#Community Update

[pillowfort-social]

Spring 2024 Funding Update

Hi Pillowfolks!

We wanted to take a moment to talk about the status of our funding as we head into the later part of spring 2024. It’s still important to us to ensure we are as transparent as possible to you regarding our finances.

We are very ecstatic to share with our community that thanks to your continuous support we now have enough funding to remain online as a functional platform until at least October 2024.

Rather than sharing only percentages this time we want to present to you the total amount of funding we received from our supporters so far in 2024. These totals include both one-time donations and Pillowfort Premium subscriptions. We need $5,000USD a month for site upkeep and to compensate our Staff.

January 2024: $4,078.58 February 2024: $5,586.22 March 2024: $5,627.57 April 2024: $5,515.81

Note: These numbers are from settled transactions.

And for those who are curious how this compares to our finances in 2023 here is a look at those numbers:

January 2023: $4,416.40 February 2023: $3,774.40 March 2023: $3,827.40 April 2023: $3,703.67

The difference between this year and last year has us cautiously optimistic, which feels great after many months of uncertainty.

It needs to be said again: we continue to be blown away by how our community continues to come together to help us continue to exist. Thank you for continuing to put your trust into our small team. Thank you for continuing to hold us accountable (especially when you let us know when we make a mistake).

We are still planning to update the donation tracker with improved verbiage. We hope that will remove the confusion that donations and Pillowfort Premium subscriptions are separate from our funding goals.

Will there be any Pillowfort Premium Updates?

Promoted Posts and Gifted Subscriptions are still coming this year. We have a bit more information to share regarding Promoted Posts. Promoted Posts will be rebloggable and can be blacklisted. The plan is to have promoted posts be available on a designated page, while also allowing users to choose the option to have promoted posts show up on their home feed.

We are still planning on increasing our Pillowfort Premium prices this year. Before any price changes occur we will consult with the community and take feedback.

Finally, we are going to improve Pillowfort Premium payment notifications so users have a better idea when their renewal is close.

Well, that’s about it for this post. Don’t ever hesitate to ask questions. We will do our best to answer. Stay tuned for future updates! We will provide another funding update next month. -Staff

[faerie-of-faerun]

Very excited to find out what this means!! 👀✨️

[gimmby]

Saw that tumblr add a community thing and decided to make a koitsuki community cause why not.

Hope it gets accepted lmao

[delta-gambit-au]

About creating a community...

Someone motivated me to create a Locals page where to publish and tidy up all the stuff about my AU visual novel. The community is still waiting for approval though...

So far is a good way of keep things tidy and see who really is interested in this AU, and to engage with them in a more personal manner. I don't like Patreon because of how sketchy they have been in the past with people I know, and I don't want to go through the same ordeals as them. That's why my friend suggested me to use Locals now that it supports international communities.

The link to the community is this one but will not be active until Locals deems my community worthy of being published 😅 Is my last card at trying to engage with like-minded Spamton enjoyers that would also like to see my visual novel lifting from the ground.

It also has some sort of FAQ that members can check to get theirs questions about the AU and its development sorted out. I've a mind of posting the FAQ here so that anyone who wonders about my AU after stumbling with my Tumblr can get some things straight without asking me directly.

[revolorilution]

We now have a Twitter Community! If you’re a Twitter user, join us over there! We’d love to chat with you and interact!

Click Here to Join

[exhausted-archivist]

BioWare has put out the first community update of 2023! I'm excited for the behind the scenes look at how they're approaching the development of the User Experience (UX), and a peek at how they're mapping out the skill trees.

It also includes a link to the official Dragon Age discord if you aren't on twitter and want to ask questions. If you are on twitter #AskBioWare is a place to drop questions you hope to have answered.

[rainn-dropz-world]

OG: https://earthliberationstudio.com/shop/reclaim-revolutionary-queerness/ !!!!!

