Lets talk about the Poll(s) situation... (Patreon)

Well, today has been a wild ride. 

Over the last few hours I have read about 400 Patreon comments and several hundred discord comments and DMs. A lot of them asking us to "Fix the Poll Problem". So the anticipated next step, is for me to come in here and present a perfect solution, everyone agrees and is happy, and we carry on.... But, I just can't. It is just too much to process, too much to consider, and even if it solves one issue - it'll just create another.  The approach we have today, is based on months of planning and trial and error. So right now, the best I can do is lift the veil, and show you what we do and why. 

WHY DISCORD?
This is actually very simple. BTS content is a never-ending web of options, and so there needed to be some rules and a place to moderate those rules. What exactly defines a personality video, or an interview? Can it be any length? What about songs? Can it be a cover, a collab? Live performance, Lyric Vid, Focus Cam? Can I post 5 of my favorite videos? The questions kept coming and to try and stay organized, it was best to set some restrictions. Organization is key for us. We know others may watch at Random, but it was the best way we found to keep track of everything. Even if it isn't perfect.  Our team of moderators help maintain that on Discord, and it would be difficult to do so anywhere else. 

THAT SAID, we are constantly evolving and looking for new ideas. I already spent hours today researching other ways to get more people involved on the submissions. Discord is the only other place to grant exclusive access to our patrons. All submissions done on discord, are by Patrons who are also on discord. It is NOT a public server. But If someone out there has an idea, of how we can gather hundreds of submissions and pick 5 from those to put on a poll, please send them our way. We'd love to gain new insight, and I do truly mean this. 

A COUPLE OF SIDE NOTES: 

Patreon Exclusive - For the videos that are Patreon exclusive, just like the Album Review song poll, we try to look for videos that would be blocked on youtube or even paid content. Otherwise if it CAN go on youtube, than the Patreon exclusive will be an early access video, and eventually it'll make it's way to youtube. 

Members Only - Up until now, for birthday polls there was never a rule dictating that the video should ONLY include that member. We saw a lot of comments about the vLive winning. The fact that it was submitted, upvoted into the top 5, AND won the Patreon poll, tells me that a large majority of people are ok with having Jimin in this video, and also ok with us watching this vLive that takes place after a concert we haven't seen. But that being said, these are new things we are going to take into consideration for future BDAY weeks. 

MOD TEAM - And Finally, I wanted to take a minute to clear up the role of our admin/mod team over on discord when it comes to polls. When people submit their request, the mods make sure that the video falls in line with that category and that rules are upheld (i.e. One submission per person, time limits, etc). They do this for every poll and afterward after people have a chance to upvote their choices, our admin goes through and manually finds the top 5 most voted submissions to put on a poll. And the most voted on discord doesn't always win the Patreon poll btw. But at no point, do the mods or admin curate this list for us, or apply their own opinions and preferences. If anything, they may notice oddities in the final 5 (P1 and P2 of the same interview being 2 different submissions), but since it was the most voted they push it through regardless, to be as UNBIAS and as fair as possible. I know we all have our biases and opinions so that job is NOT easy and yet they do it consistently. So if you notice a submission you don't understand, just know it was submitted and voted in by a large number of people, not a select few. 

PLEASE READ - NEXT STEPS

I have gone ahead and disabled the comments on the last 2 polls. I think enough has been said about them. We do still have 2 HOBI videos left to be picked for his birthday week, but we have made the decision to select them ourselves based on comments we've seen in the past or old submissions. If we get stuck on one, we may do a poll, otherwise we will surprise you all on the week of. We just need to take a break from these for a little bit. Let's get back to the basics, sitting down, and having a blast watching BTS shock the world. 

I'll be in the the DM's to answer any questions, but will take a little bit of personal time off first. Thanks for understanding

-CCW
Daniel, Summer, Abigail, Gabriel