What in the world is SRB2 Workshop?

amperbee said:
this isn't about your self-perceived fairness of the situation, it's about "not being a prick" by following what the author requested

person X makes mod Y that everyone likes
person X decides to leave the community just before a breaking update
person X explicitly declares "no porting"
you personally go up to person X and ask, and they tell you "still no porting"
(or they don't, because they fell off the edge of the earth. but you see, they already said "no porting")

well, that's it. no more mod Y :devastation:
either get off lazytown and make mod Z that implements some of the things Y did but with your unique twist to it, or leave it be and move on with your life
Click to expand...
mod z was an option this whole time?! Sure it might not be mod y, but it can called a "spiritual successor" with original sprites and a twist!? THIS OPTION IS PERFECT!!! EDIT: NO, I don't mean "steal their code, swap the sprites, and add 1 thing and its original!". I mean that you make your own code based on the previous code and make something unique.
amperbee said:
bit late, i was writing


I'll take some of my mods as an example :knuxsmug:

The core reasons for me marking some stuff as non reusable are as follows:
  • Modifications are usually unsupported by me.
  • I don't want modifications to be associated to what I can do.
  • I don't know how other people would use it, or for what.

Let's work on all of them:

Modifications are usually unsupported by me.
Take SRB2Ware as an example.

Because it is not reusable nor an open asset, you can't edit then distribute it without my explicit permission.
I'm not saying "hey, hands off" here, I'm trying to make clear that any possible changes to the mod are straight up not endorsed by me and therefore do not have my technical support; good luck, have fun, don't cry if it breaks.
This is made easier by virtue of the MB disallowing redistribution without permission. There are no edits, therefore people can't mistake it for being mine.

That said, at no point I'm preventing anyone from just giving it an official tweak if they so wanted. You just have to ask me, and I'm most likely going to give you a positive answer and let you release it. Hell, I may even give you some pointers on how the addon works internally so you don't confuse yourself by touching literally everything and breaking it further than it already is :razz:

Did you know somebody in the BR community shot me a message, asking me if they could make an edit to SRB2Ware to translate it to portuguese? That's quite literally basic courtesy. I regretfully didn't make translating it any easy, but they were able to do it.

I don't want modifications to be associated to what I can do.
Take Elimination as another example.

I made it, it works, it's fun.
A few months later, a few Kart peeps wanted to extend its functionality, as well as some bonus QoL.
After its release, I had just a few people come to me for help with it until I pointed out the other elimination mod is not particularly mine and to ask the proper author for help. You see, if you search "srb2kart elimination", the first result used to be MY thread.

I don't know what they changed (I lie, I can literally see what the changes are by comparing both files, but it's not my job to troubleshoot things that were not created nor are being supported by me...), so I don't want these changes associated to what I know I can do.



Ports fall under "modification" as you have to, you know, modify it to make it work on a newer version.

People tend to have this mentality of "it just works" that is very often incompatible with what the author wants.
Some people that look for a port of a particular mod are just looking for that: Port a mod to the next version, problems be damned.
But that just makes a port that might perform equally as bad or worse than the previous version.
There are new features, why not make use of them? Or things can be done better than they are, why not do just that?

That's where "courtesy" comes in. At least ask the dude for help, they might point you in the right direction. See the previous point.

Or maybe they won't let you, but usually because... they are already planning for a version with more goodies? Maybe it will perform better than it used to?
Why not wait? No need to be desperate until your next mod fix.

I don't know how other people would use it, or for what.
I've made a few other mods (not released here on the message board, you'll know when you find one) that are extremely fucking weird in functionality.
The default permission is "don't touch it" mostly because it works in such a shitty way that you can probably do better than me instead of touching it and getting a 220v electric shock.

You want to use it? Go nuts.
But if you ask for my blessing, you get free support (as far as my patience goes :razz:).
Maybe some pointers too, if you tell me what your use case is.
Click to expand...

Charybdizs said:
Fantastic post, btw. I think this is a good example of why "simply allow anyone to port and post anything :4head:" is not a simple answer that makes everyone happier. There are legitimate reasons that doing that can cause a huge hassle and waste of time and energy for mod authors.

If we were to allow ports in some way, it would have to work to prevent this from happening. Otherwise it quite literally discourages people from sharing their work because of the potential for how it can blow up on them. Like, one thing for certain, it would have to be explicitly clear who to approach for tech support regarding the port. I've got my mind on the issue.

Because a mod author could say all sorts of insane stuff. "I've posted this mod, but I forbid everyone from loading it alongside Skip. I don't like the author for reasons I'd prefer not to disclose, and I just ask that my mod being used alongside his stuff. Is that so hard to ask for?"

An author might actually say that; that might actually be important to them. But is it a fair thing for them to ask of everyone else? No, emphatically. This is the kind of reason why I -- again -- will reiterate that this issue is not as straightforward as people are acting like it is. Respect for authors doesn't mean "obeying everything the author says and asking no questions." It means applying some empathy and some common sense to identify which things the author said are reasonable requests and can be accommodated for the sake of being neighborly.
Click to expand...
Yes, thank you! I believe that the artist should have a say, but I don't think it should be "be all, end all" type of situation. EDIT: I mean that the creator and person asking should be on equal ground.
C.D. Dinosaur said:
the issue people have with portlegs are not the concept, that people are making mods available to be played in modern versions of the game, the problem as I see it is that portlegs are seen as tampering with the original.

