Proposal: Change Rules so that mentioning/linking to Kickstarter is not considered soliciting

[DonQuigleone]

I was informed earlier by a moderator that linking to (or mentioning) a project hosted on the website Kickstarter is considered a form of solicitation. I thought this rule should be changed, and we agreed to post it on the forum and get more opinions.

I think this is an overly strict application of the rules, and that it should be loosened such that users can post about or link to kickstarter, so long as they don't directly solicit donations, or talk about the benefits of donating.

I think that merely linking to kickstarter should not be banned for the following reasons:

1. Kickstarter projects may be notable. Several major game developers have advertised on Kickstarter in the last several months, and raised large quantities of money. When such events occur, users may want to link to such projects to stimulate discussion. Even more minor projects may be considered interesting enough(if not notable) in certain contexts for users to post them. They would be posting in a "look how cool this thing is!" way rather then "Please donate to this so it can happen!" way. They could also be posting in a "Radical new technology raises large amount of money on kickstarter" way. Users may also want to discuss Kickstarter as an entity, which would currently be against the rules.

2. Kickstarter may contain exclusive information. Kickstarter projects may post exclusive information to Kickstarter, this could be of interest to users. Requiring posters to search for the content elsewhere may put off users from even posting, while requiring users to copy and paste it into their posts might be bad for the flow of the thread (similar to how one wouldn't post entire news articles in the news thread).

I also think that banning mentions of kickstarter (or any website) as a form of solicitation sets a poor precedent. As I understand it, the argument that posting kickstarter pages is solicitation is that doing so is an "advertisement" that would be primarily be posted to lead some forum users to donate. I think this is overly broad (for one people might post kickstarter pages for the reasons above). Also the same logic could be applied to other circumstances that are already common in this forum. For instance, should we ban links to The New York Times because it regularly asks users to pay for membership, and because New York Times employees (or fans) might be linking to it to try and get people to read it? Should we ban people posting images of the latest figurine they bought because an employee(or fan) might be posting the image so that more people would buy the figurine? Should we ban posting of marketing images for particular Anime because employees of particular studios or distributors might be posting those images to get more people to watch their show, and buy their DVDs?

I think Kickstarter should be considered equal to any form of marketing that might be reposted here, and be generally allowed. I would consider it in the same class to many "official" websites which both post information on products (like Anime, Games or VNs), while also posting information about how to buy them.

That said, if some kickstarter got posted by a user saying things along the lines of "and if you donate 50$, you'll also get a free t-shirt", I would agree on removing that kind of post. However, if someone merely posted a link to a kickstarter page saying "this is interesting" or "this has raised an unprecedented amount of money", I don't see why there should be an issue.

[willx]

I agree that something should not outright be banned simply due to the method with which the business model was designed. By definition, Kickstarter is based around the idea of "crowdfunding" so that's why there has been created a tenuous connection between "mention" and "solicitation" --

That being said, complete removal of any rules prohibiting mentioning or linking could create an unintended consequence or people soliciting which would need to be controlled and is harder to monitor, which I would leave to the moderators to evaluate. All in all, outright solicitation, as DonQ mentions above should not be allowed, but discussion of existence should not be an issue.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

1. Kickstarter projects may be notable. Several major game developers have advertised on Kickstarter in the last several months, and raised large quantities of money. When such events occur, users may want to link to such projects to stimulate discussion.

Discussion on the games has never been stopped. If you want to start a thread in the games section, then the main focus of that thread must be the game/console itself, not the fund raising on Kickstarter.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

They would be posting in a "look how cool this thing is!" way rather then "Please donate to this so it can happen!" way

You can easily have the first without Kickstarter..... assuming the people behind the project actually have something to show besides the link to Kickstarter.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

They could also be posting in a "Radical new technology raises large amount of money on kickstarter" way.

A chance to discuss this radical new technology was already allowed.

Users may also want to discuss Kickstarter as an entity, which would currently be against the rules.

I personally don't mind if you want to start a thread about Kickstarter...if only to get everything about it in one place.

2. Kickstarter may contain exclusive information. Kickstarter projects may post exclusive information to Kickstarter, this could be of interest to users. Requiring posters to search for the content elsewhere may put off users from even posting, while requiring users to copy and paste it into their posts might be bad for the flow of the thread (similar to how one wouldn't post entire news articles in the news thread).

