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Kickstarter Replied, and I Replied to the Reply (Replyception).

Spoilered for those who don't care. Spoiler: they aren't very interested in doing much about it.

Well I have my response at KS for the lock-out:

"This happened because we noticed you posting abusive comments on a project. This kind of activity is against our Guidelines (http://www.kickstarter.com/help/community) 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 privileges to certain features on Kickstarter have been temporarily restricted. They will be restored on March 9th, but please bear in mind that future violations will result in stronger actions being taken against your account."

So I have been abusive.
I shall review what I said (it is still there) and learn from my mistakes.
Has anyone gone to their link for guidelines?

Don’t be a jerk.In case anyone is worried it is there.

RRT and Kickstarter: the giving just never stops.

Which is why the $1 and back out trolling is all I will be doing on Kickstarter. The platform is useless for backers, but great for charlatans, thieves, and con artists.

 Forar wrote:
Kickstarter Replied, and I Replied to the Reply (Replyception).

Spoilered for those who don't care. Spoiler: they aren't very interested in doing much about it.

Yeah, I think I might actually have a bit more respect for them if they actually told the truth: "We got our cut, and that's what matters. Suck it, loser!"

I've stopped using them. I have yet to see anything that involves them in any way enforcing anything on creators.

 Talizvar wrote:
Well I have my response at KS for the lock-out:

"This happened because we noticed you posting abusive comments on a project. This kind of activity is against our Guidelines (http://www.kickstarter.com/help/community) 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 privileges to certain features on Kickstarter have been temporarily restricted. They will be restored on March 9th, but please bear in mind that future violations will result in stronger actions being taken against your account."

So I have been abusive.
I shall review what I said (it is still there) and learn from my mistakes.
Has anyone gone to their link for guidelines?

Don’t be a jerk.

Spoiler:

Conversation is an essential part of our community — we encourage backers to talk to creators and to talk to each other, especially when they have questions. All we ask is that those conversations stay honest and considerate. Don’t post obscene, hateful, or objectionable content. Don’t post personal information. Don’t post copyrighted content without permission. If you don’t like a project, don’t back it, simply move along. Please always have respect for our shared space and the other folks visiting it.

In case anyone is worried it is there.

RRT and Kickstarter: the giving just never stops.

and yet PB violated Kickstarters own rules by posting personal information regarding Carmen.

 Forar wrote:
Kickstarter Replied, and I Replied to the Reply (Replyception).

Spoilered for those who don't care. Spoiler: they aren't very interested in doing much about it.

Spoiler:

A Kickstarter Service Rep wrote:But at this rate I suspect this running gag could go another half a decade.

more like a decade or more.

We are on our fourth year of this kickstarter and I was thinking.. Games workshop has about a five year cycle
for each edition of their game.. So if Robotech Tactics wave 2 ever comes out, they should just call it Second edition instead

This project creator has not had a single conversation with us since this project was launched.

So? You think you deserve a response from a merchant just because you gave him money?

ENTITLED MUCH?!!

That seems to be the standard response of KS

Merijeek wrote:
So? You think you deserve a response from a merchant just because you gave him money?

ENTITLED MUCH?!!

As an investor...HELL YEAH!!!!!!! It is even in the Kickstarter terms of service for them to communicate to us. Sorry that you feel that they owe you nothing, but it is the agreed upon contract that they communicate with us what is going on, and give us our stuff; but hey are in breach of contract, and I am looking for someone to enforce it, or get me restitution. Problem is that I live in BFE, and legal help is expensive, but I intend on including the legal fees as part of my lawsuit, because hey, I wouldn't be out the legal fees if they had produced or refunded the money.

I did suggest starting a KS to fund legal help, it was a joke, except, well... it wasn't completely a joke.

 Talizvar wrote:
Well I have my response at KS for the lock-out:

"This happened because we noticed you posting abusive comments on a project. This kind of activity is against our Guidelines (http://www.kickstarter.com/help/community) 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 privileges to certain features on Kickstarter have been temporarily restricted. They will be restored on March 9th, but please bear in mind that future violations will result in stronger actions being taken against your account."

It always makes me laugh when I hear Kickstarter talking about taking their guidelines "very seriously".

