CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[CaptGrumpy]

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.

They dabble. Sometimes law, sometimes accounting. Hell, they even have a Wikipedia page.

 

[carlosp]

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.

To be fair to Terry McIntosh, Ares Digital did integrate all that data into one system. He's talking about the source spreadsheets, exported from the crowdfunding platforms. Now that he's gone, all the updated and integrated data went with him, apparently, meaning Axanar's now starting from scratch.

 

[carlosp]

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.

I thought it was spelled Cheatham

 

[jespah]

I will now give you a crash course in the data geekery that is database joins. I worked in data for a good 14 years, for insurance and financial services firms. Millions of rows of data, no lie.

Imagine an insurance database just for auto accidents (there were other kinds of claims, but I'm trying to simplify here). Let us assume there are only 3 people we care about: Andy, Beth, and (heh) Carlos.

Andy and Carlos are drivers but only Andy is insured by the company. Beth is Andy's passenger. Collision ensues. Beth is injured. Both cars are damaged.

1. One data row is for Andy's property damage claim on his vehicle.
2. One data row is for Beth's personal injury claim.
3. One data row is for Carlos's property damage claim.

There are tables of insureds and of claimants. It's basic information, names and addresses, dates of birth. The kind of stuff you would find in your address book. Another table is just for policies. There are two rows for Andy: one is his collision coverage; the other is personal liability. In some states that's called PIP (personal injury protection). Depends on what state he's in re what the minimum is. The guy could also have homeowner's or umbrella coverage but I am going simple here.

Join the insured table to the policies table and you get Andy's complete info (that's the join showed in the middle, above). The row would look like this:

• Andy, whatever his address is, and then his policy # in the policy field.

But if you want to see if Beth and/or Carlos are insureds, you do an uneven (outer) join. That is the one in the lower right corner. It will show you which rows, between the two tables, do not intersect. Hence the rows may look like:

• Beth, whatever her address is, and then nothing in the policy field.
• Carlos, whatever his address is, and then nothing in the policy field.

Yeah, they're that easy. It might take a junior data person a little while to get up to snuff but they have their vaunted 12 - 14k donors. Why not ask one of them for help?

 

[CaptGrumpy]

I thought it was spelled Cheatham

Well, yeah. But he was replaced by his cousin Riley Cheatum

 

[Sgt_G]

Now that he's gone, all the updated and integrated data went with him, apparently, meaning Axanar's now starting from scratch.

And there he is in the wrong. The data was not his. When he left the project, he had a moral, ethical, and probably legal responsibility to leave the database behind.

 

[Jody Wheeler]

I will now give you a crash course in the data geekery that is database joins.

Nerd.

 

[drt]

I'd be surprised if Axanar sends anything out at this point, they just need to make it seem like things are moving until such time they can play the "Sorry, not our fault there aren't going to be any perks, CBS shut us down" card.

 

[Mytran]

And the he is in the wrong. The data was not his. When he left the project, he had a moral, ethical, and probably legal responsibility to leave the database behind.

I would imagine that the source data is still intact - just as he found it, IOW a mess

What he took with him is the sorting algorithms to make sense of it - the actual sorted data itself should have been (and probably was) deleted.

 

[Noname Given]

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.​

What a fustercluck (with credit Jespah of course). A semi-competent person could comb through and get that data in shape in one week or less. I guess the only 'work' Alec Peters and his crews feel suited for are attending conventions (that show Prelude to Axanar of course); and accepting any dreamed up award for Prelude to Axanar. 14K donor records (including names and mailing addresses) just isn't that insurmountable. Hell, they have to have the e-mail addresses associated with the donors - they could mass mail everyone a form asking them for current info and update that way too if they feel the data they have is unworkable.

 

[Sgt_G]

the actual sorted data itself should have been (and probably was) deleted

Yes and no. When he left, he was required to delete any copies he had in his personal possession, but he was obligated to leave a copy with the organization.

 

[Steve Roby]

I can't help but wonder... how do the thousands of other people doing crowdfunding manage their perks? I have a hard time believing there's anything uniquely complex about Axanar, fustercluckery aside.

 

[CaptGrumpy]

I can't help but wonder... how do the thousands of other people doing crowdfunding manage their perks? I have a hard time believing there's anything uniquely complex about Axanar, fustercluckery aside.

They do it right????

 

[Karzak]

The obvious answer is of course they are all as drunk on stupid as Burnett seems to be. It's really the only logical explanation for such fierce and continual idiocy and ineptitude by these clowns.

 

[Jody Wheeler]

I've done two crowd funds and fulfillments. Not nearly as complicated, but still time consuming. At some point, all the producers have to sit down and get it out. Whatever it takes. Spreadsheets, text files, late-night-cross-country-computer-workarounds. Whatever. You eventually just bite the bullet.

 

[Steve Roby]

I'd wondered if the companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo provided a platform to manage perk fulfillment. Guess not, huh?

 

[Harvey]

I can't help but wonder... how do the thousands of other people doing crowdfunding manage their perks? I have a hard time believing there's anything uniquely complex about Axanar, fustercluckery aside.

I was recently involved in a multi-million dollar crowdfunding campaign (through work). A mix of Kickstarter, BackerKit, and SquareSpace (for a post-campaign add-on store) were used. Nothing to it.

 

[HIjol]

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck"

Or, in this case, probably a further example (as if it were needed) into the deceit and deflection and dissemble into this insanely, continually unfolding Inexplicability. I can barely remember (900 pages ago) when this was looking like a case of Lord FanMan overstepping legal bounds in bringing people and technology together, trying to make a movie and expressing his love for his Star Trek...now? Ugh.

 

[Sgt_G]

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck"

And it's a flustered duck, to boot.

 

[muCephi]

These days, technicians routinely sort through complex DNA sequences seeking unique signatures of cancer manifestation that vary from individual to individual. It is insulting to the bare-wire neurons of humankind for business people to claim that a mere mailing list cleanup is anymore a cause for overwhelm, disaster, or years of delay.