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[luxwing]

Congrats to the TF2 community for finally getting a cosmetic into the game with the trans pride flag hidden on it. About damn time

[konnetwork]

September Recap: Highlights and October Plans for Our Community

Hello everyone! As we wrap up September, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the changes made this month and share some exciting plans for October. Your support and feedback have been incredible, and I’m looking forward to continuing this journey together. Here’s what’s new and what’s coming next! September Highlights This past month has been quite productive! Here are some of the key…

[sayruq]

[pillowfort-social]

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2024 with a Community Update after a very eventful end of 2023. We’ll give you a look at what Staff have been doing behind the scenes, an update from our Developer Team, and a preview of what’s in store for the platform. Community Stats: 

As of January 19, 2024 Pillowfort currently has over 170,467 registered users and over 9,928 Communities. The rest of this post is under the cut.

In 2023 we have…

Avoided shutdown thanks to your generous support.

Launched Pillowfort Premium

Tested and launched Drafts 

Added new premium frames. 

Updated our Terms of Service.

Updated our Business Plan.

Continued work on the PWA & Queue.

Blocked ChatGPT Bots our platform.

Announced our upcoming policy on Generative AI.

Increased weekly invitations keys to from 10 to 50. 

Continued patching bugs. 

Welcome New Users!

Welcome to Pillowfort. We are so glad you are part of our community. If you haven’t yet, check out the Pillowfort101 Getting Started Guide.

Thank you for keeping Pillowfort Alive! 

Your support during the End of Year Fundraiser helped us avoid ending contracts with our Staff and averted the end of our platform for another six months (July 2024). We can not express our gratitude enough to you. This has been an extremely challenging and stressful time for each member of the team. We are going to work hard to keep Pillowfort online. You have motivated us to continue the fight to be a viable platform. You may have noticed that our donation bar has reset to $5,000 at the beginning of January. This number is our monthly operating costs going forward.  Each month in 2024 that we meet our funding goal it will extend Pillowfort’s life past July 2024. 

Generative AI Ban Policy Update

We will be implementing our updated policy regarding Generative AI in the next site update. Prior to when the policy will be implemented we will share with the community what our definition of Generative AI is and our moderation process. 

We're aware that there are concerns about how moderation systems surrounding generative AI have been abused and used for harassment on other sites: we have consulted with experts on how to avoid those issues, and the suite of moderation methods from international universities also assist with identifying harassment. Abuse of reporting systems will be taken seriously by Staff.

End of Year Fundraiser Limited Edition Badge Gift Form

The form for gifting the Limited Edition Badge to other users who couldn’t donate is now live! Click Here to Fill Out the Form. (Note: We’ll be also making a separate Staff Alert with the link as well.)

Updated Business Plan

The Pillowfort Premium subscription model remains our primary answer to generate the necessary funds needed to cover the costs of running our platform. We will continue to offer optional premium features which can be purchased by users a la carte. However, we will be working on completing the following major projects / updates as an expansion of our revenue strategy in the first half of 2024:

Release of the Progressive Web App w/ Push Notifications - The data is very clear that the lack of a mobile app is hindering our overall growth. A PWA will allow our mobile users to experience all the functionality of a native mobile app and will be much easier for our Developer Team to build & maintain than a native app. We also won't have to worry about App Store content restrictions.

Post Promotions & User-Submitted Advertisement Opt-Ins - Users will be able to promote their posts (as advertisements) by paying a fee. No subscription is required to promote a post. By default, this promoted content will only be displayed on a page specifically for viewing promoted content. While this will mean potentially less revenue, it is important to our philosophy to respect our user’s experience and not force advertising on everyone. However, users can opt into viewing promoted content in their home feed, and will receive a discount on premium features for doing so.

Subscription Gifting - Users will be able to purchase subscriptions that can be gifted to other users. Subscriptions can be gifted to a specific other user, or can be added to a communal pool for any unsubscribed users to take from. We will provide special badges for users who gift subscriptions.