Yeah, the guidelines for commentors, but not creators. From their Terms of Use.
"Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent."
False and fraudulent is an arguable issue, though I think they have, on many occasions. Misleading, inaccurate and deceptive are indisputable. Just the fact that they said they were still on target while the Pledge Manager was open, is proof of the latter (and a good argument for the former).

Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site.
Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Kickstarter — and especially if you create a successful project — you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in a Kickstarter project: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it.
Like signing people up to an automated EMail of the PBWU without their permission? Something like that?

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life.
Note, the process goes beyond the funding period. So even if you accept their occasional bleating about backers not being forgotten, and the "commitment to Wave 2", they've definitely failed to live up to high standard of effort or honest communication by any arguable standard.

Quoting the next section because it's lengthy.

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:
- they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;
- they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;
- they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;
- they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and
- they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.

So, how have they done in this regard? Nope, hell no, no, no, and bwahahaha no.

So, as a backer, you've got to follow all the rules and guidelines. As a creator, not so much.

I've actually had to go into BackerKit for another KS and found my way back to the RRT casefile. Seems like I'm still out the following:

Armored Valkyries ($20.00)

Super Valkyrie Wing ($35.00)

MKII Monster ($40.00)

Gnerl Fighters ($15.00)

Zentraedi Male Power Armor Pack ($20.00)

SDF-1 ($20.00)

So $150, about half of what I pledged for. Not too sure how to feel about this, I'm not seriously expecting it to appear by now, and the money is, in the greater scheme of things, really minimal, but it's the principle of the thing -- if you promise something to others, the least is to have a decent closure (even if you can't fulfill the promise). Stringing people along is just disrespectful. Basic accountability still requires some form of closure.

Genoside07 wrote:We are on our fourth year of this kickstarter and I was thinking.. Games workshop has about a five year cycle
for each edition of their game.. So if Robotech Tactics wave 2 ever comes out, they should just call it Second edition instead

Friend and I were wise-cracking that the Robotech Wars (all three of them; at least the First one is over!) would be canonically over before RRT actually completes...

Joyboozer wrote:This project creator has not had a single conversation with us since this project was launched.

Pretty true. He's been doing a monologue, just like a classic evil super-villain. Unfortunately, there is a decided lack of an evil master plan...

So, maybe a silly question, but is Backerkit in any way associated with Kickstarter?

If not, how are they not a store that took a preorder?

i'm curious if PB does end up going bankrupt and their IP's taken to auction to pay their debtors (of which the backers would not be included as one unless a court case is filed), before Carmen gets his BoardGame out what will that do for Carmen's game since his license will be null and void?

Merijeek wrote:
So, maybe a silly question, but is Backerkit in any way associated with Kickstarter?

If not, how are they not a store that took a preorder?

I'm not an expert but I don't think Backerkit is associated with Kickstarter as organizations. Backerkit works with KS and Indiegogo projects, and if I remember the early days correctly, they just offer a package service to crowdfunders.

As an aside, I'd just want to address the elephant in the room, and I'd probably become unpopular very quickly. Crowdfunding sites like KS and Indiegogo, plus auxiliary service providers like Backerkit, they provide a networking platform and services to two networks -- the network of creators, and the network of small investors. By its very nature, such crowdfunding projects are high-risk (by traditional thinking) and potentially low rewards, because if they had been anything else, they probably can find funding elsewhere like bank loans etc. This is at least true in the early days, though nowadays creators are also using KS as, for the lack of a better term, advertisement. It's part of the process of the specific industry maturing.

By taking part in the backing process, we are essentially putting ourselves at risks of default, and accepting those risks. That means a few things... first, any project I personally back, I do expect it to have a percentage chance of failure. The money I commit is money I am able to throw away; painfully or not is a separate question. To make this post relevant to RTT, I went in a bit hood-winked by ND's involvement, but I knew PB was involved and the chance of a mud pit is there. I just didn't expect it to suck so hard.

Second, there's no way KS/ Indiegogo/ Backerkit would leave themselves open to legal entanglements by trying to enforce that creators follow through on these high-risk projects. It's neither practical (since honest inherent risks of failure can be high in many cases) nor economically feasible (to expend resources for enforcement/ punishment) on defaulters who couldn't fund their own projects to begin with.

