Alright everyone... I guess it's time to address the elephant in the room.
As many of you may or may not have noticed: our Patreon was offline from January 16th to January 19th (or 3 days). This is because we received a temporary suspension. From what I understand... this happened for two reasons:
• Certain unsavory conversations that were occurring on our Discord server, aka people discussing subjects that are contrary to Patreon Guidelines — when I say "people," I do not mean us. Honestly, I didn't even realize that discussing something could be a violation of said guidelines. Needless to say, this was my mistake for allowing it to happen.
• Links to our Patreon on certain third-party sites that also linked to some unsavory content — yes, I'm talking about third-party websites that actually steal our content. Sites that we are in no way affiliated with. I was rather caught off guard upon learning that this was an issue.
As you can see, we are back and everything, for the moment, is fine. But I need to talk about this... because the situation brought to light a rather alarming prospect:
You see, our page has been reviewed before... and it always comes back clean/has never been a problem. This time though, they went a step further and took us offline for the duration of the review. Roughly 90% of our income is tied to Patreon. Without it, we wouldn't have the funding to continue the project. If Patreon one day just decided that our content is no longer fit for this website, they could erase us from the platform and there'd be nothing we could do about it.
If that day ever comes we're going to need your help more than ever. Here's how you can help in the event that something happens to our Patreon:
1. Be aware of our other support pages:
SubscribeStar is our primary alternative to Patreon. Much like Patreon, we have $5, $10, $20, $35, $50, and $100 tiers over there. Those tiers come with the same exact benefits, with the only real differences being the site's aesthetic and more lax guidelines (plus they've never suspended us, lol). If you do not want to switch right now, please bookmark them so you can find us if something happens in the future!
2. Join our Discord server:
If this page were ever to go offline, this would be our only real way to communicate with you all and let you know what's happening. Furthermore, for those of you who have no other alternatives to PayPal, we could actually set up a tiered payment system through Discord that allows PayPal payments! It would include the same exact content as you're getting here on Patreon, with the only difference being that you'd need to sign into the app rather than signing into this website. Speaking of that, Discord works both on mobile and PC! In fact, I greatly prefer Discord's PC app to its Mobile app.
3. Keep a record of our email address:
All of you can reach us at [email protected]. If this page ever went "poof," please do not hesitate to reach out through email for help on how to find us so that you can continue supporting us.
4. Consider supporting us elsewhere proactively:
Personally, I love Patreon and would like to remain in good standing with them... so I'm rather sad that I even have to say this: but the suspension we received felt like it took days off my life... every single day that I had to wait for a response filled me with immense stress and anxiety. While I will do my best to ensure the "dreaded day" never comes and I have no intention of being anything but compliant with Patreon's Guidelines: I'd like to ask a favor: to those of you who are able/willing to switch — please consider jumping over to SS sooner rather than later. Simply put, their more laid back guidelines allows us a sense of security that Patreon doesn't. Before you attempt to make the switch, however, please keep in mind that SS doesn't allow payment through PayPal.
Alright, that's everything! I wanted to say I'm sorry for any inconvenience this situation may have caused you guys, and for your inability to access your benefits while our page was offline. Please do not worry: while Patreon has always been our main funding platform and losing it would be a massive blow to us financially... if something were to happen to it... we would do our utmost to ensure we're able to continue the project, as creating Radiant means the world to us.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and for everything you've done for us. I will be updating the progress tracker and posting a new progress report to both Patreon and SS soon. See you guys then!
P.S. you can find all relevant links and keep up to date with us here.