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**Asterios**

i'm curious from anyone who saw my recent posts on kickstarter was there anything there that warranted a month long ban ?

**Alpharius**

Did they delete all of your comments too?

**Asterios**

Alpharius wrote:
Did they delete all of your comments too?

not that I can tell. don't see any missing.

even my posts to Carmen are still there.

**Talizvar**

Well, nothing official as "ban" for me but similar called "under review".
I am assuming using the words "will troll PB (not you guys)" was enough.

**Genoside07**

Just read the latest update.. more of "we are working on it"

I am sure Kevin is a smart man and very well read.. Knowing the kickstarter guidelines, he can continue to do nothing
and never need to report anything as long as he keeps saying he is working on it.. but doesn't have to show real progress.

Palladium games and all things with it is dead to me.. If I found tomorrow at my FLGS every single Rifts book for $100
if you bought them all.. I would pass on it...

Not going to file anything either.. there is either no laws or laws that would favor him. Plus it would cost me more money and time than its worth..
I can not buy their products and hope Karma will catch up with him; then leave it as that...

**TwoGunBob**

I'm actually finding the lack of culpability of Kickstarter as an organization accepting a cut of money from investors (backers) interesting. That Kickstarter keeps changing it's terms of services in regards to advances in laws involving digital rights and responsibilities is VERY telling. It's very much my own lack of foresight in regards to Kickstarter itself and their TOS clearing themselves of any responsibilities other than collecting the sweet sweet monies.
It's going to take something much bigger than 1.4 million dollars on a failed project to get real movement towards analyzing the entire situation be fine legal minds. That is, someone is going to have to throw a lot of $$$'s at legal properties and convince them that they can get their pound of flesh from Kickstarter itself to start any real consumer protection.
It's interesting and enlightening and a lesson learned for myself that I should very much read TOS clearly rather than acting in good faith. Kickstarter itself can afford to alienate thousands, possibly tens of thousands of backers, and it will not bring into effect any change until the entity's bottom line is affected. That is, string upon string of failed projects because people realize that Kickstarter allows just short of theft and basically shrugs its shoulders and declares 'investor beware'.
I'd have said Palladium was in violation of investor contract when they pushed Ninja Division out but the Kickstarter contract between us as backers and Palladium is sketchy as I don't think we have recourse on Palladium's courses of action.

Edit for clarification- By string of failed projects, I mean fail to fund as that means Kickstarter starts not getting it's sweet monies. If Kickstarter projects fail to get any funding THEN kickstarter will start to possibly favor the backers.

**Asterios**

on the bright side heard from Carmen he is well and mending but it will take awhile.

**Forar**

Albertorius wrote:
Forar wrote:
That all said, I'm pretty sure Kickstarter is tired of people trolling with pledges.

I'm quite sure they are. Probably as much as a lot of people is tired of pledging for a KS just to see it go tits up and KS not doing anything at all.

So it kinda goes both ways, is what I'm saying, although I admit I have only pledged just $1 for a single KS, the HG one, and that was a placeholder to wait and see on the final quality.

That comes down to intent, which is up to both the person writing comments to convey and the person reading their comments to interpret.

"I'm going to pledge $1 to warn people about my experiences with a tangential campaign" is, imo, not trolling. The Creator may not like it, but while the definition of 'trolling' may have evolved over the years, but "only say things the Creator will like" is a far cry from "be considerate and respectful" as Kickstarter requests of their chat sections. One can be vocally displeased while maintaining that level of discourse.

"I'm going to pledge $1 to gak up the comments" and variations thereof, is less defensible. It goes from public service (even if motivated by negative experiences) to revenge and/or harassment. Of course, some people manage to pull that off even without trying.

