10 ms·

Kicktrolling

265 points by darkstar999 13y ago

jsilence 13y ago
Kicktrolling... I'm just wondering how bored and frustrated a person must be to pull this kind of weird shit. Seriously, I can imagine it is kind of fun to troll some overly serious dudes in a specialized forum, while I would not even waste my precious time for that. But trolling people who actually try to achieve something? Why oh why?
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Some people (think they) can't create, and settle for the lower hanging fruit of destruction, to still feel some kind of agency and power, and distract themselves from jealousy and self-loathing. Kicking a dog, trolling forums or kickstarter... it's all the same? That's my theory anyway.
  - tjic 13y ago
    Thank you for crisply explaining something I've realized for some time, but have never been able to boil down to a single sentence.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      I was looking for a fitting quote by Erich Fromm (whom I kinda should give credit for "my theory", I'm pretty sure I pieced it together from stuff he said), couldn't find one - but it seems that his book "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" might be worth a read :)
  - vertr07 13y ago
    That's what creators tell themselves anyway. More likely this individual had a more concrete and financial reason to do so.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      This individual is not all individuals. Purely destructive trolling exists, even by intelligent and outwardly successful adults, a hundred times fold in Minecraft - and in some cases not even seeking attention applies because of anonymity. Which is no problem for sadism: seeing the reaction is enough. Creating can mean a lot of things.. it basically means doing something constructive, hey, even daydreaming or just curiosity. For me there is either progress (doesn't have to be anything big, it doesn't even have to be your own, as long as you have the ability to be happy for others), relaxation (ditto) or frustration and the compensation for it... but any talk of "creators" is entirely yours. You don't seriously think I was trying to claim I was never a dick in my life? Hah, I wish.
  - raganwald 13y ago
    And of course, some people think they can create and engage in "disruption of old-line industries" for many of the same reasons.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      See other reply.. I wasn't talking about creating products, sigh. Quit putting a dollar sign on every thing on the planet!
- a3voices 13y ago
  A personal theory I have is that some people deep down want to act like they're in Grand Theft Auto, running around causing mayhem and destruction.
kghose 13y ago
I don't understand why kickstarter can not deduct the money from the card/account and hold it until the deadline passes. If the goal is not met all the money is refunded.
- lotyrin 13y ago
  I believe that it's because of card processing fees don't work out in that situation. They'd lose money on failed projects.
- jxf 13y ago
  That costs Kickstarter more money than waiting until the end. If Kickstarter deducts in advance and refunds later for a failed campaign, then it must do two credit card transactions: once to charge the money, and another to refund it. Additionally, refunds are sometimes more expensive than charges. Not only that, but Kickstarter would also have to worry about situations like, e.g., Alice pledges money, and then later closes her card account. How would Kickstarter get the money back to Alice? So it's almost certainly done for reasons of simplicity and avoiding legal/ethical obligations about safeguarding the money in escrow.
  - sniperkic 13y ago
    Indiegogo has surmounted those obstacles and charges a pledge when it is made then refund slater if the campaign doesn't succeed. That might be a competitive advantage going forward.
    - bobbles 13y ago
      That is an option that can be changed, there have been indiegogo projects such as the ubuntu phone, that would only have charged if funding had been successful.
      - weisser 13y ago
        Not true. I was frustrated when indiegogo deducted money from my bank account instantly when I pledged for the Ubuntu phone. It was surprising because I had only pledged significant amounts on kickstarter previously. Honestly, for someone without much in the way of liquid assets it was frustrating to have so much money frozen for over 30 days.
loceng 13y ago
Does anyone know if this is a regular occurrence?
- interstitial 13y ago
  It definitely is. I was bookmarking them once. There's even a snarkier version -- a kicktroll bids at the final second to $1 of funding a failing project. Yes, there is a project that got $49,999 of a $50,000 goal, with a very large troll donation in the last seconds. The owner of Kicktraq (who might read these boards), has a good knowledge of it. He seems to be some kind of savant, and can remember so many campaigns.
  - Cort3z 13y ago
    So a meta troll would be the pledge a few dollars the last second of every failing kickstarter? That would be great fun!
    - loceng 13y ago
      I think he meant remove their $1 pledge the last second, so it would potentially fail - or enough for it to fail.
  - loceng 13y ago
    I didn't realize Kicktraq was a site. Thanks.
tlrobinson 13y ago
I predicted this might happen earlier this year (not that it's particularly hard to predict): "You could sabotage some Kickstarter projects by pledging a large amount then blacking out a minute before it ends." https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697 https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697 Interestingly, Bitcoin has features to make this sort of thing impossible, even without a trusted intermediary holding onto the funds: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_co...
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  I don't know if swapping easily-observed troll risk for impossible-to-predict currency exchange risk is a net win.
- bbit 13y ago
  Yes, I've seen people do that before. You can't do that with Bitcoins and crowdfunding. This platform does it now http://www.bitcoinstarter.com http://www.bitcoinstarter.com .
- interstitial 13y ago
  You can't back out in the last 24 hours if it takes a project under funding. Trust me, this isn't new and it's been debated in circles outside HN for a long while (I could list dozens of kicktrolled campaigns). The consensus is one of the reason Kickstarter is winning the crowdfunding game is it is possible to back out -- if they change that, they change the game. This gives consumers more freedom. But I think extra large amounts need new rules -- or just forbid them (as painful as that is).
  - gavinballard 13y ago
