Server bailout
by matt - October 13th, 2008
Due to a some bad maintenance debt, we’ve had a liquidity crisis in the Kluster server sector. We’re confident that we’ve now injected some confidence into the market and expect closed projects appearance in namethis, as usual, moving forward.
comments
our sites
recent comments
- Rajeev: I have about $200 + in Namethis payments to be made to me, and my account was not suspended.How do i get the payment now
- Hannes K: It took a while but I have now received my cheque. Sent the form to Quirky mid December. Got confirmation 4 weeks later and then it
- Ben Kaufman: Blamethis, while your name is creative, we cant help you unless we know your real name. you can go ahead and email payme at
- Blame This: Kluster Folks. The following is the invoice for projects completed on NameThis. Please advise why these funds are being blocked from transfer and payment. Date Invoice Credit Name -------- ---------- -------- ---------------------------------- 0227 019853 9.90 Cappsure 0323 022421 39.20 Generociti 0330 022487 29.70 Cleaning Up In Business 0401 022570 19.80 ToolinShop 0401 022624 24.80 FlashSpread 0410 022949 9.90 BlokForm 0413 02291 19.80 Word
- felipe: Ben same thing here , havent received any response on my emails or any noification on payment.....
Thanks
Fiuh..
[...] Due to a some bad maintenance debt, we’ve had a liquidity crisis in the Kluster server sector. We’re confident that we’ve now injected some confidence into the market and expect closed projects appearance in namethis, as usual, …[Continue Reading] [...]
Matt I wanted to do a blog on your use of Twitter. Who is coordinating this in your office that I may contact them for a quick interview. Don
Any update on the rest of the debt? (our payments) It’s been five months since payment promises started - do you plan on lifting the limit soon? Do you have the money to pay us, or are you looking for more funding in order to pay us? An update would be appreciated.
Ignoring our anger at not being payed will just make us stop using this site.
How come Namethis is only showing the archives ?? O_o is there something wrong ?????
Funny that namethis is now boasting over $22,000 rewarded - how much has actually or ever will be paid?
There seems to be a be some kind of issue with the votes. Maybe the namethis engine is hungry, because I think it is eating votes. My votes, specifically. For example, I distinctly remember voting for both “kismet homes” and “vesta custom homes” in the latest project. . . I put a significant # of votes in both. . . but got back only my votes for kismet homes in experience points. I think this has happened in other projects, too, but I thought it might be an anomaly for one contest. 2+ contests tells me maybe it’s not.
Shawnee, I’ve had the same problem. I’ve actually had to log off, see if votes went through, and go back and try again. The other day I think I logged and and off a project 15 times or so to get my votes to “stick”! What finally seemed to work was distributing votes among a couple of names, then going back and getting rid of the spattering of one- or two- vote “place holders,” in order to change over to the names I mean to invest in. As to whether the votes are being counted, I can’t tell. I may just have really bad voting luck (I voted heavily for “Fruition,” and “Certifiles,” so figure I must have negative “influence”!
Voting slowly has worked for me. Press + button, then let black count box disappear before each new vote added. I also refresh the page to make sure things stick.
i’ve made a comment about this issue a week ago and they said that it was my problem…
I have had the same issue with the votes.
It eats them once - and then it is fine. I found - Like D’Shan - that if you don’t go vote clicking crazy and pace your votes they will be fine the first time.
@Kristen: Could you share with all of us, what happens with your payment ? What’s the limit means ? Is it only you or anybody else has the same isue ? Thanks.
@John Tagged - To answer your question - What I was referring to was the $200 a month limit to our Payoneer load. Some of use are owed substantially more and have been promised many times that the limit will be lifted in just a few weeks.
Well, while I’m waiting for my last comment to be moderated (b/c I posted a link?), I’ll point out that, for example, at least EIGHT people mentioned GoDaddy specifically in their suggestion for the “Company that Designs Websites that Really Sell” project. Please see the website link on my name for the smarter alternatives to the constantly mentioned GoDaddy. Peace, peeps.
I, too, am curious about an update on the payment situation. It’s been a few weeks since they said it would be a few weeks before the $200 limit is lifted.
