Peer review kickstart company.

[MFX]

Might be a stupid idea but rather than kickstarter websites that have zero or only basic listing requirements I was wondering how practical it would be for them to implement some form of peer review/interview process before the funding round was allowed to happen. Problems I can immediately see would be finding willing experts in the field in question to do the peer review (and even experts can be wrong). Another option might be to allow anyone to comment giving brief details of their experience/interest in the field and why they think the project has a chance or not (this would have to be heavily moderated). Questions to the kickstart applicant would be encouraged and lack of answers or evasive answers would obviously be detrimental to their success of being able to apply for funding.

BTW Indiegogo only allows private comments (not public ones) unless you are a contributor, regardless of whether the campaign is still running or not so someone with concerns about the project can only express them to the people behind the campaign unless they become a contributor themselves which is a fairly major failing

Just an idea I thought I'd throw out there.

Martin.

[Fsck]

My opinion would depend on who the "peers" were.

[Anson]

Personally I think that would be a great idea. But I can see how there could be issues. Firstly who is to say who an "expert" is. You would almost need peer review for your experts. Then there could be the issue of someone stealing Ideas. You go up for peer review on one site while one of the "experts" steals your idea and posts it on another. Then you have competition that is already ahead of you on funding.

[EEVblog]

Personally I think that would be a great idea. But I can see how there could be issues. Firstly who is to say who an "expert" is. You would almost need peer review for your experts.

Yes. No one person can know it all.
You need a forum the size of this one to get a good spread of knowledge and experience, and then some sort of reputation/rating system for the peers so that the best ones get voted up by the other peers. So eventually one top rated peers comment would be worth more weight than some entry level "expert".

[Keef Wivanef]

No need for a committee ......just ask Keef
Keef can smell bullshit from a thousand miles away.

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[komet]

Such a system would provide Kickstarter with three things:

1) more work
2) less project funding and therefore reduced income
3) increased liability in case they do let through something which turns out to be scam.

It therefore seems unlikely.

[MFX]

...while one of the "experts" steals your idea and posts it on another. Then you have competition that is already ahead of you on funding.

Stealing ideas is always going to be an issue regardless. I could trawl through crowd funding sites now and do just that. The peer review would add a bit of a delay but then hopefully it would encourage the applicant to have done as much development/homework as possible before applying to achieve the best chance of success, anyone stealing the idea would still have to do a fair bit of development work on all but the simplest of ideas. If you need/want confidentiality then don't use a crowd funding site, simple.

No system is going to be perfect and no investment is ever going to be 100% safe but at least allowing people to discuss how realistic the project is BEFORE any money is handed over rather than after would hopefully allow a somewhat more informed decision to be made.

Martin.

[MFX]

3) increased liability in case they do let through something which turns out to be scam.

Done properly the liability would be on the community as a whole and it would be made clear that any decision you made regarding investing is entirely your own. Maybe a simpler system would be to allow completely open posting/questions for a set period after the campaign opens but not allow pledges, then simply automatically switch on the pledge system after X days then it's totally up to the potential investors to read the already posted discussion before they decide to part with their cash. Staying with the original peer review idea though, simpler projects requiring low investment levels could be subject to a much lower or even no level of review than complex/expensive projects which would help mitigate the idea stealing problem.

Martin.

[Keef Wivanef]

A good con-artist (most of them are VERY good) will have no trouble working around whatever rules are put in place.
The first defence against them is education and awareness.
Regrettably most people take the bait and then not only defend their decision but encourage others to follow.

There are laws to protect people against false advertising and deception but there is a gaping hole in the fence which allows unscrupulous operators to trouser the loot.

The Mu Thermal fiasco would make an excellent test case.
They told massive porkies.
Forensic examination of the Indiegogo webpages can PROVE this.

OFF WITH THEIR TESTURCLES! 

 

 

[EEVblog]

No system is going to be perfect and no investment is ever going to be 100% safe but at least allowing people to discuss how realistic the project is BEFORE any money is handed over rather than after would hopefully allow a somewhat more informed decision to be made.