    Perhaps an extra degree of verification for pledges beyond a certain value?
  - bambax 13y ago
drakaal 13y ago
Kicktrolling is becoming pretty common. Others have written about having users dispute the charge after the funding was complete and wrecking the goal. Kickstarter is interesting in some ways, but it is a bad deal for a great many kinds of projects. "Send a satellite to space" great for kickstarter. "We are knocking off this product know one knew was already on amazon" great for kickstarter. But most products would do better selling on Amazon using a "This product will be released on X Date" because the commissions are lower, and if you are only doing $25k for a tangible thing, you can probably get the $15k loan to do it for a lot less, and you will still know how many units you sold before you have to deliver them. If Kickstarter is going to take such a large percentage they need to do more to prevent this kind of thing from happening.
- Kliment 13y ago
  Who's going to give you a 15k loan for a first product based on a shitty marketing video? It's not 2000 anymore.
  - i_am_dead 13y ago
    Friends and family
    - schenecstasy 13y ago
      and fools
  - Alexx 13y ago
    In the UK the Government has an excellent loan scheme for small business right now. 6.2% over 5 years with 1 year capital break. You can theoretically get up to $29k if you are a pair. Though you do need a little more than a marketing video, like a functional business plan. But it's not like the banks.
  - drakaal 13y ago
    If you have $30k worth of pre-orders on Amazon. Anyone. Bank Of America, Friends and Family, An Angel VC.
adamnemecek 13y ago
"What if this guy "helped" us get funded by the skin of our teeth only to skip out on the bill? We'd still be short a few grand, have to deliver the project to the paying backers and be liable for Kickstarter and Amazon fees." Wait, I don't get it. If the guy pulls out last minute, the project still won't be funded, no? So there would be no obligation to deliver anything. Am I missing something?
- andrewhyde 13y ago
  The project can be funded but if he used a wrong cc # or expired the funds won't transfer, even though the project was 'funded.' I don't think he would be liable for KS and Amazon fees for that as they are paid instantly when the transfer happens.
  - makomk 13y ago
    Yeah, apparently this happened to a jewelry project on Kickstarter a while ago - one of the big backers turned out to have used a card without enough funds and the creator wound up on the hook for all the rewards, but without enough money to make them.
    - chmike 13y ago
      So a margin in funding to anticipate on such "bad luck" situation would be wise.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      It seems like this scenario could be prevented even within the one-week pre-auth limit cited above. That is, pre-auth every donation a week before the campaign ends. The pre-auths that fail would then be subtracted from the total, and a week is long enough to either pay your credit card bill or decide that you can't contribute that much.
- neurotech1 13y ago
  Even though such issues can be painful for the project, IMO It's good practice to allow some margin in the goal amount.
matude 13y ago
Maybe they Kicktrolled themselves in order to raise publicity on their misfortune? It's not easy to get on the front page of HN...
- midas007 13y ago
  Do you realize your post sounds like nothing but complaining? Please spare us by clicking delete.
- sdoering 13y ago
  Yeah. And you have prove of your accusation, bordering clearly on calumny, in the form of what exactly? If nothing else, you should show some decency and delete your comment, that probably was written, while half asleep.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- 1986v 13y ago
  I was thinking this as well, minus the HN part. It is similar to what eBay sellers would do with a hot auction. Jump in on the bidding with a second username and run the price up to where either a) someone else outbids them or b) they find the highest bid, retract the bid and then bid right under the highest bidder. Same scenario with Kickstarter. One could set an ideal funding point and run it up with fake fundings. Catch the attention of media and then hope that the bandwagon happens getting them more than what they are asking. Once funded over the amount, back out your fake fundings and voila - funded.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Maybe it's because I've been to horse auctions in which bidding on your own horse is explicitly allowed, but I don't really even see anything wrong with funding-and-defunding your own project.
    - raganwald 13y ago
      I don't know how horse auctions work, but I wouldn't compare openly bidding on your own property with using shill accounts to bid someone up and then retracting your own winning bid.
ohwp 13y ago
This article is full of assumptions. Maybe the backer lost a lot of money so he had to cut his fund. We don't know anything about 'Lee' and his financial situation. So we can't make any assumptions about his motivations.
- probably_wrong 13y ago
  It's not the first time it happens - I remember seeing this problem before in HN. IIRC from that time, this is a bigger problem when you consider that Kickstarter doesn't have any mechanismo for flagging suspicious backers, so even in the (unlikely, IMHO) case that this is an honest mistake from the backer, it will only increase once 4chan and friends hear about this.
- reidmain 13y ago
  The "Lee" character has done it dozens of times.
workbench 13y ago
nothing of value was lost
jamesmcbennett 13y ago
What is the motivation for Kicktrolling? Who would a kicktroller be? I don't get it. i) Person who just wants to be a dick. ii) Person with personal vendetta against the project creator iii) Company looking to fend off competitors much the way of clicking lots of links to burn through a competitors ppc on adword.
- berrypicker 13y ago
  There's a lot of hate on the internet for many kickstarter projects - "who would fund this crap?!", "how is this receiving money?!". This sort of 'trolling' is probably coming from people who don't want to see certain projects succeed. I'm sure it would happen a lot more if you didn't require proof that you actually had that much money in your bank.
  - jamesmcbennett 13y ago
    "Some men just want to watch the world burn." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc
lazyant 13y ago
what about the ability to reject a pledge? this way if you contact the big backer and it sounds fishy you can just ignore it.
eecsninja 13y ago
One solution would be to let the campaigner set an upper limit to individual pledges. That limits the damage a single troll can do. Is there such a feature?

