More Commenting Improvements Designed to Keep Creators and Backers Safe

Hey, Kickstarter community. I’m happy to share some new product updates with you.

In the same vein as our recent announcement about the changes we’ve made to comment moderation, we’re posting this update to give you insight into the work we’re doing as part of our ongoing commitment to keeping Kickstarter creators and backers safe.

With this latest update:

• When a backer cancels a pledge on a project, any comments they have left on the project’s page will now be automatically hidden.
• A project's creator (or collaborator) can now click on a commenter's name within their project's comment section to see information about the backer's pledge, including the pledge total, the rewards and add-ons selected, and shipping location.

We’ve made these changes in order to minimize the potential impact of abusive comments.

Creators have told us they would prefer comments to be removed from a project’s page when they are made by backers who cancel their pledges. We’ve seen instances where someone has pledged to a project just so they would be permitted to leave negative comments, and then canceled their pledge, only to have their comments linger on the page and taint the project. With this update, comments authored by someone who has canceled their pledge will be automatically hidden.

We’ve also heard from creators that when they are working through their project’s comment section in order to reply to questions or address issues from backers, it is extremely useful to have some basic context about each backer they are responding to (e.g. information about their pledge). Until now, the process for getting this context has been more cumbersome than necessary. Going forward, creators will have a simple way to access a backer’s pledge information right from within the comment section.

In addition to working with creators and backers to address their needs, we’ll be collaborating with a new group we're calling the Kickstarter Community Advisory Council on our ongoing safety work. The Council, which launches in June, will help guide us on a variety of matters, with a special focus on helping us ensure that Kickstarter is as useful, welcoming, and inclusive as it can possibly be. We’ll have more news about the Council coming soon, so be sure to check back.