Fair enough, especially the identification part; although that applies more to their (or is it?) reply to your reply.. than to your reply. But yes, in a back-and-forth, it does become a necessity to prevent others from impersonating.
Next time don't post as AC and I might be willing to have a reasonable discussion with you.
I'm not that AC - but I once was an AC, had a whole discussion with somebody, until they said they were done talking to an AC and that I should just register, it was easy, etc. So I did, and I replied again. Never a reply back from him... her... it.
I will never know because although his post didn't read Anonymous Coward, he was practically just as anonymous as I was; the only benefit to having a completely fictitious username available to you is to see what else they may have said in the past, on different subjects - but as it's simple to register for multiple accounts, even that is, to an extent, pointless.
So why does the person posting as AC matter?
( The post of the AC in question was confusing, though. I'm not sure they read your post correctly. )
On the other hand, I guess I have that person ( kheldan ) to thank for lower post-repeat delays.. who knew anons had to wait hours while anon-registerds can post every 5 minutes or so based on various post metrics?
there is no damned reason why i shouldn't be able to buy an AVI of any episode of any show for say 25c. that roughly figures up to about what you'd pay for a box set on Amazon
What box set is that?
Game of Thrones, Season 1 Episodes: 10 DVD: $34.99 or $3.50/episode Blu-Ray: $44.99 or $4.50/episode
Chuck, Season 5 Episodes: 13 DVD: $29.99 or $2.31/episode Blu-Ray: $39.99 or $3.08/episode...perhaps some older material and bigger box sets...
Star Trek TNG, all episodes (cheapest I could find at Amazon.com) Episodes: 178 DVD: $229.99 or $1.29episode
StarGate SG-1, all episodes (only seem to sell 1 these days) Episodes: 214 (might actually only be 213 in the box set, I believe the pilot episode is left out of some versions) DVD: $146.69 or $0.69/episode
$0.25/episode is nowhere near the price levels at Amazon that I've seen.
Airports however are fee crazy and may very well charge for this.
In the 5 U.S. airports I've been through recently, all of them had 'charging stations', offered by... I think it was Samsung. Those could easily handle laptops and whatnot.
That said, I haven't seen any airport try to 'secure' outlets used by cleaning crews and the like, or ever complain about people using them for their own stuff - even though they easily could. Usually others will complain, though, if you're hogging the outlet. I guess that's why the 'charging stations' started to appear.. they're little more than dressed up outlet multipliers - a single vacuum cleaner would easily draw more juice than a dozen laptops.
Well, that's a completely different discussion. The bottled water craze is starting to spill over from the U.S. to Europe as well. Right now it's mostly supermarkets, though.. the vending machines rarely have bottled water - let alone 3 different types (sub-brands of either Coke or Pepsi, I suppose) of it.
I can see why in certain areas you'd want bottled water. But in most of the civilized world, it's completely unnecessary short of needing a container to hold the stuff. In several countries the quality of tap water even bests bottled water.
Sadly, some of those areas where I'd prefer bottled water, is the airport.. and if you've ever witnessed a drunk passenger between flights throw up one moment then wrap their mouth around a water fountain the next, you might be a bit more hesitant as well.
That said - I rarely buy bottled water anyway.. I prefer a fruit drink.
Of course, once you're through security, you can buy a new one at ridiculous prices and take THAT onto the plane
That might vary from airport to airport - but at least at Phoenix Sky Harbor, I couldn't. I bought a drink at one of the 'News' stands and both the person at the til and the greeter at the waiting area informed me that I couldn't take it on board. At the waiting area was another large bin filled with (half) empty bottles, similar to that at the checkpoints.
That things vary should be pretty clear, though. At Frankfurt I also had to dump my drink at the checkpoint, but they didn't care about my shoes.. no need to take those off.
At Philadelphia International Airport, international connecting flight passengers have to pick up their luggage and then pretty much drop it off again.
I don't know why that is - perhaps to allow passengers access to their luggage if the connecting flight is several hours away.
However, because you are allowed to put fluids in your regular luggage (not carry-on), it means that at that time you can get your fluids out of there and into your carry-on.. hence the second screening... and the need to buy another drink past it.
So it's not that the area isn't secure - they just treat your luggage (or its content) as unsecured.
and why would we allow that, when a thirsty passenger... 1. Has to buy a bottle of drink after clearing the security checkpoint. 2. Has to buy another one on arrival at the connecting airport. 3. Has to buy yet another one on arrival at the destination airport.