265 points by darkstar999 13y ago

Kicktrolling... I'm just wondering how bored and frustrated a person must be to pull this kind of weird shit. Seriously, I can imagine it is kind of fun to troll some overly serious dudes in a specialized forum, while I would not even waste my precious time for that. But trolling people who actually try to achieve something? Why oh why?

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Some people (think they) can't create, and settle for the lower hanging fruit of destruction, to still feel some kind of agency and power, and distract themselves from jealousy and self-loathing. Kicking a dog, trolling forums or kickstarter... it's all the same? That's my theory anyway.
- tjic 13y ago
  Thank you for crisply explaining something I've realized for some time, but have never been able to boil down to a single sentence.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    I was looking for a fitting quote by Erich Fromm (whom I kinda should give credit for "my theory", I'm pretty sure I pieced it together from stuff he said), couldn't find one - but it seems that his book "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" might be worth a read :)
- vertr07 13y ago
  That's what creators tell themselves anyway. More likely this individual had a more concrete and financial reason to do so.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    This individual is not all individuals. Purely destructive trolling exists, even by intelligent and outwardly successful adults, a hundred times fold in Minecraft - and in some cases not even seeking attention applies because of anonymity. Which is no problem for sadism: seeing the reaction is enough. Creating can mean a lot of things.. it basically means doing something constructive, hey, even daydreaming or just curiosity. For me there is either progress (doesn't have to be anything big, it doesn't even have to be your own, as long as you have the ability to be happy for others), relaxation (ditto) or frustration and the compensation for it... but any talk of "creators" is entirely yours. You don't seriously think I was trying to claim I was never a dick in my life? Hah, I wish.
- raganwald 13y ago
  And of course, some people think they can create and engage in "disruption of old-line industries" for many of the same reasons.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    See other reply.. I wasn't talking about creating products, sigh. Quit putting a dollar sign on every thing on the planet!
a3voices 13y ago
A personal theory I have is that some people deep down want to act like they're in Grand Theft Auto, running around causing mayhem and destruction.

kghose 13y ago

I don't understand why kickstarter can not deduct the money from the card/account and hold it until the deadline passes. If the goal is not met all the money is refunded.

