Fix what? Going by what we know, someone has made a claim without anything to back it up. Should we encourage groundless accusations? I'd like to think members of HN would be a bit more intelligent about this sort of thing. Let's try to be a bit more rational about this and not just grab the torches and pitchforks.
Rachel Marone here. You know it's me and valid because it's in italics, and that makes it true. Anyways, everything I posted on my blog is a lie. Just wanted to say that.
It would be very odd indeed if kickstarter are in a position to deny the email quoted on Rachel's website. I.e. if it is as fake as the one above. That would be her throwing whatever reputation she has away.
But I would be happier if they can confirm or deny it. No doubt they will be pressed to do so in the next few days, and a fuller picture will emerge.
> That would be her throwing whatever reputation she has away.
I'm not sure anything they say would make a difference. Personally, I inclined to believe what she's saying is true, but I believe there is more to the story that impacts what has been said already. Believing that, it would be unfair of me to suggest anything one way or the other.
Sure kickstarter are likely to say that - what choices have they got? If they can;t deny, either they must say "we screwed up, we'll change", or spin it as "there's more to it than that".
The second option is by far the easier (psychologically and materially), but they may be forced to do the first eventually anyway.
"someone has made a claim without anything to back it up" that's true, but neither do any posts in HN. Shouldn't we try to get some attention from Kickstarter and see how it goes?
That's not true. There are many cases of posts coming to HN that have more than italicized text to make its case. We have someone here posting they know here, and indeed has a cyberstalker. That's a step in the right direction, a 3rd party providing information.
And I'm not suggesting, in any way, that KickStarter shouldn't respond (at this point, it would be insane not to).
What I am saying is that we shouldn't be assuming KickStarter is in the wrong at that this Rachel has been 100% honest and has told the complete story. That is all.
If this quote is authentic, her accusations are anything but groundless:
Thanks for writing in. If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one. We simply cannot allow a project to become a forum for rampant spam, as her past project became. If this happens again, we will need to discard the project and permanently suspend Rachel’s account.
If this quote is fiction, then it will be easy for kickstarter to say so.
Banning IPs works well enough even for vastly bigger sites like Wikipedia. Combined with an open proxy checker, it's surprisingly effective.
It's not perfect, but for ANY site of sufficient size with unmoderated user content, this problem eventually has to be dealt with. Threatening to ban the victims is not a solution.
Kickstarter earns 5% from every single successful project: they can afford putting some effort into moderation and protecting their customers.
In short, you try to make it not worth the cyberstalker's (or troll, spammer, etc.) while. No matter how many protections you put up, if you make your service available to the public, people will be able to register and harass other users. So, firstly you make it harder for them to do this (to a degree). Some methods include:
1. Verified accounts - e.g. a confirmation email.
2. Social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) - obvious caveat being, some people don't have them, or won't want to sign up with them, etc.
Then, you make it harder for the cyberstalker to determine they've been banned. "Hellbanning" is a good example of this - you ban the user, but don't notify them. Everyone else just doesn't see the comment. There are variations, but the idea is to make it harder for the person on the other end of the screen to determine when to switch accounts.
Thirdly, you implement some sort of user control. For example, an "ignore" button - press this, and suddenly that user's comments aren't visible to you any more. Without notifying them, of course. Alternatively, let the project owner hellban/ignore any user from their project.
And then there's the other stuff - community moderation like Reddit and HN, automatic spam filtering, disallowing registrations from throwaway emails like Mailinator, and other stuff like that.
No matter what they implement, "please go away because you're being stalked" is NOT the right choice. There are technical solutions to this kind of thing, and if they're not perfect, they're certainly better than nothing. And at the end of the day, it's not about being perfect, it's about making the person that's sitting on the other end of the screen not want to spend the time to harass you, or post spam, or troll, or whatever else.
Turning off comments would have had the same effect. You can't spam if you can't speak. A project update explaining why comments are no longer available, and emailing the project creator to start a conversation, would be good next steps.
You also can't post a comment if you don't have an account, so banning the account would be a reasonable stopgap measure; this step wasn't mentioned in the blog post. If they're flooding accounts, then ban the IP. If they start switching IPs, then you can start making excuses for Kickstarter.
It's important to remember that deterrents that can be circumvented is not the same things as pointless deterrents.
That's sort of like saying that security by obscurity is pointless -- certainly it's NOT pointless, and banning IPs (like security by obscurity) will work in many cases, and should not be ignored as techniques.
They aren't the solution, but can be part of a multi-pronged approach.
For trolls/stalkers that know how to get past an IP ban, I do like hellbanning, accompanied with a strict written policy of "don't feed the trolls".
I imagine there are laws that this cyberstalker is breaking, and surely kickstarter can assist in providing the authorities with the relevant information to kickstart an investigation/tro/arrest?
I once thought I was his only target until his other victims began
contacting me. He was sending us child pornography and threatening to
kill us along with impersonating our dead relatives. We started a
support network and put all of our case numbers together to make this
a federal matter. What now? The hunt for my stalker continues yet has
been unsuccessful as of now. The FBI having bigger fish to fry. The
police say that he is “good at what he does.”
I live in Atlanta, GA, USA.
I had my car stolen. Police didn't investigate.
It was found abandoned 2 weeks later.
Police didn't do anything beyond return it. I figured you had to be shot to get some attention.
Three friends have had their house robbed. No police response beyond insurance paperwork.
Later, a friend of mine was shot.
Police didn't investigate. He was told that he didn't die, so it wasn't murder, so they had more important things to do.