And why is this information exclusive to Kickstarter? Anybody can read the page and discuss it's contents here and nobody would be forced to include Kickstarter in it. That you want to include Kickstarter into everything related to a particular game makes very little sense to me.

I also think that banning mentions of kickstarter (or any website) as a form of solicitation sets a poor precedent.

Not all links (or info) posted here are deleted because of soliciting, nor are all the deleted links deleted for the same reason. Every case is considered individually and we are willing to allow some and not others based on their content and why they are being posted here.

saying "this is interesting" or "this has raised an unprecedented amount of money", I don't see why there should be an issue.

You can talk about both without mentioning Kickstarter, which is the case for everything (game/console related) posted in a kickstarter page.

Mind you, I perfectly understand why so many people want to advertise these fund rasings. They help small projects take off and hopefully get more games on people's hands. What everybody here needs to undertsand though, is that Kickstarter projects are fund rasings first and everything else later. Regardless of your intentions, posting the links here is advertising and soliciting and that's the simple truth of it.

If you want to start a thread about a game/console, then please use it to discuss the game/console and not to spread the word (advertise) about a fund rasing on Kickstarter.

That being said, complete removal of any rules prohibiting mentioning or linking could create an unintended consequence or people soliciting which would need to be controlled and is harder to monitor, which I would leave to the moderators to evaluate. All in all, outright solicitation, as DonQ mentions above should not be allowed, but discussion of existence should not be an issue.

If the rest of the staff would agree to it, I could be convinced of allowing very simple mentions of it in threads. No linking and without becoming the main topic of any thread, of course.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Discussion on the games has never been stopped. If you want to start a thread in the games section, then the main focus of that thread must be the game/console itself, not the fund raising on Kickstarter.

But what if the fundraising on kickstarter is a big factor in why it's notable? For instance a big reason why the Double Fine Adventure was notable was due to it's presence on Kickstarter. However, this may become less of a factor as time goes on...

You can easily have the first without Kickstarter..... assuming the people behind the project actually have something to show besides the link to Kickstarter.

There may be projects without anything but a Kickstarter page. It may be unlikely, but it could happen.

A chance to discuss this radical new technology was already allowed.

A big factor in it's fame was it's presence on kickstarter. While you allowed discussion of the technology, you purged it of mentions of kickstarter, which I'd say gimped the discussion (which might be why it didn't get many replies). The primary aspect of interest (at the time) was it's presence on kickstarter. Being too heavy on purging mentions of kickstarter may have prematurely brought an end to that discussion as no one wished to inadvertently break the rules.

I personally don't mind if you want to start a thread about Kickstarter...if only to get everything about it in one place.

May be a good idea. But if mentioning kickstarter projects is still against the rules, it might not work. But if exception could be granted to that thread specifically, that could be a good compromise.

And why is this information exclusive to Kickstarter? Anybody can read the page and discuss it's contents here and nobody would be forced to include Kickstarter in it. That you want to include Kickstarter into everything related to a particular game makes very little sense to me.

1. The people posting there might not choose to bother posting it elsewhere, and the project might be obscure enough that no one would post it elsewhere.
2. Users won't be willing to go to that kind of level of effort to retype it here. If the information is easy to see on the page, they'd just link it. They're not going to bother going to the effort to condense it for just the forum members here. Also, a forum is not suited to posting long info dumps. General etiquette (from my experience) is to not repost infodumps from other websites as it takes up too much of the page and doesn't read well in a forum format.
3. It's copyright infringement to repost the content that other's have written in full. You would have to give attribution (which in this case would mean referring to kickstarter ). Not only that, but other websites often object to reposting of their content. While Kickstarter is not one of these websites, I don't think it's a good idea to start a precedent. If you want to refer to content that other's have written, it's more polite to link to them, not copy it wholesale.

You can talk about both without mentioning Kickstarter, which is the case for everything (game/console related) posted in a kickstarter page.

Not necessarily. It's possible that something is interesting because it's on kickstarter, at which point it restricts to discussion if you can't mention it.

