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Banned From Kickstarter For Being Cyberstalked
An anonymous reader writes "Rachel Marone has been a victim of cyberstalking for over 10 years. In 2011, she had a project on Kickstarter shut down because of the high volume of spam posted by the stalker in the comment section of the project. Recently, Marone's manager spoke to Kickstarter again to see how she could avoid having a new project banned if the cyberstalker showed up again. They replied, '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.' On her website, Marone sums up the situation thus: 'I am being told that I cannot crowdfund because I am a stalking victim. ... With so many women being stalking targets this does not seem reasonable to me.'"
While I hate to resort to tit-for-tat tactics, the obvious answer here is to spam all the founders' accounts.
Because, quite simply, that's 100% undiluted B.S.
Now she got Slashdotted too.
The solution is clear, start posting high volumes of messages on all the other projects for supporting kickstarter, an organization that clearly supports 'cyber bullying'. I would imagine that after a significant amount of projects have been shut down, they'd turn around and actually fix the problem properly.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
According to her she was banned by Facebook too. Methinks there is more behind this story.
the inability to comprehend the situation and the lack of enthusiasm in dealing with it in a forthright and efficient manner speaks volumes about kickstarters management culture. they sound like a bunch of incompetent buffoons.
"i represent an unbearable burden on some system and am upset that they won't accomidate me"
You're an idiot and should be kicked in the nuts.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your politician, and hitting them?"
So... What are you wearing?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
No mod points at the min - so will ask a question :)
Is this taken from another quote? [please excuse my ignorance - am genuinely interested]
Don't blame the website for not wanting to put up with your baggage. Blame the stalker. Take legal matters in your own hands and go after him/her.
Why can't Kickstarter allow for projects to disable comments?
People who avoid victims because they don't want to deal with the fallout are the worst kind of cowards. And in your hypothetical situation the answer is easy - just like in this situation with kickstarter.
What the people running the service have done is send a world wide message that anyone can control their service by destroying projects at will.
Of course they will back track very soon. They'll have to, but the mind reels trying to figure out how they did not see this correctly in the first place.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Now she got Slashdotted too.
Isn't that interesting?
Looking at her websites and everything, she looks like one of those artsy people that would benefit incredibly from exposure. Actually, anyone doing any sort of business on the net needs exposure to get noticed.
Over the last decade, I've become extremely cynical about things like this.
If she were really getting threats and people were posting illegal things like child pornography as she said, then the cops would be involved to go after this guy and take him out. But no. Things are continuing for some reason and here she is getting all this free publicity and hits on her website.
Read up on any of the "Gorilla Marketing" type of books out there and you too will become cynical of any sort of public exposure.
From her website:
In my How Facebook Deleted My Ass article I discussed how my account was deleted because I was accused of impersonating myself.
. I don't consider FB to be that credible either, but then again, I wonder what made them come to that conclusion?
And if she is in fact truly being stalked, I blame the marketing people of the World for making public exposure of any sort a cheap way to market products, services, people, art, etc ...
After all, we do live in a World where people actually burn themselves to death to bring attention to issues. What's a little cyber-stalking?
This is absolutely ridiculous. I'm simply appalled that they would even SAY THAT. I'm not really that surprised though, as I've been on the receiving end of Kickstarter's questionable behavior as well.
I submitted a Kickstarter for a generic USBHID interface board (For making game controllers and input devices, though it really had tons of applications) and they rejected it for no reason. When pressed for an explanation, they said "Kickstarter is for creative arts projects and [my] project did not fit."
So, I guess having a DOZEN Kickstarters for Arduino clones going at any given time is okay, but if someone wants to make something that hasn't been run into the ground yet, fuck 'em! I mean, wow! I was only trying to get $500 together!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
--Martin Niemöller
While I think that Kickstarter could have handled it better; read the article on her website.
She got spam comments and she replied to them. She claims that she was being stalked and she recognised the stalker: why reply ? Just report them. You're not supposed to feed trolls.