@Shawnee, What do you mean by smarter alternatives to GoDaddy? I’ve been using GoDaddy as well to check for available domains. Is there anything wrong with GoDaddy? If there is, please let me know. Thanks!
@ Christina. Well, it depends on who you ask. I’ll repost my original comment without the embedded link(s) to clarify.
Grrr; did not work. Okay. . . one last time. No links in this one. A question for the general population of namethis: why do so many of you always mention GoDaddy in your suggestions for name registrars? Bad news, that GoDaddy is (so says the Grapevine). Since I’m a nice Shawnee, I decided this morning to put together a lovely little hack that is free for you all to use. It’s a tool that lets you search domain availability as you type(!) alongside a list of domain registration alternatives to GoDaddy. I will be using it from now on in my namethis suggestions explanations. Also, in the true open and crowdsourcing spirit of dancing unicorns, I am opening its use to you guys, too. (Apologies to klusterblog comment moderator).
P.S. You can find the previously mentioned tool through the link that’s on my name in this comment section. It’s probably a good thing the blog has decided to start modding links in comments now, given the recent spam attacks and such.
Oo, you ARE a nice Shawnee! *hugs* I’m not sure how to use this afore-mentioned tool, but it sounds amazing. I’ll monkey with it and see if I can’t get it to work… if I can find the link…
@shawnee, thanks for sharing that hack with all of us. it would be great if that hack also included the “for sale price” for the domains that are “for sale”. otherwise you don’t know if the “for sale” domain is $5 or $50,000.
@Christina — You are welcome. The link shouldn’t be *that* hard to find . . .starts with “zentu”. Hope you found it. @Troy — That would be a bit more convenient, but my purpose was simply to simplify the dual-step questions of “is the domain available to be registered?” and “where can it be registered?” To point people to one page that can answer both questions while simultaneously giving them lots of options. And the domain lookup tool is just AJAX, which means adding a “for sale price” query would require a server request anyway (which the tool does do, but just as an extra step). Besides, adding something like that would just feed the fire, and the delusional domain squatters out there don’t deserve free help, imho. : )
@Shawnee — If I ran the circus, you’d get a ton of experience points for this team-building revelation (AND an explanation of what experience points actually are!
Actually, I don’t know if I do understand experience points. I am confused. I thought that we each have only 30 votes per project and that that number is the maximum that can be returned as experience points (unless we place first and get 100 bonus, second and get 50 or third and get 33), even if we don’t come up with one of the top three names ourselves. But on the last couple of projects, I noticed Jim Lacerenza’s experience points: +100 Tapestry of Texas at Mosaic votes in the Name this highrise residential tower in Houston! project; +100 Tapestry of Texas at Mosaic name in the Name this highrise residential tower in Houston! project; +100 breakthroughmarketingfirm.com votes in the Online marketing for professional creatives project; +100 breakthroughmarketingfirm.com name in the Online marketing for professional creatives project. So it appears that Mr. Lacerenza had 100 votes which he d to vote for his own name(s). On the last project I placed in, I got back only the number of votes I’d voted in the name. . . so how is this possible?
The answer is that he invested all of his 30 points in his own suggestions which won first place.
You can read an explanation of that here in Lacy’s comment: Comment
I see . . . so it basically incentivizes, at least to some degree, people to use all vote all their votes in their own names (and how Mr. Lacerenza has won 3/3 the last projects he has done this in). Since the klusterers asked for feedback, I’ll throw mine out there: it’s highly unlikely that this method can produce the best names on a consistent basis.
@Shawnee — You know I’ve agreed; I don’t think we should be able to vote for our own names, period. Which might tend to favor non-namers (as namers may just sit out rather than putting votes toward a competitor). But I don’t think that’s all bad. For what it’s worth, James Lacerenza has an unbelievably “winning” voting history. The names he votes for tend to win a lot. I mean a LOT. (I discovered this under the old, more transparent system, where you could see what people were putting watts toward). So he’s either a very savvy voter, a very influential voter, or both.
It’s been really nice to see some new names on the winning list of late, but I still wish we could give blind submissions more of a shot, for all the reasons previously discussed…
Beautiful day here in CT.
+ no voting for own names
+ blind submissions
Agreed!