Neither are exactly something the platform should be eager about, but if they want this to be a 'community' they have to respect that portions of the Creator base will abuse the platform, or utilize it questionably, and bluntly they've left it upon the Backers to police much of that. Kickstarter is very hands off on a lot of aspects, so without people being willing to speak out (and able to), more actual scams and questionable situations would be allowed to proliferate, further damaging Kickstarter's brand power (for those who still give a feth, of course, I am will aware of the "NEVER AGAIN A KICKSTARTER!" types).

The 'pledge huge, pull at the last minute' crowd, imo, is a bigger problem. Especially on a medium sized campaign, where getting 180k instead of 200k (as an example) could be a big deal that feths the creator over, finding themselves overpromised and underfunded considerably, even if they had a reasonable level of contingency padding in place.

I've seen campaigns backslide like 30k in the final minutes because some donkey caves decided to do that. It's frustrating as a backer, it must be infuriating as a Creator, that part I can understand having a zero tolerance policy on.

**Asterios**

Forar wrote:
Albertorius wrote:
Forar wrote:
That all said, I'm pretty sure Kickstarter is tired of people trolling with pledges.

I'm quite sure they are. Probably as much as a lot of people is tired of pledging for a KS just to see it go tits up and KS not doing anything at all.

So it kinda goes both ways, is what I'm saying, although I admit I have only pledged just $1 for a single KS, the HG one, and that was a placeholder to wait and see on the final quality.

That comes down to intent, which is up to both the person writing comments to convey and the person reading their comments to interpret.

"I'm going to pledge $1 to warn people about my experiences with a tangential campaign" is, imo, not trolling. The Creator may not like it, but while the definition of 'trolling' may have evolved over the years, but "only say things the Creator will like" is a far cry from "be considerate and respectful" as Kickstarter requests of their chat sections. One can be vocally displeased while maintaining that level of discourse.

"I'm going to pledge $1 to gak up the comments" and variations thereof, is less defensible. It goes from public service (even if motivated by negative experiences) to revenge and/or harassment. Of course, some people manage to pull that off even without trying.

Neither are exactly something the platform should be eager about, but if they want this to be a 'community' they have to respect that portions of the Creator base will abuse the platform, or utilize it questionably, and bluntly they've left it upon the Backers to police much of that. Kickstarter is very hands off on a lot of aspects, so without people being willing to speak out (and able to), more actual scams and questionable situations would be allowed to proliferate, further damaging Kickstarter's brand power (for those who still give a feth, of course, I am will aware of the "NEVER AGAIN A KICKSTARTER!" types).

The 'pledge huge, pull at the last minute' crowd, imo, is a bigger problem. Especially on a medium sized campaign, where getting 180k instead of 200k (as an example) could be a big deal that feths the creator over, finding themselves overpromised and underfunded considerably, even if they had a reasonable level of contingency padding in place.

I've seen campaigns backslide like 30k in the final minutes because some donkey caves decided to do that. It's frustrating as a backer, it must be infuriating as a Creator, that part I can understand having a zero tolerance policy on.

but then why was I banned for a month from KickStarter? (all my posts are there) I was not part of the pledge a dollar then back out group or what not.

**TwoGunBob**

Is Kickstarter not responsible for giving you, an investor, a clear cut answer regarding affecting your ability to interact with the people you invested money with? Kickstarter is not a community it is still a vested intermediary between you and a creator. I wouldn't think they could arbitrarily stifle you as this isn't some free forum. You have PAID to have the ability to voice opinions.

**Asterios**

TwoGunBob wrote:
Is Kickstarter not responsible for giving you, an investor, a clear cut answer regarding affecting your ability to interact with the people you invested money with? Kickstarter is not a community it is still a vested intermediary between you and a creator. I wouldn't think they could arbitrarily stifle you as this isn't some free forum. You have PAID to have the ability to voice opinions.

this is all they told me:

Hello,
This is the second time that we have noticed you posted abusive content. As previously mentioned, this kind of activity is against our Community Guidelines and it is not permitted. We take our guidelines very seriously; please take a minute to read through them.
Due to your inability to comply with our guidelines, your ability to message has been revoked until Mar 26 2017 11:31 am EST, your ability to comment has been revoked until Mar 26 2017 11:31 am EST, and your ability to post on Campus has been revoked until Mar 26 2017 11:31 am EST.
Again, we understand the necessity of an open discourse, but we expect all members of our community to conduct discussion in a manner that is compliant with our Community Guidelines.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Best,
Kickstarter

on a side note while all the "vocal minority" have been banned form the KS forums, there are new voices to take up the chant of wheres our stuff and bad Palladium.