And that's just the drinks - don't forget about all the awesome 3floz bottle variants of ointments, creams, moisturizers, sanitizers, etc. etc. that now litter some (airport) stores.
Allowing people to take their own packaged fluids onto planes again will just cut into this very profitable market.
Because we may strive to do better? Because we don't want to sink to his level (and yes, he has awful lows in addition to his great highs)? Because... why shouldn't we?
How can they know for sure? They probably can't. Even if they did contact her, she might be coerced to lie about it.
KickStarter projects usually end up with a 'thing' - physical, digital, a movie, a (n e-)book, etc. Which does make it easier to see if at least a project was delivered on - but you still can't know for sure that the person will deliver.. or that the 'thing' that will be delivered is 'as advertised'. That may as well be a 'scam'.
But, yes, in terms of the types of projects allowed, Crowdtilt is a lot more like IndieGoGo than KickStarter.
That said, KickStarter pretty much only seems to look at the project description and goes "seems legit" (see 'projektor' and wonder why that ever got through). Crowdtilt at least claims to do some checking into the people behind the project (through third parties or otherwise).
Your post is excellent (mods? c'mon!). However, I think most of your post can essentially be distilled into the following:
1. Some kids consent to sex with other kids due to (perceived) peer pressure. 2. Those same kids may consent under the distorted pressure exerted by adults.
I think you'll find that I mentioned that in my post; there's coercion at play here, the kids just aren't mentally aware of it happening or at least can't fully process it as such (pretty much the situation you describe from your own experience). And yes, that includes kids having sex with kids - if that happens under a (perceived) peer pressure, I think that is also deplorable. Not as deplorable as when an adult is involved, for many of the reasons you mentioned.
However, coercion is not always a factor and when it demonstrably isn't - again, as per my post - I so no reason for it to be forbidden. Of course the question becomes "how can it be demonstrably un-coerced when a child, who most likely cannot identify the coercion, is involved?" And that's where the law steps in and has no choice but to draw arbitrary lines.
I very much disagree with Stallman on that point. I guess this touches on what say family have over the physical remains of the deceased in general, though. This includes such things as deciding whether or not to donate body parts. I'm a firm believer that, in lieu of a document saying "yes", the assumed stance should be "no". That's also why I'm a proponent of mandatory donor registration; yes or no, but make a choice. This also makes it a lot easier on the family. But I wouldn't necessarily extend that to a mandatory necrophilia registration - I think assuming the default 'no' there is quite enough:)
Children can't legally or emotionally consent to sex; there's no such thing as "voluntary pedophilia."
Setting aside the lack of distinction between pedophilia and pedosexual actions (hint: one is actually disgusting and illegal, the other is just incomprehensible (to me))...
While children can't legally consent to sex, at which point can't they emotionally consent to it?
Apparently children (and I'm using the legal definition of child here) can, in fact, emotionally consent to it - with other children. A lot of children do. Like it or not, statistically speaking, somewhere in that crowd of highschoolers in the school yard, is going to be at least one couple that has had sex with each other. If they can consent to having sex with another child around their own age, then why not with an adult?
Similarly, some jurisdictions essentially say "the age of consent is 18" - leading to the oft-cited example of an 18-ear old having sex with their 17.997-year old SO potentially ending up being listed as a sex offender; of if only they had waited another day.. then that SO would have been capable of emotional consent, just like that, like magic.
Now don't get me wrong - I know a line has to be drawn somewhere and I certainly appreciate the fact that pedosexuals would use similar defenses and then try to extend them to suggest that having sex with a 6-year old is totally okay, too.
But just because the nuances are uncomfortable for us to even think about, doesn't mean they're not there.
Thus you can place Stallman's statements into a slightly less black-and-white context. When he says that it shouldn't be illegal if nobody is coerced, take it exactly as such. Just because a child can 'voluntarily' have sex with an adult doesn't mean there wasn't coercion; they're just not mentally developed enough to recognize the coercion at play. In bestiality, the animal is practically always coerced. In necrophilic sex coercion is the default unless there was some manner of written contract that the deceased actually gave permission. In practice, Stallman is saying that in fact all of these things would still be illegal, except in those cases where it is demonstrably consensual. And in those cases, what would be the basis for it to be forbidden?