Uh..oh..even after creating some very very unique names here (like 3sualize.com for example), I’m getting increasingly disappointed to see not a single name of mine has won even a third place so far. So I’m thinking of continuing to be just an investor for a while…and see how that works out for me.
I agree too!
If I ran the circus…
1) 24 hours for company naming. No people’s names showing. Ability to edit our descriptions.
No one/two letter changes to other people’s names (community policed?).
2) Future name owner would delete all the “bad names” they’ll never use for whatever reason.
ie they asked for a .com and no .com is available.
3) 24 hours for the voting on the select few. No votes for your own names.
I realise this has it’s vague points. But it would be better than current set up I think? Fairer.
And bound to leave the new owner with a better name. And reward the creator of the name.
And payment would be a share of the $ for passing the cut. ie Step 2 above.
And a bigger amount for names voted into top spots.
And a preferential voting system! Each voter chooses their top three names in order.
Richard, I love the instant-run-off voting idea.
Richard, those ideas sound great!
I also wish there was an option the client with the product or service to be named could check. Too many names are being posted with .coms that are not truly available. A clickable option - that all submitted names must end with a .com - would help a lot, I think. Personally, I only vote for names that mention the domain’s availability specifically in the description (and hope the namer was honest).
Perhaps another helpful addition to NameThis would be name flags for names that do not fit the criteria - such as a .com domain that is unavailable. I checked on one of them - I think it was a name called Innovatia, which I thought was cool - and it was already taken, so I retracted my vote. But there was no way to flag it for possible removal.
The flags would probably have to be double-checked by moderators.
FYI, the comment by Lacy (@martin) was before there was a change in the algorithm. If you spend all of your votes in your own names, you won’t be unduly influencing the winner.
@richard instant run-off is very cool, but very difficult to do effectively and simply in the interface. also there’s the issue of all the candidates (names) not being available at the time of the ballot submission.
@shawnee your theory about experience points and votes is not correct. experience points are doled out for successful voting based on your risk and success and are not on the same scale with the maximum number of votes.
I think we crashed the server again. The Euro Casino has not posted.
Poor little server. I wonder what we’re doing that would cause it such pain?
Hi to all. I don’t understand why, but sometimes i read in some projects that my credidts are more than 30points.
I think it’s a bug and yesterday it’s happened again. I have read my available experience points was “-2″…After I restore all.
Maybe it could be “convenient” for me (2 extra points aren’t so convenient!)…maybe the server crashes for this problem?
PS: Nobody believe in the “blind submission”?
@ Alessio - I have had that problem on occasion also. As for Blind submission, I believe most of us would like that, but Kluster for some reason doesn’t seem to like it.
oooh mein díos….
@Kluster team : there is a bug in namethis, please take a look at “faux finishing business” project and read comment section. It’s confirmed.
@Alessio: Yes, have that once, mine is -4.
@John: It is not a bug. It is people playing with HTML tags. I suggested to ban user-generated HTML months ago here. It could be used for evil stuff …
Any news on the missing online gambling project! Eaten?
I’m sure I had the winning name.
Not that I can even remember what I put now.
@Martin : If anybody can use your program in your site and use it freely, but the result is not like they expected, wouldn’t it is a bug ? This should be tackled internally right ? What kind of evil stuff on your mind ? I know only javascript did that…
Hey guys, thanks for pointing out the display issue with the ‘faux finishing business’ project. It’s fixed.
there’s still a missing project without posted results…
@ Troy, project ender script got messed up somehow… the boy’s are fixing now.
should be fixed now
@KLUSTER, any update on the payment situation?
again 1 week without news from your side and when everything is “fixed” now the winners are selected with “closed eyes”….
“The need is for a brand so doesn’t necesary need have any gambling words on it. If it does bet or win or chance are the most appropiate. Not good to have casino/poker or other spefific games since it covers all of them under same URL.
Domain should be pronuncable(latin laguages brands are wanted as suggestion too – what you see is what you read), memorable and appeal and match this conditions to non english speakers as well. Preferably short but up to 10-12 characters if name is nice.”
“playeurosino” or “PlaceuroBets” or “GoodBetterBet” - WTF??? who can say these??
0 pronuncable, 0 memorable and contain CASINO!!!!
guys are you working for namethis or just use to pass some hours per week in there?
