My next project + Vote on the future of my Patreon!

THE IMPORTANT BIT: Vote on the future of my Patreon via 👉THIS SURVEY 👈. Thank you thank you! 💖

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Thank you so much for all the replies to my previous post! If you recall, it was a mix of existential dread + 11 project ideas.

...I figured out my next project idea!

As with all my major life decisions, I used a spreadsheet. A row for each project, a column for each decision criteria, each cell a rating from 0 to 5. (This is the one useful tip I remember from Thinking Fast & Slow)

Quantum Computing In Playable Pictures and Statistics Without The Excruciating Pain were big runner-ups – I still wanna make 'em someday! – but the winner right now is clear:

An all-in-one, free, online, open-source voice training app for trans/non-binary folk!

I personally want to androgynize my voice, I'd learn the Web Audio API + the physics of voice, it'd give me an excuse to collaborate with my many queer friends, and doing this project actually seems like fun. (Besides: every existing voice-training app I've tried so far was crucially flawed in two or more ways. An itch in this niche.)

Here's a screenshot of my first prototype, with in-browser spectrogram!

And here's a GIF of a more recent prototype:

Hang on, my anxiety wolf (their name's Hofstadter, coz talking to a sub-agent in my mind is a strange loop) wants to say something:

Thanks Hof, that's a fair concern! I know the whole revelation in my last post was "hey, maybe my own needs & values should have a higher coefficient in my moral utility function", but I feel like what I'm making should be a bit valuable to, y'know, the ~1200 people funding me to make it. (i.e you) So, this Voice Trainer app will be simultaneously released with another project:

An explanation of the physics of sound + voice! (this is a part of the voice-training, anyway)

Waves! Spectrograms! Fourier transforms! Formants! Fricatives! Resonance! Psycho-acoustics of gender perception! I've spent hours looking at disgusting videos of people's vocal cords, so it better be worth it.

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This Patreon is, thanks to your love, my full source of income. 💖

We're coming up on my Patreon's 5-year anniversary! This started in December 2014. It was right after Vi Hart & I released Parable of the Polygons, which got unexpectedly popular, so Vi said "oh dang Nicky you oughta bank on this before the social media cycle forgets it". So I hastily slapped some rewards together... and my Patreon's been the same ever since.

Since 5 years ago. Some stuff's changed since then:

• Patreon + payment processor fee increases.
• Patreon UI changes. (Patreon's new interface makes it seem like you can't pledge outside of the non-sold-out reward tiers.)
• Good ol' monetary inflation.
• I realized my rewards were seriously un-scaleable. (The last batch of Hand-Drawn Peeps took me longer to fulfil than actual explorables I've made like Fireflies, Attractors, and Sight & Light)

But, I've always been reluctant to change the Patreon tiers, because:

But recently I reconsidered, because a couple patrons themselves reached out to me suggesting I increase the tiers.

However, I still want to be fair, so I'll leave the future of this Patreon up to... you! Let's have a vote! (SURVEY HERE & link again later) For inspiration, I looked at the Patreons of creators I adore. Here's some changes I'm considering:

Possible NEW Patron-Exclusive Rewards???

(Why not "yes" to all? The downside of each is they'll take varying amounts of time to implement)

• 💬 Discord chat secret club. Basically every other Patreon I know now does this.
• 🤖 "What's Nicky Learning?" A monthly review of papers, books, videos, etc I've "consumed" + skills I'm trying to learn.
• 📹 A monthly vlog.
• 📹 Monthly Q&A Livestreams.
• 🚮 Access to weekly "builds", no matter how WIP or incomplete.
• 🖼 Laptop/phone wallpapers. A scaleable but artsy reward!
• ❤️Different your-name-in-credits rewards. For example, $2/mo: your name in a Wall of Thanks on my site. $5/mo: your name's highlighted in gold. $10/mo: your name in in-game credits, etc. (Many YouTubers have different tiers for on-website vs in-video-description vs in-video credits)
• 💙Discord name rewards. e.g. at some level your Discord username gets a flair or rainbow colors or something?
• 📓 Photos from my sketchbook. Lots of terrible handwriting and scribbled designs for future/past projects. (If any pics have "spoilers", I'll clearly mark them and put them behind a link.)
• ⏰ 24-hour early access to new stuff before launch. I'm honestly surprised I don't already do this.

Possible Changes to EXISTING Patreon Rewards???

• Drop the $1 "just a thank you" tier? On one hand, the $1 tier doesn't do anything, and there may be an "anchor effect" bringing the avg pledge down. On the other hand, I don't want to discourage & exclude folks with less disposable income?
• Drop the "$10 Hand-Drawn Peep" tier, or increase it to $50/mo? Of course, if I do this, I'll fulfil all backlog Peeps first. Maybe open up some new slots so anyone who missed it before can get it before it's gone! Coz, this reward turned out to be completely un-scaleable, and at its current pledge level, it always sells out, so people always feel left out.
• A bunch of high, you're-awesome-thank-you-but-there's-no-actual-extra-reward-here tiers. Coz Patreon's annoying new interface makes it seem like if there's no tier at a certain amount, you CAN'T pledge at that amount. 

I can't decide! Or rather, I've decided I want you to decide. So, vote here:

👉 THE FUTURE OF NICKY'S PATREON: DEMOCRATIZED 👈

Also: next month, I'll finally make a Patreon video. Five years late. Coz Patreon's new UI truncates my "About This Page" text by default, so my lack of video is a big detriment now. Ugh.

Also x2: you may remember the many Patreon PR scandals the past couple years. While I still deeply appreciate Patreon, I think it's best if I set up a few alternatives. Eggs & baskets etc. I'll set up a Ko-Fi for one-time pledges, and I may consider Github Sponsors.

Either way, thank you for reading this, for helping me figure out how to move forward, and thank you so so so much for supporting me – gifting me the financial stability, and thus creative autonomy, to keep making weird and hopefully-helpful stuff.

Here's to 5 more years, and beyond! 🍺💕🍺

<3,    
~ Nicky