It is clear the reason she got kicked off because she got interacted with the spammer and was part of the problem.
And WTF is a "transmedia artist" ? She uses various media, multimedia ?
I know kickstarter is going to get a lot of negative feelings about this, but I can't blame them for their decision. Look at all the crazy lawsuits that happen and succeed... such as a person suing the owner of the house they are robbing, after they injure themselves during the crime... there is a chance that if they allowed a project to go forward, knowing that it could provide a new forum for cyberstalking against someone with a long history or it, then kickstarter risks a liability lawsuit.
This isn't discrimination, it's just declining to serve a customer (which a businesses has every right to do) for a reason that has some merit to it. They don't want to be part of a bad situation and don't want to risk involvement or any form of responsibility for it. It sucks, but it's not unreasonable
I don't know how "typical"/common-to-type, but I too smell a whiner. 10 years of cyberstalking isn't harassment, it is symbiosis. "Co-dependency" in PC-speak. I find it beyond incredible that a computer-savvy person would be stalked that long without identification and intervention by law enforcement.
OTOH, any site that complains of spamming needs to require registration or grow a pair. The cost of allowing anon is some spam tolerence, or filters of some sort. Banning positive contributors (is she?) enters the death spiral -- rewarding bad behaviour.
Hey I have a guy that follows me around and vandalizes the building I live in. Can I stay at your place?
Sure. I live in Texas. We have the Castle Doctrine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine I own several guns. Bring chips.
Note that arrest is also possible.
I can't, it's wireless!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Instead the hive mind wants Kickstarter to accommodate the stalker. How clever.
No one want Kickstarter to accommodate the stalker. How about they put a little effort into blocking the spam ? What kind of internet startup can't deal with a spam problem ? Blaming the victim because your system isn't set up to deal with abuse is out of order.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
It's very possible that this is all a bs story on her part and she's just whoring for attention.
Kickstarter may have made the right call.
Reddit uncovered some more info about her, that doesn't paint her in a very good light:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3840589
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/s97g4/banned_from_kickstarter_for_being_a_stalking/c4c5j7r
As you all know I have a rockin' tight ass, a successful project on Kickstarter that you've all funded, and a cyberstalker that goes by the name of FrankSinatraDirtyTalker1915@comcast.net.
I originally met "Frank" back in College, where we dated for a bit. I should point out that he's not an old man, as his username might imply, but rather someone who is simply obsessed with Frank Sinatra and my gorgeous rockin hard ass.
Anyway, when I broke up with him he took it pretty badly. It was our Sophomore year at Rice University and I had just discovered gravity bongs and going down on another girl while blazed out of my gord. As I've admitted, these were confusing albeit fun times for me.
Meanwhile, "Frank" was raised as a Mormon but had recently converted to Scientology. I guess you might say he was experimenting with his own hallucinogenic homoerotic drug. This drug/sex/cult cocktail, combined with my round pulchritudinous derriere, and the sudden shock of losing his ability to play his daily role of dressing up as Dr. Parnassus while gently fondling my perky nipples and supple breasts that he had affectionately named the Merry Mammary Sisters of Nippopolis, and Queens of the Breastiary - led to Frank's complete mental breakdown.
I don't blame Frank for my rockin body, just as I don't blame you for being attracted to my intelligence and funding my project on Kickstarter. However, what I do not like is being stalked. I hope you all do what I do when you see Frank's messages on any thread related to my project. Just lick your index finger, point it at Frank's username and then say, "Ooooooooooooo ICE COLD! Mama thinks you're a BAAAAD BOYYYY! OOOOOO Ice Cold..." then point the same finger back at your left nipple and make a sizzling sound "SSSSSssssssssssss" and sing this little rap
Thank you all again for funding my project on Kickstarter. You're clearly invested in a winner!
also relevant:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3840589
Wow, so tense, bro. Clearly you've never heard of this thing called "humor".
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
With an average death rate compared with other states, the Castle Doctrine doesn't appear to be making much of difference.