Unfortunately the authorities seem to have too much to do. If it takes any effort to investigate something, it isn't going to happen.
parts of the Twin Cities (Plymouth) are like this for any car related theft. They give you a case number over the phone and that is the end of it. Had my car broken into twice in a parking garage with cameras. No investigation even though about 20 cars were hit each time.
I don't think that it is necessarily fair to be extremely critical of Kickstarter. I think that we should consider the viewpoint of the respondent to her, he probably thinks that she in some way caused the stalker to spam her project. I agree 100% that this problem should be fixed - but I don't think that Kickstarter would intentionally ban her account for this situation if they had the full story, and now that it has come to light I hope that apologies are made and this situation is corrected.
he probably thinks that she in some way caused the stalker to spam her project.
No matter what happened here, this entire concept is horribly, horribly wrong. It's blaming the victim -- saying that it's somehow her fault for "causing" the stalker to do something... as opposed to the stalker's fault, for stalking.
Except that Forrest's point is that they probably didn't know the spammer was a stalker. This is kind of relevant. If a random person walks up to you and asks if you've seen this person and shows you a picture, you'd probably help them out, completely unaware they're a serial killer. That doesn't make you a bad person.
If Kickstarter does respond to this by maintaining their stance, then there's a huge problem. Until then, it's more a case of an incompetent employee.
I don't think that changes anything? Again, replace the word "stalk" with "spam": it's the spammer's fault for spamming, not her fault for hypothetically "causing" the spammer to make the decision to spam her.
I was in no way saying that it was the victim's fault. I just don't think that Kickstarter should be on the receiving end of a lot of criticism until we get the full story from them. It may very well be that they are under the impression that that it is her fault, although I am not saying it is, it is just plausible and would account for their reaction to her ban.
This is incredibly dumb on Kickstarter's part. Why not just give project managers the ability to turn off comments if spam is getting out of control? Unless I'm missing something, comments are not an integral part of Kickstarter's function.
Anyway, if comments were turned off, a potential contributor could just reach out via email or some type of private message if they had a concern about the project.
And obviously banning a project and a user for "engaging with a spammer" without any warning is just appalling.
"If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one." This statement is just so stupid. Kickstarter should be responsible for dealing with spam if they want to be taken seriously.
This is exactly the situation Kickstarter should be on top of. Imagine someone was going to make a hugely disruptive project and some BigCo PR firm hires a bunch of astroturfers to post 400 comments about how the project leader is a fraud.
Now we know the astroturfers don't even need to ward off backers, they can just get Kickstarter to shut the project down. Megaupload song vs. UMG sockpuppets anybody?
> Now we know the astroturfers don't even need to ward off backers, they can just get Kickstarter to shut the project down.
We do? Again, I ask, where is the proof of what we know?
What we do know is that you can make a post on a blog making claims about a popular company saying they did something bad, get it on HN, and people will start demanding said company respond and handle it without waiting for proof.
Yes, the accusations are serious. Yes, if true, it should be handled, but knee-jerk reactions like this are just as bad the charges laid against KickStarter.
Let's use reason and intelligence, not anger and emotion.
I'm confused what exactly you're asking for. What kind of 'proof' would satisfy you?
Screenshots of the original emails? I'm sure they could be spoofed. Screenshot of the page of comments? Same. Statements from other people who were backing her?
Really, I don't understand what you're asking for.
Edit: seems there's more to this story about the individual involved but that doesn't change anything about how Kickstarter reacted (assuming, of course, that the events played out as described).
Edit2: Please note. Edits to the parent post now make this comment appear out of context (and therefore unhelpful). Decided to leave it up though.
Something more than italicized text. Yes, screenshots of the emails, with headers would be better. Something more than a mere rant. I'm not suggesting that anything displayed would hold up in court, but all anyone here seems to care about is italicized text. Here, let me demonstrate.
amirmc,
The post on my website is a lie.
Truly,
Rachel
There. Case closed.
> What kind of 'proof' would satisfy you?
What kind of proof would satisfy you? Italicized text? A blog post?
> I don't see how anything here is particularly knee-jerk.
Unsubstantiated claim is made. People here are already assuming KickStarter is guilty.
Don't misrepresent what I'm saying. No where am I suggesting indisputable proof must be provided. I'm merely saying that nothing has been offered up.
> What kind of proof would satisfy you? Italicized text? A blog post?
I try not to take any of these things as 'proof'. Also you say that "nothing has been offered up" which isn't true. Someone wrote a post and copy/pasted emails into it. Sure, you can question the veracity of the post but it isn't really fair to say that nothing was offered. It's just that what was offered doesn't seem sufficient to you (which is fine, btw. I'm not saying I believe it all just because of a blog post).
Yes, an accusation was made with some italicized text. People may be giving the OP the benefit of the doubt. You are not. Why aren't both of those ok? I doubt anyone here is going to start a picket outside Kickstarter's offices nor start flaming elsewhere on the net. They might post their displeasure at Kickstarter here.
Your issue isn't really with the post but how folks here seem to be reacting to it. I get that, but isn't it always going to be the case with David/Goliath-type stories?
If her story turns out to have any chinks in it then she'll lose all credibility with this crowd and if not, then Kickstarter should have something to say about it. In a couple of days this will have either been resolved, forgotten or a 'proper' news story (ie more than just a HN submission).
Edit: More downvotes? If I'm missing something please let me know what.
That's a fair question. I'll explain, but first, you should explain this:
Jason,
Sorry about my comment. You are absolutely right. I cannot admit to being wrong in public, however. I'm, in fact, the poster of the original blog post, and it is all made up.
Sincerely,
amirmc
Now you are required to answer this accusation. And everyone attacking KickStarter and assuming guilt should not attack you for making up the post.