lotyrin 13y ago
I believe that it's because of card processing fees don't work out in that situation. They'd lose money on failed projects.
jxf 13y ago
That costs Kickstarter more money than waiting until the end. If Kickstarter deducts in advance and refunds later for a failed campaign, then it must do two credit card transactions: once to charge the money, and another to refund it. Additionally, refunds are sometimes more expensive than charges. Not only that, but Kickstarter would also have to worry about situations like, e.g., Alice pledges money, and then later closes her card account. How would Kickstarter get the money back to Alice? So it's almost certainly done for reasons of simplicity and avoiding legal/ethical obligations about safeguarding the money in escrow.
- sniperkic 13y ago
  Indiegogo has surmounted those obstacles and charges a pledge when it is made then refund slater if the campaign doesn't succeed. That might be a competitive advantage going forward.
  - bobbles 13y ago
    That is an option that can be changed, there have been indiegogo projects such as the ubuntu phone, that would only have charged if funding had been successful.
    - weisser 13y ago
      Not true. I was frustrated when indiegogo deducted money from my bank account instantly when I pledged for the Ubuntu phone. It was surprising because I had only pledged significant amounts on kickstarter previously. Honestly, for someone without much in the way of liquid assets it was frustrating to have so much money frozen for over 30 days.

loceng 13y ago

Does anyone know if this is a regular occurrence?

interstitial 13y ago
It definitely is. I was bookmarking them once. There's even a snarkier version -- a kicktroll bids at the final second to $1 of funding a failing project. Yes, there is a project that got $49,999 of a $50,000 goal, with a very large troll donation in the last seconds. The owner of Kicktraq (who might read these boards), has a good knowledge of it. He seems to be some kind of savant, and can remember so many campaigns.
- Cort3z 13y ago
  So a meta troll would be the pledge a few dollars the last second of every failing kickstarter? That would be great fun!
  - loceng 13y ago
    I think he meant remove their $1 pledge the last second, so it would potentially fail - or enough for it to fail.
- loceng 13y ago
  I didn't realize Kicktraq was a site. Thanks.

tlrobinson 13y ago

I predicted this might happen earlier this year (not that it's particularly hard to predict): "You could sabotage some Kickstarter projects by pledging a large amount then blacking out a minute before it ends." https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697 https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697 Interestingly, Bitcoin has features to make this sort of thing impossible, even without a trusted intermediary holding onto the funds: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_co...

jacques_chester 13y ago
I don't know if swapping easily-observed troll risk for impossible-to-predict currency exchange risk is a net win.
bbit 13y ago
Yes, I've seen people do that before. You can't do that with Bitcoins and crowdfunding. This platform does it now http://www.bitcoinstarter.com http://www.bitcoinstarter.com .
interstitial 13y ago
You can't back out in the last 24 hours if it takes a project under funding. Trust me, this isn't new and it's been debated in circles outside HN for a long while (I could list dozens of kicktrolled campaigns). The consensus is one of the reason Kickstarter is winning the crowdfunding game is it is possible to back out -- if they change that, they change the game. This gives consumers more freedom. But I think extra large amounts need new rules -- or just forbid them (as painful as that is).
- gavinballard 13y ago
  Perhaps an extra degree of verification for pledges beyond a certain value?
- bambax 13y ago

drakaal 13y ago

Kicktrolling is becoming pretty common. Others have written about having users dispute the charge after the funding was complete and wrecking the goal. Kickstarter is interesting in some ways, but it is a bad deal for a great many kinds of projects. "Send a satellite to space" great for kickstarter. "We are knocking off this product know one knew was already on amazon" great for kickstarter. But most products would do better selling on Amazon using a "This product will be released on X Date" because the commissions are lower, and if you are only doing $25k for a tangible thing, you can probably get the $15k loan to do it for a lot less, and you will still know how many units you sold before you have to deliver them. If Kickstarter is going to take such a large percentage they need to do more to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

Kliment 13y ago
Who's going to give you a 15k loan for a first product based on a shitty marketing video? It's not 2000 anymore.
- i_am_dead 13y ago
  Friends and family
  - schenecstasy 13y ago
    and fools
- Alexx 13y ago
  In the UK the Government has an excellent loan scheme for small business right now. 6.2% over 5 years with 1 year capital break. You can theoretically get up to $29k if you are a pair. Though you do need a little more than a marketing video, like a functional business plan. But it's not like the banks.
- drakaal 13y ago
  If you have $30k worth of pre-orders on Amazon. Anyone. Bank Of America, Friends and Family, An Angel VC.