Similarly, child pornography is indeed not enough reason 'to censor the internet', as the question was. Keep in mind that in order to stop child pornography completely, you're looking at having to stop such things as TOR. This is actually a nice new hot topic in The Netherlands due to an investigative reporter going on TOR, finding plenty of child porn traders, and busting a guy who actively sought out children to pretty much abuse. So half the government cries foul and next thing you know it they'll be having a debate on whether or not TOR should be blocked - even though that very same thing is helping dissidents in IRAN to get around political censorship.
His statement regarding redistributing is another matter. Is the redistributing party aware of the content? If not (such as ISPs, TOR nodes, etc.) - how are they participating in the crime? If they are aware, however, then I very much believe they're participating in the crime by virtue of helping to sustain a market for the materials in question.
As for the lack of reporting.. not really - Stallman is a bit out there, after all. Remember him eating stuff off of his foot during a show? Yeah, the world doesn't generally pay attention when people like that make (seemingly) controversial statements. Outside of Slashdot and the IT world at large, I wouldn't imagine people to even know who he is.
But they haven't posted for over half a year and as far as I could figure at the time, this was just a sour grapes sort of guy.. upset that their own project was not accepted while others (which he claims to be akin to his) were. ( It has some valid points, but in the end the fact is that yes.. you're at the mercy of the site. Don't like it? Host your own crowdfunding site. Ironically, that's a Wordpress-powered site, so he could in fact do exactly that with the IgnitionDeck plugin. )
Just to counter your post a little... When KickStarter says that 'someone can be held accountable', they pretty much do not mean themselves. They mean whoever set up the project.
From their FAQ, "Backing a Project":
At the end of the day, use your internet street smarts.
Who is responsible for making sure project creators deliver what they promise?
Every creator is responsible for fulfilling the promises of their project. Because projects are usually funded by the friends, fans, and communities around its creator, there are powerful social forces that keep creators accountable.
However, as funding does go through Amazon and in turn through Credit Card issuers, if you really think you got scammed, you can always have the charge reversed... Amazon, KickStarter and the project creator can then fight it out.
KickStarter is mostly 'dominant' in terms of people's awareness - a few high profile projects there didn't hurt (especially the last few days, of course), and they know how to work the media.
But it certainly doesn't have a monopoly, and Crowdtilt appears to target a fairly different sort of project (campaign). Even if it may never dethrone KickStarter (372 new projects over 3 random days), it may just find its own niche and instead nibble away at some of the other sites out there, such as IndieGoGo (164 new projects over the same 3 random days), with which they have much greater overlap.
Thanks for taking the time to register an account and clearing up a few misconceptions.
Crowdtilt does look very well-suited to the kind of campaign you mentioned; which I call 'frivolous' in other comments - that's just my opinion, shouldn't detract from its usefulness for those looking exactly for a platform to get a group of people together to pitch in for something that they, as a group, are looking for. I do think the site has the potential to become more of an alternative to KickStarter et al, but if that's not your goal then doing what the site does best is probably better than trying to branch out and not try to excel at it.
However, I do hope you take some of the comments regarding KickStarter's flaws and apply them to your site, however - starting with making it easier to find campaigns that are more of a 'crowdfunding' campaign than a 'groupfunding' campaign, including categories and the like. Some other peerfunding websites have shown me that the world is full of very generous people, and if you can help those people connect with those who need their aid (or money) most, I think it would make the site even better.
I totally get what you're saying, though, and the site's doing what it should be doing and doing it well (by the few projects I checked by just searching for the letter 'a', I'd say it is).
For what it's worth, if you want to look at all of them, go to a section page, scroll down to the 'popular' section on the page and click on the 'more' link. E.g. http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/board & card games/popular?ref=more
Now scroll down until it's done dynamically loading content - there's all the projects in that section (not just the popular ones) that have been published. They're pretty much ordered from oldest project down to latest project (the project close dates may vary).
This is of course also very true. Apple has its share of 'haters' similar to, say, SONY or Microsoft around Slashdot. Apple is a company some people love to hate - some out of more rational concerns than others (the majority), and that is bound to spill into the matter at hand.
'fraid not - but that might have just been the establishment I visited. Similarly, I know there's Radio Shacks that do still carry hobby electronics and expecting one at the mall to be one of them is a bit of a stretch. I was just pointing out that it's definitely not the late 80's anymore where those stores would be largely focused on the hobby electronics demography. Arduino et al are bringing that back to some of them, albeit on a different level; modules rather than components.
I already commented, so if somebody wouldn't mind modding parent up - that would be appreciated.
