Future of Patreon Credits? (input welcome) (Patreon)

Hi everyone

I wanted to inform you that the Patreon credits that appear in my videos is currently undergoing revision, though I am not entirely sure what the end result will be.

As of now, Flare Gun patreons get their name singled out, then Flares get them in small groups, and Torches in a big list. There is also a "squished" version which I tend to primarily use for shorter videos. I know that many people don't care about their names being in the videos, but some do. The current system has already been modified twice, in order for it to be shorter. However, with the way it is now it still takes up a lot of space, and I get comments from new viewers complaining about this (my Prologue video attracted a lot of new viewers and I think its mostly from there that the complaints stem). The commentators feel it takes up too much space, time, and is too promoting. As a new viewer, I can see that. At the same time, my channel has a higher patreon/sub ratio than some other channels I see, so something must be going right too... though that may be unrelated to the crediting system. In the end, I think the patreon credit should be amended for a better viewer experience.

You may have noticed that the Subnautica video used a squished version of the credits, which worked fine, but this was primarily done so that something was present while I rework the old system. The upcoming Kegstand 6 will have the same. I haven't quite decided what to do yet. The main reason I started crediting patreons the way I do is because I saw how well it worked on some other channels of similar nature, e.g. Accurize2 does it this way too. One way is to make the whole thing smaller and put it more in the corner of the video, or some such.

Another issue is that I find it hard to stay on top of active patreons. The website doesn't tell me when someone leaves, their payment is declined, or are no longer active. Other times I am notified that someone joined, but then they change their pledge or name, and I am not notified of this. So I have to manually check frequently, and despite all the effort I still make mistakes and a few inactive people are credited and some active ones aren’t.

I asked around and it seems that what most big content creators do is to just export their patreon list from the website, each time they make a movie, then copy paste that list into a large patreon credit at the end of the video. Many of them only visually credit the top tiers.This seems to be very common. I could do this, but also feels like there should be some merit to tiers having their names highlighted, especially Flare/Flare Gun tiers. One compromise I have seen some creators do (e.g. Media Knights) is that at the start of their video they only highlight NEW patreon members, and then everyone else is listed at the end in different tiers. This is an interesting idea, but the drawback is that it highlights new members and not those who have supported the channel a long time. Flare Gun supporters especially are unique, as they have done an outstanding contribution by having custom pledges, been a supporter for a long time, or some other contribution, and it would be nice to acknowledge that.

I am not sure what to do yet, but I think it will be either:

a) No credits in the intro, except a brief media credit during intro music, and a "become a patreon" type thing. At the outro, the rest of the credits will play, in order of tiers. Or maybe just Flare Guns in the opening.

or b) Same system as now, but faster, smaller, and positioned more out of the way

Please let me know your thoughts on this, as it matters a lot :)

PS: For my video analysis essay that I discussed in my 50k video, I plan to do a Noah Caldwell-Gervais style and actually read aloud everyones names in order during the end credits.