Slashdot Mirror
The Muddy Truth About Kickstarter 'Staff Picks'
szczys writes: Crowd Funding is the wild-wild west of business financing, and it's not just the people starting campaigns that are playing without many rules. One of Kickstarter's sort algorithm triggers is the "Staff Pick." Research indicates being featured by Kickstarter staff is a huge predictor for success. But there is no published benchmark for how these are chosen. Oddly, Kickstarter only discourages users from falsely labeling their campaign as a Staff Pick. To protect backers and ensure the crowdfunding ecosystem isn't sullied by scammers, Kickstarter needs to boost their transparency starting with this Staff Pick conundrum.
Read the title:
Ok, staff picks, wonder how much you have to bribe to get on that list.
Read the summary:
Ok, so this is some articles that no one knows how the staff picks are chosen. Apparently this is completely unacceptable because reasons. I suppose the possibility that these are the projects that actually interest the staff is completely unfair and the process must be documented and trivially hackable.
Read the articles:
Just kidding, not worth the time.
You thought you found a safe harbor at the North end of the comments; but you were sunk... by a Confederate submarine. BOOM! Glug, glug, glug.
1. Create platform for those wishing to raise capital;
2. Small-time investors invest;
3. Take cut;
4. Pass on investment;
5. Product/service created;
6. ???
7. No profit for investors.
Capitalism is getting more and more degenerate.
Bring it over to kick starter and we'll get you the capital you need to start working on your terrible invention!
When things are chosen by a "staff pick", the staff of a particular organization picks things they think look interesting. That's...the whole deal.
It's not a subjective process. It's also not a new process. Your local book, record and video stores, back when such things still existed, did this. Your local liquor store does this. This has concept has been around for ages.
The only thing that Kickstarter has to do with this entire concept is that they're one of countless organizations that do this.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Kickstarter wont do anything that'll cost them free money.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I find myself not caring about "Staff Prick" because I'm interested in projects I'm interested in and I don't give a fuck what some employee or group of employees care about. I have no interest in funding projects out of the goodness of my heart nor am I looking for a hole to throw money into.
I stopped contributing to Kickstarter projects when "Laundry Ball" scams (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crystalwash/crystal-wash-20-clean-laundry-with-no-detergents/description) appeared on the site.
After all, Kickstarter doesn't make take a cut of the donations to a project when it fails to meet its funding goal, so it stands to reason that the staff would tend to favour projects that look like they have a reasonable chance of succeeding.
Of course, such prognostication is inherently a highly subjective evaluation, and IMO anyone who complains that the idea of being a Kickstarter staff pick doesn't have enough transparency to it is probably just whining because they weren't able to come up with a marketing angle that generate sufficient interest in their own project to get it funded.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think the entire Kickstarter thing is a legal morass that will only be settled after a great deal of arguing, posturing, and lawyers making ridiculous sums of $.
I believe - if anything - the game Star Citizen (around $90 mill KS funding) will be the trigger.
Derek Smart has rightly raised a number of awkward questions about the scope, expanse, shifting goalposts, and (lack of any) due diligence on this project. I suspect that with $90 million in the pot, enough lawyers might find it interesting to pursue on a contingency-fee basis (meaning they may be seeing easily 8 figures).
Numbers that large may even make politicians take notice, and 2016 is an election year (not that any politicians would even understand the context or how it would work over them tubes).
DS is a colossal egotist, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Let's not forget that the Reformation was also started by an astonishingly self-centered egotist too.
-Styopa
Actually the most recent "update" (if you mean software release) for Star Citizen was August 6th: 1.1.6a.
If you mean the most recent news release, it was August 22nd...
There's plenty of reasons to criticize RSI w/o making stuff up.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Perhaps most of the time, staff pick success prediction is just a self-fulfilling prophecy? You tell people a project is interesting, and therefore they donate.
If that is the case, opacity may be useful: if it was not opaque, people could challenge the prediction.
How so?
So far I've dropped money on a dozen projects; and only 3 haven't delivered yet.
Of course I chose all but 1 of my backed projects knowing the people involved in them and knowing what the risks were.
I can say as a KS creator who was lucky to get a staff pick- the staff person took a liming to our project. There was no money or bribe involved.
I have looked at other picks and honestly, I feel the picks are fair. They are staff who really like a project for one reason or another. I felt no insider bias in our situation.
There are some projects that the staf resonate with. That's honest. That's how is.
Come up with a good idea and the SP and millions are at your command.
If you expect a writer to revise the video game industry, your making a mistake: Neil Stephenson's CLANG project
If you expect an established, professional artist to publish a big fucking art-book, you're in the right place: Larry Elmore.
Just look for people who actually know what they're doing and have experience doing it, as opposed to someone with a wild hair up their ass.