It is very true that KickStarter doesn't really do anything in the way of promotion. The home page gets a few 'featured' projects, every once in a while they might feature something in their blog, but that's entirely the blog writer's fancy, and there's a 'staff picks' section. The rest of the site is pretty much automatically generated. So yes, new projects are not easily found by way of promotion from KickStarter.
But KickStarter, like most of the peerfunding websites, isn't really there to recommend projects, or for people to discover projects (although KickStarter certainly does offer great ways to do so, from the 'recently launched' page (which would have included your project) to the 'ending soon' pages), but simply to host them.
In fact, they probably couldn't. KickStarter gets the most new projects out of all of the peerfunding websites that I mentioned in the other post. How many? Well, on Saturday (I'm in the CET timezone), 111. They can't possibly 'promote' (by way of front-page feature or 'staff picks') all of them (which would defeat 'staff picks' as a section anyway) - never mind when you include any projects that were launched Friday... and Thursday.. and so on.
So yes, they have to cherrypick.. projects they like, and certainly projects they think will be successful. I've pointed out in a completely different story that 1 in 5 projects in the Technology and Design sections are iDevice projects. There's rational arguments for why there are more of those to begin with, but those all lead to the equally rational argument that of course KickStarter would 'promote' those over other projects.
Moreover, however, it's just not their job to 'promote' your project. Even if they did put your project on the front page, the only people who are going to see it is those who go to KickStarter directly - they're the people most likely to browse for projects as it is (and I do agree they need to make it more clear that clicking on the 'more popular projects' in a given section is what gets you to all of the projects in that section). And there it has to compete with anything else on the front page, nevermind in other sections. That's going to be a vastly less effective than if you promote your project yourself. You really can't expect to launch a KickStarter (or other peerfunding website) project and see pledges rolling in. You have to tweet, post to facebook, put up a website, make a kick-ass video (projects without videos tend to fare less well than those with video - people love video), etc. If you get your first backer - great, thank them with a private message, let them know that their pledge is appreciated and subtly hint that you would appreciate it even more if they told their friends about the project. If you hit milestones, post about that at twitter/facebook/whatever. If you're working on something for your project, place it in the Updates of your project.
If you don't do any promotion.. then yes, there's little hope of your project getting funded. But you can't really blame a 'lack of promotion' by the peerfunding website for that.
And if you think that crowdtilt will do better - think again; there you will have to rely even more heavily on doing your own promotion as there isn't even an index of projects (you get to see 6 randomly chosen 'recent' ones) and their blog is recently more about their site than about any campaigns on their site that they personally like. Maybe they'll improve the site after the/. attention, though.
Replying to self - this site may have 'officially launched a week ago', but there's blog posts going back 11 months and projects going back not much more recent than that. Is this a Slashvertisement hoping to bank in on the Double Fine article from a few days back?
Also... frivolous projects seems to be the core of this site - it might technically be 'an alternative to KickStarter', but it's far more an alternative to IndieGoGo or sponsu.me, just with a funding model similar to KickStarter's.
Then after you're doing reading through the hundreds of projects that amount to little more than "give me money because... well, just because.", you'll probably be glad that KickStarter does some, albeit a very superficial, checking of projects.
Yes, KickStarter has its own problem projects that make it through the review process.. projektor (probably a scam), juicies (unrealistic funding vs rewards leading to a kid way in over his head), Googly Eyes (essentially selling an existing product for a premium). But they do try, and they explicitly disallow 'good cause' type projects, which are often the "just give me money" type projects.
Nothing against 'good cause' projects when they really are for a good cause - people who need a prosthesis but can't afford one.. more power to then. But then there's the "I want to go on a trip to Europe"-types.
I'd be more afraid of that sort of thing hitting crowdtilt, than spam hitting it.
as it is, Dell, Acer, the entirety of the US auto industry, Sony, Toshiba, etc, etc. aren't at all like John Doe and Jane Smith.
What if I told you that John Doe was the head of Dell and Jane Smith the CEO of SONY?
That's the entire point, isn't it? Next to Apple, they might as well be 'John Doe' and 'Jane Smith'. Again.. is that fair? No. Is it rational? Heck no. Is that the reality of the matter to the vast majority of people? Yes.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough, especially the identification part; although that applies more to their (or is it?) reply to your reply.. than to your reply. But yes, in a back-and-forth, it does become a necessity to prevent others from impersonating.
