I’m cutting off my member!

Now, you likely know that Max, my neighbours son, looks after the technology here at the enormous corporate entity that is FionaDobson.com. Max is a sweet boy, and Marjory is rightly very proud of him.

I was sitting in my kitchen just the other morning glancing through the list of new people who have recently joined my patreon, and looking back at some old data. It’s quite normal for someone to have joined the website in 2016, stayed around a while, and then unsubscribed. They then pop up in a mailing list two or three years later. And then sometime later they show up on Patreon. It builds a fascinating picture.

Looking at some of the oldest email addresses, I can see that some have bounced or haven’t opened an email in a year or two.

“We should probably clean up these old email addresses,” I said to Max, as he stared at his screen.

“But what about the members that go in and out, and then in again?” replied Max.

“I am sure many of my members go in and out frequently,” I replied.

“They seem to,” said Max, absorbed in the data and oblivious to the double entendre.

“Some people are just not quite sure if this is for them,” I replied. “And others have yet to accept it as a part of themselves. It takes them a little while to realise it’s not going…