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Restructure: Feedback wanted (Patreon)

Published:
2020-02-05 21:16:30
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Dear Patrons,

Now that the family have gone back to school doing this full time is sinking in. Thanks to all of your for your generous support and making it possible. It's time to move things along with the previously mentioned restructure. A summary of the video:

$1 tier

Name in the credits, behind the scenes posts and videos here.

$5 tier

Access to Discourse message board. This is Patron connected and automated. Post up your projects or your issues for community help. This is not paid technical support from me but like now I'll do my best to help. We can have any sections you guys are interested in. This would replace the community section here which is very difficult to administer.

$10 tier

Twice a month video hangouts. The timing of these can be negotiated and scheduled to suit various time zones. We can discuss your projects, hobbies, issues and upcoming/prospective content on the channel. Fast internet finally coming any day I hope!

I think this structure adds rather than takes away for tier rewards, but is easier for me to look after.

Please let me know you feedback!

Michael

Files

Previews only

bs015 restructure

Buy quality and affordable filament from X3D. Buy 3, get 1 free and a free sample pack with every order: www.x3d.com.au Take a look around and if you like what you see, please subscribe. Support me on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/teachingtech

Comments

Brandon Wolfe

Wow!!!! Twice a month video hangout for $10 tier. That’s pretty darn generous. That’s usually at a $100 tier level :) :) Your content only gets better and better, I feel incredibly lucky to be in a position to where I can help support. Thanks for all your hard work!

3D Gaz

All sounds good to me. I'm on the $1 tier so you are right I'm interested in supporting what you do but for $1 don't expect much in return. All the best as you ramp up your business.

Kyle

Cool! Is the discourse active now or soon to be?

Teaching Tech
>>32134593

It's parked so all I have to do is setup tier levels after feedback here. Looking forward to having proper notifications and an 'unread' section.

Teaching Tech
>>32132924

One of my goals this year was to have more community engagement. Been a guest on two live streams so far, this is a logical progression.

Peter Richards

Discourse I read initially as Discord!

Peter Richards

All sounds good to me, thanks for going with a forum solution that isn't Facebook, as I have ended up not being able to support some other Patreon accounts where they basically moved all discussion to FB. The written guides sound great, everyone always has their own weird blend of parts when modding printers, and yeah, I lost count of trying to find the relevant BL-Touch parts inside of various videos. As for content, I'd like to see a bit more on affordable non-3D printer tech, like laser cutters, vinyl cutters, and fun arduino/atmega type stuff, like a UV meter or one of those cool Zen Sand Tables and stuff that incorporates computer control of motors.

Teaching Tech
>>32135646

I'd like to cover more Arduino stuff and will be looking to do so in the future. I'm finally going to make a video on recycling 3D printer mainboards for Arduino projects. In fact, the magnetic stirrer will be run from a Creality Melzi 1.1.3.

Luiz Felipe Cardoso

Awesome, Michael! I'm hitting that $10 tier as soon as it's available.

Corinne McConkle

I love all your videos. I have learned so much from you and I thank you so much for that. Your videos are always thorough and well edited. I like your proposed new structure. Keep up the great work.

Phil Maddox

No doubt ill be the grumpy old man of the group but would suggest you be very careful in your choices . Anybody who's ever been in a similar situ will know that the web site, discourse et al, along side YT can be a massive drain on your time . I get your sense of responsibility to your Patreons but, I for one, support you because your you and i like your way of doing things. My vote would be for a one-stop shop website that has what you need and a forum ( that others could help you manage and police) I doubt very much that you want to spend your time answering the seemingly endless " my ender 3 doesn't work" help requests. Bit selfish here but i dont want you distracted from the classic reviews and excellent tech info you provide. Good luck

Teaching Tech

Hi Phil, your feedback is very welcome, and I take your point well. Apart from the website, which I see as a bonus for the public but essentially started as a way for me to streamline my affiliate links and contacts, I'm already doing the other stuff. Currently that is through PMs and the community post section, which are hard to manage. Discourse is integrated with Patreon so anytime someone comes or goes it's all automatic. I definitely agree seeking help from others as moderators, etc is a great idea. I've thought long and hard about this with sustainability as a primary focus.

Mark Durbridge

As a 'My Ender3 doesn't work' requester I was actually about to write that I love the idea of a video session to try and understand elements of 3Dp that will help me resolve my issues. One of the big issues I have is as you learn this stuff the YT, blogs etc are useful and more often than not helpful, but you can lose days if not weeks to it and its not like you can pop in your local 3D Printer shop to resolve them. THAT SAID... I will agree Phil has a point and I also wouldn't want to see the mod vids, etc slow down, so I do agree there is a risk of draining your time. Maybe you could partner with some of your smarter Patreon's to handle the Video Hangouts side (or even 1 of 2) to support.

Teaching Tech

I'm certainly open to that, we have a good brains trust in here.

JAYTEE

Thanks for the update Michael this is all great stuff and I hope it doesn't wear you to thin. Keep up the great work. Cheers, JAYTEE

EmE Creative LaB

That sounds great Mike! I hope you are doing great! Keep it up and let's do some projects with the CNC and laser cutter. Follow me on social media as EmECreativeLaB Cheers Mario

Brandon Wolfe
>>32144098

I love that idea. A way for community members to interact with some of the more advanced members to resolve some issues or trouble shoot , then release a post of sorts on whether the issue was resolved or not and all the steps taken. TT has a good opportunity to really create a working community, and that excites me quite a bit!!! TT has been pretty much my go to source for everything for a ton of material over the last... 2 years now. I doubt I’d have gotten as far as I am now without his videos. I’d love to be able to pass on my experience to help others in a community setting!! Great idea!!