We as backers might want the protection/ fairness/ last resort of having KS bring the holy banhammer down on PB, but it's never going to happen; KS doing that will put chills down every other creator and reduce their network of creators, which in turns undercut their network effect which is critical to KS' core business. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, I expect.

There are two ways I can see that would improve overall crowdfunding creator accountability. The first, is governmental regulatory oversight, which is bad for various reasons, and generally speaking most governments are either too slow to react to the crowdfunding movement, or prefer not to get involved. The second is creator community self-policing/ request for enforcement from KS as a platform/ service provider, likely as a result of mass creator fraud/ deception cases that drives the platform reputation severely down. That, at the moment is unlikely to happen (at least on KS), since to the best of my knowledge the majority of creators are fairly honest and accountable to their backers -- something to do with most of them being honest folks who love what they want to do, really.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Merijeek wrote:
So, maybe a silly question, but is Backerkit in any way associated with Kickstarter?

If not, how are they not a store that took a preorder?

I'm not an expert but I don't think Backerkit is associated with Kickstarter as organizations. Backerkit works with KS and Indiegogo projects, and if I remember the early days correctly, they just offer a package service to crowdfunders.

As an aside, I'd just want to address the elephant in the room, and I'd probably become unpopular very quickly. Crowdfunding sites like KS and Indiegogo, plus auxiliary service providers like Backerkit, they provide a networking platform and services to two networks -- the network of creators, and the network of small investors. By its very nature, such crowdfunding projects are high-risk (by traditional thinking) and potentially low rewards, because if they had been anything else, they probably can find funding elsewhere like bank loans etc. This is at least true in the early days, though nowadays creators are also using KS as, for the lack of a better term, advertisement. It's part of the process of the specific industry maturing.

By taking part in the backing process, we are essentially putting ourselves at risks of default, and accepting those risks. That means a few things... first, any project I personally back, I do expect it to have a percentage chance of failure. The money I commit is money I am able to throw away; painfully or not is a separate question. To make this post relevant to RTT, I went in a bit hood-winked by ND's involvement, but I knew PB was involved and the chance of a mud pit is there. I just didn't expect it to suck so hard.

Second, there's no way KS/ Indiegogo/ Backerkit would leave themselves open to legal entanglements by trying to enforce that creators follow through on these high-risk projects. It's neither practical (since honest inherent risks of failure can be high in many cases) nor economically feasible (to expend resources for enforcement/ punishment) on defaulters who couldn't fund their own projects to begin with.

We as backers might want the protection/ fairness/ last resort of having KS bring the holy banhammer down on PB, but it's never going to happen; KS doing that will put chills down every other creator and reduce their network of creators, which in turns undercut their network effect which is critical to KS' core business. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, I expect.

There are two ways I can see that would improve overall crowdfunding creator accountability. The first, is governmental regulatory oversight, which is bad for various reasons, and generally speaking most governments are either too slow to react to the crowdfunding movement, or prefer not to get involved. The second is creator community self-policing/ request for enforcement from KS as a platform/ service provider, likely as a result of mass creator fraud/ deception cases that drives the platform reputation severely down. That, at the moment is unlikely to happen (at least on KS), since to the best of my knowledge the majority of creators are fairly honest and accountable to their backers -- something to do with most of them being honest folks who love what they want to do, really.

the problem with that is if KickStarter fails to enforce their own ToS even against the creator (like giving out personal medical information on one of their backers) then they do open themselves up to the law.

Asterios wrote:
i'm curious if PB does end up going bankrupt and their IP's taken to auction to pay their debtors (of which the backers would not be included as one unless a court case is filed), before Carmen gets his BoardGame out what will that do for Carmen's game since his license will be null and void?

Nothing. Carmen's license is valid until it expires, even if Palladium sells off it's IPs. In fact, Carmen's license makes Palladium's IPs LESS valuable in this situation, as he's holding part of the IP rights.

 John Prins wrote:

Asterios wrote:
i'm curious if PB does end up going bankrupt and their IP's taken to auction to pay their debtors (of which the backers would not be included as one unless a court case is filed), before Carmen gets his BoardGame out what will that do for Carmen's game since his license will be null and void?

