> Can we actually prove fraud in any of these cases, though?
Is this the standard we want?
If you used an investment service which said "we require proof beyond all reasonable doubt of criminal endeavors before taking down [some UGC]," how much would you trust those investments? What if the standard for takedowns was a bit higher?
The question is not, did X commit fraud. The question is, "can fraudsters abuse the system maliciously?", and "can incompetents unintentionally abuse it?".
Since the answer is clearly "yes" - then taking some steps to reduce the impact of these vulnerabilities seem reasonable. If you are selling a product, show us the product. If you do not have a product, we want to be sure the backers know this.
Proof beyond all reasonable doubt is a lovely standard for a criminal justice system. Note that it is not used in civil suits in America - only criminal cases.
We're not talking about taking away people's freedom here. We're talking about an investment website.
Some level of proof is still necessary, though. Not just an accusation.
In general with Kickstarter failures current and future, I think we'll find the evidence weighs heavily in favor of incompetence rather than malice. There's no shortage in the world of business ventures that are honest to goodness failures.
> Some level of proof is still necessary, though. Not just an accusation.
Is anyone arguing that mere accusations should result in kickstarter takedowns? You make a good point... just a sort of obvious one.
This is clearly a hard problem, and neither extreme of "proof beyond reasonable doubt" or "accusation = takedown" works. Maybe that's why this space is so unexplored! That doesn't absolve Kickstarter from having to discover the palatable middle ground.
Hard work is hard, and I think today's announcements are part of that hard work. So I say: keep it up, Kickstarter!
You seem to have misunderstood "mere accusations."
Takedowns due to "mere accusations" to me means that I can fire off an e-mail if I see a kickstarter project that looks sketchy and have it taken down post-haste.
Well if it's based on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4549792 then Kickstarter should take it down. It's a civil matter, so there's no "beyond reasonable doubt" required, and if Kickstarter are helping fund infringement, then they're on the hook too.
Is there actually a legal basis for this? As in, if Stripe was, in good faith, processing payments for a company which is selling (allegedly) infringing products, they're obligated to stop processing payments immediately? It seems like there'd be a clause in the TOS to indemnify them.
They didn't just take it down - they left no way for anyone to find out what had happened to the project by looking at the Kickstarter site. There's just a page saying the project doesn't exist anymore for some unspecified reason.
Abound? ... I've just scrolled up and down and see nothing. I didn't even see many of them in the thread about the Swiss watch. But snarky anti-Apple-fanboy comments? Dozens of them.
It's official: Apple fanboys are the vegans of HN.
If you think iOS 6 maps are in any single way an improvement over Google Maps, or anything other than a power play in general, you're pretty damn likely to be making a worthless fanboy comment.
So the word "fanboy" is not an accurate term to describe anyone or the level of discourse about a subject?
You think that everybody on this website is engaging in rational, high-minded discourse?
It's easy to assume every mind is a willing convert. It takes a realist to understand that many minds are already made up based on bullshit and bad logic and you will never change those minds.
You're just as closed-minded as the "fanboys" I decry. Don't take the easy way out.
"fanboy" is a cop-out term that means that you aren't willing to accept that someone else has a different experience and opinions than yourself. By using the term "fanboy" you are very clearly signaling that you are discounting anything and everything the "fanboy" says. This is the textbook definition of close-minded.
Far more often, the person slinging the word "fanboy" is the person who refuses to accept new ideas, to accept that other people's differing opinions may be just as valid as their own. This is what close-minded is. And quite often, the person who is tarred with the word "fanboy" is in fact quite rational and has good reasons for their opinions, and may very well be open to differing opinions. But you'll never find out because you immediately labelled them as a "fanboy" and shut down the discussion.
And thus, the simple rule. Anyone who uses the word "fanboy" is not worth listening to.
Android's google maps have been better by features than iOS's google maps for a couple years now, since Google could update the Android app. Vector graphics since 2010, local integration (reviews, including zagat now), more advanced directions options, and so on.
Do you think that it is possible that the kickstarter model leads to press-than-sufficient sure diligence by lowering the barriers to investment that have traditionally driven larger investors to do more sure diligence?
Is it possible that kickstarter might be predicated on lowering inhibitions to invest below the levels necessary to consistently make sound, rational judgments?
I think that the kickstarter model is below the legally viable laissez faire line, and the once the lawsuits start flying the party will be over. People will look back and say "What were they thinking would happen?"
But that is just my opinion of where its going, it may turn out to be as revolutionary as eBay was in the casual sale market.
I've got the same opinion. It's amazing how so many entrepreneurs love the idea of crowdfunding their next project. They don't see how their crazy startup idea is just another insanely risky investment alongside scammers and people who have no idea what they're doing.
> If anything it sounds like maybe Git itself violates this, but I thought that Git hashed the difference between all the changes of a commit to get the hash. Some of the others sounds equally obvious at first glance.
Git creates hashed objects for individual file revisions, as well as tree objects referencing many individual file objects and commit objects which reference those tree objects.
> That's like saying HN is just full of college kids who think making a social web app with geolocation and a REST API is going to turn them into gazillionaires when they pivot to something useful (after all, the idea doesn't matter, it's the people who count) and then get acquired by Facebook for the GDP of a small country.
A lot of us get that impression, here. Some of us were underneath founders exactly like that and have good reason to be suspect.
