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2012-09-30, 13:03 | Link #1 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Change Rules so that mentioning/linking to Kickstarter is not considered solicitation
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. Last edited by DonQuigleone; 2012-09-30 at 13:30. |
2012-09-30, 14:12 | Link #2 |
Nyaaan~~
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 40
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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. |
2012-09-30, 16:57 | Link #3 | ||||||||
AniMexican!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Monterrey N.L. Mexico
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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. Quote:
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Last edited by Daniel E.; 2012-09-30 at 17:08. |
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2012-09-30, 20:36 | Link #4 | |||||||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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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. Quote:
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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. |
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2012-09-30, 21:57 | Link #5 | |||||||||||
AniMexican!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Monterrey N.L. Mexico
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Remember that your thread is supposed to be about the game, not about Kickstarter. Quote:
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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. Quote:
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2012-10-01, 04:40 | Link #6 |
Me at work
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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.
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2012-10-01, 05:51 | Link #7 | |
AniMexican!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Monterrey N.L. Mexico
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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.
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2012-10-01, 06:06 | Link #8 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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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. |
2012-10-01, 13:32 | Link #9 | ||
Me at work
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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.
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2012-10-01, 15:29 | Link #10 |
AniMexican!
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Monterrey N.L. Mexico
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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.
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