Forum:Tightening things up here.

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Tightening things up here.

(sorry, should be a question mark after "Tightening things up around here" in the subject line, I didn't mean it to come out so forceful!).

Given another recent rash of deletions here (apparently caused by contributors not asking for permission to post material), I can't help but think that things need to be tightened up somewhat around here in that regard. I know I had to ask Thomas to remove some material (some worldgen programming code) based on my work that was adapted and posted here without my permission a couple of years ago, and DonM's timeline stuff was apparently put up without his permission a while back too, and now there's this latest batch of issues. Granted, I'm not really involved much with the wikia (I've really only edited some Spica Publishing info), but I wouldn't want to see the place shut down because people are being slack about getting permission to post things.

One other thing I'd strongly recommend is to block unregistered users from posting material - that way if anyone posts material that they shouldn't post, they can be tracked down. People should not be able to edit posts here anonymously.

Just some thoughts anyway... Evildrganymede 00:40, July 8, 2010 (UTC)

A large part of the issues have been my fault. Directly. The worldgen programming code was something I posted. Many of the just deleted articles were things I posted. So I, personally, need to be more careful about what should and shouldn't be posted.

We, the Traveller wiki administrators, don't have access rights to the Wikia wiki software settings to block unregistered users. There are a number of settings like this we can't change. It is one of the downsides of Wikia as the wiki host. The upside is a large, professional staff to manage the site, keep the software up to date, kill spammers, and other administrative tasks. I consider the trade-off well worth it. Tjoneslo 02:03, July 8, 2010 (UTC)

Can you not even moderate posts from unregistered users (i.e. hold them somewhere til you've verified that they're not spam or posting something they shouldn't)? Evildrganymede 06:46, July 8, 2010 (UTC)

Given the content of the message from Don McKinney, I'm not sure if it's going to be possible to continue doing things under the Wikia limits: "A licensee has complained that the FUP is NOT being followed, with content being simply copied from works currently available and being published. Even worse, there are numerous submissions from "Unregistered contributor", so many items on the Traveller Wiki are not even "owned" by anyone." Allens 13:43, July 8, 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this has something to do with Martin Dougherty's recent post, right? Apparently Marc Miller's permission to put certain Traveller material on this wiki did not cover the work Dougherty had done, even though it was set in a setting owned by Marc Miller. This surprises me; I would have thought that after the problems with the DGP material, MM would have made sure that his licensing agreements included his right to use material created under them as background for other Traveller material, also by third parties (if permitted by him). I mean, it would be more than a little counter-productive if, when a licencee has mentioned Count Casimir of Fornol, no one else were allowed to allude to his existence. But perhaps this has something to do with the difference between quoting verbatim and paraphrasing?

So it seems to me that we need a list of canon material and what we are and are not permitted to do with each particular batch. E.g. "You can quote any library data from and GDW material verbatim, you have to paraphrase information derived from the adventure test, and you can't post adventure-specific material and game rules at all".

Incidentally, does this mean that if, for example, I want to use the material from GT:Far Trader as basis for an article about Algine, I need to get express permission from Jon Zeigler?

Rancke 09:51, July 8, 2010 (UTC)

I can't imagine that using FT-related stats would be a problem - quoting passages from the book verbatim might be though. Thing is, I think you guys need a better way to track contributions, and I think people need to be more careful about assuming they have permission to post material (more to the point, they need to STOP assuming they have permission to post material, and actually sure they're certain that they have permission before doing so). If wikia can't let you do that, then I think you're going to have these problems again in the future, so I think you either need to find a way to do it within Wikia or find somewhere else to host the wiki that does allow you to do it. Maybe Thomas should contact all the licence-holders and get written permission from them all (or not, if they don't want to allow you to post their stuff) before proceeding further.

I'm not even sure if the issue is about Fair Use (I'd imagine that Fair Use applies with or without anyone's permission) so much as it being about the claim that the authors' permission has been given to publish their material here when it hasn't been given. In my case, I specifically didn't want anyone else publishing anything based on my work on the MGT boards when I posted it there, and yet someone did it anyway and they didn't ask me for my permission to do so.

Remember, this wikia was close to being shut down because of this, and this isn't the first time people have complained of material posted here that shouldn't have been (see above) - surely you don't want this sort of thing to happen yet again here in the future (possibly with fatal consequences for the site)? Evildrganymede 18:03, July 8, 2010 (UTC)