**Alpharius**

They didn't tell you what the 'abusive content' was?

You should ask for specifics.

**TwoGunBob**

Do you have the ability to respond to that? Like I said, Kickstarter got paid by YOU when they took their cut so you deserve clear answers as to what they consider was a breach of their guidelines. Waffling some nonsense about community guidelines. You know, they need to cite it so you can go, "okay, I pushed the limits, my bad". On a free forum I understand somewhat arbitrary stifles and bans but there was money involved.

Sorry, never went through any banning process with kickstarter and finding them treating backers as if it's a proboard is even more aggravating.

**Asterios**

Alpharius wrote:
They didn't tell you what the 'abusive content' was?

You should ask for specifics.

no they didn't and I did send an email, since my post to Carmen was about the most abusive post in a long while and that wasn't abusive. so it makes me wonder what is really going on? is KickStarter now starting to feel the heat from this project? they can't shut the project down since it could make them culpable for refunding backers. so they hush the board to their best ability?

**megatrons2nd**

I haven't ben banned/put in a time out yet. I am one of the put in a dollar people. I tried being civil in my wording, but there were several that were more kind than mine, and most were "thinking of" types, at least until Carmen tried to blackmail me.

**Forar**

Asterios wrote:
but then why was I banned for a month from KickStarter? (all my posts are there) I was not part of the pledge a dollar then back out group or what not.

Out of idle curiosity, I went and looked, and before I answer, I'm setting some ground rules;

Don't bother arguing the point. I don't want to hear it, and am only responding to see if you can be even remotely reasonable here. I really doubt it, but I'm open to being surprised. This is *my* opinion, I have no insight as to Kickstarter policy or the mind of the particular person who gave you a time out.

"Hello Carmen, for starters let me state your project is doomed to failure, why? nothing to do with PB or RRT but neither of those will be helping you either, but no your project is doomed to failure because of issues you have not taken into consideration which will raises costs considerably for you, furthermore you will be coupled with a low funding amount, compared to actual amount you will need for production and shipping to you. and the fact you are in Canada will hurt you even more. Now I could tell you the factors you are forgetting and I know you are forgetting, but seeing as how you have so much experience in the board gaming world I should not need to tell you, so I won't. Now as to the PB RIFTs IP, wow you actually believe the hype about a dead game with a small following and even smaller support, you would have been better designing your own IP and game, it would have been a lot less of a hassle and less worrisome for you me thinks? As to RRT you know as well as I do PB's out of money, they have debt collectors coming at them out of the woodworks there is nothing to save RRT. and finally Murphy's law is against you, PB got lucky in that they do not have a lawyer among their backers to bring suit against them, now if your project fails to deliver do you think you will be so lucky? would wish you luck but that would be a farce since your project is doomed to failure. especially since in all things you mentioned you failed to mention the one major thing that PB never had either."

"oh and Carmen Want to thank you for a big laugh, since the only way you can help with RRT is to give Kevin the money to finish it and that it can only be used on RRT wave 2 and to finish the backers stuff in a timely manner, that is the only way you can help get RRT on track, to even think you can have any sway with Kevin is laughable at best."

"oh one last thing Carmen definitely invest in a PR rep because while you think you are meaning well your words do not seem so, you seem disingenuous or even smarmy. in other words you are not helping yourself but harming yourself and any chance of your game funding, and to be honest your best bet is if the game does not fund, since you are ill prepared if it does so."

