
Banned from Kickstarter for Being a Stalking Victim - ginsweater
http://rachelmarone.com/banned-from-kickstarter-for-being-a-stalking-victim/
======
jtchang
"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.

~~~
rms
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.

------
rms
_META_

OK everyone. You might have noticed that Hacker News has gone downhill lately.
A common pattern is for the number one comment to be some vaguely negative and
uninteresting post. In this case, it's also an inflammatory post that wrongly
blames the victim.

I'm friends with Rachel and the stalker dude is real. I was uselessly harassed
by him because I spoke at Extreme Futurist Fest. He's real, he's crazy, and
sometimes the police aren't effective.

Please be nice everyone. Think seriously before you make a comment. If it's
one sentence long, it's probably a useless comment.

EDIT: When I made this comment, the #1 comment was unhelpful and just blamed
Rachel. It has since been deleted by the poster, who perhaps reconsidered the
utility of posting in this thread. Again, I don't want to be here, normally I
would stay really far away from a thread like this, I just know that Rachel is
a real person and I don't like to see trolls crapping all over this thread on
this website that once meant so much to me.

~~~
tomflack
Please read the following in an exasperated tone of voice, because that's what
I feel here.

The problem is the very public trashing of kickstarter on her blog, combined
with the multitude of people who have had run-ins with Rachael over the past
few years calling her "crazy" etc.

Allegedly the FBI are uninterested in prosecuting the cyber stalker. However
since coming across this today I've seen nothing that indicates they actually
exist, or if they do exist, the kind of hateful things they harass with.

As far as anyone external to the situation can tell the stalker is either a
figment of Rachael's imagination or someone who is going around informing
people who potentially might give her money of something she doesn't want them
to know.

We just don't know.

So in light of the very public trashing of kickstarter, it seems only fair we
get to see all the evidence publicly as well - like documentary evidence of
complaints to the police about the alleged stalker's behaviour.

Edit: and instead of downvotes, please tell me why my train of thought on this
matter is unreasonable.

~~~
rms
I believe Kickstarter has an obligation to treat Rachel like a customer. I
believe they are capable of building the tool needed to deliver a good
experience to customers like Rachel. I don't support the specific language
Rachel might have used, but I empathize with Rachel's frustration with
Kickstarter's flawed process.

I met Rachel a few months ago. She seems nice. I know she has all this weird
unresolved drama from the past, but I have a strict no drama allowed rule so I
try not to dwell on it. I believe that people can change and become more
rational and less dramatic and Rachel seems to be doing really really well,
except for all these weird people from alternative music scenes that Rachel
somehow made way too angry.

I ran across one example of the stalker randomly on the internet yesterday,
which was the stalker writing a review of Extreme Futurist Fest saying it was
really bad. The review was willfully inaccurate, I was at the event, and it
was really good for a new event and the attendees really impressed me with
their intellectual caliber. The review was posted unsolicited on a bunch of
mailing lists that didn't care, such as the list of the Mormon Transhumanist
Association.

No, it's utterly ridiculous to post evidence related to ongoing legal matters
to the peanut gallery of the internet. Any lawyer or legal TV show will
recommend against that.

~~~
DanBC
> _but I have a strict no drama allowed rule_

You might want to stop feeding this ridiculous thread.

IHBT.

~~~
angersock
Isn't it strange how, whenever that phrase or something similar is
transmitted, inevitably drama ensues?

------
lawnchair_larry
Oh man, not this girl again. Let's just say she is known for being at the
center of drama wherever she goes. She has a very long history of libel and
public feuds related to her "music project." In one of many incidents, her and
her mother sent DMCA takedown requests to LiveJournal based on negative
information being posted by another user (completely unrelated to copyright).

Please do not give her attention. At least, don't give kickstarter negative
attention over her complaint.

 _[Edit: Removed comment regarding mental illness and links to other forums]_

~~~
rms
Old drama is uninteresting. What's wrong with being mentally ill? I'm
definitely not neurotypical, just like half of Silicon Valley geeks. Try
raising VC money in Silicon Valley without projecting the image of
irrationally exuberant hypomania.
<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups>

Your comment is exactly the kind that threatens to make this thread a
trainwreck. Be nice! Rachel is a very real person that can't raise money on
Kickstarter because Kickstarter can't deal with one asshole posting 400 spam
comments.

~~~
reason
Right, so, no counterargument or evidence being provided from Kickstarter is
OK in criticizing them, and any evidence that this person may have a history
of causing similar types of drama is 'uninteresting'?

You're persistent in asking people to be civil towards Rachel, yet are
completely fine with the bashing of Kickstarter without giving them a chance
to make their case.

Sounds reasonable. Guess what? Kickstarter isn't just an institution outlined
by a few hundred federal documents. They're run by _real people_!