I think PlaceuroBets.com is good name
As the creator said, It sound like the dealer say “Place your bets, please…”. If this is well communicated, audience can memorize it just by looking at a dealer !
If the system fail to evaluate this, then some improvement has to be made not in the winner algorithm but more likely in the “User Interface” (a name filter or something like that).
I agree with Georgi about “playeurosino”, forbidden keyword must be filtered out by the system. I think we have to give a very BIG attention to the project owner guidelines as well as their money
Missing the good old days when Troy use to win, but at least names were good and votes were real!!! And what now? fake votes, no reponse from namethis team, a lot of fake users that place names which have nothing too see with the projects, sure fake accounts from users that want to win only, ……
@georgi wow … it sounds like the indictment is of the community, not of the namethis system. there’s really only so much the algorithm can do. i don’t think we can write a filter that automatically fixes “should be pronounceable.” i understand your frustration but there’s yet to be a suggestion for filtering beyond what we’re currently doing that seems likely to work.
as for the good old days, there was an equal amount of complaining of things being rigged back then. i really don’t know what to say except that we’ve never found the protestations of the community on this blog to accurately predict when cheating is going on.
@ Georgi — Over the course of the last five months playing namethis, I’ve felt at times very hopeful and excited, and even just plain happy. I could play, test my skill, connect with other namers who were on my wave length, and enjoy the group effort at creating both good names (by which I mean names the client could/would actually use) and a forum that would reward namers who fulfilled the client needs.
I’m sad now, and frustrated, because I see what is for me a worrisome lack of connection between the clients’ expressed goals and the names that win. Many clients have articulated their disappointment with winning names (and sometimes all of the names, in fact!), which leaves “winners” feeling pretty rotten. When it happened to me, the $30 I earned tasted pretty bad. I tried to look at it as compensation for one of the two times clients contacted me privately to tell me they liked my name (one went so far as to tell me he was registering it) and how awful they felt that I didn’t get any money. But it highlights real problems with a system that we are all hoping will work, grow, and perhaps add an important dimension to the way business is done.
I know the kluster team has rejected the idea of moderation, perhaps for ideological reasons, perhaps for financial ones. Lacking that, a core model that is both effective and fair is essential for keeping namethis functioning at top capacity. Right now, as a creative community, we seem to vote for clever, I-wish-I’d-thought-of-that, or unique names regardless of whether they are pronounceable; clear indicators of what the product provides; or even in keeping with the client’s express wishes. With the “name for kiddie classes” project, for example, I won for “Whirk.” It was clever, sort of, but not a great name for that particular business. It doesn’t say “kid,” it doesn’t say “multi-dimensional experience,” it doesn’t say “fun.” There were other names — including my own “Play Soup” — that did. For the busy mom trying to decide what class to take with her baby or child, “Whirk” (absent a very expensive ad campaign) is just confusing.
We also seem to love puns. While puns are fun, they are generally considered the “lowest” form of humor. I don’t know why we froth over them like dogs in heat, but we do. Sometimes a “punny” name is actually fitting and appealing. But more often it’s like we’re having our own private joke instead of really helping the client. The same with word-mashing. Occasionally it’s perfect, but too often we vote for eliding two words — say “child” and “development” into “childevelopment” — into something that’s eye-catching and interesting, but not really great as a name. This was crystal clear to me when we were naming actual people. The names that won weren’t Invention and iZZIster, but names that would work for a real human being. I would hope we’d have the same respect for a company.
I realize “a good name” is subjective, but the general sense of demoralization on namethis of late comes, I think, from frustration over the fact that “playing to win” often results in names that many, many players and clients believe are sub-par (and I include many of my own). Many of us have suggested changes in the algorithm that we think would help — blind submissions, not voting for our own names, and so forth — but the real issue is, I think, our lack of vision. If we don’t have moderation or even basic naming guidelines, if voters are too busy or too eager to win to bother finding out if a .com is available or the name is already in use for a similar company, or we’re just trying to earn $1 or $29 or $100, we’re all just winging it.
