The downside of the big numbers is dealing with nonsense from fools with nothing better to do. I've set strict moderation rules and have been working on a list of words to block with the help of VIDIQ. The AI coach just told me: "If a comments is personal or abusive, hide the user from the channel. It's not censorship, it's gardening. You are weeding the garden so the healthy plants (your community) can thrive. That perked me up a bit. Back to weeding the garden 😀

Hi Everyone Hope you have been enjoying the peace and quiet in my absence! It's been a crazy ten days... Two hemispheres, three countries and three vastly different time zones. Delayed flights, failed flights, emergency landings, rescheduled flights, an apartment that turned out to be like a bondage den!!! It also had dodgy electrics that only half worked and kept banging and flashing! But I walked in deep snow, saw beautiful city night skies, Vancouver Fog, the stunning winter scenery of Squamish and Whistler, ate loads of delicious vegan food and walked the very worst poverty stricken and drug ridden streets of the city at night, by accident, which was kind of scary but made me feel how blessed I am. Now I am in Kent, in the UK, with my sister who I haven't seen for almost 7 years. Storm Chandra has been buzzing around but it's nit been too bad here. Planning a trip to Kendall, Glasgow, Skye, Inverness, Edinburgh, Lindisfarne and then Rochdale, but if the forecast and predictions of blizzards and blankets of snow are accurate I am not sure of that will happen! TBH I am citied out, though I would like to see Skye again, and the Highlands. My Mum and ancestors hail from Wester Ross. I was holding out against Manchester but then my sister finally had to divulge that she had booked us a tour on the Coronation Street Experience!! Corrie is something I got addicted to last year, having never watched it before, and it is my comfort food! YouTube seems far away, I have made a couple videos but not even looked at them, I feel so ungrounded and like nothing is real. I came here to catch up and try and sort of land myself. So big love to you all and looking forward to reading the posts I have missed! The photo shows one of our planes dumping 40,000 gallons of fuel into the atmosphere :(

@Lucy Caldicott was generous enough to spend some time with @Marv Duffy and I to talk us through her journey recently where she went from 66 subscribers to now 10,000! Lucy's channel is UCE1-AwL_CUdQCZ3aaXyh--w and the viral video is below. I think it has grown a few thousand views since yesterday actually 😂 I highly recommend watching this if you want to find out about the viral video, how she navigates what videos to make next and some tools she uses. Thanks again for not gate-keeping anything, Lucy. You deserve this beautiful success - it is just the beginning for you and so motivating for us to see 🥰

Hello everyone - I've had some astonishing growth on my channel recently and @Karen Taylor and I are going to do a live chat about it all on zoom next week (Tuesday 20th Jan 8am UK time, 9pm NZ time). You are all invited to join and ask any questions about what I've learned so far, how I started, how I plan topics... If the timing doesn't work for you then pop your question as a comment here and I'll try to answer it. Link to join is here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86434356494?pwd=fooObUwebpZ9YnUWXbRv1Xd7DYqzP2.1 The support I've experienced from people in this group has been so kind and generous and anything I can to help you all, I'll gladly do it. We will record the zoom and share it with you all afterwards too.

A bunch of us have been doing Friday night lives and it has been fun trying some new things recently. I would love your input and suggestions and critique on ways we can make this more valuable for the audience. Here is my ask: What: I host a weekly creators catch up Live series where we talk about what we have been doing and learning on our channels, experiments, the lot How long is it: Every Friday afternoon/evening USA time, for 1 hour Who is on it: Anyone that wants to be but we have a core 6-8 people What is going well: The unstructuredness of it can work well, the fellowship, community bonding with our friends who join us in the chat, learning from each other whether in the chat or on the live, and I find it really fun. Challenges: The unstructuredness of it can work against us because there is no promise of certain value for viewers/chat participants apart from hanging out for whatever period of time people come and go for. Also because I have been lazily calling it 'Creator Catchup' there is no promise of value and can start to look like 'oh these people know each other, this is a catch up for all of them' as in, if you come across it, there can be no interest for a new person. What is AI suggesting? I asked an AI and it said below - Title formula (discovery-first) Topic first, show name last: [Big problem / promise] | Creator Lab Live Examples: - Fix Your Thumbnails Live | Creator Lab Live - Why Your Videos Stall | Creator Lab Live - Pick Better Video Ideas | Creator Lab Live - Stop Rambling in Videos | Creator Lab Live Your promise (the sentence you repeat every week) Use one clear promise line. Here are two strong options—pick one and stick to it: Promise option A (my favorite, most honest) “Creator Lab Live is where YouTubers over 40 workshop one problem a week — we review real channels, test ideas, and leave with one next step.” Promise option B (more community-forward) “Creator Lab Live is a weekly work session for YouTubers over 40 — less guru talk, more real examples, real feedback, and real progress.”