I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean, and what I'm saying (and in case someone else misses the point, the above email is not in fact an email).
When I say nothing has been offered up, I mean beyond the blog post (obviously). My issue with this is it places the burden on KickStarter to prove their innocence. And this, I firmly believe, is wrong.
> Your issue isn't really with the post but how folks here seem to be reacting to it.
Exactly. =)
> I get that, but isn't it always going to be the case with David/Goliath-type stories?
Doesn't make it right. I don't believe that the little guy is always in the right. And I'd like to think we strive to rise above this. Tis better to be calm and rational about situations like this then break out the pitchforks and torches.
Yes, some people want to believe everything they read on the internet. That doesn't make it right.
An open memo to Hacker News: Stories like this (e.g. the GitHub and AirBnB incidents) tend to draw out this ugly, mob-like attitude from Hacker News, and I'm sure none of us want to see it happen again.
Please, everybody, remember to be civil and give everybody the benefit of the doubt.
"If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one."
WTF. I'm sorry guys. If there is any chance your blog post may incite trolls or spammers please refrain from making that post.
This makes no sense. Better response would be to try and work with the person and figure out some kind of solution. Sure banning people who attract spam works but in the long run it will cause some serious karma fallout. This is customer service 101.
Yeah. If Rachel could have raised $100,000 on Kickstarter, Kickstarter would have made thousands in fees. They have a license to print money and they will leave more and more money on the table over time if they don't add basic moderation tools like requiring comments to be approved when necessary. This looks like a case that requires customer support from someone at Kickstarter that doesn't normally work as a customer service manager. I wonder when the Kickstarter founders stopped doing their own customer support.
I'm wondering what is the possibility that the cyberstalker is a creation of the "TRANSMEDIA ARTIST, BRAND DEVELOPER, AND FUTURIST"? It certainly fits into those categories. Just speculation.
Good point. I'm still waiting for proof. In many ways, it's sad and wrong that people are calling for KickStarter to do anything before any shred of proof is provided.
I think it's perfectly justified to call on Kickstarter to do something: namely, to reply to the allegations.
If Kickstarter says "hey, this is all wrong", and Ms Marone maintains that the incident did happen, then we can start weighing proof and credibility. Alternatively, if Kickstarter says "oops, our fault, and we're changing our processes", then no proof needs to be supplied.
That doesn't negate what I said, nor does it change the emotional response in comments above. People are assuming KickStarters guilt already without anything more than a blog post.
Furthermore, I don't believe a company, or anyone, should be held to respond to every claim thrown at them. To prove a negative.
Do not assume that I support KickStarter if the allegations are true. I just don't think it's reasonable to assume guilt and start demanding things.
Let's just say that as of right now, I could say at the OP is merely doing this as a publicity stunt, and she should respond to these allegations, and this would be the exact same thing that is happening here.
Who is attacking the victim? I'm asking for proof, not suggesting anything else. And I'm not defending KickStarter. I'm defending HN from those who would ignore reason and intelligence in place of emotion and ignorance.
I'm not certain that Hacker News really needs your defense. Let's hear what KickStarter has to say about this.
If Daniella Jaeger indeed said "If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one. We simply cannot allow a project to become a forum for rampant spam, as her past project became." then she should apologize and look at the way that the project handles this sort of thing in the future.
If she never said this, then this has been a big beatup. Either way, Daniella needs to respond to this allegation.
> I'm not certain that Hacker News really needs your defense.
You're wrong. It does. People need to be told, flat out, the this isn't a board that wants nor appreciates mob-mentality. It promotes reason and rationality. As a long* time member of HN, threads like this are a blight. Not because of the parties involved, but because we are doing things we abhor in others.
> Either way, Daniella needs to respond to this allegation.
I hate that mentality. I understand the reasoning, but essentially we are requiring people to respond to trolls. I say this within the context of what we know: a unsubstantiated blog post is claiming certain things. There are numerous steps that could be taken to provide more proof, and I think it's important that evidence is provided to avoid these types of issues.
Basically, I see this as the same as me accusing Rachel of setting this all up as a marketing stunt. And then posting some italicized text and claiming it's from her. It's equally as credible as things stand now.
Edit: * I just want to add that I don't presume that it needs my help. Rather, every member is, in their own way, responsible for moderating HN. It can only be defended by it's users.
I see no problem with expecting people to say "nope." to credible-seeming trolls. It takes mere seconds and provides strong evidence to discredit the troll in the future. And you calling it a marketing stunt is a very different situation because you have a clear motivation of rhetorical device to fake an email and you're not staking your reputation on it.
Finally, I don't think anyone here is suggesting taking action against kickstarter without hearing what they say. It's a big "wow, this is a bad way to behave kickstarter". And they could reply "yes, good thing we didn't do that".
> And you calling it a marketing stunt is a very different situation because you have a clear motivation of rhetorical device to fake an email and you're not staking your reputation on it.
Whoa. I never said that. I never suggested it, and suggesting I said that is completely dishonest and reprehensible*.
I'm going to assume you misread what I've written. I've said that there are many possibilities that could explain these actions, besides the truth, one of those being a publicity stunt. That, however, is no where near an accusation, merely speculation, and does not represent my believe in any way.
Edit: This sounds like I'm calling you dishonest and reprehensible. That's not accurate. That would be if you were doing it on purpose. I just believe you misread what I wrote. Just being clear.
I am sorry. I was unclear there and I think I got things a bit confused as I replied. What I meant to say there is that your italic fake-quote that the blog post was a lie was a very different etc. I think I misremembered there being a mention of it being a stunt inside the fake-quote. Either way, I'm sorry I worded that unclearly. I wasn't talking about your actual opinion there, I was talking about your fake-quote.
