Concerning the recent "Job Role expansion" Patreon Goal

Hello everyone,

Nemekh here to discuss a recent point of contention over a change that happened along with the addition of the First Brood tier - the Job Role expansion goal. 

I have recently removed the goal from Patreon. This is not because expanding to more jobs isn't happening, but due to the wording of the goal being insufficient and unclear. The ambiguity that arose from what at the time was a quick and unfortunately short-sighted edit to the old "Bahamut Emoji" goal, has raised concerns from various parts of the community. As such, this post will further clarify the matter.

My purpose is not to tie content behind Patreon money. Not now and not ever. For several years all of the information my colleagues and I have published both as caster resources and theorycrafting from Allagan Studies has been free for all for years, with an adamant belief that none of our information is ever to be gated behind a paywall. 

The previously listed goal could be interpreted as "when we get enough money we'll add x!" when the reality is that the tank role already was in the works of being added to the site. That content getting made was already in the pipeline and always has been. It is not being transposed from another source, but being written anew. Tanks are next on the horizon.

The old goal was edited after researching means to improve patreon listings and its edit was to gauge and garner interest in support for the website and what we do. This was done poorly and with haste. For that, I am sorry. Future goals being listed here will have a much greater care into the optics of how well they will be received. 

I always consider the "Cost, Time, Quality" triangle, or “Scope” triangle. If you want a project to be done quickly and be of quality, it will cost more. If you want things to be of quality and cost less, it will take more time. This is why you employ professionals. If you have a project finished quickly and want it to not cost much, chances are the quality will not be ideal. I do not want to ever settle for subpar quality in our work, which leaves the matter of time and finances. While I'd love to be able to deliver all of the content as quickly as possible, it's a simple reality that projects with properly planned milestones and finances will go faster. 

It takes time to create, format and test new content before going live, and even when live, chances are there will be more things to fix. I do try to address things as soon as they become known; however, it takes me much longer to address technical fixes than if I were to delegate said items to development. Their understanding of the templating and framework are much more knowledgeable, given that they wrote everything from scratch from my specifications. As time goes on, I hope that as we iron the kinks out with newer additions future content will not only have fewer issues, but also will have these issues be resolved much more efficiently and in a more timely manner, while still releasing quality content. 

Our Content Management System is currently being changed to be accessible to contributors without them having to learn how to parse the framework's nuances and templating. This means that their ability to update and change content will be seen directly on our staging server, without the risk of errors and pages failing to compile due to incorrect indentation and typos. The bespoke CMS was quoted at 6 hours of professional development time. As someone with much less experience with Liquid, trying to implement it alone would take weeks. 

This is an example of where support makes a genuine difference in accelerating updates and functionality to the site.

That's how we come back to Patreon, and to you, AkhMorning's supporters.

No content is being withheld due to support or funding. Nothing will ever be paywalled. Your support goes back directly into features being released in an expedient manner. More has been achieved in months than would have been achieved in years -- and this is all thanks to you. As we grow, I am better able to say thanks to you and our team in a way that you all truly deserve. For that, I am eternally grateful.

I hope this helps clarify matters and leads to a better understanding of our future goals and plans. With this in mind, as of the start of September and the start of all subsequent months, AkhMorning will be outlining next steps along the roadmap for the current month to keep you up to date on where things are heading.

Our plans are not set in stone, and with your input and support, will adapt as necessary. They are a part of our dialogue and conversation with the community about how we want the site and community to grow moving forwards. We will also have non-binding polls for Patrons about what they would like to see prioritised. While this cannot currently be done on the main site yet due to development requirements, we aim to give everyone the option to participate in the feedback process via polling. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any more questions or feedback, please contact us here, in the Discord, or at feedback@akhmorning.com

~Nemekh