~~~
rms
I expect Kickstarter to have a sober, well reasoned response to this by Monday
afternoon. Hopefully faster.

It would have been nice if Rachel was nicer to Kickstarter in her post, but
she wasn't so here we are. It's not like I like this being #1 on Hacker News.
This is sort of an awful story. I would have liked to have gone to sleep by
now, but respect Rachel enough and have fond enough memories of the time when
Hacker News didn't suck that I wanted to try and make this comment thread
something resembling rational and reasonable.

------
Maxious
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?

~~~
jasonlotito
> 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.

~~~
amirmc
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
amirmc
> 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.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Why aren't both of those ok?

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.

------
tung
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.

~~~
grimboy
Yes. It is however important to express outrage to make sure Kickstarter know
we find this situation, if true, to be not acceptable.

~~~
mpclark
It's also important to point out that I find your wife beating unacceptable...

------
bmelton
If it was me, and Kickstarter were my service, I'd have a hard time not
banning someone making those claims, calling out an alleged stalker by name /
email address on a public forum, and the language used.

Regardless, we have a user who, relevant or not, has a history of aggravating
the entirety of the communities in which she's affiliated. Whether her stories
are true or not is perhaps irrelevant, but if you don't want to become a
community that is simply engrossed in drama, then you have to ban this person.

====================== Edit: Removed cross-posted comment from Reddit due to
questions of authenticity.

Regardless, I've read enough of Haywire's comments over the years to have
believed it, so I will say that remarks saying she obviously didn't write it
are perhaps not so obvious.

Either way, I don't mean to impugn her character except to say that wherever
she goes, she seems to draw a crowd and incite riotous behavior. If
Kickstarter were my service, I'd ban that behavior. If it wasn't necessarily
the right thing to do by her, or by the victim, whomever we deem it to be, it
is perhaps the right thing to do for the Kickstarter website and community on
the whole.

And please consider that aside from those taking vested interest in one side
or the other, this banning makes Kickstarter a better place for those who
would rather not be wrapped up in needless drama.

~~~
sakai
Uh... what do you think the actual chance that SHE wrote that?

Edit: Answer: Virtually zero.

~~~
rms
Yup. Sad someone here took it seriously.

------
ericd
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.

~~~
rms
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.

~~~
ericd
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.

------
shock-value
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
You seem to have a bit of information on this. Can you post the proof
available besides the unverifiable blog post?

------
siegecraft
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
Lazare
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.

But first, we need to know Kickstarter's side.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
illumen
The Kickstarter corporation is big enough and bad enough to stand up for
itself without anyone having to attack the victim.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
chris_wot
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
> 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.

~~~
Dylan16807
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".

~~~
jasonlotito
> 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.

~~~
Dylan16807
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.

------
facorreia
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?