Nice law though - invite someone into your home, and blow their head off. Claim they had broken in. Profit!
I don't mean to be an ass, but that's a natural survival instinct. You don't get into the fight between people you don't know unless you see with absolute certainty that one is a victim. And even then, things are often not as they would seem from the first glance.
That's what police is for in modern society. If you can stop the immediate fight, do it, but get authorities involved. Not yourself. Which is what the site in question did, it stopped the immediate fight by banning the account and informed the known active party (note that she actively participated in those spam threads) that this behaviour will be stopped and that she should not engage in it again if she doesn't want that fight being stopped by banning again.
I honestly don't see anything done wrong. Sure, if it's really as bad as the woman says, it's terrible for her and she should go to the police and really file a complaint with copies of "child porn and infant rape fantasies" she claims she's being sent. But it's not other people's job to take significant commercial losses because she chooses to take the fight to their shop. They also have a right to conduct business without such fights
Sure. I live in Texas.
Cool
I own several guns.
That was assumed from the previous statement. In fact I thought it was mandatory.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
She makes claims that "police say he's too good for them and FBI won't investigate". Something I personally find very hard to believe considering she's claiming that he's systemically sending "her and hundreds of other victims child porn and infant rape fantasies".
Someone who doesn't fuck up when massively sending crap like that to hundreds of recipients for a decade? That's inhuman. And on top of the cake, her letters with the moderators clearly state that she actively talked to this stalker on their site.
I find it completely credible that stalking could go on for a long time and that law enforcement wouldn't help at all. Many years ago my girlfriend had a stalker. He was leaving weird messages on her car at home and at work and showed signs of escalating like messages on her bedroom window, which was in the back of the house. We went to the police with the notes, a summary of when and where things had been done as well as the text of the law against stalking and they refused to take a report. Her employer didn't like someone coming on to their property to harass an employee, so they had one of their attorneys do all of the paperwork and force the police to take a report. The guy was identified and convicted of stalking. Stalking is ignored by law enforcement until after the victim is raped or killed, then it can be used as evidence of pre-meditation.
KickStarter is not the only player - just saying.
In no particular order (actually, alphabetical, but in no order of preference.. except for that of the alphabet.. nnngh!)
boostive ckie crowdbackers crowdfunder eightbitfunding (games, not really applicable to your project) fundageek fundit fundry indiegogo investedin kickstarter peerbackers pleasefundus pledgie pozible quirky rockethub sponsorcraft sponsume ulule wefund
There's more, but most of them are very 'fund-my-life' or are platforms that are quite deadish.
And if you want to roll your own, give IgnitionDeck (wordpress plugin) a shot.
KickStarter may be the most popular, but IndieGoGo gets a good chunk of traffic as well. That would be my second choice.
I didn't find any information on your idea at your homepage, but if you'd still be interested in making it, make sure you put in shameless plugs in your comments.
I had occasion to fly into Ft. Worth some time back, and was struck by the fact that then, a couple of years AFTER 9/11, they apparently found it necessary to have signs instructing everyone not to bring their guns in the airport.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Talking back to a genuine, real-life stalker is a very bad idea. Stalkers are generally certifiably mentally ill. They have a delusion that involves the victim. Any contact, any attention, feeds that delusion. That's one of the reasons you show never engage directly with a stalker.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Rachel "Haywire" aka "Marone" aka "Mendelson" is a well known con artist, grifter and volcano of libel. She also collects an SSDI check for mental disability.
Ms. Jaeger:
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/sanity-is-slavery
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!!
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I've been reading her PR. It looks like she did a small arts festival, and wants to do something else. She's tried being in a band, writing magazine articles, modeling, and organizing events. But no one is paying attention. There's little about her written by anyone else.
Sometimes she gets it right. Read her "John Galt is homeless", a brief reply to Ayn Rand. "We need to face the fact that Randian capitalism is no longer a way to advance oneself but a way to make oneself poor. The roles have now been reversed and it is no longer survival-of-the-fittest but survival-of-the-most-willing-to-please."
