I agree with all of you and think artists and others alike should be able to share their work and allows other to contribute to their passion. Should we just remove the No Ads from the rules? Maybe the answer is to modify the rule. I just to make it clear that I don't want users aimlessly ad spamming the communities.

Middle ground: Put your Patreon link in your bio and point people to it if they're interested in supporting. Comes off a little less spammy.

Though that said, like others mentioned I don't think anyone would truly take offence to an innocuous link. It's low effort, not-in-community-spirit crap that I think people are trying to avoid. Worth shooting a message to admins directly if you want clarity on this.

First - that's beautiful work.

Second - I wish more open source folks would make a distinction between "advertising" and "self-promotion." I've never minded the latter as much as the former.

That said - nuance makes for more argument and difficulty in moderation. It's the same question of "tasteful nude photography" or "porn".

Hmm, I haven't seen any rules that disallow self promotion aside from nsfw. Could you point me to where you're seeing that?

I personally don't mind seeing a link to the artist's patreon or website or whatever on a post, as long as it's not over the top or inserted clearly as an ad for whatever is being sold. I feel like it's OK for that to be there for the people who want to see more of your work or purchase something. What I don't like to see is my feed getting filled with what I perceive as advertisements. So I think there is a happy middle ground.

Posting a quick update: I reached out to one of the admins. We'll see what they say.

Pretty dumb rule to not allow content creators to not link to their own patreon.

This isn't the only instance. You have a bunch more and maybe one maybe OK with linking to patreon. It's probably easier than creating your own instance.

Btw, if you want an instagram alternative that's on the fediverse, try out pixelfed

Agree with others that I believe kbin will welcome you with open arms. Personally, the more artists the better. Having a patreon or some other link to support your work only makes sense. Heck, all the admins ask for donations to keep the instances running. What’s the difference if you do the same?

Come on over to the kbin instance. I see at least one magazine so far and no rules about Patreon links: https://kbin.social/m/art

Personally I would WELCOME you to post your Patreon. It's just a link, it's not an ad or spam. You put a lot of effort into your work and that's only fair. In fact as we push for a more decentralized web, I think it's critical content creators are able to receive funds independently of ads or platforms. Many of my favorite YouTube channels are only possible because of Patreon subscribers.

do you want an art community? Ill add one to my instance, a lot of my work involves tooling for artists, im just neckdeep in AI right now.

There is, of course, a difference between a post that's pure ad, and a post that's art that contains a Patreon link. One provides nothing to the viewer, the other is a normal post with a little self-promotion added.

It's good to err on the side of caution in this, but the admins should really add a note about self-promotion to any rule about ads, to clarify this.

Would love to see more art popping up around here. Just the thing we need.

I'm pretty sure there is instances that would not only welcome you with open arms but even have communities so that you can promote yourself.

Choosing your home instance is the most important step. Or you can choose a neutral instance and use it to post on artist friendly communities that might be hosted on remote instances.

I don’t know about sh.it just.works, but on kbin I doubt anyone would have an issue with you putting a link to your patreon in your content post. It’s not spamming and asking for donations for your work is not an ad either. After all, I see people who post their Steam pages and App Store pages up and no one complains (and that is far closer to an ad).

Why do you think that artists or patreon links aren't welcome?

There's !vart@pathfinder.social (pf-soc allows self-promotion).

!dnd@lemmy.ml, !pathfinder2e@lemmy.ml, or !rpg@lemmy.ml are probably worth looking at, too (lemmy.ml disallows spam and advertising, but many Fediverse instances make distinctions between advertising and "self-promotion").

dnd@lemmy.world (though .world's policy on self-promotion seems to be a little more forceful).

Also maybe look at !ttrpgs@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Finally, others have mentioned kbin.sopcial, and there's !RPG@kbin.social, but if you create an account there, you can also hit up #TTRPG and #DND (as well as #art and other visual art and design hashtags) on the microblog/"Mastodon" side of the Fediverse without juggling multiple websites.

I'd say make a community and I'm sure others will join. Cool artwork by the way

This is dope. Our dnd master uses a lot of influence from art like yours. He would love this

If you're in a position to ask the mods directly, I do think that's a good idea. It seems like a lot of places have had broad, sweeping policies trying to keep ordinary advertisers away, and norms about individuals like you or even just smaller operations haven't been worked out.

It's not quite the same, but I really liked this (very long, sorry) Mastodon thread specifically about how there's a lot of unexplored potential approaches to "commercial entities on the fediverse," and how we might be able to set some good rules and community norms. It might be too focused on Mastodon and on larger companies for your use, but perhaps it will be a helpful input?

https://universeodon.com/@siderea/110488978072270532

This post could have been a message to the admins. Just contact them, ask if you could have a community for the kind of art you sell and how you plan to keep it from being/becoming too spammy with the links.