Kickstarter doesn't agree with your reasoning, as they have just apologized for their response. I think it's reasonable that they were called out on what they stated to Rachel Marone, and they have now apologized.
Both Rachel and Kickstarter have done the right thing here.
The way she speaks about the stalker and how they harass everyone she has contact with made me consider the same possibility. She might not even be consciously aware of this.
Not true. Again, if the post is true, the requirement would be also for the person to then engage in a discussion with the spammer. We don't know the details regarding that, and will never know. If you are being harassed, report it.
Not sure about you, but if I saw a spammer on my site, and saw two users discussing things back and forth behind the scenes, I might draw the conclusion they are in collusion.
The OP is, after all, an artist, and might have used the spammer to help draw more attention to their situation. That's not unheard of.
It's also fair to say that KickStarter would be fairly negligent if they did* read the messages between two users.
So, once again, unless someone has proof of anything, it's all speculative right now.
Edit: The OP's bio, it says she is a Brand Developer and runs a convention focusing on Radial Performers.
I wonder if it's an artistic statement that her page touting web & counter-culture bona fides and general hot messiness still has the WP default title "sample-page." ;)
In all seriousness, getting banned sucks. 'The customer is always right' isn't a bad mentality to have even for startups, and even when the customer is the product.
You responding to the "stalker" creates an impression that conversation is going on; and the conversation is not pretty. Instead, you should wipe and ban. Preferably done by site admins, not the victim herself.
Of course Kickstarter should unban the victim but only after she agrees to never respond to the stalker on Kickstarter. Instead, report. Nobody would blame you if you don't participate in annoying behavior.
Very true. The blog post sort of glossed over Kickstarter's claims that she was engaging with the stalker. Was that part true?
If so, then WTF! It's lunacy to try and engage with someone like the stalker is claimed to be. There's no excuse for doing that, and if Marone was doing so, especially if she was warned by Kickstarter first (unclear), I can't really blame Kickstarter for kicking her off.
Marone needs to completely ignore the stalker, and Kickstarter needs to just filter and ban him as best they can, and leave Marone's projects on Kickstarter alone. Based on the blog post, I'm not quite sure who is actually screwing up here.
One question... whilst the internet has made stalking easier, can't the opposite also be true? It's much easier to shake off a stalker by using a different handle...
I'm sure that's true for many sites -- here, for example -- but on Kickstarter I imagine they have policies about real names. They're going to need your real info anyway (to give you any money you raise), and it seems like a bad idea to let essentially anonymous people collect donations for unverifiable projects.
Wow, this is beyond ironic on top of ironic on top of ironic.
The worst part being the nearly top comment on HN being "don't feed the troll".
I'd talk about privilege and the nice ability to "ignore" such "trolls" but I'd be wasting my breath. (which isn't to dismiss the HN community as much as it is to acknowledge that those who get it, get it, and those who don't are probably fortunate enough to not have to)
I wrote to kickstarter this week to alert them of what was either a scam or an over confident 3d modeler. I and others on reddit pointed out a bunch of flaws in the cost of creating the product described at the given goal. It was a minimum of 3X off. Kickstarter wrote back to tell me in so many words that it is the users job to not be taken advantage of, all I could think is "yup you get your 10% no matter what so why care." Truely let down from a company I really liked.
I'm going to chalk this one up to growing pains. Dealing with spam is a really difficult problem, especially in unusual cases like this. Their response definitely wasn't great, but if it was causing them a lot of trouble to keep up with the spam on that account, this might be a drain on their likely-small team and detrimental to everyone else using the site by taking their attention. This is a startup, not an enormous company we're talking about. Maybe project moderation tools would have helped with this, but they might not want project starters to be able to silence commenters. Before you bring out your pitchforks, realize that this is a small team of real people trying to do something huge, and have a million other concerns that they have to take care of, and this is a very hard and probably relatively infrequent problem.
Yup. There's something ineffably hard about customer service. Ask Craig Newmark, who still does it full time. My company's most important competitive advantage is customer service. My secret to providing superior customer service is treating my customers like they are human beings. It works because my customers are in fact human beings. I think this works because I own the company and do some of my own support. You lose a human element when your customer support starts being done by unempowered minions that don't have incentives in place to treat customers like real people.
Yeah, I still do a lot of my own customer service too, and I think it's had a big effect. It can also be really draining, though, so I understand why people want to shield themselves from it, and I can sympathize with a company that just doesn't want to deal with someone's outsized personal drama.
Kickstarter is not the only player in the crowdfunding industry. You could try Rockethub as an alternative, they seem to be more accepting and might be more willing to help you.
Since HN is about entrepreneurship, I think this article raises good questions, such as, how do you deal when someone makes emotionally-loaded claims against your company in the early hours of a Saturday, including multiple submissions to Reddit using a sockpuppet account?
Best short-term reply is probably something agreeing that the quoted response from their representative, if accurate and complete, was dangerously vague for a matter as critical as account suspension for TOS violation, which they take very seriously for important reasons, yadda yadda. This matter will be investigated, and we hope to resolve to everyone's satisfaction. Love, CEO.
How dare she engage the troll in a manner that is not how the internet recommends. Clearly she deserves everything that happened to her. I mean yes, the way to deal with trolls is to ignore them completely and absolutely, but the punishment for not doing that shouldn't be being banned from kickstarter.
While I don't condone the attitude in the OP, providing background on the "victim" in this case is appropriate. She has offered nothing to substantiate her claims. As of yet, we know nothing, and calling her a "victim" is ignoring facts.
