There is a certain level of irony that flows through this community. It's not an uncommon thing either, seemingly happening every few months or so when an artist checks one day of Weasyl user stats and bases their entire presence on the site off of it. Now, compared to larger sites, there aren't as many users here. That is obvious, but having a basically dormant account here, that you hardly if ever update, only to turn around and say this site isn't worth keeping tabs on anymore is hilariously off base.

I've touched on this before, many times in fact, but artists (and some normal users as well) think that their name alone is enough to get them followed everywhere despite them doing nothing to earn such goodwill. Just stopped watching two artists today: One who says they don't get enough work from here and one who seemed to expect more people to commission them despite not having had an update here on Weasyl for months. It made me chuckle actually, because I had commissioned both of them before...using Weasyl to do so.

Here's a tip to artists and other users out there that think this way: Much in the same way you may not like keeping multiple galleries, "Watchers" don't like to do so either. Expecting people to follow you all over the internet just to keep up with your work while not giving them any reason to do so makes zero sense. Stop that.

Also, while we're here, stop doing "Weasyl Exclusive" commissions. It seemed like a nice idea at first, but it's really just a way for artists to further split the user base and, honestly, allow them to keep even less track of people who commission them. Why would I get one of those from you anyway? If you haven't updated in months and then randomly announce commissions just for this site, how can I be sure you'll even remember to check back in here and start working on them? There's no guarantee you'll even be around, you know?

Honestly the worst part about this is a third artist I had to stop watching because they fell into the Patreon Paywall trap. Most of the bonuses for their campaign there made sense: Discounts on commissions, that sort of thing, but then the dreaded exclusive content reared it's head. Before anyone starts, let me be clear here: An exclusive, by it's very definition, means something is, obviously, being excluded. The only way I can get behind that is if they are treated as "Timed Exclusives," meaning the work is seen first by paying Patrons and then later in their normal galleries weeks or months down the line. By doing things that way, your paying fans get the content first while also allowing your fans who couldn't scrape up the cash to still follow your work. It's a simple process and is really only affected by the artist's work ethic and their ability to remember to post the stuff later on down the line to those who aren't members of their Patreon program

This particular artist announced that they would do 2 exclusive pictures per month. That's 24 a year in case you weren't paying attention. So...how does that work then if you can't pay that month? Are they made available as a dropbox link or something so people who missed previous month's rewards can get in when they donate at a later date? Are they just screwed out of them because they didn't pledge sooner? Would the artists even offer them an older link so they can get the images they missed without having to contact the artist directly to get past rewards? I asked the artist if they planned to do these images as a timed thing like I discussed above and they said that "I am not sure yet."

...

This same artist said, in a previous journal, that they didn't want the Patreon going live until they had it all set up and figured out...only to turn around and say they weren't sure yet about a simple and obviously likely question? I can't support that kind of thing. Patreon has been a blessing and a curse for this community since the site went live. It's not like this question hasn't come up before, you know what I mean? This should have been a quick consideration to resolve, instead I get a maybe they'll come out months later and that's it.

I swear, this is going to be the smallest watch list in history if this keeps up. I had commissioned them a bunch too...such a pity. Hope it's worth it to them. Though who am I kidding? There will be people who blindly support them anyways just to see pornography seconds before anyone else.

I'll admit though that I'm being a bit delusional here. You see, I had actually been hopeful for the community at large because, in recent Patreon campaigns, I saw that artists were offering things that made sense and just all around dropping the "Paywall" culture. Clearly I was wrong and I guess it just saddens me to be let down by this community all the time. To be fair: I shouldn't have expected so much to begin with.