~~~
WiseWeasel
Call an emergency meeting with the head of your marketing dept. and start
hashing out a blog post, I would assume.

~~~
WiseWeasel
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.

------
alexandros
Kickstarter, if you care about your reputation, fix this and make sure it
never happens again.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
cshum
"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?

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

------
EToS
Only backers can post comments to kickstarter. So in theory the stalker is now
traceable by their kickstarter payment if reported to the police.

------
vladd
If this is indeed true, it's outrageous: it's like having my Gmail suspended
because someone sent me too much spam.

And people can permanently loose their account over this? I guess they've just
lost a lot of founders. Permanently.

------
rickmb
Although the main character in this drama will never be Miss Congeniality, the
systematic and largely undocumented attacks on her character on HN leave a
very bad taste in my mouth.

This "discussion" feels like a witch hunt.

------
st3fan
This is tough.

But, I think this is no different than for example Stack Overflow where
questions and comments can be edited and removed _if they are not on topic_ ,
or in this case, where they do not follow the Kickstarter community
guidelines.

And that is exactly what happened here. Comments from the spammer/stalker are
not on topic. Responses to those comments are also not on topic.

Rachel had the choice to either actively remove those comments or to
participate in those off-topic discussions. She did the latter while in my (no
so humble opinion) removing them was really the only appropriate choice.

Kickstarter is not a forum for drama, it is a place to raise money for your
project. And that should be your one and only goal if you start a project
there. This stupid spammer/stalker is taking away valuable time that she could
also have put into marketing her project or participating in real discussions.

The fact that this is someone who has stalked her for the past 10 years is
very sad but it is not relevant in this discussion. She is the admin of the
project and she has the powers to keep it on topic.

------
agentgt
Regardless of stalking:

So basically Kickstarter is saying if there is some other project you don't
like on the site you can get it taken off by hiring an offshore site to spam
the competitor project.

They need a stackoverflow or quora like community system (I haven't used the
site but I'm assuming they don't).

I will say that was kind of crappy of her to post Daniella's full name. It
might not be her fault. It could be the company's policy. If it was a letter
from the CEO I could understand. My wife is an executive assistant and she
routinely has to write letters that she doesn't necessarily agree with.

------
djmdjm
If this is true, then Kickstarter just handed over editorial control to anyone
who can write a spambot or with a little patience.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
facorreia
It says a whole lot more than that: <http://rachelmarone.com/sample-page/>

~~~
jasonlotito
> a narrative full of chaos, trend-starting, performance art, social
> commentary, and philosophical discussion

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.

------
mhitza
"Right" to crowdfund on Kickstarter?

Artsy people and their rights. It's a service and not a right. Crowdfund
somewhere else if that's so important.

------
nhangen
Based on my experiences with Kickstarter, this is not surprising.

I don't think anyone can argue that they haven't built a great product, but
I've yet to be impressed by the quality of their service and find their
'community at all costs' attitude to be immature.

Why can't they just IP ban the stalker?

Without all of the details, it's hard to know what's going on here, but the
lack of empathy in the response from KS is peculiar.

~~~
lucian1900
The stalker is likely to be using things like Tor, the blocking of which would
upset significant legitimate feedback.

------
LinXitoW
I'd like to know what solution those that are critizing Kickstarter offer.
After all, banning an IP is close to pointless.

~~~
someone13
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.

------
kefs
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?

~~~
pkteison
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.

~~~
protomyth
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.

------
ErrantX
The commenting here is interesting, as is the post. I have some general
comments to make about cyberstalking and situations like this - but want to
preface it with the disclaimer that _I've never heard of Rachel before and
cannot sit in any form of judgement on her_.

However, I was cyberstalked (and then RL stalked & harassed), so I know that
it sucks and it can be dangerous. I have no idea what Rachel's stalker has
done - but from the context of the blog post it appears they troll her around
the net.

 _Apparently alerting my backers about this was considered “engaging in
conversation with the spammer.”_

This is what sprung out at me from the post, as did her post on the topic [1]
From that post:

 _(not to mention that thousands of people want him dead)_

And this is probably the crux of the problem. Rising to stalkers is what feeds
their ego - they pummel you into submission until you react emotionally and
physically to their presence.

About the only way to get rid of a cyberstalker is to delete them and ignore
them.

I'm going to be a bit critical here; she shouldn't have "engaged him" by
warning her backers. (edit: it would be nice to know the extent of engagement
- often once you do the one "this is a troll" post it is too easy to be
dragged into an actual conversation with them). She should have talked to
Kickstarter, explained the problem and worked out a solution. She probably
should have done that before opening the project - knowing what might happen.

It sucks that she'd have to approach the project like that... but in my
experience it's better to be pragmatic.

Cyberstalkers afflict people they can "get to" emotionally - and although it
is, again, unfair, about the only way to resist them is to not let it affect
you. This is how I eventually got rid of my cyberstalker (who "cracked" me in
the first place by sending pictures of my friends with [digital] blood
splattered over the top). Before I managed this, I totally rejected the idea
it would work.