Either she is a victim or she made up the entire story along with emails. It's a waste of time to discus the latter; if it's made up kickstarter will say so. But I doubt her making up a story so easily disproved.
Your other posts about italic text honestly come across to me as a strawman.
> Either she is a victim or she made up the entire story along with emails.
There are other possibilities as well. It's not so black and white.
> Your other posts about italic text honestly come across to me as a strawman.
Oh, evidence was presented? You know, using the word strawman doesn't mean it is, nor does it change what has, or has not, been presented. You can dismiss my arguments and believe what you want, however. At least I'm not out to take advantage of your gullibility.
I'm sorry for making it sound like I think the situation is black and white. What I meant was was that the text of the email is a pretty clear bad policy.
Anyway, on to the main point. You're using an example of how easy it is to throw out words and ignoring the fact that if this blog post is a lie it has serious ramifications on her integrity. So I feel justified calling it a strawman. This isn't quoting a 4chan thread as a resource, this is somebody making a plea to the world under their real name. There is reason to believe the quotes are accurate, even though I'm sure there's bias in the telling.
And I'm not judging kickstarter until I hear what their response is. Even if all they say is 'that email is fake' then I won't think badly of them. I'm not being taken advantage of, because I'm not trusting a lone rant.
> ignoring the fact that if this blog post is a lie it has serious ramifications on her integrity.
Judging by some of the other posts about this "victim", I'm not sure her integrity is a concern. Supposedly she's done KickStarter before, and essentially just taken the money and not produced (Please, check these threads for the specific comments regarding it).
At the same time, keep in mind that when I first came to this thread, there were a LOT of comments condemning KickStarter, making an assumption. My goal throughout this has been to try and remind people to be objective. If your objective, that's great! I have no issue with you, or anyone else with an objective. I've been responding to numerous people throughout all this as well, so there is a good chance I might end up talking to more than one person in a single thread, and not realize it.
It has come to my attention that Rachel Mendelson aka "Rachel Marone" aka "Rachel Haywire" aka "Transhuman X" may be allowed to use kickstarter again only 2 years after she took $3,000 with a fraudulent kickstarter effort. People are angrily posting on this page even as of a few months ago, and she has no plans to print the CD or to make any of the charitable contribution percentage she promised from this project. Please do not allow her to make any more kickstarter efforts, and defraud more people. Here is the page and the comments from people who never got their CD from her. By kickstarter's own rules, she should be required to return the donations at this point, not start a new fraudulent kickstarter campaign. She is very likely to start a new kickstarter account called 'Rachel Marone', be aware she is abusing kickstarter for financially fraudulent purposes.
Here is the link to the project that never did anything but take money:
where you can see comments of complaint from its backers:
"If you’re a backer of this project, please log in to read this post.
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Erik Roy Tomren on September 26, 2011
so when is this coming out? the hard copy version, not the download.
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Cat on February 24
It's a year after this posting, almost two years after this was funded, and I have yet to receive my hard copy of this album. Very displeased. :/
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Steve Cross on March 15
Is the hard copy ever going to appear. A further update would be nice. I am not very happy!!
The hunt for my stalker continues yet has been
unsuccessful as of now. The FBI having bigger fish to fry.
The police say that he is “good at what he does.” Can
people like this be stopped if they cannot be found?
More unsubstiantiated claims from the same source are not really a good foundation for support.
I have no bone in this fight, but it seems to me that at the very least, the issue is much more complex than she made it seem in her blog post, and there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle missing. My BS detectors were sounding the alarm, but they always do that when I read unsupported claims.
It has come to my attention that Rachel Mendelson aka "Rachel Marone" aka "Rachel Haywire" aka "Transhuman X" may be allowed to use kickstarter again only 2 years after she took $3,000 with a fraudulent kickstarter effort. People are angrily posting on this page even as of a few months ago, and she has no plans to print the CD or to make any of the charitable contribution percentage she promised from this project. Please do not allow her to make any more kickstarter efforts, and defraud more people. Here is the page and the comments from people who never got their CD from her. By kickstarter's own rules, she should be required to return the donations at this point, not start a new fraudulent kickstarter campaign. She is very likely to start a new kickstarter account called 'Rachel Marone', be aware she is abusing kickstarter for financially fraudulent purposes.
Here is the link to the project that never did anything but take money:
where you can see comments of complaint from its backers:
"If you’re a backer of this project, please log in to read this post.
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Erik Roy Tomren on September 26, 2011
so when is this coming out? the hard copy version, not the download.
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Cat on February 24
It's a year after this posting, almost two years after this was funded, and I have yet to receive my hard copy of this album. Very displeased. :/
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Steve Cross on March 15
Is the hard copy ever going to appear. A further update would be nice. I am not very happy!!
Re:He's harassed me too. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14, @06:07PM (#39688797)
You're an idiot, or you're lying. Or both.
I do not believe that CP is involved and the FBI won't take the bait. Reply to This Parent Share Flag as Inappropriate
› Re:He's harassed me too. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14, @06:41PM (#39689097)
Let me get this straight.
You know his name and aliases. He also allegedly sends out child porn. He's also doing it to a lot of people for a long time. You still can't get a restraining order on him.
Also, you think [reddit.com] this [reddit.com] and this [reddit.com] are his sockpuppet proxies just to attack you (both active for a long time, write in different styles and on different topics, one registered four years ago, another one - 9 months ago).
No, you totally don't sound mad at all. And noone could suspect yourself of being Rachel's sockpuppet.