Nothing. Carmen's license is valid until it expires, even if Palladium sells off it's IPs. In fact, Carmen's license makes Palladium's IPs LESS valuable in this situation, as he's holding part of the IP rights.

actually knowing Kevin Carmen's IP expires after a year, so say, Kevin loses his IP before Carmen is able to renew it? or better yet it is about to expire and Carmen has nothing done on it ? also just because Carmen has a license for the IP does not mean it will be good either, since it is muddy waters.

Lynx is pretty dead on in the assessment. It's falls in line that kickstarter HATES the $1 'trolling and pulling' but they are not policing creators so backers have the right to do it themselves. You might think that everyone knows about Palladium's failure to do the distance but there may well be a few people unaware that there is affiliation between Rogue Heroes and Palladium even if Rogue Heroes isn't a shell company and that backing a Rogue Heroes kickstarter is at minimum as risky as backing another by Palladium.

It's not crushing Carmen Bellaire's dreams, it's informing people of Rogue Heroes being seriously at risk for stalling out and failing to deliver. Rogue Heroes isn't a proven company and Carmen has spent most of his freelancing career in bed with a company that has swindled 1.4 million dollars from over 5,000 people. That's a credit risk by association if I ever heard one.

If Kickstarter won't police creators, the backers knowledgeable in histories of other projects have a right to express and share our knowledge to prevent other people from losing money on bad investments.

Would anyone remain silent if Tony Reidy popped up with a new company and a kickstarter to produce Wicked Cool Battel Suites?

And, yes, I'm deeply worried about Carmen's mental health but I don't think that should scare everyone to complete silence in regards to the risks inherent in the Rifts BG project which are honestly massive. The fact that the project hinges on having faith IN Carmen DESPITE Kevin is a big thing.

 TwoGunBob wrote:
Lynx is pretty dead on in the assessment. It's falls in line that kickstarter HATES the $1 'trolling and pulling' but they are not policing creators so backers have the right to do it themselves. You might think that everyone knows about Palladium's failure to do the distance but there may well be a few people unaware that there is affiliation between Rogue Heroes and Palladium even if Rogue Heroes isn't a shell company and that backing a Rogue Heroes kickstarter is at minimum as risky as backing another by Palladium.

It's not crushing Carmen Bellaire's dreams, it's informing people of Rogue Heroes being seriously at risk for stalling out and failing to deliver. Rogue Heroes isn't a proven company and Carmen has spent most of his freelancing career in bed with a company that has swindled 1.4 million dollars from over 5,000 people. That's a credit risk by association if I ever heard one.

If Kickstarter won't police creators, the backers knowledgeable in histories of other projects have a right to express and share our knowledge to prevent other people from losing money on bad investments.

Would anyone remain silent if Tony Reidy popped up with a new company and a kickstarter to produce Wicked Cool Battel Suites?

And, yes, I'm deeply worried about Carmen's mental health but I don't think that should scare everyone to complete silence in regards to the risks inherent in the Rifts BG project which are honestly massive. The fact that the project hinges on having faith IN Carmen DESPITE Kevin is a big thing.

if anything Carmen's mental health issue is more of a risk to backers then any connection he may or may not have to PB. and Kevin put it out for the entire world to see.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

We as backers might want the protection/ fairness/ last resort of having KS bring the holy banhammer down on PB, but it's never going to happen; KS doing that will put chills down every other creator and reduce their network of creators, which in turns undercut their network effect which is critical to KS' core business. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, I expect.

I don't disagree, but it seems like Kickstarter is putting a very obvious load of crap when they say "Creators are required to blah blah blah" when it's clearly completely untrue.

Merijeek wrote:

 Lynx7725 wrote:

We as backers might want the protection/ fairness/ last resort of having KS bring the holy banhammer down on PB, but it's never going to happen; KS doing that will put chills down every other creator and reduce their network of creators, which in turns undercut their network effect which is critical to KS' core business. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, I expect.

I don't disagree, but it seems like Kickstarter is putting a very obvious load of crap when they say "Creators are required to blah blah blah" when it's clearly completely untrue.

well I sent kickstarter a message asking if they will enforce their ToS on PB or not and cited parts where PB violated their own ToS and told KS their failure to enforce their own rules could leave them liable

Kickstarter is a nice idea, and it frequently works, but I do chuckle at the hipster-esque use of the words "should", "owe", "deserve", etc. in their terms. That's akin to having a moral code with no legal code to back that.