And hey, thanks for responding :D
Seriously off-topic post follows...
I'm not that AC - but I once was an AC, had a whole discussion with somebody, until they said they were done talking to an AC and that I should just register, it was easy, etc.
So I did, and I replied again.
Never a reply back from him... her... it.
I will never know because although his post didn't read Anonymous Coward, he was practically just as anonymous as I was; the only benefit to having a completely fictitious username available to you is to see what else they may have said in the past, on different subjects - but as it's simple to register for multiple accounts, even that is, to an extent, pointless.
So why does the person posting as AC matter?
( The post of the AC in question was confusing, though. I'm not sure they read your post correctly. )
On the other hand, I guess I have that person ( kheldan ) to thank for lower post-repeat delays.. who knew anons had to wait hours while anon-registerds can post every 5 minutes or so based on various post metrics?
What box set is that?
Game of Thrones, Season 1
Episodes: 10
DVD: $34.99 or $3.50/episode
Blu-Ray: $44.99 or $4.50/episode
Chuck, Season 5 ...perhaps some older material and bigger box sets...
Episodes: 13
DVD: $29.99 or $2.31/episode
Blu-Ray: $39.99 or $3.08/episode
Star Trek TNG, all episodes (cheapest I could find at Amazon.com)
Episodes: 178
DVD: $229.99 or $1.29episode
StarGate SG-1, all episodes (only seem to sell 1 these days)
Episodes: 214 (might actually only be 213 in the box set, I believe the pilot episode is left out of some versions)
DVD: $146.69 or $0.69/episode
$0.25/episode is nowhere near the price levels at Amazon that I've seen.
( Not a commentary on your argument. )
In the 5 U.S. airports I've been through recently, all of them had 'charging stations', offered by... I think it was Samsung. Those could easily handle laptops and whatnot.
That said, I haven't seen any airport try to 'secure' outlets used by cleaning crews and the like, or ever complain about people using them for their own stuff - even though they easily could.
Usually others will complain, though, if you're hogging the outlet. I guess that's why the 'charging stations' started to appear.. they're little more than dressed up outlet multipliers - a single vacuum cleaner would easily draw more juice than a dozen laptops.
Well, that's a completely different discussion. The bottled water craze is starting to spill over from the U.S. to Europe as well. Right now it's mostly supermarkets, though.. the vending machines rarely have bottled water - let alone 3 different types (sub-brands of either Coke or Pepsi, I suppose) of it.
I can see why in certain areas you'd want bottled water. But in most of the civilized world, it's completely unnecessary short of needing a container to hold the stuff. In several countries the quality of tap water even bests bottled water.
Sadly, some of those areas where I'd prefer bottled water, is the airport.. and if you've ever witnessed a drunk passenger between flights throw up one moment then wrap their mouth around a water fountain the next, you might be a bit more hesitant as well.
That said - I rarely buy bottled water anyway.. I prefer a fruit drink.
That might vary from airport to airport - but at least at Phoenix Sky Harbor, I couldn't. I bought a drink at one of the 'News' stands and both the person at the til and the greeter at the waiting area informed me that I couldn't take it on board. At the waiting area was another large bin filled with (half) empty bottles, similar to that at the checkpoints.
That things vary should be pretty clear, though. At Frankfurt I also had to dump my drink at the checkpoint, but they didn't care about my shoes.. no need to take those off.
At Philadelphia International Airport, international connecting flight passengers have to pick up their luggage and then pretty much drop it off again.
I don't know why that is - perhaps to allow passengers access to their luggage if the connecting flight is several hours away.
However, because you are allowed to put fluids in your regular luggage (not carry-on), it means that at that time you can get your fluids out of there and into your carry-on.. hence the second screening... and the need to buy another drink past it.
So it's not that the area isn't secure - they just treat your luggage (or its content) as unsecured.
and why would we allow that, when a thirsty passenger...
1. Has to buy a bottle of drink after clearing the security checkpoint.
2. Has to buy another one on arrival at the connecting airport.
3. Has to buy yet another one on arrival at the destination airport.
And that's just the drinks - don't forget about all the awesome 3floz bottle variants of ointments, creams, moisturizers, sanitizers, etc. etc. that now litter some (airport) stores.
Allowing people to take their own packaged fluids onto planes again will just cut into this very profitable market.
Because we may strive to do better?
Because we don't want to sink to his level (and yes, he has awful lows in addition to his great highs)?