Now tell me I'm Jason Christopher Hughes too. Reply to This Parent Share
Are there very many circumstances where it is useful to discuss specific, possibly ongoing legal matters on the Internet? Honestly, even if the authorities could deal with this effectively and find said dude, if I thought he was ultimately harmless I wouldn't want him to be thrown in a cage for years for posting a bunch of harassing comments. It's sad that mental illness is a crime.
235 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadJason,
Rachel Marone here. You know it's me and valid because it's in italics, and that makes it true. Anyways, everything I posted on my blog is a lie. Just wanted to say that.
Honestly,
Rachel Marone
Well, we can go home now.
But I would be happier if they can confirm or deny it. No doubt they will be pressed to do so in the next few days, and a fuller picture will emerge.
I'm not sure anything they say would make a difference. Personally, I inclined to believe what she's saying is true, but I believe there is more to the story that impacts what has been said already. Believing that, it would be unfair of me to suggest anything one way or the other.
The second option is by far the easier (psychologically and materially), but they may be forced to do the first eventually anyway.
And I'm not suggesting, in any way, that KickStarter shouldn't respond (at this point, it would be insane not to).
What I am saying is that we shouldn't be assuming KickStarter is in the wrong at that this Rachel has been 100% honest and has told the complete story. That is all.
Thanks for writing in. If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one. We simply cannot allow a project to become a forum for rampant spam, as her past project became. If this happens again, we will need to discard the project and permanently suspend Rachel’s account.
If this quote is fiction, then it will be easy for kickstarter to say so.
It's not perfect, but for ANY site of sufficient size with unmoderated user content, this problem eventually has to be dealt with. Threatening to ban the victims is not a solution.
Kickstarter earns 5% from every single successful project: they can afford putting some effort into moderation and protecting their customers.
1. Verified accounts - e.g. a confirmation email.
2. Social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) - obvious caveat being, some people don't have them, or won't want to sign up with them, etc.
Then, you make it harder for the cyberstalker to determine they've been banned. "Hellbanning" is a good example of this - you ban the user, but don't notify them. Everyone else just doesn't see the comment. There are variations, but the idea is to make it harder for the person on the other end of the screen to determine when to switch accounts.
Thirdly, you implement some sort of user control. For example, an "ignore" button - press this, and suddenly that user's comments aren't visible to you any more. Without notifying them, of course. Alternatively, let the project owner hellban/ignore any user from their project.
And then there's the other stuff - community moderation like Reddit and HN, automatic spam filtering, disallowing registrations from throwaway emails like Mailinator, and other stuff like that.
No matter what they implement, "please go away because you're being stalked" is NOT the right choice. There are technical solutions to this kind of thing, and if they're not perfect, they're certainly better than nothing. And at the end of the day, it's not about being perfect, it's about making the person that's sitting on the other end of the screen not want to spend the time to harass you, or post spam, or troll, or whatever else.
You also can't post a comment if you don't have an account, so banning the account would be a reasonable stopgap measure; this step wasn't mentioned in the blog post. If they're flooding accounts, then ban the IP. If they start switching IPs, then you can start making excuses for Kickstarter.
That's sort of like saying that security by obscurity is pointless -- certainly it's NOT pointless, and banning IPs (like security by obscurity) will work in many cases, and should not be ignored as techniques.
They aren't the solution, but can be part of a multi-pronged approach.
For trolls/stalkers that know how to get past an IP ban, I do like hellbanning, accompanied with a strict written policy of "don't feed the trolls".
Unfortunately the authorities seem to have too much to do. If it takes any effort to investigate something, it isn't going to happen.
No matter what happened here, this entire concept is horribly, horribly wrong. It's blaming the victim -- saying that it's somehow her fault for "causing" the stalker to do something... as opposed to the stalker's fault, for stalking.
If Kickstarter does respond to this by maintaining their stance, then there's a huge problem. Until then, it's more a case of an incompetent employee.
Anyway, if comments were turned off, a potential contributor could just reach out via email or some type of private message if they had a concern about the project.
And obviously banning a project and a user for "engaging with a spammer" without any warning is just appalling.
"If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one." This statement is just so stupid. Kickstarter should be responsible for dealing with spam if they want to be taken seriously.
We do? Again, I ask, where is the proof of what we know?
What we do know is that you can make a post on a blog making claims about a popular company saying they did something bad, get it on HN, and people will start demanding said company respond and handle it without waiting for proof.
Yes, the accusations are serious. Yes, if true, it should be handled, but knee-jerk reactions like this are just as bad the charges laid against KickStarter.
Let's use reason and intelligence, not anger and emotion.
Screenshots of the original emails? I'm sure they could be spoofed. Screenshot of the page of comments? Same. Statements from other people who were backing her?
Really, I don't understand what you're asking for.
Edit: seems there's more to this story about the individual involved but that doesn't change anything about how Kickstarter reacted (assuming, of course, that the events played out as described).
Edit2: Please note. Edits to the parent post now make this comment appear out of context (and therefore unhelpful). Decided to leave it up though.
amirmc,
The post on my website is a lie.
Truly,
Rachel
There. Case closed.
> What kind of 'proof' would satisfy you?
What kind of proof would satisfy you? Italicized text? A blog post?
> I don't see how anything here is particularly knee-jerk.
Unsubstantiated claim is made. People here are already assuming KickStarter is guilty.
Don't misrepresent what I'm saying. No where am I suggesting indisputable proof must be provided. I'm merely saying that nothing has been offered up.
I try not to take any of these things as 'proof'. Also you say that "nothing has been offered up" which isn't true. Someone wrote a post and copy/pasted emails into it. Sure, you can question the veracity of the post but it isn't really fair to say that nothing was offered. It's just that what was offered doesn't seem sufficient to you (which is fine, btw. I'm not saying I believe it all just because of a blog post).
