> Maybe it’s due to the projects I’m sponsoring, but I always had a feeling of “if you’re writing these posts just for us, please don’t bother and just enjoy writing code”.

Note that Patreon isn't just for code. These posts make way more sense where your funding a blogger, podcaster or similar.

I have that problem with a lot of charities, they send junk mail and sometimes personalized emails. Stop wasting your time.

Wasn't Patreon involved in some scandal regarding censorship of uncomfortable people or something?

Edit: It was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon#Bans_of_specific_users

I think the term uncomfortable people is a flippant and trivial term when it comes to the details listed in that link.

You do not have to agree with a person's opinions to see the value in defending their right to express them. I would pre-empt a discussion on whether or not Patreon has exhibited political bias in its bans. Instead, consider that Sam Harris also believes this. Is Sam Harris somehow also an alt-right taboo character? Surely not.

It seems you're referring to Lauren Southern (as that was apparently who Harris defended), who Patreon removed for using the funds she was raising there to block NGO ships.

Is your position that (contrary to Patreon's judgement) this was not an act that put lives at risk, or that she is entitled to use their platform to put lives at risk as a matter of her free speech?

Patron is not obligated to serve anyone (besides protected classes).

You are perhaps trying to imply that patron is such a large monopoly that there is no viable alternative to which I would respond that patrons monopoly should be addressed directly (treat the cause not the symptom.)

To be clear - are you talking about this section or also including the following one (the crackdown on sex workers)? As far as I know, Sam Harris has defended the right of Lauren Southern to express herself on Patreon by raising funds to attack ships in the Mediterranean, but has not defended the rights of sex workers to express themselves on Patreon by posting "NSFW" (a misnomer, because Patreon is not usually a workplace tool) content.

So I'm not sure if Sam Harris is an alt-right taboo character, but I would claim that he is politically biased in what sort of speech rights he defends.

NSFW means not safe for work: material that you couldn't bring to the workplace. A porno magazine is NSFW even outside the workplace.

I sense you're making a false equivalence between explicit photographic material and political opinions. I think it is all right to remove sexual content, if that is your desire as a platform. It's a very different can of worms from political censorship.

As for Sam Harris, I have not heard him speak one way or the other on the topic. I think your argument sounds like attacking somebody critical to China because they were not critical over your favorite issue.

“Naked human bodies unacceptable making sure human bodies drown to death acceptable” seems like a rather odd line.

Nope, not that at all. That would be putting words into someone's mouth. Harris has made no comment on Sex Work/ers, nakedness, or the like.

Running a quick ddg search returns:

No results found for site:samharris.com sex

Though, if anyone can quote him to the contrary, I'm happy to hear it and change my mind.

> explicit photographic material

Which the sex workers would refer to as their job. If we really want to talk about equivalency, one side wants to air their opinion about some matter, and on the other side are a bunch of people who just want to be able to work and get paid today.

People constantly view pornography solely from a consumption perspective. Yes, not being able to get porn on Patreon is a trivial problem for consumers. Not being able to produce porn is a serious problem for the creators.

Frankly, politics is probably a lot more poisonous to Patreon than porn is. Porn is usually quiet, they don't jam it in people's faces. Politics is all about saying controversial things for air time, which is going to cause them never ending headaches.

Lauren Southern is a nazi.

Wasn't that because of their payment processors? What are you supposed to do when your supplier doesn't allow that type of content?

I think if you read the Wikipedia link you will find that it was not because of their payment processor, as far as I can tell.

The distinction is audience context. Patreon is a sponsor focused audience. Everything else is just informational and of declining value to the code authors. Github is the opposite.

That distinction is so important to the people writing the code. People make all kinds of requests like the sky is falling in. Sometimes there is chest thumping or big tears about how their concern is more important than everything else even if it is a major distraction and irrelevant to the road map. Unfortunately, that sort of stupidity amplifies as projects become more popular. I guess I am fortunate in that case since I am a nobody.

If people want to cut to the front of the line and dictate the importance of their concerns they can do so in a sponsor-only channel prioritized by money pledged. I am a huge fan of that.

Agreed, but a middle balance could be met, such as the ability to vote on feature and bug fix priorities. You get the benefit of having a say in something that was already going to be worked on and the developer doesn't need to waste time on stuff that doesn't matter. All it would do is shuffle the order.