I've met so many people like that in the SF art scene. They're wild, crazy, fun, and can't quite make it. They tend to end up bitter by age 35.
I'm not sure what to believe. Perhaps no one? I have noticed a pattern here: The most trenchant criticisms are all posted by Anonymous Cowards. GP, who are you? Why should anyone believe anything you say? Why should anyone care?
Could use some real journalism here, uncover the facts. Otherwise, all this is a waste of time.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Unfortunately, she's lying.
On her website, she makes 2 contradictory claims on the same page:
and
So, the police can't track him down even though she has his address to try to serve him with restraining orders for 10 years? (never mind that you can't "duck" being served a restraining order for 10 years - you just go back to court, convince the judge that the person is actively seeking to not being served, they publish the notice in the paper that an order affecting them has been deposited with the court, end of story).
This is so obviously a complete fake ... but let's now throw in this - from the same page
She used a new sock-puppet account to post this on reddit, and simultaneously submitted it anonymously here, as her latest self-promotion campaign, and/or to try to get kickstarter to let her do another project despite not delivering on her last one, even though it was funded.
The problem of cyber-stalking is real enough. Just not in this phony case.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Not just likely. She's been doing it for years and years ...
http://www.side-line.com/side-line-forum/topic/beware-mentally-challenged-person-on-gothindustrial-messageboards#post-19422She accuses a band of being Nazi white supremists, starts up an online petition against them, and on the petition, deletes comments that point out one of the band members is black.
And then this current round of self-promotion, spammed to reddit (the original post was a sock-puppet account, quickly deleted) and here (anon submission at the same time), with some lies about being cyber-stalked, which she describes here: http://experimenthaywire.net/is-there-a-solution-to-cyberstalking/
On the one hand, she claims that the guy has been sitting in his basement for a decade ducking restraining orders (which isn't how it works); a few paragraphs down, she says the cops can't locate him. I'm sure the police have access to a street map.
She got funded by kickstarter a few years ago, didn't deliver what was promised, and now claims that she was banned because she's been cyber-stalked. It's more likely that her history of over-the-top behaviour directed at so many people brought all the negative comments, and her "don't believe them, it's all from one crazy cyber-stalker using multiple identities and impersonating everyone in the music industry" was her way of trying to avoid the consequences.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Kickstarter doesn't accept all projects. It accepts those that are likely to succeed, and will reflect well on itself, and by proxy future projects. If her project is inundated by a stalker, then it doesn't reflect well on Kickstarter or its other projects.
Now, what actions could Kickstarter take to rectify this?
It could assign staff to moderate the project. Her project appears small, in the low three figures. Kickstarter takes only 5%, so their revenue is in the tens of dollars. A dedicated stalker can easily dodge automated blocking and tie up more resources than is financially viable for them to dedicate to her project. Thus, this is not an option.
Kickstarter could decide not to accept pre paid/gift credit cards and thus prevent the stalker from simply buying a new, $10 card each time his account gets banned. Not only would this cost Kickstarter many orders of magnitude more than her project could bring in, it would marginalize millions of people who do not have another way to contribute to the communities that use Kickstarter, many of whom are already vulnerable people with little socioeconomic power. Clearly, this is not an option.
Kickstarter could ban comments, or allow project managers to delete comments. This would stifle the communities involvement with the project, and potentially allow project managers to sweep legitimate problems under the rug. This would diminish the trust the public might be willing to grant other projects. It would be irresponsible to choose this optio Even requiring a credit card and a $1 contribution to commentn.
That leaves the unfortunate final option to decline to host her project until the matter can be resolved. It most certainly is not her fault, but it isn't Kickstarter's either.
As previously pointed out, she has mental problems. My diagnosis: she's schitzophrenic, and stalking herself. Now go and read a proper story.
The whole thing is a scam. She's a weirdo that has created (or if not, enjoys the attention of) a 'cyberstalker.'
It's run-of-the-mill attention whoring bullshit. On to the next...