As to Kickstarter; I feel like they are in a catch 22 here. If they let the
project sit and do their best to keep out the troll (which is difficult enough
at times) it could flare up on them; Rachel's project could fail and this blog
post could be titled "How Kickstarter couldn't keep my cyberstalker away", or
it could attract press attention, or it could attract more trolls to Rachel.
Plus then there is the human aspect - someone at Kickstarter is sat there
seeing these horrid things being posted and thinking "wow, that must be really
upsetting".

So they delete the project - which could have been handled better, admittedly.
But probably the best thing in the long run.

1\. [http://experimenthaywire.net/is-there-a-solution-to-
cybersta...](http://experimenthaywire.net/is-there-a-solution-to-
cyberstalking/)

EDIT: posting Daniella's full name is rather unfortunate (as she makes a point
of using it, it seems).

~~~
Jugglernaut
This is one of her responses: "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!"

Yeah, I understand kickstarters position fairly well now.

~~~
antidaily
Sounds like a fucking idiot. Which doesn't mean she deserves to be harassed.
But WTF @ that comment! Who would want to give someone who talks like that any
of their money?

~~~
agent409
Not sure if it helps your perspective or not, but the quoted material was
written by our stalker rather than Rachel. He has many accounts on social
networking sites and manufactures credibility by replying to his own posts
with links to posts on other sites (usually ones he's written). He's been
doing this for a long time. Even I have a hard time sorting out the sock
puppets from the non-sock puppets sometimes. He's a brilliant, evil, genius. I
would be jelly if I hadn't seen how he actually lives and had a glimpse at his
mental illness.

For instance, he has this really bizarre fascination with women named Vanessa
and Rachel. He's been "married" twice, once to a Vanessa and once to a Rachel.
He has this compulsion to have three women at once (named Vanessa or Rachel)
that he describes in metaphysical terms.

He does tons of designer hallucinogens he buys from labs in Japan. He often
talks about himself in psycho-spiritual terms of superiority, such as "I've
gone farther out than any mage. I flew right past [Carlos] Castaneda into
expanses of the abyss he'll never know".

More often than not I find myself feeling sorry for him. Until, of course, he
goes on the offensive again.

------
nhannah
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.

------
46Bit
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. It is not a perfect galaxy.

------
floatboth
It reminds me of something… Remember the guy who trolled Zed Shaw on GitHub?

GitHub added the ability to block users only after Zed wrote a script that
crashed GitHub…

Rachel should do the same to Kickstarter!

------
ck2
Doesn't matter what the details are:

with a rule like this, 4Chan or otherwise could show up and "grief" every
project on Kickstarter until they were all canceled

------
skeltoac
It's not what she was. It's what she did.

"Banned from Kickstarter for violating the terms of service."

There, I fixed it.

------
______
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.

------
Monotoko
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...

~~~
jtheory
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.

------
Forrest7778
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.

~~~
DarkShikari
_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_.

~~~
saraid216
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.

~~~
DarkShikari
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.

~~~
saraid216
I agree there.

------
jakejake
Add option for project owners to approve/moderate comments. Problem solved.
(the kickstarter problem at least)

------
mirceagoia
This looks like the Airbnb PR fiasco...Kickstarter, please learn from someone
else's mistake.

------
jsmcgd
What not allow the project owner to flag or hide comments they believe are
spammy?

------
reason
Before this gets out of hand: PG, I think it'd great if you added another HN
guideline that states that people should wait to hear both sides of an issue
before stating their opinion, especially when it comes to these premature PR
'blunders'.