This string, during the exchange with Carmen, makes you look like a donkey cave. It's not constructive, it's taunting, "I know something you don't know" which is always obnoxious (where have we heard that before?) and whatnot. If I had to make a guess what might've gotten reported by someone, or picked up upon by a Kickstarter person reviewing the exchange, I could see them deciding "this person doesn't need to interact with others for a while".

And, to be *crystal fething clear*, that's just my guess based on you asking and a cursory review of your last couple days of posts. I don't actually know, and I'm certainly not going to go to bat for you over it. You have conducted yourself with an "I'm a donkey cave, what of it buttercup" stance for years. You speak in absolutes, there's no grey in your statements, not "I think this might harm your project", it's "YOU WILL FAIL, AND I KNOW WHY AND I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHY, IN FACT IT'D BE BEST IF YOU FAILED LOL". Surprise surprise, Kickstarter does not, in fact, have to 'suck it up'. Unlike most users and even Creators, they *do* have the tools to handle such a situation.

The posts still being there would indicate to me that no one thing was so over the line it needed to be removed, but that it was more based on a number of posts, if not a pattern of behaviour.

And lest I be accused of hypocrisy, I won't be surprised if I catch a month timeout of my own. Not because I think I went over the line in this past week of shenanigans, but because I won't be shocked if Kickstarter policy involves liberal application of said time outs when something serious like this goes down.

**Asterios**

Forar wrote:
Asterios wrote:
but then why was I banned for a month from KickStarter? (all my posts are there) I was not part of the pledge a dollar then back out group or what not.

Out of idle curiosity, I went and looked, and before I answer, I'm setting some ground rules;

Don't bother arguing the point. I don't want to hear it, and am only responding to see if you can be even remotely reasonable here. I really doubt it, but I'm open to being surprised. This is *my* opinion, I have no insight as to Kickstarter policy or the mind of the particular person who gave you a time out.

"Hello Carmen, for starters let me state your project is doomed to failure, why? nothing to do with PB or RRT but neither of those will be helping you either, but no your project is doomed to failure because of issues you have not taken into consideration which will raises costs considerably for you, furthermore you will be coupled with a low funding amount, compared to actual amount you will need for production and shipping to you. and the fact you are in Canada will hurt you even more. Now I could tell you the factors you are forgetting and I know you are forgetting, but seeing as how you have so much experience in the board gaming world I should not need to tell you, so I won't. Now as to the PB RIFTs IP, wow you actually believe the hype about a dead game with a small following and even smaller support, you would have been better designing your own IP and game, it would have been a lot less of a hassle and less worrisome for you me thinks? As to RRT you know as well as I do PB's out of money, they have debt collectors coming at them out of the woodworks there is nothing to save RRT. and finally Murphy's law is against you, PB got lucky in that they do not have a lawyer among their backers to bring suit against them, now if your project fails to deliver do you think you will be so lucky? would wish you luck but that would be a farce since your project is doomed to failure. especially since in all things you mentioned you failed to mention the one major thing that PB never had either."

"oh and Carmen Want to thank you for a big laugh, since the only way you can help with RRT is to give Kevin the money to finish it and that it can only be used on RRT wave 2 and to finish the backers stuff in a timely manner, that is the only way you can help get RRT on track, to even think you can have any sway with Kevin is laughable at best."

"oh one last thing Carmen definitely invest in a PR rep because while you think you are meaning well your words do not seem so, you seem disingenuous or even smarmy. in other words you are not helping yourself but harming yourself and any chance of your game funding, and to be honest your best bet is if the game does not fund, since you are ill prepared if it does so."

This string, during the exchange with Carmen, makes you look like a donkey cave. It's not constructive, it's taunting, "I know something you don't know" which is always obnoxious (where have we heard that before?) and whatnot. If I had to make a guess what might've gotten reported by someone, or picked up upon by a Kickstarter person reviewing the exchange, I could see them deciding "this person doesn't need to interact with others for a while".