adamnemecek 13y ago

"What if this guy "helped" us get funded by the skin of our teeth only to skip out on the bill? We'd still be short a few grand, have to deliver the project to the paying backers and be liable for Kickstarter and Amazon fees." Wait, I don't get it. If the guy pulls out last minute, the project still won't be funded, no? So there would be no obligation to deliver anything. Am I missing something?

andrewhyde 13y ago
The project can be funded but if he used a wrong cc # or expired the funds won't transfer, even though the project was 'funded.' I don't think he would be liable for KS and Amazon fees for that as they are paid instantly when the transfer happens.
- makomk 13y ago
  Yeah, apparently this happened to a jewelry project on Kickstarter a while ago - one of the big backers turned out to have used a card without enough funds and the creator wound up on the hook for all the rewards, but without enough money to make them.
  - chmike 13y ago
    So a margin in funding to anticipate on such "bad luck" situation would be wise.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    It seems like this scenario could be prevented even within the one-week pre-auth limit cited above. That is, pre-auth every donation a week before the campaign ends. The pre-auths that fail would then be subtracted from the total, and a week is long enough to either pay your credit card bill or decide that you can't contribute that much.
neurotech1 13y ago
Even though such issues can be painful for the project, IMO It's good practice to allow some margin in the goal amount.

matude 13y ago

Maybe they Kicktrolled themselves in order to raise publicity on their misfortune? It's not easy to get on the front page of HN...

midas007 13y ago
Do you realize your post sounds like nothing but complaining? Please spare us by clicking delete.
sdoering 13y ago
Yeah. And you have prove of your accusation, bordering clearly on calumny, in the form of what exactly? If nothing else, you should show some decency and delete your comment, that probably was written, while half asleep.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
1986v 13y ago
I was thinking this as well, minus the HN part. It is similar to what eBay sellers would do with a hot auction. Jump in on the bidding with a second username and run the price up to where either a) someone else outbids them or b) they find the highest bid, retract the bid and then bid right under the highest bidder. Same scenario with Kickstarter. One could set an ideal funding point and run it up with fake fundings. Catch the attention of media and then hope that the bandwagon happens getting them more than what they are asking. Once funded over the amount, back out your fake fundings and voila - funded.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Maybe it's because I've been to horse auctions in which bidding on your own horse is explicitly allowed, but I don't really even see anything wrong with funding-and-defunding your own project.
  - raganwald 13y ago
    I don't know how horse auctions work, but I wouldn't compare openly bidding on your own property with using shill accounts to bid someone up and then retracting your own winning bid.

ohwp 13y ago

This article is full of assumptions. Maybe the backer lost a lot of money so he had to cut his fund. We don't know anything about 'Lee' and his financial situation. So we can't make any assumptions about his motivations.

probably_wrong 13y ago
It's not the first time it happens - I remember seeing this problem before in HN. IIRC from that time, this is a bigger problem when you consider that Kickstarter doesn't have any mechanismo for flagging suspicious backers, so even in the (unlikely, IMHO) case that this is an honest mistake from the backer, it will only increase once 4chan and friends hear about this.
reidmain 13y ago
The "Lee" character has done it dozens of times.

workbench 13y ago

nothing of value was lost

jamesmcbennett 13y ago

What is the motivation for Kicktrolling? Who would a kicktroller be? I don't get it. i) Person who just wants to be a dick. ii) Person with personal vendetta against the project creator iii) Company looking to fend off competitors much the way of clicking lots of links to burn through a competitors ppc on adword.

berrypicker 13y ago
There's a lot of hate on the internet for many kickstarter projects - "who would fund this crap?!", "how is this receiving money?!". This sort of 'trolling' is probably coming from people who don't want to see certain projects succeed. I'm sure it would happen a lot more if you didn't require proof that you actually had that much money in your bank.
- jamesmcbennett 13y ago
  "Some men just want to watch the world burn." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc

lazyant 13y ago

what about the ability to reject a pledge? this way if you contact the big backer and it sounds fishy you can just ignore it.

eecsninja 13y ago

One solution would be to let the campaigner set an upper limit to individual pledges. That limits the damage a single troll can do. Is there such a feature?