Phil Maddox
>>32144098

I genuinely meant no disrespect to any " i need help" with my printer people. The lord knows i got great help when i was starting out. Its just all to often the same old same old from people who cant be bothered to do research and find resolutions to issues that have, 95% of the time, already been documented & resolved. Even the trusty old rep rap forums are a great place of knowledge . I have recently joined a couple of Discourse servers on 3D modeling and they are a pretty good place to ask questions and learn so id certainly like to see that happen for teaching tech. Cheers

Phil Maddox
>>32142069

All good here Thanks. Looking forward to the discourse server where we can keep in touch

Caleb Cox

I agree with everyone else that a Discourse message board sounds like a great idea. I've always thought the tiers you have were good and this definitely makes sense. =]

Charles Beshaw

A message board sounds great. Information by topic will be much better than the present community posts. It has been helpful but one has to scroll all the way through until specific info is found. Yes people like me need tech support, but when many can pitch in, it lightens the load for you. Tech support could very quickly become your full time job. Your focus needs to be on the videos that keep us in the know about current "tech, upgrades and reviews about what works and what doesn't." Keep up the great work Michael.

mooklepticon

I don't care about my name being in the credits. I'm a $1 sub. I just wanna help out more than watching does.

David Rolling

I echo Phil’s advice - think long and hard about sustainable for the longterm. Need to avoid over extending and burnout. I am a fan of the live streams structured around a specific project. Consider projects more sophisticated than setting up a new printer. I’d like to see projects with enough meat to possibly warrant splitting it over two live streams. Twice monthly seems aggressive (but I’m old like Phil and Spike). While it is probably to late I’d recommend you look at Slack. I subscribe to a couple Podcasts that host discussion forums (for premium members) in Slack. The host typically creates several sub-Slack channels allowing for mulitple focused discussions. Slack has good clients for all mobile platforms and computer OSes which easily keep track of the activity since last reading plus good search capabilities. This is obviously a vote for community peer-to-peer support. I really appreciate your contributing the files to the community at large. It is also a strong hook to gain subscribers (YT and Patreon). You past content encouraged me to subscribe mainly to support your continued work. On the subject of names in credits ... you really need to slow down the scroll speed. While I don’t subscribe to see my name in your video it is a nice thing you do. There is no reason the scrolling can not last longer than your lead out. Consider just appending a music sound track allowing for slower scrolling of the names. I’m excited about your ideas of combining different aspects of your interests. RaspberryPi plus 3D printed parts plus _______ can make for very compelling projects (and YT content). I’ll give you an example - I’m looking for a design of a rubbish bin spring loaded flag that would pop up when the bin is empty by the trash collectors. Rather than wondering if they have come by yet I want to simply look out at the street for a popped up flag. A nice combination of 3D printing, coil energy, and clever design (the flag can’t get in the way of emptying the bin and needs to hold up to physical abuse. I’m interested in clever ideas and solutions you come up with for problems submitted by subscribers.

James Robinson

David was spot on! (shout out to David, Phil and Spike-Can I join the old mans club? ;-)) I don't have much else to add as far as suggestions David, Phil and Brandon said all I would have. (except for the "Slack" thing just because I have never seen or used it) I also subscribed due to your content and willingness to be a help to the community. I will probably jump up a level to get the added benefits (even though I probably wont have the time to join to many of the live stuff but will want the option when I can!). Keep up the great work and condolences on for your fur-babies (i just lost one this weekend). You two new family members are very cute congrats on them!

Tomasz Paluszkiewicz

I like the direction this community is heading to. Discourse is a spot-on decision in my opinion. I might as well join "the grumpies", because there is something to the way this community section of patreon work that make my guts twist whenever I have to visit it. So much so, that I basically stopped coming. So the Discourse will be a nice, fresh change. As for the hangouts, I too think that twice a month might be too much and once would be just fine. Also, as an alternative to hangouts (because people might not want to share their gmail addresses) you might consider using TeamSpeak (which also has permission system and you could even host your own TS server on the same VPS you're running Discourse off - that is if you've taken the community version of it) or maybe even Discord for a quick voice session with Patreons. Slack is nice, used it, but IMHO less fit for the TT community role and waaay overpriced. There are free alternatives / clones: Mattermost, for example, but still: this is only a chat.....

Tyler Zlatkus

This all sounds great. I'm happy you aim to make things better for everyone and yourself all the time. You have my support.

Neil Rosenberg

Michael, you are one of the true "heroes" of the 3d printer community, I am pleased to increase my support to the $5 level. I hope you can continue to balance all of the demands on your time and still be able to occasionally unwind and recharge your battery! Thanks for all you do.

Mark Burrs

I think for many people the value of support is found in keeping great content like yours going and being able to be heard in the crowd. The higher the support the closer they get to you, your expertise and knowledge. I think your plan is spot on. If you look at some of the comments in YouTube videos you get the sense that people are coming to you for specific answers to their project questions but don't realize what someone with 100k viewers must deal with on a daily basis. I look forward to the Discourse space. I have questions. :)

Andrew Joy

Michael, I've been a professional classical musician privileged to make it to the upper echelons in Germany. Now retired. A 3D hobby enthusiast. I was immediately struck by the excellent content and quality of your video presentations. Went straight for the $10. It's also a bonus for me to hear your Oz accent.