Today we rolled out an update to our Community Guidelines on the topic of spam.

Kickstarter creators are encouraged to share their projects with their friends, fans, and followers, however invading inboxes with unwanted messages is not allowed. Spam is more than just a nuisance — it makes every other project look bad by association.

We've always been aggressive in policing spam both on-site and off. Spamming can result in someone's account and project being suspended. Today's guidelines update clarifies exactly what we mean when we say don't spam. Spam is:

Emailing or direct messaging strangers about your project.
Sending unsolicited @-replies on Twitter.
Using email lists from third parties or soliciting backers of other Kickstarter projects.
Link-bombing forums.
Promoting a project on other projects' pages.

At the core of these guidelines is a simple principle: be respectful and conscientious about how and where you share your project. We know getting the word out about projects can be a big effort, and we hope these guidelines are helpful to everyone in our community. Thanks!

Comments

1. Creator Chicago Writers Conference on August 24, 2012
  
  I'm glad to see this update. However, when our project was running, other project creators spammed us, (messages to our KS page/inbox), I reported this, and the offenders were allowed to stay on KS. I hope this will not be the case going forward. Thanks.
2. Creator Jonathan Nation on August 24, 2012
  
  Sounds good both in spirit and wording until I got to this --- > "Promoting a project on other projects' pages"
  
  Does this apply to a campaign owner on their own page?
  
  Exmaples:
  A couple times I have seen in an update a band point to their friends, who their fans probably are interested in.
  I know of a couple video games, who did link to other video game campaigns at one point in the process.
  
  This acctually is a relationship building thing, and not spam when it comes from the owner of the page.
  
  Just looking for a little clarification.
3. Creator Daryl Putman on August 24, 2012
  
  What about when a project decides to promote another project they like? (Or, a mutual cross-promotion.) In its on-KS updates.
4. Creator Kevin Nichols on August 24, 2012
  
  As an offender myself, I am curious of the communites thoughts on getting journalists to write about your project while not blind emailing them.
5. Creator Nicky on August 24, 2012
  
  I have a question on "Promoting a project on other projects' pages." What if its your own project and is a continuation? For example, you did a comic book kickstarter project. Now you're doing the second series or similar project and promoting it on your first kickstarter project which is completed. Does that fall under the spamming category cos I won't think so.
6. Creator Yancey Strickler on August 24, 2012
  
  Pitching a member of the press is perfectly fine. Creators promoting other projects on their own project pages is also fine. That rule is about people posting comments on other people's projects saying "check out my project" etc. We'll adjust the language to make that more clear.
7. Creator Nicky on August 24, 2012
  
  Thank You for the clarification!!
8. Creator Matthew Ryan Wall on August 24, 2012
  
  So I can spam people's projects I don't like on twitter and hope they get shut down?
9. Creator Yancey Strickler on August 24, 2012
  
  That would break the guideline on not being a jerk.
10. Creator Ebony Love on August 25, 2012
  
  So what can be done about the folks who are trolling Kickstarter to create these email lists & then selling them to other people? I'm now getting tons of email from people who are using these 3rd party email lists to promote their campaigns. What do you do about them when they are sending unsolicited emails off-list?
11. Creator Yancey Strickler on August 25, 2012
  
  Projects found to be using third-party email lists to spam people off-site will immediately be suspended.
12. Creator Edward Melville on August 25, 2012
  
  I've enticed my backers to send a tweet to some well known game bloggers using a hashtag. Is this ok? I don't want to link my project to be rude. Just find it under my profile and let me know if this is "ok".
  
  Thanks,
  
  Edward
13. Creator Isquiesque on August 25, 2012
  
  This is great to see this in writing. I've been pretty annoyed by people blind emailing me to say, 'Hey, looks like you backed X and that's a lot like the Y that we're doing, please check us out." I always just promptly ignored them for doing that, even if the project sounded interesting, just on principle. Now, we have policy to stand on. Thanks!
14. Creator Yancey Strickler on August 27, 2012
  
  This comment has been removed by Kickstarter.
15. Creator Yancey Strickler on August 27, 2012
  
  Asking backers to contact a publication or Kickstarter itself in hopes of getting promotion is spam. Imagine being the person getting all of those copy-and-pasted emails.
16. Creator RobPeters on September 4, 2012
  
  I've noticed that a significant portion of my backers have also backed the same project. Is there any non-spam way to get the word out to people who might like a similar project?
17. Creator Robert Gandini on September 5, 2012
  
  is it OK to "follow" people on twitter who may have an interest in your project based on the sites they already follow? this isnt spam right?
18. Creator JP Reeves on September 9, 2012
  
  Can you send a reply email to a project you supported stating that you have an active project? I would assume this would be rational, but I guess the grey area is the particular appropriateness of your text.