Because... why shouldn't we?
haha - agreed.
Spaces in URLs are also pretty stupid. /mea culpa for not using 'preview'.. ever.
How can they know for sure? They probably can't. Even if they did contact her, she might be coerced to lie about it.
KickStarter projects usually end up with a 'thing' - physical, digital, a movie, a (n e-)book, etc. Which does make it easier to see if at least a project was delivered on - but you still can't know for sure that the person will deliver.. or that the 'thing' that will be delivered is 'as advertised'. That may as well be a 'scam'.
But, yes, in terms of the types of projects allowed, Crowdtilt is a lot more like IndieGoGo than KickStarter.
That said, KickStarter pretty much only seems to look at the project description and goes "seems legit" (see 'projektor' and wonder why that ever got through). Crowdtilt at least claims to do some checking into the people behind the project (through third parties or otherwise).
Your post is excellent (mods? c'mon!). However, I think most of your post can essentially be distilled into the following:
1. Some kids consent to sex with other kids due to (perceived) peer pressure.
2. Those same kids may consent under the distorted pressure exerted by adults.
I think you'll find that I mentioned that in my post; there's coercion at play here, the kids just aren't mentally aware of it happening or at least can't fully process it as such (pretty much the situation you describe from your own experience).
And yes, that includes kids having sex with kids - if that happens under a (perceived) peer pressure, I think that is also deplorable.
Not as deplorable as when an adult is involved, for many of the reasons you mentioned.
However, coercion is not always a factor and when it demonstrably isn't - again, as per my post - I so no reason for it to be forbidden.
Of course the question becomes "how can it be demonstrably un-coerced when a child, who most likely cannot identify the coercion, is involved?" And that's where the law steps in and has no choice but to draw arbitrary lines.
I very much disagree with Stallman on that point. I guess this touches on what say family have over the physical remains of the deceased in general, though. This includes such things as deciding whether or not to donate body parts. :)
I'm a firm believer that, in lieu of a document saying "yes", the assumed stance should be "no". That's also why I'm a proponent of mandatory donor registration; yes or no, but make a choice. This also makes it a lot easier on the family.
But I wouldn't necessarily extend that to a mandatory necrophilia registration - I think assuming the default 'no' there is quite enough
Setting aside the lack of distinction between pedophilia and pedosexual actions (hint: one is actually disgusting and illegal, the other is just incomprehensible (to me))...
While children can't legally consent to sex, at which point can't they emotionally consent to it?
Apparently children (and I'm using the legal definition of child here) can, in fact, emotionally consent to it - with other children. A lot of children do. Like it or not, statistically speaking, somewhere in that crowd of highschoolers in the school yard, is going to be at least one couple that has had sex with each other.
If they can consent to having sex with another child around their own age, then why not with an adult?
Similarly, some jurisdictions essentially say "the age of consent is 18" - leading to the oft-cited example of an 18-ear old having sex with their 17.997-year old SO potentially ending up being listed as a sex offender; of if only they had waited another day.. then that SO would have been capable of emotional consent, just like that, like magic.
Now don't get me wrong - I know a line has to be drawn somewhere and I certainly appreciate the fact that pedosexuals would use similar defenses and then try to extend them to suggest that having sex with a 6-year old is totally okay, too.
But just because the nuances are uncomfortable for us to even think about, doesn't mean they're not there.
Thus you can place Stallman's statements into a slightly less black-and-white context.
When he says that it shouldn't be illegal if nobody is coerced, take it exactly as such. Just because a child can 'voluntarily' have sex with an adult doesn't mean there wasn't coercion; they're just not mentally developed enough to recognize the coercion at play. In bestiality, the animal is practically always coerced. In necrophilic sex coercion is the default unless there was some manner of written contract that the deceased actually gave permission. In practice, Stallman is saying that in fact all of these things would still be illegal, except in those cases where it is demonstrably consensual. And in those cases, what would be the basis for it to be forbidden?
Similarly, child pornography is indeed not enough reason 'to censor the internet', as the question was. Keep in mind that in order to stop child pornography completely, you're looking at having to stop such things as TOR. This is actually a nice new hot topic in The Netherlands due to an investigative reporter going on TOR, finding plenty of child porn traders, and busting a guy who actively sought out children to pretty much abuse. So half the government cries foul and next thing you know it they'll be having a debate on whether or not TOR should be blocked - even though that very same thing is helping dissidents in IRAN to get around political censorship.
