Quality Control
Some of my regular readers have started sending me email with links to Kickstarter projects that I might be interested in writing about – a trend I definitely want to encourage; if you see a project that is awesome or terrible, I want to know about it.
This week I have gotten a couple of doozies. In general, I am content to leave bad projects alone, content in the certainty that the crowd will see the same flaws I do, and it will not be funded. I mean, if you want to raise, say – $20,000 to interview thin attractive women and develop a book to encourage young girls not give in to peer pressure and pack on a few pounds, then that’s your right, because “if it just makes it into the hands of ONE little girl who feels like she has to be overweight to fit in with the current 70% of the overweight population of America, and it gives her the strength to know that being healthy isn’t a bad thing.”
Me? I would consider paying her to take that project down, because I find it appalling but she is well within the terms of use, so she gets to use the site just like everyone else. What gets me annoyed is when projects are breaking the rules of the site.
Well, this week there is another one of those – let’s take a look.
Lately Kickstarter’s quality control seems a little off, because I got to tell you – I have no idea how this one got through. Nibiru – A Means to an End is a straight up cash grab – it even says so it the title. This project aims to minimize the damage from planet-X’s collision with the earth on 12/21/12, and just needs to raise a little bit of funding to do the following:
- Rent wings for our unicorns so they can steer Earth away from frontal collision
- Build dams to help minimize damage from tidal waves caused by Nibiru
- Purchase supplies to maintain morale in the during- and post-apocalypse phases.
The first goal of The light Warriors is not possible, the second one is not possible in the 8 to 30 hours between the time funding closes and the dollar amounts involved, and the third point could most charitably be called a “fund your life project.” For helping to save the world, you too can get a variety of cheap cafe press merchandise. This project has raised less than $400 dollars, and I don’t expect it to fund, so I am not actually concerned about these creators being rewarded for their efforts.
The video is amusing and if they were trying to raise funds for a documentary of their secret world-saving unicorn-society then they would have had a totally legitimate project, one that might even create something worth watching. Sadly though, they created a project to save the world, and I don’t think that falls within Kickstarter’s views on a project. According to their website, they say “Funding for projects only.A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.”
What do the rest of you think, am I off base here?
Caffeineforge 
You are WAAAAY off-base here, mister! Think of the unicorns!
WWTUD?
Come on. The kickstarter is clearly fraud, when was the last time you heard of a unicorn needing wings?
And again, I fail at hitting the correct reply button.