Edit: Downvoted? Nice, guys.

~~~
nicholas_tuzzio
I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. Stuff like what's mentioned in this
article, weird PayPal stuff, or random Google account banning doesn't get
fixed unless it gets publicity and outrage. There's good reason to believe
that Kickstarter would ignore this unless/until people start to get upset
about it. The whole point of this being at the top of HN is to get Kickstarter
to say/do something.

------
ricardobeat
I think this is one to be deleted. It's a trollfest all around.

------
corkill
Concerned about women being cyber stalked....reveals full name of a woman and
where she works in her post.

Kickstarter seems pretty out of line, but interested to hear their side of the
story.

------
jasonlotito
Any proof of this, or just this blog post?

------
agent409
I am also a victim of this guy. He harassed me off and on for years. He turned
on me after I told him "no" when he asked me to do a favor for him I didn't
feel comfortable doing. That was all it took to find myself on his shitlist.
While we were "friends" I got to listen to him brag about all the horrible
things he'd done to people, mostly women he dated, after they decided to tell
him "no" or kick him out of their lives once they realized how crazy he is. He
would show me how he was getting so-and-so fired from their job by spoofing
emails with child pornography in them to the all@ email aliases of their
employers from libraries and hacked DNS servers. He showed me how he made
money selling pirated ebooks and sheet music on ebay. And he'd brag about
using sockpuppets to build up fake credibility because it's all hearsay on the
Internet where the credibility of consensus is only second to hard evidence.

Don't fall for this guy's sockpuppet spam. This is exactly the kind of thing
he was doing on Kickstarter, and has done on Reddit, Hackernews, here,
Rachel's various blogs, and yes, all the way back to the days of Livejournal
being the amazing mecca of social networking.

His name is Jason Christopher Hughes AKA Michael Nath AKA Thylacine AKA
antisense is over 40 years old. He's been at this game for a long, long time
and has made social engineering an art form.

Most of the posts in here that look like layers of confirmation of "facts"
about Rachel are all the same person posting through TOR or I2P. If Slashdot
admins were to verify the IPs of most of the other posts attacking Rachel,
they'll see a wall of TOR and I2P exit nodes, just as any of us who have
checked out the logs of his behavior in the past have been able to see. You
let this guy brainwash you into believing all his propaganda against Rachel,
and you've just weaponized yourself in his favor. Please do not. Keep an open
mind. Use your critical thinking skills. Do not allow the emotional shock
value of the propaganda to interfere with your thinking. I know it's hard.
It's especially hard because Rachel is a very reactionary individual. She has
that rockstar vibe to her, and she doesn't take crap from anyone. That makes
her an easy target, clearly, because anytime the "moral high ground" seems a
little shaky, it's a vulnerability in her defense against her cyberstalker.

He's been stalking several of us for years. Most of us don't ever talk about
him using our typical logins because he'll shit up the administration and our
posts until we get banned. He's phenomenally good at turning people against
his victims.

Unfortunately it's hard to collect evidence against him. He only attacks maybe
10 or so people at a time. He's never going to become a priority for the FBI
or local police because they either have bigger fish to fry or don't
understand how to handle him in a way that his behavior can be documented.
Making all of this public is a big push for all of us who he's been harassing
for over a decade. We're tired of it. We want it to end. We need help.

Not your personal army and all that, sure, but it would be nice if we weren't
alone in trying to bring this guy down.

------
guard-of-terra
You should not feed the troll.

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.

~~~
Lazare
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.

------
drivebyacct2
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)

------
angersock
Flagged.

Look, folks, this article's sole relevance to HN is that it involves
Kickstarter's banning policies. There's no coding, no real startupy stuff--
just a ban on the premier crowdfunding site.

Unfortunately, any meaningful discussion of said ban requires we better
understand the events leading up to the ban. That in turn requires more
information than we are likely to get, and certainly more unbiased information
than is available.

Without that information, we can't usefully discuss Kickstarter, we can't
really discuss how to handle a case like this (as we wouldn't know what the
case is like, exactly), and we sure as hell can't learn anything useful.

With that information (let us pretend it is even attainable), all we are doing
is spelunking internet drama and finding a weird edge case that frankly is
most easily solved by a blanket banhammer.

I appreciate that Kickstarter may be in the wrong. I also appreciate that the
"victim" here apparently has several pseudonyms(annoying) and is arguably a
troll/drama queen/lulzcow/whatever.

The point is, we don't need to waste any time on this. This is dumb internet
shit--boot it out.

------
shpoonj
Reductio ad absurdum much?

Was she banned for being a stalking victim? Absolutely not. You cannot reach
that conclusion from the evidence given, and, furthermore, she was told, and
told us, very clearly why she was banned. It didn't say for being a stalking
victim. Stop being so dramatic. There's a war on.

------
stonemirror
Rachel Marone's stalker (and mine) makes a personal appearance in the comments
section of this article: [http://www.dailydot.com/business/kickstarter-
cyberstalker-vi...](http://www.dailydot.com/business/kickstarter-cyberstalker-
victim-rachel-marone/)