And, to be *crystal fething clear*, that's just my guess based on you asking and a cursory review of your last couple days of posts. I don't actually know, and I'm certainly not going to go to bat for you over it. You have conducted yourself with an "I'm a donkey cave, what of it buttercup" stance for years. You speak in absolutes, there's no grey in your statements, not "I think this might harm your project", it's "YOU WILL FAIL, AND I KNOW WHY AND I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHY, IN FACT IT'D BE BEST IF YOU FAILED LOL". Surprise surprise, Kickstarter does not, in fact, have to 'suck it up'. Unlike most users and even Creators, they *do* have the tools to handle such a situation.

The posts still being there would indicate to me that no one thing was so over the line it needed to be removed, but that it was more based on a number of posts, if not a pattern of behaviour.

And lest I be accused of hypocrisy, I won't be surprised if I catch a month timeout of my own. Not because I think I went over the line in this past week of shenanigans, but because I won't be shocked if Kickstarter policy involves liberal application of said time outs when something serious like this goes down.

and yet all that I said there is still mild compared to many other things I have said and yet no banning or even warning, so I highly doubt that is it, since they only indicate this banning is because of one post, yet none of them have been removed as of yet, which still begs the question which post? and why did they not tell me? I think something more underlies what is going on here.

**Joyboozer**

We take our guidelines very seriously.

I'm guessing this applies to backers only? Having provided Kickstarter with absolute proof of creators flagrantly ignoring guidelines and openly mocking the guidelines whilst doing so, Kickstarter did nothing.

**Forar**

Asterios wrote:
and yet all that I said there is still mild compared to many other things I have said and yet no banning or even warning, so I highly doubt that is it, since they only indicate this banning is because of one post, yet none of them have been removed as of yet, which still begs the question which post? and why did they not tell me? I think something more underlies what is going on here.

Okay, this I can work with.

It could be that someone specifically reported your comments (hence you getting tagged and some others not), or it could be that this mess is taking them a while to go over, hence why the time outs are occurring over a period of days, they may have a person or team going over this situation and those calls might not be made swiftly for edge cases.

As I said, it might not be any one single post that egregiously breaches their community standards, but a pattern of behaviour. Which could take a while to assess, based on having like 6,000 posts of yours to glance through if they wanted to see how you interact with people normally.

Why not tell you? No idea. Hopefully they will. With forums I'm active on, I prefer transparent moderation; if someone needs discipline, they should know why. Hence why Jefffar and NMI and the mod team at the Palladium Forums just deleting things they don't like rubs me the wrong way, but from another angle.

**TwoGunBob**

I think it's context to Carmen's state. Kickstarter has presented itself as anything other than evenhanded I'm not siding with them necessarily. They would still need to say that they felt one or all of the posts they felt broke their guidelines.
I really do think KS has it backwards in that they think if there's no creators there's no money. Fact is they could have a trillion creators but if there are no backers, there's no income. Honestly, if I see a kickstarter I cannot resist I simply email the creator directly and ask if it's okay that I circumvent KS getting their cut and simply give them the frigging money for a tier reward like they are offering.
I note that I haven't had a creator say "no" yet. It's not like kickstarter offers any protection that you otherwise have by using their platform rather than just giving the creator your money.

**Asterios**

Forar wrote:
Asterios wrote:
and yet all that I said there is still mild compared to many other things I have said and yet no banning or even warning, so I highly doubt that is it, since they only indicate this banning is because of one post, yet none of them have been removed as of yet, which still begs the question which post? and why did they not tell me? I think something more underlies what is going on here.

Okay, this I can work with.

It could be that someone specifically reported your comments (hence you getting tagged and some others not), or it could be that this mess is taking them a while to go over, hence why the time outs are occurring over a period of days, they may have a person or team going over this situation and those calls might not be made swiftly for edge cases.