Imagine how well a country would operate if laws were merely moral suggestions. It seems pretty silly to even put that stuff on their website. They'd be better off being extremely blunt and honest about their policies. No one expects a company like Kickstarter to take on the risk of direct involvement, etc...but they sure shouldn't pretend that they will by the obtuse wording in their policies.

I have no dislike of Kickstarter, but it seems to be run by people of questionable grey matter.

 TwoGunBob wrote:
Lynx is pretty dead on in the assessment. It's falls in line that kickstarter HATES the $1 'trolling and pulling' but they are not policing creators so backers have the right to do it themselves. You might think that everyone knows about Palladium's failure to do the distance but there may well be a few people unaware that there is affiliation between Rogue Heroes and Palladium even if Rogue Heroes isn't a shell company and that backing a Rogue Heroes kickstarter is at minimum as risky as backing another by Palladium.

I'd hope that someone asks and hopefully gets it posted to the FAQ what the policy will be if Rogue Studios decides, or PB demands, it become further pulled into the Palladium umbrella. Everything else aside, that's the biggest concern I'd have, as it factors in everything else. The license expiring and reverting back, Carmen not feeling up to the task and handing it off, something related or unrelated happening to Carmen (he could be hit by a bus (rather than being thrown under it by Kevin)). If there's not a policy in place for that, and there's a refusal to answer it, anyone who signs up should expect to get screwed over.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Merijeek wrote:

 Lynx7725 wrote:

We as backers might want the protection/ fairness/ last resort of having KS bring the holy banhammer down on PB, but it's never going to happen; KS doing that will put chills down every other creator and reduce their network of creators, which in turns undercut their network effect which is critical to KS' core business. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, I expect.

I don't disagree, but it seems like Kickstarter is putting a very obvious load of crap when they say "Creators are required to blah blah blah" when it's clearly completely untrue.

As I've said before, Kickstarter don't have to do THAT much. I'm not expecting them to sue PB or refund backers.

All they need to do is
1) Give PB a reasonable window (say 30 days) to come up with a final completion date, where failure to start fulfillment results in point 2.
2) When that window expires, or the date PB give expires, they will declare the project as failed, and backers deserve a refund if they want it.

That's it. No legal action, no financial costs, nothing. It'll still be up to backers to chase it through the courts. The big problem with trying any lawsuits is that according to Kickstarter, they've technically not breached anything. So arguing standing is difficult.

By allowing PB to skate on the technicality of "We SAY we're working on it, so that totally counts", rather than proving they are, that's Kickstarter's fault. Remove that protection, or at least threaten to, and we might see some accountability from Creators to not sit with their thumbs up their proverbial.

Merijeek wrote:I don't disagree, but it seems like Kickstarter is putting a very obvious load of crap when they say "Creators are required to blah blah blah" when it's clearly completely untrue.

Think of those as more of guidelines. Practically, what can KS do? Only for the really bad offenders can KS pull out a big stick, and really just how big a stick is that?

KS: "You didn't follow our TOS so we shall now ban you from using our services."
Creator: "Ok, let me register another email, maybe another address, and then I'd come back to do another one."

In the first place, the number of Creators that have more than one major completed project is rare enough that you'd take notice -- one of the things I check is to see how many projects the Creator has done. The reason this is important is that only if a Creator has a string of successful projects and hence a reputation to protect, would the Creator care about the possible ramifications of no longer having access to that account. And for a Creator to have multiple successes would mean he'd pretty much followed the ToS anyway, because those would be pretty self-evident pre-requisites for success.

RTT is really an edge case based on my admitted biased small sample. Uncle Kevin is very good at toeing the few requirements that KS have, such that KS can't really take action unless they change the ToS, and that likely won't grandfather clause. In this case though, PB is never going to be able to do another KS without a lot of flak, case in point on the potential Rifts Boardgame KS, because both communities (Creators and Backers) are sort of self-policing.

So why have those "guidelines"? So that KS can use them to twack minor errant new Creators back into line. That's pretty much it. The "hardened" fraudulent Creators won't give a crap, the honest multiple successful ones don't need it, so it's really more to guide the new ones into behaviour most likely to engender success for them.