Pillowfort Premium Price Increase - We will be adjusting prices to help us fund our overall operating costs. We will notify the community before any price increase is final.

Mobile Pillowfort Premium Frames - Add an option for mobile users to view Pillowfort Premium Avatar Frames in their feeds.

Other Goals for Completion in 2024 (Goals are subject to change)

Release Queue & Scheduling

Rebuild the post image uploader widget.

Rebuild the way notifications are logged & retrieved in the back-end to be more efficient & reduce errors.

Release an Onboarding Guide for new users.

Release Multi-account management/linking.

Add 2-Factor Authentication.

Enable Community Membership Applications.

Release Community Topics/Organization Options.

Help Us Keep the Lights On!

At Pillowfort we do not receive any funding from venture capital or other outside investors because we are committed to keeping our user experience a priority, and not being beholden to outside interests. While this approach allows us to stay true to our ideals and content guidelines, it also presents many challenges to our team in the form of limited resources, personnel, etc.

Our continued survival depends on the generosity of our community. If you are able to, please consider supporting us with a one-time or recurring monthly donation to help keep Pillowfort online. Any money donated to us now will be applied as a credit to your account when we release paid features & benefits in the future.

Bug Bounty Reminder

We are still offering a Bug Bounty. If you find a bug on the site, particularly one that could pose a threat to the security or functionality of the site, contact Staff through our Contact form or directly at info@pillowfort.social. If you are unsure if we received your report, you can send us a DM to the Staff account here, or DM one of our social media channels to check on the status. 

We sometimes do not receive all notifications from users on other social media. DMing the Staff account on Pillowfort to check on the status is the preferred method. 

The first individual to notify us of a certain issue will be eligible for monetary compensation, depending on the severity of the issue found and the information provided.

Abandoned / Modless Communities Transfer 

We are taking Ownership Transfer requests for Abandoned and/or Modless Communities. The form is available here. 

Pillowfort Dev Blog

Follow our very own Developer Blog for the latest updates from Lead Architect & Founder Julia Baritz.

Follow Us on Social Media

Interact with Pillowfort Staff, ask questions, plus learn about upcoming features and more on social media. 

Pillowfort: Staff Pillowfort Dev: PF_dev_blog Bluesky: pillowfortsoc.bsky.social Tiktok: pillowfort.social Instagram: pillowfort.social Facebook: Pillowfortsocial X/Twitter: @pillowfort_soc Tumblr: pillowfort-social Reddit: pillowfort_social Threads: @pillowfort.social

Best,

Pillowfort Staff

[majustudiosco]

¡Prepara tu mochila y tu espíritu aventurero! 🎒 MaJu Studios te invita a un viaje tecnológico en el Community Update

¡Empieza tu viaje hacia el futuro de la tecnología! MaJu Studios te espera en el #CommunityUpdate2024 en Bogotá, del 13 al 14 de agosto. ¡Conoce nuestras soluciones y únete a la comunidad tecnológica! 🤝 #MaJuStudios #Software #Emprendimiento

[thexie-and-stars]

NOTE GOALS

100 notes: I'll start taking care of the places i pinch

500 notes: i'll get back into watercolours

1000 notes: I'll ask my pediatrician about the gender shit

4000 notes: I will start playing guitar again

5000 notes: I'll try making a comic

6000 notes: I will practise the clarinet

7000 notes: I will sactually write a song

8000 notes: I'll get my mum to look into fencing swords

10000 notes: I will stop pinching myself and restricting my eating

only 10 @ mentions per person, but no limit on reblogs and comments

[revolorilution]

Follow Us on Instagram

[Click Here to redirect to our IG]

Working on some fun things to post over there! So far we have our Fan Art Spotlight highlighting fan art on our page via sharing posts from the original source! If you want us to spotlight your art on IG, let us know!

Our main feature will likely be utilizing stories and possibly reels! Picture posts will mostly be for event announcements and aesthetics.