While we might argue that the client gets all the names no matter what, and thus protects his investment, I argue that which name “win” does matter. First, to give veracity to the “tested” claim. But also because we work — we create — in the direction of benefit to us. If we see names that are not so hot winning, we play to that mean. In terms of full disclosure, I’ve seen many names I “knew” would win because they fit the model “we” like. I didn’t like them, and have resisted voting for them. But it’s hard to fight the impulse, because it means I lose money.
These frustrations, combined with the unresolved payment issue and the relative lack of communication from the team, just makes me want to cry. I miss feeling good about our efforts!
@Matt: the need to filter similar name is real-daily experience ; at least we have a very basic filter first, improve it someday ; a very minimal filter that works with very basic regex may do (a=A) ; i believe a “sophisticated artificial intelligence who understand how to pronounce” is somewhere in the very far future
even Google can’t do it yet… (”did you mean….?”). So I think “the digg submit model” or such variation could work here…Thanks.
@stacy
I feel the disappointment. recently I had no time to place names so I voted on the names I thought would work but only won once in almost 2 weeks. I believe that you are right that we have created a sub-culture where the community votes for a certain type of name, I tried resisting that as well but like you said it is hard to do since we lose money.
@Georgi and Matt
I think an exclamation point (!) could work when one of the keywords that the client doesn’t want appears in the name. I doesn’t stop the name, but tells and reminds the community that the name is slightly not aligned to what the client wanted. And maybe another (?) for really really unpronounceable names maybe moderated by the community. Filtering I believe is bad, but notices and reminders maybe not.
Can I also suggest that in the comments section the client has another color because it would make it easier for us to spot the client who is trying to speak out and help us give the best name.
I love kluster, Kluster has given me so much including capital for my little business I am doing right now. So i’ll stick around till the end even if it is frustrating at times.
I also believe that Kluster should have some moderators for Kluster, maybe the Kluster team is too small to handle the community, corporate clients, the “code”, servers, legal stuff and talking with partners. Maybe a moderator whose sole purpose is to keep things running right, reminding namers about the rules and nudge the community when they are straying too much. Additionally Kluster has a pretty strong active base of users already, who are passionate. In fact this blog is enough to showcase how much people are into the kluster experience.
Oh btw, I am excited about my own project as well of giving out free photocopying service in my school check my website out http://www.freelovephilippines.com (it kinda redirects you to my multiply though) and I just want to say that my entire capital was earned in kluster
I want to add about the video…I tried to copy the video of the private kluster….xD it wasn’t that good though
And if possible also to keep track of our clients as well ? i really want to know how some of them are doing now
@john the problem is that very similar names shouldn’t always be filtered. Even a single letter difference could be enough to make a name better or worse. There are some basic similarity filters now, but there’s a really fine line.
@Matt: Just to be sure, so namethis has a very basic name filter now? Is that correct ? so if abcdef.com = ABCDEF.COM, the second one get filtered ? Please explain more about “There are some basic similarity filters now, but there’s a really fine line.”…
@john I believe that is the case
@matt : is it more of a Capitalization thing or more than that ?
@matthew its slightly more, but not much
Hi Matt, Thank you for following up on this
@Matt - its true. on one side, the problem comes from the system, because how you can see, the chosen names doesn’t correspond with the requirements and that comes from the other side, where are a lot of users with multiple accounts voting and voting on their own name(s) to get some cash.
btw. yesterday I had the opportunity to test a early version of similar site like namethis and would like to tell that is amazing, so the guys from kluster should think about the launch of the new version or at least make some changes…
anybody who want to get an access to this site, could leave me a message on namethis or send me an email.
@georgi do you have any evidence of the multiple accounts?
Well, how do we spot multiple accounts ? the only way to surely know is with Kluster’s Analytics and Algorithm which we have no access to >.<
@matthew that was kinda my point. not that it stops people from making statements to the contrary. if there is evidence, i’d love to hear it.
I trust Kluster to weed out those gamers, since they are the owners of namethis.com they would not like to have gamers in their site.
I like your website ,and like to communicate with everyone on this issue!
Your site is a much needed addition to my life. THANK YOU!
I see we share a common interest! Excellent job on the website!
Sehr informative Seite. Vielen Dank für die Infos!
Hello. May I rent your layout for my site?
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quite enjoyed your work .
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