How about every new project gets an automatic 7 days added at the start for "community discussion"?
An open slather forum on the projects page.
No money is taken until the 8th day after everyone has had their initial say.
Although you could end up with the serial hater who just go around and say "this project is a scam" on every project. But a thumbs up/down rating system can probably take care of that. Too many thumbs down and your account gets suspended or something.

[EEVblog]

No need for a committee ......just ask Keef
Keef can smell bullshit from a thousand miles away.
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Keef
It is clear that you are on this forum for one purpose only, to discuss only crowd source projects, and how you have tried to expose the scams. Something I note you are doing on other forums as well.
Now that's fine of course, and appreciated. But please refrain from the continued copy-paste posting of your (unrelated to the thread) endeavours in this area.
If you want to discuss a particular crowd funded project, start a new thread, and post original new material that promotes discussion.
If your only contribution is to be laughter and boasting about your exploits, and how you think everything is scam, it adds no value to this forum.
Personally, it does not bother me at all, but at present, it seems the only thing your posts are doing is to encourage moderator reports. I won't allow this to continue.
Consider this a public warning.

[Rasz]

No system is going to be perfect and no investment is ever going to be 100% safe but at least allowing people to discuss how realistic the project is BEFORE any money is handed over rather than after would hopefully allow a somewhat more informed decision to be made.

How about every new project gets an automatic 7 days added at the start for "community discussion"?
An open slather forum on the projects page.
No money is taken until the 8th day after everyone has had their initial say.
Although you could end up with the serial hater who just go around and say "this project is a scam" on every project. But a thumbs up/down rating system can probably take care of that. Too many thumbs down and your account gets suspended or something.

Could be gamed same way as YT +, tweeter followers and bookface friends are, SEO scum would start selling 'kickstarter comments cleaning service' or something. The way it is now Kickstarter is swimming in revenue while keeping minimal staff and liability.

[pikuorguk]

No system is going to be perfect and no investment is ever going to be 100% safe but at least allowing people to discuss how realistic the project is BEFORE any money is handed over rather than after would hopefully allow a somewhat more informed decision to be made.

How about every new project gets an automatic 7 days added at the start for "community discussion"?
An open slather forum on the projects page.
No money is taken until the 8th day after everyone has had their initial say.
Although you could end up with the serial hater who just go around and say "this project is a scam" on every project. But a thumbs up/down rating system can probably take care of that. Too many thumbs down and your account gets suspended or something.

There should be some sort of discussion/mentoring period before the projects go live. A basic idiot-barrier if you will where people can lay into the blatant scams and misguided laptop radiation shield types. It'd also be a system though where more experienced people could say "look mate, your laptop SMS reminder thing is complete garbage, Google Calendar does that for free. However... your SMS box looks interesting. Drop the free energy stuff since it makes you look crazy and let's work out how to sell your SMS box". Since sometimes people have parts of a good idea and just need a bit of advice.

Without some sort of sanity filter, places like Indiegogo and Kickstarter are just going to get reputations as being full of nutters, and the general non-techie population will then avoid them - "Oh you saw a project on Indiegogo did you? haha avoid it, that place is full of scams"

[Bored@Work]

There should be some sort of discussion/mentoring period before the projects go live. A basic idiot-barrier if you will where people can lay into the blatant scams and misguided laptop radiation shield types.

Why do you think that will work? Idiots won't stop being idiots just because you tell them. If they are into conspiracy theories you will in fact confirm their believes that there is a conspiracy going on and you are part of it if you tell them they should drop something stupid. Further, idiots attract idiots. Try to tell a free energy nutter to drop it, and within no time you will face ten more free energy nutters shouting at you.

Any thumbs up / thumbs down system also doesn't work. This is a popularity contest then, not a realistic assessment.

And why do you think it is the job of the general public to do unpaid work to support businesses? Yes businesses, kickstarter or indigogo aren't charities. It is kickstarter's or indigogo's job to clean up their Augeas stables. If they want to they can hire paid experts to vet projects upfront, to shovel the shit. The only reasonable behavior from the public is to stay away and let the site owners, the project starters and the backers wade in their crowd funding feces. They apparently like it that way.