Yes, an accusation was made with some italicized text. People may be giving the OP the benefit of the doubt. You are not. Why aren't both of those ok? I doubt anyone here is going to start a picket outside Kickstarter's offices nor start flaming elsewhere on the net. They might post their displeasure at Kickstarter here.
Your issue isn't really with the post but how folks here seem to be reacting to it. I get that, but isn't it always going to be the case with David/Goliath-type stories?
If her story turns out to have any chinks in it then she'll lose all credibility with this crowd and if not, then Kickstarter should have something to say about it. In a couple of days this will have either been resolved, forgotten or a 'proper' news story (ie more than just a HN submission).
Edit: More downvotes? If I'm missing something please let me know what.
That's a fair question. I'll explain, but first, you should explain this:
Jason,
Sorry about my comment. You are absolutely right. I cannot admit to being wrong in public, however. I'm, in fact, the poster of the original blog post, and it is all made up.
Sincerely,
amirmc
Now you are required to answer this accusation. And everyone attacking KickStarter and assuming guilt should not attack you for making up the post.
I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean, and what I'm saying (and in case someone else misses the point, the above email is not in fact an email).
When I say nothing has been offered up, I mean beyond the blog post (obviously). My issue with this is it places the burden on KickStarter to prove their innocence. And this, I firmly believe, is wrong.
> Your issue isn't really with the post but how folks here seem to be reacting to it.
Exactly. =)
> I get that, but isn't it always going to be the case with David/Goliath-type stories?
Doesn't make it right. I don't believe that the little guy is always in the right. And I'd like to think we strive to rise above this. Tis better to be calm and rational about situations like this then break out the pitchforks and torches.
Yes, some people want to believe everything they read on the internet. That doesn't make it right.
Please, everybody, remember to be civil and give everybody the benefit of the doubt.
And people can permanently loose their account over this? I guess they've just lost a lot of founders. Permanently.
WTF. I'm sorry guys. If there is any chance your blog post may incite trolls or spammers please refrain from making that post.
This makes no sense. Better response would be to try and work with the person and figure out some kind of solution. Sure banning people who attract spam works but in the long run it will cause some serious karma fallout. This is customer service 101.
If Kickstarter says "hey, this is all wrong", and Ms Marone maintains that the incident did happen, then we can start weighing proof and credibility. Alternatively, if Kickstarter says "oops, our fault, and we're changing our processes", then no proof needs to be supplied.
But first, we need to know Kickstarter's side.
Furthermore, I don't believe a company, or anyone, should be held to respond to every claim thrown at them. To prove a negative.
Do not assume that I support KickStarter if the allegations are true. I just don't think it's reasonable to assume guilt and start demanding things.
Let's just say that as of right now, I could say at the OP is merely doing this as a publicity stunt, and she should respond to these allegations, and this would be the exact same thing that is happening here.
If Daniella Jaeger indeed said "If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one. We simply cannot allow a project to become a forum for rampant spam, as her past project became." then she should apologize and look at the way that the project handles this sort of thing in the future.
If she never said this, then this has been a big beatup. Either way, Daniella needs to respond to this allegation.
You're wrong. It does. People need to be told, flat out, the this isn't a board that wants nor appreciates mob-mentality. It promotes reason and rationality. As a long* time member of HN, threads like this are a blight. Not because of the parties involved, but because we are doing things we abhor in others.
> Either way, Daniella needs to respond to this allegation.
I hate that mentality. I understand the reasoning, but essentially we are requiring people to respond to trolls. I say this within the context of what we know: a unsubstantiated blog post is claiming certain things. There are numerous steps that could be taken to provide more proof, and I think it's important that evidence is provided to avoid these types of issues.
Basically, I see this as the same as me accusing Rachel of setting this all up as a marketing stunt. And then posting some italicized text and claiming it's from her. It's equally as credible as things stand now.
Edit: * I just want to add that I don't presume that it needs my help. Rather, every member is, in their own way, responsible for moderating HN. It can only be defended by it's users.
Finally, I don't think anyone here is suggesting taking action against kickstarter without hearing what they say. It's a big "wow, this is a bad way to behave kickstarter". And they could reply "yes, good thing we didn't do that".
Whoa. I never said that. I never suggested it, and suggesting I said that is completely dishonest and reprehensible*.
I'm going to assume you misread what I've written. I've said that there are many possibilities that could explain these actions, besides the truth, one of those being a publicity stunt. That, however, is no where near an accusation, merely speculation, and does not represent my believe in any way.
Edit: This sounds like I'm calling you dishonest and reprehensible. That's not accurate. That would be if you were doing it on purpose. I just believe you misread what I wrote. Just being clear.
Both Rachel and Kickstarter have done the right thing here.
Not sure about you, but if I saw a spammer on my site, and saw two users discussing things back and forth behind the scenes, I might draw the conclusion they are in collusion.
The OP is, after all, an artist, and might have used the spammer to help draw more attention to their situation. That's not unheard of.
It's also fair to say that KickStarter would be fairly negligent if they did* read the messages between two users.
So, once again, unless someone has proof of anything, it's all speculative right now.
Edit: The OP's bio, it says she is a Brand Developer and runs a convention focusing on Radial Performers.
Yeah, and the more I read, I realize how easily what I said above could be true. Still, I have no proof, and await it.
In all seriousness, getting banned sucks. 'The customer is always right' isn't a bad mentality to have even for startups, and even when the customer is the product.
I sent mine..did you send yours or did you wimp out?