His statement regarding redistributing is another matter. Is the redistributing party aware of the content? If not (such as ISPs, TOR nodes, etc.) - how are they participating in the crime? If they are aware, however, then I very much believe they're participating in the crime by virtue of helping to sustain a market for the materials in question.
As for the lack of reporting.. not really - Stallman is a bit out there, after all. Remember him eating stuff off of his foot during a show? Yeah, the world doesn't generally pay attention when people like that make (seemingly) controversial statements. Outside of Slashdot and the IT world at large, I wouldn't imagine people to even know who he is.
There was actually a blog type of site that ripped into KickStarter:
http://kickstarterwatchdog.com/
But they haven't posted for over half a year and as far as I could figure at the time, this was just a sour grapes sort of guy.. upset that their own project was not accepted while others (which he claims to be akin to his) were.
( It has some valid points, but in the end the fact is that yes.. you're at the mercy of the site. Don't like it? Host your own crowdfunding site. Ironically, that's a Wordpress-powered site, so he could in fact do exactly that with the IgnitionDeck plugin. )
Just to counter your post a little...
When KickStarter says that 'someone can be held accountable', they pretty much do not mean themselves. They mean whoever set up the project.
From their FAQ, "Backing a Project":
However, as funding does go through Amazon and in turn through Credit Card issuers, if you really think you got scammed, you can always have the charge reversed... Amazon, KickStarter and the project creator can then fight it out.
Crowdtilt actually seems to do a bit more due diligence. See also gcnaddict's comment:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2667553&cid=39015257
KickStarter is mostly 'dominant' in terms of people's awareness - a few high profile projects there didn't hurt (especially the last few days, of course), and they know how to work the media.
But it certainly doesn't have a monopoly, and Crowdtilt appears to target a fairly different sort of project (campaign). Even if it may never dethrone KickStarter (372 new projects over 3 random days), it may just find its own niche and instead nibble away at some of the other sites out there, such as IndieGoGo (164 new projects over the same 3 random days), with which they have much greater overlap.
Hi James,
Thanks for taking the time to register an account and clearing up a few misconceptions.
Crowdtilt does look very well-suited to the kind of campaign you mentioned; which I call 'frivolous' in other comments - that's just my opinion, shouldn't detract from its usefulness for those looking exactly for a platform to get a group of people together to pitch in for something that they, as a group, are looking for. I do think the site has the potential to become more of an alternative to KickStarter et al, but if that's not your goal then doing what the site does best is probably better than trying to branch out and not try to excel at it.
However, I do hope you take some of the comments regarding KickStarter's flaws and apply them to your site, however - starting with making it easier to find campaigns that are more of a 'crowdfunding' campaign than a 'groupfunding' campaign, including categories and the like.
Some other peerfunding websites have shown me that the world is full of very generous people, and if you can help those people connect with those who need their aid (or money) most, I think it would make the site even better.
I totally get what you're saying, though, and the site's doing what it should be doing and doing it well (by the few projects I checked by just searching for the letter 'a', I'd say it is).
True, they could do better in that regard.
For what it's worth, if you want to look at all of them, go to a section page, scroll down to the 'popular' section on the page and click on the 'more' link. E.g.
http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/board & card games/popular?ref=more
Now scroll down until it's done dynamically loading content - there's all the projects in that section (not just the popular ones) that have been published.
They're pretty much ordered from oldest project down to latest project (the project close dates may vary).
If you have something like autopager installed, you can set up a rule to automatically load a bunch of pages. The URL format in that case is;
http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/board%20&%20card%20games/popular?page=N
But it would definitely be much more awesome if they could offer an RSS for each category.
This is of course also very true. Apple has its share of 'haters' similar to, say, SONY or Microsoft around Slashdot. Apple is a company some people love to hate - some out of more rational concerns than others (the majority), and that is bound to spill into the matter at hand.
'fraid not - but that might have just been the establishment I visited. Similarly, I know there's Radio Shacks that do still carry hobby electronics and expecting one at the mall to be one of them is a bit of a stretch. I was just pointing out that it's definitely not the late 80's anymore where those stores would be largely focused on the hobby electronics demography.
Arduino et al are bringing that back to some of them, albeit on a different level; modules rather than components.
I already commented, so if somebody wouldn't mind modding parent up - that would be appreciated.
