Under the new rules, Hansen’s campaign might pass. In general, Kickstarter will now only prohibit things that are illegal, regulated, or dangerous, Strickler says. Pretty much anything else will fly, he says, as long as creators are honest about what they’re doing. Charity, genetically modified organisms, and misleading photo-realistic renderings are still forbidden under the new rules, but sunglasses, bath and beauty products, and many items that were banned over time are back on.

Strickler has never been happy about the fact that a creator’s Kickstarter experience starts with an approval process. "You always hate saying no to someone," he says. "[But] for a brand or a community to have definition, there have to be rules. Every website in the world has a list of what’s on topic and what’s off-topic. But you want those to be as broadly defined and clearly understandable as possible, and I don’t think that’s always been the case."

"For a brand or a community to have definition, there have to be rules."

Kickstarter’s human approval process was never billed as an endorsement — it consisted of a simple check for rule violations that could take as little as five minutes. That check will now be done by an algorithm that looks at keywords in the campaign, the creator’s track record on Kickstarter, and other metrics to create a profile of the project and compare it to similar projects that have been approved, rejected, flagged, and removed. If the campaign passes the algorithmic check, the creator can choose to either launch without a human review or request feedback from the Kickstarter team.

This will speed up the approval process for new campaigns and give staffers time to work in more depth with creators, Strickler says. Kickstarter was already approving 78 percent of new campaigns, and 44 percent of those get fully funded, according to the company.

If the history of the company were divided into eras, Strickler would say there are roughly four. The first would be 2002 to 2009, Before Kickstarter, when Strickler and his co-founders Perry Chen and Charles Adler were dreaming up the site. The second would be 2009 to March of 2012, Before Double Fine — the first "blockbuster" project that collected more than $3 million for a video game and raised expectations for funding levels. The next would be After Double Fine, which saw the famous "Kickstarter is not a store" blog post and a number of multimillion-dollar projects.

This would be a new one, Strickler says. We’ll call it the Mature Era. The site is "the premier place" for crowdfunded projects, Strickler says, and the company boasts a brand recognition and community of repeat backers not found on other sites. Even though Indiegogo has surpassed it in size, Kickstarter’s campaigns are much more likely to meet their goals and have raised more money total.

The question is whether Kickstarter can loosen up its rules without compromising its cachet and attracting scams, crazies, and purveyors of schlock. "The world has changed in response to Kickstarter and we’re changing with it," Strickler says. Hopefully that doesn’t mean being overrun by knock-off Ray-Bans.