You responding to the "stalker" creates an impression that conversation is going on; and the conversation is not pretty. Instead, you should wipe and ban. Preferably done by site admins, not the victim herself.
Of course Kickstarter should unban the victim but only after she agrees to never respond to the stalker on Kickstarter. Instead, report. Nobody would blame you if you don't participate in annoying behavior.
If so, then WTF! It's lunacy to try and engage with someone like the stalker is claimed to be. There's no excuse for doing that, and if Marone was doing so, especially if she was warned by Kickstarter first (unclear), I can't really blame Kickstarter for kicking her off.
Marone needs to completely ignore the stalker, and Kickstarter needs to just filter and ban him as best they can, and leave Marone's projects on Kickstarter alone. Based on the blog post, I'm not quite sure who is actually screwing up here.
The worst part being the nearly top comment on HN being "don't feed the troll".
I'd talk about privilege and the nice ability to "ignore" such "trolls" but I'd be wasting my breath. (which isn't to dismiss the HN community as much as it is to acknowledge that those who get it, get it, and those who don't are probably fortunate enough to not have to)
Artsy people and their rights. It's a service and not a right. Crowdfund somewhere else if that's so important.
How dare she engage the troll in a manner that is not how the internet recommends. Clearly she deserves everything that happened to her. I mean yes, the way to deal with trolls is to ignore them completely and absolutely, but the punishment for not doing that shouldn't be being banned from kickstarter.
Your other posts about italic text honestly come across to me as a strawman.
There are other possibilities as well. It's not so black and white.
> Your other posts about italic text honestly come across to me as a strawman.
Oh, evidence was presented? You know, using the word strawman doesn't mean it is, nor does it change what has, or has not, been presented. You can dismiss my arguments and believe what you want, however. At least I'm not out to take advantage of your gullibility.
Anyway, on to the main point. You're using an example of how easy it is to throw out words and ignoring the fact that if this blog post is a lie it has serious ramifications on her integrity. So I feel justified calling it a strawman. This isn't quoting a 4chan thread as a resource, this is somebody making a plea to the world under their real name. There is reason to believe the quotes are accurate, even though I'm sure there's bias in the telling.
And I'm not judging kickstarter until I hear what their response is. Even if all they say is 'that email is fake' then I won't think badly of them. I'm not being taken advantage of, because I'm not trusting a lone rant.
Judging by some of the other posts about this "victim", I'm not sure her integrity is a concern. Supposedly she's done KickStarter before, and essentially just taken the money and not produced (Please, check these threads for the specific comments regarding it).
At the same time, keep in mind that when I first came to this thread, there were a LOT of comments condemning KickStarter, making an assumption. My goal throughout this has been to try and remind people to be objective. If your objective, that's great! I have no issue with you, or anyone else with an objective. I've been responding to numerous people throughout all this as well, so there is a good chance I might end up talking to more than one person in a single thread, and not realize it.
It has come to my attention that Rachel Mendelson aka "Rachel Marone" aka "Rachel Haywire" aka "Transhuman X" may be allowed to use kickstarter again only 2 years after she took $3,000 with a fraudulent kickstarter effort. People are angrily posting on this page even as of a few months ago, and she has no plans to print the CD or to make any of the charitable contribution percentage she promised from this project. Please do not allow her to make any more kickstarter efforts, and defraud more people. Here is the page and the comments from people who never got their CD from her. By kickstarter's own rules, she should be required to return the donations at this point, not start a new fraudulent kickstarter campaign. She is very likely to start a new kickstarter account called 'Rachel Marone', be aware she is abusing kickstarter for financially fraudulent purposes.
Here is the link to the project that never did anything but take money:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/machinekuntrecords/sanit...
where you can see comments of complaint from its backers:
"If you’re a backer of this project, please log in to read this post. 3 of 4 View Previous Comments
I have no bone in this fight, but it seems to me that at the very least, the issue is much more complex than she made it seem in her blog post, and there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle missing. My BS detectors were sounding the alarm, but they always do that when I read unsupported claims.
It has come to my attention that Rachel Mendelson aka "Rachel Marone" aka "Rachel Haywire" aka "Transhuman X" may be allowed to use kickstarter again only 2 years after she took $3,000 with a fraudulent kickstarter effort. People are angrily posting on this page even as of a few months ago, and she has no plans to print the CD or to make any of the charitable contribution percentage she promised from this project. Please do not allow her to make any more kickstarter efforts, and defraud more people. Here is the page and the comments from people who never got their CD from her. By kickstarter's own rules, she should be required to return the donations at this point, not start a new fraudulent kickstarter campaign. She is very likely to start a new kickstarter account called 'Rachel Marone', be aware she is abusing kickstarter for financially fraudulent purposes.
Here is the link to the project that never did anything but take money:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/machinekuntrecords/sanit...
where you can see comments of complaint from its backers:
"If you’re a backer of this project, please log in to read this post. 3 of 4 View Previous Comments
You're an idiot, or you're lying. Or both.
I do not believe that CP is involved and the FBI won't take the bait. Reply to This Parent Share Flag as Inappropriate
› Re:He's harassed me too. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14, @06:41PM (#39689097)
Let me get this straight.
You know his name and aliases. He also allegedly sends out child porn. He's also doing it to a lot of people for a long time. You still can't get a restraining order on him.
Also, you think [reddit.com] this [reddit.com] and this [reddit.com] are his sockpuppet proxies just to attack you (both active for a long time, write in different styles and on different topics, one registered four years ago, another one - 9 months ago).
No, you totally don't sound mad at all. And noone could suspect yourself of being Rachel's sockpuppet.
Now tell me I'm Jason Christopher Hughes too. Reply to This Parent Share