Morgan Vening wrote:As I've said before, Kickstarter don't have to do THAT much. I'm not expecting them to sue PB or refund backers.

All they need to do is
1) Give PB a reasonable window (say 30 days) to come up with a final completion date, where failure to start fulfillment results in point 2.
2) When that window expires, or the date PB give expires, they will declare the project as failed, and backers deserve a refund if they want it.

Ok, I think I get what you are thinking of, so let's see what is the pre-requisites for KS to take those actions.

For (1), KS essentially takes on the role of a judge to declare that "hey, this project has been going on too long." But that would imply some form of subject expert knowledge, whereby a judgement can be made that in the field and scope the project exists in, the time frame has gone on for too long.

That either has to come from KS itself, or a panel of expert that KS recognizes as expert in the specific field. If KS is only in one field, then it'd be simpler, but KS covers many, many different subject areas, from technical to arts and entertainment, to boardgames. KS itself can never be accepted by Creators as a subject matter expert who can pass judgement on a project, so the odds are good that it has to come from a panel of Creators -- but at this point, the maturity of the Creator community may not be sufficient for this to happen.

(Aside: It's not impossible to find Creators who have sufficient experience, though the pool would be rather small by nature. For example, DwarvenForge has a proven track record of big successful KS projects, so they obviously must know something in this field. But whether or not they are willing to serve, and whether or not that Creator actually has the correct personality to serve well is not known.)

Why this is important is because otherwise, a Creator for whom KS has rendered judgement on would claim KS has no domain knowledge to make the judgement. Regardless of how that mess sorts out, the net effect is that there will be a cooling effect on the Creators community/ network, likely reducing the total number of projects started. From both a financial and competitive survival perspective, not a good thing for KS.

For (2), the immediate issue is that by being able to judge and declare a project as failed, KS inherently implies itself as having some form of input/ control over the running of the project, and hence therefore inherently responsible for the outcome. That makes them immediately vulnerable to claims of damages (not refunds). That line of argument, compounding with the common "investment" approach to projects, leads to no good places for KS, so they'd never engage on that particular field.

Does that mean nothing can happen? Well one solution that can happen is that KS can, as part of their ToS, to require Creators to perform "jury duty", and also to reserve the right in their ToS to review project progress as an exception measure, and to clearly label/ strongly recommend to the backers to seek refunds upon recommendation of a panel of community experts.

The crux of the problem is they can't do that now, since the legal terminologies in the ToS aren't there, nor is there a community setup to support such need. If they want to do the above, then they need to do a lot of legwork, and it'd likely not apply to RTT since the ToS at the time of the project didn't have such things. What it'd do is to improve things for future projects and Backers.

In order for them to want to do it though, we Backers sort of need to point out the elephant in the room to them, by driving a campaign that continually brings bad projects to their attention. Only if they see a pattern of problems, would they start to bring in processes to deal with it. Won't help us get our toys, but hey, better future and all that jazz.

Is there a manufacturer that actually meets both Palladiums excuse criteria of closing for Chinese New Year and attending conventions?
That must be a hell of a small list, is there even one company that would apply to?

A Chinese company affected by both CNY and may attend gaming conventions? Yeah I can think of one. About that one only, though.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:As I've said before, Kickstarter don't have to do THAT much. I'm not expecting them to sue PB or refund backers.

All they need to do is
1) Give PB a reasonable window (say 30 days) to come up with a final completion date, where failure to start fulfillment results in point 2.
2) When that window expires, or the date PB give expires, they will declare the project as failed, and backers deserve a refund if they want it.

Ok, I think I get what you are thinking of, so let's see what is the pre-requisites for KS to take those actions.

For (1), KS essentially takes on the role of a judge to declare that "hey, this project has been going on too long." But that would imply some form of subject expert knowledge, whereby a judgement can be made that in the field and scope the project exists in, the time frame has gone on for too long.

That either has to come from KS itself, or a panel of expert that KS recognizes as expert in the specific field. If KS is only in one field, then it'd be simpler, but KS covers many, many different subject areas, from technical to arts and entertainment, to boardgames. KS itself can never be accepted by Creators as a subject matter expert who can pass judgement on a project, so the odds are good that it has to come from a panel of Creators -- but at this point, the maturity of the Creator community may not be sufficient for this to happen.

