Vote: Channel Guidelines on Youtube (Patreon)

Hola my Shiny Patrons,

I want to thank you for your very kind comments and support. As I mentioned previously in one of the live streams, documenting the everyday life is like a dream come true for me. Since I was a kid, I dreamed of having a little video camera to film what I found interesting in my hometown. Back then, video cameras weren't so accessible in Mexico and my family could not afford one. The years passed and I never had the chance to own a good quality camera until my adulthood. Now, thanks for the advances in technology, we can all have a great quality camera in our smartphones. I feel so lucky to be able to have a channel with the support of many people who can see in my videos what I'm trying to document: the great stories of shoe shiners.

This journey has not been easy, many times I found myself (and still do) doubting about the future of the channel. Am I doing right by spending a lot of my time making videos? Will the channel keep growing? if so, would future subscribers be happy with the way I make videos? These questions often invade my mind, but I try to take them as part of this learning process.

I consider myself to be so lucky to have many subscribers who support my work and send me constructive and kind comments. However, having a presence on the Internet comes with a lot of criticism and hurtful comments too. I still get affected by the sexual and cruel comments and messages I get every day but I think I have developed a thicker skin now (compare to when I started the channel).

Usually, I don't mind these comments and messages and wouldn't have a problem leaving them on Youtube. However, Youtube constantly changes the terms and conditions for creating a 'friendly environment', to the point of demonetizing certain videos for containing comments that 'are not friendly' or can be considered as 'sexual'.

An example of this is the following: I've been trying to post shorts on Youtube using the videos I currently have on the channel. Youtube keeps limiting the monetization of the shorts because it considers the content to be 'sexual'.

I had this same problem previously with some shoe shine videos. Youtube started limiting the monetization of the videos because the comments contained 'sexual' language. I got so discouraged by this and it made me sad because I worked hard to make a video and suddenly Youtube decides it was no longer suitable for advertisers. For this reason, I decided to be more strict in the comments I leave public and start blocking some words that Youtube considers 'sexual'. Maybe this explains why your comment that contained the word 'sexy' did not appear as public.

I wasn't sure about writing this post, but to be honest, I'd like to be transparent about this issue that worries me and the actions I'm taking so the videos keep monetize. I feel here on Patreon I have a safe space to express my concerns about the channel with all of you.

This past 2 weeks, I've been getting very nasty comments and many of them explicitly sexual. I usually don't approve them if they contain a sexual message, but this time have been so many that I thought of writing some guidelines for commenting on the channel. I've seen that other channels have done it so I thought it would be a good idea.

But before doing this, I would like to know your thoughts about this matter.

Do you think I should write guidelines for the comments? For example:

1 Stick to the topic: shoe shining and the stories of the people

2 Be respectful with me and the shoe shiners

3 Try to give constructive criticism

Or do you think I should just keep doing what I'm doing now and delete the comments I think are not suitable for the channel?

The words I have blocked at the moment are some that Youtube may consider sexual or are part of a sentence that intends to be sexual or harmful, for example: fetish, sexy, tongue, whore, stupid, submissive, slave, sex, feet, dirty feet, amongst others.

At the start, I didn't feel right when deleting comments. But Youtube has changed a lot so I had to. I want this channel to be a place where we can all enjoy the stories of the people and the ASMR sounds.

Please, remember that I am also a person and sometimes the comments affect me (not saying this for you Patrons, but for the people who are rude to me on the internet).

I hope you don't take this post the wrong way, I just want to know your opinion and that you know my thoughts on this issue.

Please, go vote!

PS. I attached two screenshots of the guidelines shown by Youtube.

Thanks for reading.