not going to support any significant content development.

I don't count myself among the experts on this forum, but as someone who has helped a fair number of beginners, I can say I would have no interest in participating in this kind of venture for the minimal income it might provide. I get enjoyment and satisfaction out of seeing others discover and learn AHK. The prospect of potentially making a bit money from my contributions isn't an enticement at all. In fact, it would make it more of a job instead of something I can do when I have a few minutes here and there with no obligations. I suspect that is true of most other forum regulars given their time and expertise that is already freely given.

For the record, I'm not against anyone making money from teaching others AHK or anything else. There are already people offering those services, so those interested can seek them out. But the freely available help from the AHK community is one of the main things that drew me to AHK, and clearly many others are benefiting from it. Redirecting the efforts of those already happily providing their help for free would fracture the community and negatively affect the popularity of AHK, those trying to learn it, and even the helpers themselves.

[gregster]

Good points, thank you, boiler! I pretty much feel the same way regarding my own motivation, and the potential audience.

Also, another offspring from our main community, our Discord channel, surely serves a purpose and fills a demand, but it already created a bit of a divide in the AHK community, imho. Apart from the curious fact that a chat platform focused on gaming and with experienced AHK gamers has to redirect most of their AHK gaming questions to these forums and to Reddit (because of the Discord rules) with probably less gaming-affinitive supporters, I feel that more atomization could be counter-productive.
If it's mostly about lessons or video requests, or special projects which don't get traction on the regular forums or with the Discord crowd, every able AHK'er should feel free to patreon away and to offer their individual services, but I would hesitate to make it a regular community-endorsed support or development tool.

[labrint]

Exactly @tank.

I have strong suspicions that some people who might feel attracted (most) in a setting like this, won't be the greatest teachers (or programmers).

@gregster Like everything in the world, it could be a knife that cuts from both ways. That's why people like yourself voicing such concerns are important, moreover you have the knowledge and teaching experience.

How would money be distributed among a larger number of people, and what kind of wrong incentives and ways of manipulation are you introducing with that tbd payout scheme?! Without doubt, this will add some unwelcome overhead, competition and disappointment - which would need to be handled.

As far as I'm concerned its up to the contributors to decide how to allocate funds. I simply want to do my part and give back to the major contributors, while at the same time, learning fundamental and advanced skills via another medium (videos), as well as receive support on specific areas, some of which may be of mainstream concern to everyone and for which the forum caters for as well as others that are not of mainstream concern, but still very important for me to resolve as they impact me directly. One such area is manipulating NET framework (some aspects have not been covered fully, and its not of mainstream concern but critical to me).

I get enjoyment and satisfaction out of seeing others discover and learn AHK.

@boiler If you really want to make money you would build scripts to enhance businesses, such as I have done by examples of automation of a government scheme of dispensing of free medicinal and invoice to price label automation (I'm sure you know many ways to make some money off of automation). This money is just a small way people like myself can show gratitude to contributors like yourself!

Simply put guys, we need more video content. Its a big ask and some funds/donations/tokens of appreciation are the least, a simple person who is not a net contributor can offer to help us collectively achieve this goal.

Currently the forum is great for searching for solutions to resolve specific code issues. Its great as videos can't be easily searched, but videos have their own advantages when it comes to teaching. They can be segmented and amended with student's questions to make sure we cover as much as possible in a way that most can understand.

So please don't take it the wrong way, I think all your concerns are valid and need to be addressed. Like every team in the world, different ideas should come together to make good things happen.

[boiler]

I get enjoyment and satisfaction out of seeing others discover and learn AHK.

@boiler If you really want to make money you would build scripts to enhance businesses, such as I have done by examples of automation of a government scheme of dispensing of free medicinal and invoice to price label automation (I'm sure you know many ways to make some money off of automation). This money is just a small way people like myself can show gratitude to contributors like yourself!

Thanks, but I am not seeing how my statement made it look like I was seeking ways to make money from AHK. And actually, I have made an unexpected and unsought second career for years from AHK in a couple different industries, including selling tools I wrote (initially for myself, which got me started in AHK) to online poker pros and a current full-time gig writing automation scripts for a business. Even if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t change my views on helping others for free. In fact, when I wasn’t actively working is when I was most active on the forum, helping others and refusing payment when offered for the reasons stated earlier.

I appreciate that you say the payment is an expression of gratitude, but a simple “thanks” is preferable to payment for me. And I have no interest in creating videos, no matter what the incentive. It sounds like what you are really saying is you prefer videos over other forms of learning, so you are hoping to get the community’s experts to make videos by paying them to do so. I think it won’t come to be because the experts are for the most part not looking for compensation for their efforts and would not want to spend their time planning and creating video content. There are some that are interested in creating videos, which is great, and they already do.