*snip*

For (2), the immediate issue is that by being able to judge and declare a project as failed, KS inherently implies itself as having some form of input/ control over the running of the project, and hence therefore inherently responsible for the outcome. That makes them immediately vulnerable to claims of damages (not refunds). That line of argument, compounding with the common "investment" approach to projects, leads to no good places for KS, so they'd never engage on that particular field.

*snip again*

I think you misunderstood what I was saying.

Regarding Step 1, I wasn't saying that Kickstarter determines the timeframe for completion. I'm saying Kickstarter gives Palladium a reasonable period to come up with one. If Palladium want to turn around and say it'll be Eo2020, that'd be one thing. But it'd stop this "Eo2014, no, Eo2015, I mean Eo2016, sorry, Eo2017, we mean it this time!" bs. And that PB then have to take the criticism if they pick a ridiculous timeframe. The biggest problem at the moment, is that Palladium keep saying it's 9-12 months away, and have done so for the last 4 years. And I honestly expect to see a post sometime around January 2018 saying "This'll be the year! The relaunch is going to be huge!". Force PB to take a look at the work they've done, the work they've got to do, and put out a timeframe that allows them to stick to, rather than just kicking the can down the road every year. The only reason for giving PB the 30 days, is so they can't just kick that down the road too.

Regarding Step 2, set the timeframe for requiring this revamp at a huge number. One that is so far beyond what a reasonable person would expect or accept. As it stands, the initial estimate for RRT completion was just over 7.25 months. It is now currently 38 months late. That's more than 520% late. Setting a requirement for a revised date (ie, criteria 1) at 500% of the original estimate, shouldn't be considered judgement or input, but an attempt to hold PB to the criteria that as I quoted earlier, are literally part of their Terms of Use.

Note, in all of that, I also said that refunds weren't required. Just that they say backers deserve it. If they want. And failure to do so would still require legal action. Note, the original KDM was famously late. But didn't have the toxicity of RRT. Shadows of Brimstone is also significantly late, and while there's some more hostility there, isn't close to the same thing. Because their Creators kept their backers informed, and showed proof of concept. If a Creator can still keep interest in their project in spite of delays, a large portion will still stick with it.

You argue that it'd open Kickstarter up to legal action. I'm thinking that the failure to hold Creators to the same Terms of Use that they suspend backers for, is more likely to eventually lead them to be co-named in a legal action. Showing that they aren't just about protecting backers from unaccountable creators, would go a long way to preventing that.

Morgan Vening wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Well I have my response at KS for the lock-out:

"This happened because we noticed you posting abusive comments on a project. This kind of activity is against our Guidelines (http://www.kickstarter.com/help/community) 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 privileges to certain features on Kickstarter have been temporarily restricted. They will be restored on March 9th, but please bear in mind that future violations will result in stronger actions being taken against your account."

It always makes me laugh when I hear Kickstarter talking about taking their guidelines "very seriously".

Yeah, the guidelines for commentors, but not creators. From their Terms of Use.
"Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent."
False and fraudulent is an arguable issue, though I think they have, on many occasions. Misleading, inaccurate and deceptive are indisputable. Just the fact that they said they were still on target while the Pledge Manager was open, is proof of the latter (and a good argument for the former).

Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site.
Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Kickstarter — and especially if you create a successful project — you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in a Kickstarter project: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it.
Like signing people up to an automated EMail of the PBWU without their permission? Something like that?

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life.
Note, the process goes beyond the funding period. So even if you accept their occasional bleating about backers not being forgotten, and the "commitment to Wave 2", they've definitely failed to live up to high standard of effort or honest communication by any arguable standard.

Quoting the next section because it's lengthy.

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:
- they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;
- they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;
- they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;
- they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and
- they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.

So, how have they done in this regard? Nope, hell no, no, no, and bwahahaha no.

So, as a backer, you've got to follow all the rules and guidelines. As a creator, not so much.

Excellent post!

It really does appear that PB has quite clearly, and repeatedly, violated Kickstarter's 'Guidelines'.

Now, what, if anything, is Kickstarter going to do about it?

(Yes, at this point you should not be holding your breath...)