CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
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RedForman: Now that's stooping pretty low!!
at least it wasn't striped sweater Wesley
I aim to please.
So I was just explaining this mess with "Ares Digital" to my wife, and I had a sudden thought: Would not KickStarter have the list of who donated and thus who is owed what perk? Why is Axanar waiting on Mr. McIntosh for the database??? Can't they get the information from the donor sites???
Oh, and after all of the fustercluckery that's gone on before this you expect them to act logically now? Really?
When my wife and I did our Kickstarter, that's how we got all of the donor information.
Now, we didn't have 14K donors spread over a couple of platforms and a donor store. But, still. They could've been chipping away at it. There's no reason why they need to create proprietary applications to get this shit done.
So here's a random question:
Will Axanar owe sales tax on the perks? I mean, it's supposed to be a donation, right? If they could get away without paying domestic sales tax, that would strike me as a tax loophole you could drive a truck through.
"What? No, I didn't sell him that. He donated, and I gave him a perk!"
Will Axanar owe sales tax on the perks? I mean, it's supposed to be a donation, right? If they could get away without paying domestic sales tax, that would strike me as a tax loophole you could drive a truck through.
"What? No, I didn't sell him that. He donated, and I gave him a perk!"
Terry explains the complexity in the CBS Paramount v. Axanar FB page:
There are eight or so spreadsheets that I can remember off of the top of my head -- I've deleted them from my files, since I have no reason to keep them after departing the production -- and that isn't counting live data from things like retro packages and the donor store which evolve over time organically.
On top of that there are two years of email and Facebook messages from donors with updates to their info that were manually processed (hundreds of them), such as email and shipping address changes, that have to be factored in, too.
And, as the cherry on top, the original spreadsheets are a mess as they were provided to the production from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the bane of my past which is the BackerKit spreadsheet -- the latter is a cluster fuck of galactic proportions for technical reasons.
Then, as a P.S., there is a spreadsheet for things like installment plans from the Indiegogo.
So... maybe 20 different data sources and each one has its own unique challenges to not only import in to a database intact, but then it all has to be sanitized, verified as correct individually, and then setup in tables so that each source can be searched against using geeky methods called "joins" which allow say a table of Indiegogo data to be cross sorted with something like PayPal donations and/or the retro packages.
Please believe me when I say that using something basic like a mail merge would be a proper nightmare for everyone... especially the donors... and that was when the data was fresh. After two years... I don't envy their new geek.
On top of that there are two years of email and Facebook messages from donors with updates to their info that were manually processed (hundreds of them), such as email and shipping address changes, that have to be factored in, too.
And, as the cherry on top, the original spreadsheets are a mess as they were provided to the production from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the bane of my past which is the BackerKit spreadsheet -- the latter is a cluster fuck of galactic proportions for technical reasons.
Then, as a P.S., there is a spreadsheet for things like installment plans from the Indiegogo.
So... maybe 20 different data sources and each one has its own unique challenges to not only import in to a database intact, but then it all has to be sanitized, verified as correct individually, and then setup in tables so that each source can be searched against using geeky methods called "joins" which allow say a table of Indiegogo data to be cross sorted with something like PayPal donations and/or the retro packages.
Please believe me when I say that using something basic like a mail merge would be a proper nightmare for everyone... especially the donors... and that was when the data was fresh. After two years... I don't envy their new geek.
Cleaning up some data presents insurmountable tech problems for a year and "some geeky things like joins" need to be done?
I really cannot emphasize enough what a pure dressing down and foot-shoved flying out the door with desk-in-box this sort of argument would earn within 5 minutes at any professional IT enterprise.
Oh woe, woe is me, I have to do the unwrapping of coins part of a cashier's job! The pencil sharpening part of an accountant's job! The turning on the room lights of a high school teacher's job! The waking up in the morning part of a pilot's job! Have pity on me, the poor victim of the complexity of the modern world, give me a least a year to master the task, then let me quit and throw away key resources before you assign someone else!
The world is so big and so complex! Have mercy on this poor soul who is only a Chief Technologist!
The very fact that such a situation was allowed by Axanar management itself is an enormous indictment of the lack of quality of the project's administration, and can easily give credence to other criticisms.
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I don't know what kind of job Terry has or what his qualifications are..........the way he explained things though - reading very much like someone making excuses - doesn't do much to dispel the notion that Alec & his cabal became overwhelmed after the big money started coming in.
If they knew what they were doing and had planned properly, hiring a CPA to do a full 'annual report' (or uh......not releasing one at all) as well as bringing in a properly trained/certified IT professional would've kept them from getting flummoxed and resorting to giving donors & everyone else the run-around. Instead, they cut corners, mixed in a bit of hubris and well, here we are.
Rumor has it that they did have a CPA firm: Dewey, Cheatum & Howe
EDIT: I'm sorry, it's an old joke and I winced upon rereading it.
What he describes is akin to having to wash the garden vegetables before putting them in the salad. The only persons who should be overwhelmed by this type of labor should be too young to grasp the concept of dirt.
Sorry to be pissed by this, and ordinarily I would just thank the volunteer and shift the job elsewhere, but honestly this set of excuses from someone who sat on it or so long in the face of clear business need while working on 'their own project' around the data is, in its domain of discussion, just as bad as Alec claiming Trek wasn't using its IP so its up for grabs. It is so off the charts that it would create anger in a professional environment.
Just spend a few days and clean up the damn data. Run a few scripts. Cull the residuals and take care of them by hand. Softball. THEN do your Ares Digital project. Or to translate: Make the damn film. THEN build your best ever permanent studio. In either case, put the fans/donors ahead of your personal ambitions.
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I like old cheesy jokes.
Fans of Car Talk will never fault you for bringing back a smile.
Whether or not Mr. McIntosh is a competent IT guy is not something I wish to debate, but from reading the above I would have to say he appears to be totally inexperienced with database management. What I know about it could fill a thimble, but I do know that what he describes confirms the military adage "Piss Poor Planning Prevents Proper Performance". Eight separate spreadsheets? He shouldn't have been using spreadsheets to begin with. Just buy the full business/professional Microsoft Office package that includes Access. Use the right tool for the job from the start and you won't have problems down the road.
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That's exactly where I first heard it. But, they stole it from the 3 Stooges. Steal from the best, I always say. And no matter what, Don't drive like my Brother
I think they're actually a law firm. They were also mentioned in this thread a few hundred pages back. Further proof that everything new is old, again.
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