[tank]

@labrintI recommend talking to @Joe Glines as he already has a lengthy history with tutorial videos both free and paid

[labrint]

@labrintI recommend talking to @Joe Glines as he already has a lengthy history with tutorial videos both free and paid

I've seen some videos of him yes! I tried to tag him here but couldn't find the name tag. @Joe Glines Would you be interested in hosting a Patreon channel with other developers? I'm looking for a platform where I can enhance my AHK skills with input from various experts in the subjects. A video learning platform that caters for people with different levels of knowledge. In my specific case I've watched some of your videos, one of which if I recall a discussion with @tank (and subscribed even to your website). I got a bit lost though as even though I've been coding for at least 5 years with AHK some concepts I found hard to understand fully because they are complex, such as some of your videos automating excel with COM.

Perhaps you could liase with other contributors working with video tutorials. There is an advantage to that as most people understand subjects in a different way, different methods of teaching as well as most have different levels of programming skills.

[joedf]

Hello all, I'm a bit late to the conversation.
It would be nice to have some kind of fundraising. A while back I had explored maybe doing some official merch or perhaps use something like OpenCollective for donations. But i guess we'd need some kind of inventory for it to be worthwhile or just go with large overhead from the managed-for-us tshirt services..

For now, I have to say I am very grateful for what have so far. To my surprise, donations have been coming in at a rather stable rate. We don't have a 'huge' fund, but it will definitely keep us online for a few years already.
One key thing here, is if we do go down this path... The content should be free. Maybe there can be some paid stuff like earlier access or discord stuff, or merch or wtv people like nowadays... but nonetheless, I think the content should be free.

Just my 'two cents'

[ahk7]

Github sponsors https://github.com/sponsors/ might be better if it needs to be done (at least more logical to me, and probably easier for companies as well, just a guess)
Edit: for AutoHotkey hosting of course. The merchandise I can do without.

[joedf]

@ahk7 I like that!
Looks like they have an integration option with OpenCollective as a fiscal host.

@tank Any reservations? Or can go I ahead and setup the accounts using the information I have on file?

[labrint]

If I understood correctly, it would only cover new specific projects, and not a medium for learning or containing lecture videos? (github)

Why not combine the two on a platform that allows for donations and video content too, according to patron requests?

It could be free for all, and allow for monthly donations of example 2,4,6 dollars a month depending on how much the patron wants to donate (without associating rank to any particular donation).

[boiler]

It could be free for all, and allow for monthly donations of example 2,4,6 dollars a month depending on how much the patron wants to donate (without associating rank to any particular donation).

You mean like…this forum?

Again, this is apparently all tied to you wanting to see instruction in video format. There aren’t enough people that would be willing to pay to have videos made by people who aren’t interested in making videos. You pretty much would need to be funding the project yourself. How about this: You name the topic, and pay me to make a video. Cost is a mere $500 each.

[labrint]

2-6 dollars a month is a small contribution, its a little hopefully coming from the many. You may be right that there aren't enough people interested in videos.
I am not very qualified in the subject to do them myself as much as I would be benefitting from them.

Am I right that I feel you feel AHK is too small and insignificant a language that dedicating effort in this would generate little response? Again you may be right because the net contributors are not many, usually the same few who answer most questions. If it where, why dedicate any time to it at all, I mean there are other languages one can use, why go for this one? It is my opinion that AHK is easier to master and one create something fairly quickly which would otherwise take a longer learning curve with other languages.

I'm not expecting a huge response here, just voicing my honest opinion on what I feel would help, from my own personal and limited experience.

[boiler]

Am I right that I feel you feel AHK is too small and insignificant a language that dedicating effort in this would generate little response?

I’ve already said this but I wouldn’t use those terms. Not being among the most popular languages doesn’t mean it’s insignificant, in my opinion.

If it where, why dedicate any time to it at all, I mean there are other languages one can use, why go for this one?

It best suits my purposes. What does that have to do with how many others use it? In what way is dedicating time to it a waste or however you are characterizing it?

[labrint]

Exactly, even if its not as popular, it suits your purposes, so you go for it.

So if it suits my purposes, and others who wish video content, for which hopefully some people find that it suits their purpose to create this learning content, why would it be a waste of time?

Video is just another way of creating learning content like forum itself. It would suit my purpose and suit the purpose of who wants to create it.

What would this have to do with how many people want to do this?

[boiler]

for which hopefully some people find that it suits their purpose to create this learning content, why would it be a waste of time?

This is the problematic part. Getting people to create video content. I don’t think you’ll find people who want to do it, especially for peanuts. And I don’t think you’d raise more than peanuts. And as gregster pointed out, the lure of being paid to create it wouldn’t necessarily attract the people you want creating content. It probably entices the wrong people.

That’s all I have to say on this issue. I’d say good luck, but I don’t want to see this happen. Fortunately for me (and the community), it most likely won’t.

[joedf]

I think OpenCollective and GitHub sponsors are a good start. So far, it looks like Patreon would probably have to wait if it were to happen.
It's a step up from what we have. A thing to note is that even Discord and IRC is not "directly" managed either. It's all thanks for community members that have gone and started these on their own.
RUNIE runs the discord with the help of other fellow users. I think IRC has many people too, but tidbit is by far the most on there as far as I know. And GeekDude/geek host the ahk paste-bin (p.ahkscript.org).