Change to the Drydock

I'm a long time viewer who just signed up to your Patreon primarily because I'd like to ask questions and not have to carefully keep track of which video I posted them on. I also watch your live streams, and I think that the new format would work well for video questions. I can scarcely imagine how you find the time to do all of this on top of holding down a day job and a personal life, so whatever you can do that makes it possible for you to continue doing it is okay with me!

William H Burke III

Secondary thoughts, as a good number of the Drydock questions are alternative history related would it be easier to take a pick of those from here and comments and make an alternative history special every few months, and have Drydock focused on reality? Im a huge fan of alternative history thiught experiments and would personally love some more dedicated videos of them and would totally support waiting a few months to have a chunk of them in one vid.

Ive never been much of a fan of live streams, nothing against them, they just dont hold my interest. Being said I should and will give yours a chance. I adore the length of the drydocks as its great to listen to while at work or doing projects or on a drive but I am shocked at the length of them given how much time you must spend working on them, so I am fully supportive of cutting them down, limiting questions etc to ease the workload on you. Ill gladly stay on the channel for as long as youre producing videos as this channel is whats turned on my intrest of naval history rather than my usual of aircraft and armour. Please do what is best for your schedule and your investment on effort and time as I would sincerly hate to see this channel go under, as there are no others of the quality and level as yours.

I really like the idea of having a session of answering questions from the most recent videos, but the livesterams have not really gained my enthusiasm so far. Dedicate and hour or so of the drydock to the videos of last week and then go to some patreon maybe? Like in the old days with Discord questions. Then again, just my opinion. And if the live streams get a bit better, more coherent and less interrupted my opinion might change. and: it's your channel. You do as you please.

I would second the notion of not answering questions that require very long answers, especially if they are hypotheticals and/or you are doing a wednesday special to the same or a closely related topic anyway. point in case would be the Bismarck question in DD 092: Answering that question took a while of, stole your thunder for the upcoming wednesday special and still left much unsaid -after all that is the reason for the answer being its own special episode in the first case.

Peredar

I've just subscribed, mostly cause i felt i should given i watch avidly. I'd agree with both above. I think time limiting the drydock and cutting questions down to, you know ONE question would be the way forward, people that ask these questions with as many parts as the US constitution are taking the wee. I have no issue with long drydocks they are great background noise to listen to, but do what you feel you need to, its your channel.

As a patreon for well over a year now - I’d like you to know how impressed I am with your ability to keep up with the demands of the channel. I was thinking to myself last July that this current rate of growth is unsustainable.. (patreon question wise) But here we are 10 months later. And quality has only gone up. Kudos to you. I’m thrilled to see the general concern for your health and well being in the comments. Since this is the majority of what I wanted to say I will leave you with this suggestion. The “questions” that have 4 different parts and a doctoral thesis have to go. I enjoy seeing others in the pursuit of knowledge.. But there needs to be a limit. Anything you deem unreasonable should be sent over to the ‘deep dive video’ que to wait its turn.

Please do keep your long game in mind. I'm sure I speak for many when I say that I look forward to your productions, for years to come. It's far simpler to adjust on the speaker end of this exchange than it is on the microphone end. Do what's best for your long term goals for the station. Cheers!

good changes. don't burn out!

I don't mind long dry docks, they normally take a couple of days to get through. What's more important, what works best for you? To create and edit a five hour episode can't be easy.

Elliott W James

I would say just switch it from a question per a month to one every two months (maybe every three months if that works better), as mentioned by others already. That way the regular viewers still get their bit, and the Patreon Drydock can be shortened some, since I don't think every Patreon asks a question per month anyways. That would cause the least amount of disruption to the channel routine while still solving the issue of super long Patreon Drydocks. Whatever works best though.

Speaking for myself I don't mind the very long patreon drydocks. If I don't have time to watch them in a sitting, I just watch them in two halves. What would happen to all the many hundreds of already asked questions on the vids?