Mind you, I perfectly understand why so many people want to advertise these fund rasings. They help small projects take off and hopefully get more games on people's hands. What everybody here needs to undertsand though, is that Kickstarter projects are fund rasings first and everything else later. Regardless of your intentions, posting the links here is advertising and soliciting and that's the simple truth of it.

Is it advertising if I post a link to Amazon, like this person did?

Also, to some Kickstarter might be a medium to raise money first, and everything else second. To others, it's more a medium to look at interesting projects first, and a medium to donate to them second. I've never donated on Kickstarter, but I've gone on it often enough just to look at the various weird things there. I think Kickstarter goes a bit beyond simply raising money.

Also, if you argue that people are posting kickstarter pages with the intention of advertising for people to fund things which they view as small and independent and worthy of the funding (which I'm sure does go on), you could argue mentioning any indie whatever, kickstarter or no, is a similar form of advertising. If I mention recently released Indie game X in the hope that my advertising will lead more forum members will try it, and maybe even buy it, it's functionally the same as if I mentioned a kickstarter. But the former is not against the rules, while the latter is.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

But what if the fundraising on kickstarter is a big factor in why it's notable? For instance a big reason why the Double Fine Adventure was notable was due to it's presence on Kickstarter. However, this may become less of a factor as time goes on...

And why being popular on Kickstarter has to have a relevance in the thread? If the game is good and looks promising, then there's no need whatsoever to have Kickstarter attached to it. If people really want to, they could easily do a search and find the project page themselves.

Remember that your thread is supposed to be about the game, not about Kickstarter.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

There may be projects without anything but a Kickstarter page. It may be unlikely, but it could happen.

Again, you can still use the info (if any) to start a discussion here; Even if you use your own words to do it.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

A big factor in it's fame was it's presence on kickstarter. While you allowed discussion of the technology, you purged it of mentions of kickstarter, which I'd say gimped the discussion (which might be why it didn't get many replies).

No, there simply wasn't much to discuss about back then, something that even other sites pointed out. People didn't show interest in that thread in the same way they have not showed interest in so many others.

Originally Posted by Penny Arcade

There is a reason that the press around the newly-announced OUYA game console is based almost exclusively around the amount of money being raised by the product’s Kickstarter, and that reason is simple: There is very little else to report on.

May be a good idea. But if mentioning kickstarter projects is still against the rules, it might not work. But if exception could be granted to that thread specifically, that could be a good compromise.

What exaclty do you want to discuss there? Kickstarter itself? why it has become so popular and why they have restrictions for each project? There's a lot that can be discussed about the site without linking to the projects.

If you want to turn the thread into a "Post your favorite Kickstarter project" then please re-read everything I have told you so far.

1. The people posting there might not choose to bother posting it elsewhere, and the project might be obscure enough that no one would post it elsewhere.

Not our problem.

2. Users won't be willing to go to that kind of level of effort to retype it here. If the information is easy to see on the page, they'd just link it. They're not going to bother going to the effort to condense it for just the forum members here. Also, a forum is not suited to posting long info dumps. General etiquette (from my experience) is to not repost infodumps from other websites as it takes up too much of the page and doesn't read well in a forum format.

Not true and our forum is proof of that. When there's a real interest, people will be more than willing to create a thread for a game/anime/manga that interest them and they will also try to keep the thread updated with the latest info.

3. It's copyright infringement to repost the content that other's have written in full. You would have to give attribution (which in this case would mean referring to kickstarter ).

Now you are just splitting hairs. Please check all the threads here that uses info from other sources.

Not only that, but other websites often object to reposting of their content. While Kickstarter is not one of these websites,

It has always been our policy to respect the rights of others. If we get a notice (and we have) telling us to remove content from the site, and we believe they have a good reason to, then we'll do it no questions asked.

Also, to some Kickstarter might be a medium to raise money first, and everything else second. To others, it's more a medium to look at interesting projects first, and a medium to donate to them second. I've never donated on Kickstarter, but I've gone on it often enough just to look at the various weird things there. I think Kickstarter goes a bit beyond simply raising money.

