In case you didn't know, your sister site the UC is planning on doing the same thing your trying to do. http://www.unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2597 Interesting reading. It all makes sense Kickstarter has been around for what 3 years and now we want to show the bad apples. This will hopefully deter other scammers and bring people to your site for more information. I would say you have some time. I have noticed a significant decline of activity at the UC. I wonder why? At the UC, I do not see a lot of deck creators responding to the posts that people have set up for them. They do have a lot of lurkers, but it takes people to provide content.
Sister site? More like second cousin!
Just kidding... Actually, it would be more like the site of the kid next door... There's no relation other than sharing some members in common.
The topic refers to a campaign that Mr. Ratledge wants to see to fruition about getting Kickstarter to force a clause into their creator contracts that requires they supply their backers before entering into any retail sale arrangements with vendors. The thing is, however, that it would dramatically increase the cost of making a deck (and the fact that it would affect ALL projects, not just decks, make it unlikely to pass).
When a designer makes a deck and has a few retailers in place who placed bulk orders for decks, the usual practice is to have USPC break up the shipment to go to the various destinations - for example, Joe Player makes Joe's Deck, he has AceKing, JP and PokerStud52 lined up to buy in bulk, so he arranges for USPC to ship those bulk orders straight to the retailers with the remainder coming to him so he can divvy, pack and ship them to all the backers. USPC will break up a larger shipment like this at no extra charge, or so I'm told.
If Ratledge's rule went into effect, all the decks would have to be shipped to Joe Player or his fulfillment center. Then while dealing with shipping out all the tiny one- and two-deck orders, he'd have to have the retailer bulk orders shipped from his place, at his expense, and he'd have to sit on the entire thing until all those other backer orders were completed. If he got Larry's Mint to make some coins for the campaign and Larry was late on delivering, he's still forced to wait on shipping to the retailers and has all those cards taking up space in either his apartment or at the fulfillment center - which I'm sure would be charging for storage if delivery had to be delayed, since his project is tying up valuable storage space for other projects they've contracted to deliver for other companies. The problem gets compounded when he's dealing with Larry's Mint (coins), Jane's Print Shop (art prints), Jessica's Dice Emporium and Factory (dice) and Bishop's T-Shirt Extravaganza (custom t-shirts). A delay from any of them delays shipments from leaving and keeps the cards out of retailers' hands, which they'll only tolerate for so long before canceling the agreement to buy.
It's just a mess to try adding such a requirement, and it would be not just difficult to enforce, but depending on the laws of the various states and countries, it might not even stand the litmus test to determine if it's legal to have such a requirement.
I have noticed a significant decline of activity at the UC. I wonder why? At the UC, I do not see a lot of deck creators responding to the posts that people have set up for them.
That's because the deck creators keep getting banned left and right. It's pretty much the Ratledge Show over at the UC these days, and he's no Don Boyer.
I hope that's a compliment...
Since I think it is, thanks for that.
BTW, has anyone noticed that the UC forum's clock display on the home page is an hour fast?