It is very true that KickStarter doesn't really do anything in the way of promotion. The home page gets a few 'featured' projects, every once in a while they might feature something in their blog, but that's entirely the blog writer's fancy, and there's a 'staff picks' section. The rest of the site is pretty much automatically generated. So yes, new projects are not easily found by way of promotion from KickStarter.
But KickStarter, like most of the peerfunding websites, isn't really there to recommend projects, or for people to discover projects (although KickStarter certainly does offer great ways to do so, from the 'recently launched' page (which would have included your project) to the 'ending soon' pages), but simply to host them.
In fact, they probably couldn't. KickStarter gets the most new projects out of all of the peerfunding websites that I mentioned in the other post. How many? Well, on Saturday (I'm in the CET timezone), 111. They can't possibly 'promote' (by way of front-page feature or 'staff picks') all of them (which would defeat 'staff picks' as a section anyway) - never mind when you include any projects that were launched Friday... and Thursday.. and so on.
So yes, they have to cherrypick.. projects they like, and certainly projects they think will be successful. I've pointed out in a completely different story that 1 in 5 projects in the Technology and Design sections are iDevice projects. There's rational arguments for why there are more of those to begin with, but those all lead to the equally rational argument that of course KickStarter would 'promote' those over other projects.
Moreover, however, it's just not their job to 'promote' your project. Even if they did put your project on the front page, the only people who are going to see it is those who go to KickStarter directly - they're the people most likely to browse for projects as it is (and I do agree they need to make it more clear that clicking on the 'more popular projects' in a given section is what gets you to all of the projects in that section).
And there it has to compete with anything else on the front page, nevermind in other sections.
That's going to be a vastly less effective than if you promote your project yourself. You really can't expect to launch a KickStarter (or other peerfunding website) project and see pledges rolling in. You have to tweet, post to facebook, put up a website, make a kick-ass video (projects without videos tend to fare less well than those with video - people love video), etc. If you get your first backer - great, thank them with a private message, let them know that their pledge is appreciated and subtly hint that you would appreciate it even more if they told their friends about the project.
If you hit milestones, post about that at twitter/facebook/whatever. If you're working on something for your project, place it in the Updates of your project.
If you don't do any promotion.. then yes, there's little hope of your project getting funded. But you can't really blame a 'lack of promotion' by the peerfunding website for that.
And if you think that crowdtilt will do better - think again; there you will have to rely even more heavily on doing your own promotion as there isn't even an index of projects (you get to see 6 randomly chosen 'recent' ones) and their blog is recently more about their site than about any campaigns on their site that they personally like. /. attention, though.
Maybe they'll improve the site after the
Replying to self - this site may have 'officially launched a week ago', but there's blog posts going back 11 months and projects going back not much more recent than that. Is this a Slashvertisement hoping to bank in on the Double Fine article from a few days back?
Also... frivolous projects seems to be the core of this site - it might technically be 'an alternative to KickStarter', but it's far more an alternative to IndieGoGo or sponsu.me, just with a funding model similar to KickStarter's.
I wouldn't worry so much about spam, but rather about frivolous projects.
To see what other models are like, go check out...
http://www.indiegogo.com/
http://rockethub.com/
http://www.pozible.com/
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/
http://invested.in/
http://fundry.com/
http://pledgie.com/
http://www.sponsume.com/
http://peerbackers.com/
Then after you're doing reading through the hundreds of projects that amount to little more than "give me money because... well, just because.", you'll probably be glad that KickStarter does some, albeit a very superficial, checking of projects.
Yes, KickStarter has its own problem projects that make it through the review process.. projektor (probably a scam), juicies (unrealistic funding vs rewards leading to a kid way in over his head), Googly Eyes (essentially selling an existing product for a premium).
But they do try, and they explicitly disallow 'good cause' type projects, which are often the "just give me money" type projects.
Nothing against 'good cause' projects when they really are for a good cause - people who need a prosthesis but can't afford one.. more power to then. But then there's the "I want to go on a trip to Europe"-types.
I'd be more afraid of that sort of thing hitting crowdtilt, than spam hitting it.
Also, for those who want a truly open alternative, set up a Wordpress site and go check out:
http://ignitiondeck.com/id/wordpress-crowdfunding/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/crowd-funding/
What if I told you that John Doe was the head of Dell and Jane Smith the CEO of SONY?
That's the entire point, isn't it? Next to Apple, they might as well be 'John Doe' and 'Jane Smith'. Again.. is that fair? No. Is it rational? Heck no. Is that the reality of the matter to the vast majority of people? Yes.