More power to you then. It does not change what Kickstarter is, though.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Also, if you argue that people are posting kickstarter pages with the intention of advertising for people to fund things which they view as small and independent and worthy of the funding (which I'm sure does go on), you could argue mentioning any indie whatever, kickstarter or no, is a similar form of advertising. If I mention recently released Indie game X in the hope that my advertising will lead more forum members will try it, and maybe even buy it, it's functionally the same as if I mentioned a kickstarter. But the former is not against the rules, while the latter is.

No, because there's a big difference in starting a thread to discuss a game (thus showing it), than to simply start a thread to advertise a fund rasing. If you want to show a new game to others here, then be my guest and do it, but please don't do it because it has a kickstarter page, do it because it interest you.

[totoum]

Well what a coincidence,I knew nothing about kickstarters but then this just happened

It's a very good thing I ran into this thread because I was about to create a thread mentioning kickstarter without realizing I'd be breaking rules.
Completely clueless about this so here's a question

I'm convinced that even if I start a thread now without mentioning kickstarter someone else will in the replies so should i just wait a month and if (a big if!) it gets funded then I could start a thread without fear of breaking rules if kickstarter is mentioned?They wouldn't be looking for funds anymore so it wouldn't be a solicitation.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by totoum

Well what a coincidence,I knew nothing about kickstarters but then this just happened

It's a very good thing I ran into this thread because I was about to create a thread mentioning kickstarter without realizing I'd be breaking rules.
Completely clueless about this so here's a question

I'm convinced that even if I start a thread now without mentioning kickstarter someone else will in the replies so should i just wait a month and if (a big if!) it gets funded then I could start a thread without fear of breaking rules if kickstarter is mentioned?They wouldn't be looking for funds anymore so it wouldn't be a solicitation.

Don't worry about what others could post, it is simply out of your control in these sort of cases, and as I metioned above, we could try to find a middle ground for this as long as the fund rising itself doesn't become the topic for the thread.

The thread could be created by someone else eventually, even if the target goal of the fund rising is not reached.

Let's do this instead then, start the topic and make a brief mention of kickstarter in it, but also mention that people should not turn the whole coversation about the funding drive (it is an anime topic after all).

If the Kickstarter projects are going to start including anime, then I may have to reconsider my view on this. I'll start discussing this with the rest of the staff a bit later today.

[DonQuigleone]

Indeed. Anime getting posted there changes things a bit, and seeing what's happened in games, if Production IG reached it's goal, this might become a more common thing. I think most posters would be interested in an Anime project going on Kickstarter.

I agree that the fundraising shouldn't ever become the central topic, but I don't think a casual link will cause harm.

That said, if we see anime getting posted on Kickstarter, this might bring in a new era of "audience participation" in Anime. That certain users will try to cheerlead for certain projects is a likely possibility. Whether or not this is a good thing I can't say. It might be worth doing an experiment though, lift the rules for a while and see how things proceed.

EDIT: It seems someone has already posted a thread. It seems I started this debate at an interesting time...

For now, I'd say we should post a notice on any threads that crop up about this project that the permissibility of linking to Kickstarter is being discussed here, and to invite their comments.

Also, Daniel E. , it might be a good idea to state Animesuki's case for it's stance on this policy in a matter that isn't replying to my post. That way other users can see both sides of the argument (IE, the reason this policy is in place in the first place). You might have arguments in favour of the current policy that are not addressed by responding to my post.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

EDIT: It seems someone has already posted a thread. It seems I started this debate at an interesting time...

Well that one didn't last

Let's do this instead then, start the topic and make a brief mention of kickstarter in it, but also mention that people should not turn the whole coversation about the funding drive (it is an anime topic after all).

I was wondering, could I start a 2nd thread in the general anime section titled "Crowd financing and anime" talking about the pros and cons of a system like IG is trying to use?
I just feel that this topic will come up in the "kick heart" anime thread so if people want to talk about the crowd financing system (as a general concept,"kick heart" can be used an an example but it wouldn't be some sort of fundraising thread) then they could do it in that thread so that the "kick heart" anime thread stays just about the anime.

[Daniel E.]

Sorry about the thread, while this is being discussed, it has been decided to postpone the creation of any related thread.

When a decision it's made, you'll either see the thread restored or see a post here to inform you all of the decision.