As I said, it might not be any one single post that egregiously breaches their community standards, but a pattern of behaviour. Which could take a while to assess, based on having like 6,000 posts of yours to glance through if they wanted to see how you interact with people normally.

Why not tell you? No idea. Hopefully they will. With forums I'm active on, I prefer transparent moderation; if someone needs discipline, they should know why. Hence why Jefffar and NMI and the mod team at the Palladium Forums just deleting things they don't like rubs me the wrong way, but from another angle.

even this place when they ban me they tell me why and where, but how KS did it, it left nothing but questions.

**Forar**

Asterios wrote:
even this place when they ban me they tell me why and where, but how KS did it, it left nothing but questions.

The fact you've been banned on multiple forums might be worthy of reflection.

I've been on one forum for nearly 14 years and while I've gotten 'infractions'/warnings, I've never been banned on that one.

Thinking back, the only forum I earned a temp ban on was the PB Forums, and that was when they decided to pre-emptively tag a bunch of us.

And I think we can all wear our PBForum temp bans with pride, even if they were for questionable reasons.

Hi Jefffar!

**Jefffar**

Hi Forar

**Sining**

Joyboozer wrote:
We take our guidelines very seriously.

I'm guessing this applies to backers only? Having provided Kickstarter with absolute proof of creators flagrantly ignoring guidelines and openly mocking the guidelines whilst doing so, Kickstarter did nothing.

Yes. KS will do nothing to creators. It will also openly promote very late KS that funded well as indications of how successful a platform it is.

**Morgan Vening**

New PBWU is up.

I can't.... It's just terrible, from both a Wave 2 perspective, and from the Carmen discussion.

For someone who has spent 30+ years making a career of the written word, Kevin's a god-awful writer when it comes to anything reality-based.

**Asterios**

Forar wrote:
Asterios wrote:
even this place when they ban me they tell me why and where, but how KS did it, it left nothing but questions.

The fact you've been banned on multiple forums might be worthy of reflection.

I've been on one forum for nearly 14 years and while I've gotten 'infractions'/warnings, I've never been banned on that one.

Thinking back, the only forum I earned a temp ban on was the PB Forums, and that was when they decided to pre-emptively tag a bunch of us.

And I think we can all wear our PBForum temp bans with pride, even if they were for questionable reasons.

Hi Jefffar!

got banned here for politics, people wouldn't believe me when I told them Trump would win the election, oh well.

and first ban on KS, and then my proudly worn lifetime ban on PB forums, considering only times I've been banned on all the forums I peruse it is not a bad run for me.

edit: ok just read the weekly update by Kevin, and oh my God he did not go there?

http://www.palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=895:palladium-booksr-weekly-update-february-24-2017&catid=52:weekly-updates&Itemid=183

lets just start he said the same thing Carmen did that got the entire backer forum in a tizzy:

This is a lifelong dream and something Carmen has been working hard to make a reality. He and his team have been working on the Rifts® board game and its many components for the last 2-3 years or so. In addition to making his own games, it should give him the opportunity to return to Robotech® and help Palladium with our plans for the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics and further develop the game line in a big way.

so he's saying if Carmen's games a success he can help with the RRT project

furthermore he goes on to blame certain backers for being the tipping point for his attempted suicide and before that he wants him to continue with the RIFT's boardgame forgetting that game is what put him into his downward spiral, Carmen should not do the game, he should stay far away from it and put his energies into a product without so much anger towards like all PB products have towards them.

and then he goes on into a spiel about naysayers and dreamers and so forth

**Manchu**

Such a long essay ... and no mention of the status of RRT.

**Asterios**

Manchu wrote:
Such a long essay ... and no mention of the status of RRT.

well he did repeat what he posted in the last kickstarter update which some backers there said was the most informative update in awhile?

**n815e**

Rifter subscription plug is more important than Carmen's health.

**stanman**

Promoting the KS: Totally not one of us.

Everything else: We can't wait to welcome him back to the fold!

When you're Uncle Kev the line changes based on if there's money at stake.