If I were to be asked to port a mod I made, I'm not sure I'd say yes because it's essentially a coinflip on whether the finished product will be a faithful, fun, and competent or just a mod that technically ports all aspects if the mod to 2.X while also being incredibly unpolished and not a product I'd be proud of

tl;dr I don't trust strangers
Click to expand...
I get it, and I understand. No argument against it. I just. agree.
 
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As much as I like seeing discussion over things, a huge pet peeve of mine is when people repeatedly bring up an argument that has already been solved in a previous page.

Though the thread seems to be winding down now and isn't receiving a new problem every 60 minutes, I've taken the liberty of examining the last 35 (36?) pages of this thread to give you all an informed recap:


The original topic:
The Workshop is a splinter community, founded by a chunk of russian community members that were displeased over having a mod rejected due to containing content produced by Sonic1983 after said user went through a lengthy harassment campaign over community members (staff and normal members alike) for various reasons, then the SRB2MB staff wanting to distance themselves from it.

The SRB2 staff does not give half a crap about what other communities do, until they begin messing with their own infrastructure, which only serves to reinforce any negative feelings that they may have revolving the other community.

The problems with the Workshop are as follows:
  • The reason for its creation was that a mod was rejected for having content made by a particular banned user (this isn't something which is normally done, but the user was especially obnoxious, so a message was sent), then having the mod author just wipe credit and attempt to resubmit it, getting rejected again.
  • The community is keen to ignore the wishes of anyone, making edits/ports/??? out of spite or otherwise just because they can, which naturally does not bode well with neither the author of the mods being edited/ported/???, nor the MB which has submission guidelines against this.
  • Their staff claim to allow banned MB users to join. That's not quite the flex they think, since they were banned for being disruptive at best.
  • They have been on several campaigns against this board for varied reasons. Campaigns include but are not limited to DDoSing (this is actually a crime per the law).
  • Some members from that board have intense hatred against this community for... whatever reason.
    • At least one of them was on a complete warpath against everyone.
  • And a bunch other stuff that Charyb has already addressed that I don't feel like summarizing.
This, and a few other reasons already described by people here or that I completely missed, make the Workshop quite the undesirable place for many.
Silver lining though, apparently they have a few original mods over there, and a subset of its population seem actually chill.
This does not overshadow the fact that staff never had good intentions to begin with, but I would like to be proven wrong.

A few misconceptions were cleared as well:
  • Some people think using or hosting mods from the WS or GB can get you banned.
    • This is false. You can host any mods, provided you follow the master server guidelines, or you use them in private.
  • At least one person thinks being banned means all your mods released here in the MB get deleted.
    • This is false. You can request for them to be removed, but that's about it.
  • There is a quality gate in the submission process.
    • This is mostly false; the only bars to clear are "does it work?" and "does it have original content?".
  • Some people think that a mod not being reusable means no edits can be made.
    • This is true, but up to a point; you are allowed to just ask the author for permission to edit it anyways.

Suffice to say, this topic was solved pretty much instantly, since the question "What is the SRB2 Workshop" was answered the immediate next post.

But because a forum is a forum, discussions can emerge from a solved topic, like "why", "what", "how" and "why" again.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of
Some scattered points
that I've seen floating around this thread:

The word "portleg" is a portmanteau of the words "port", as a modification of something for a different version, and "bootleg", for a product made or distributed in an illegal manner.

Some people tack "something low quality" to its definition, but this is not what a portleg is intended to describe.
For a mod to be classified as a "portleg", it must have been made in bad faith (made "illegally", without the explicit permission of the author) or released in bad faith (distributed "illegally", without the explicit permission of the author).

For it to be bad faith, you would have to be explicitly ignoring these non-permissions given to you regarding the author's work.
Authors don't like things being edited by people they don't know, or trust, or that don't share their vision of some kind, or that don't share their style of work.

A sad amount of times, ports are made by people who want a port regardless of its quality, performance or functionality. (I'm sure you've heard "a rush job" somewhere.)
This results in a subpar version of the mod that may go against the author's visions or expectations. And sometimes, people that don't care enough to read and research may believe that the bad port is what the author intended; this obviously does not bode well with the author either.

So by default, authors prefer to disallow edits.

Note that ports are classified as edits. When trying to get an old product to work right on a more modern platform, editing it to avoid breaking changes or to make use of newer systems is going to be inevitable.
No.

Porting is modifying something to make it work on a different version, usually something old for a new format.
It's like making a new experience for something old by adapting it to a modern platform.
To preserve history is to keep it exactly in the state you found it with no alterations.

To give an example, the original Doom was designed for DOS. You can't play the original DOS relic on your Windows 10 computer, since the executable expects you to be using MS-DOS and will try to connect to MS-DOS specific functionality which is simply not available.
To play the game, you have to use a source port instead, a work made by experienced programmers to modernize the Doom game and use functionality now available in newer devices, in conjunction with the original Doom IWAD.
The source port emulates how the original Doom game plays and does it pretty well, but it's not 1:1 the same game.

History is preserved by being able to get an intact version of DOS Doom. You can't use it as-is, but that's history for you!

Sega does not really care what fans do with their IP. They know about this and other fangames, and yet, they have not taken action.
If they were to tell us to stop, staff and devs would have to oblige.

Sega doesn't own content not created by them.
Any fan media (fanart, fangames, fan literature, the works) created by users is owned by their respective authors and is legal, and they get to do with their product whatever they see fit. Except selling it if it contains copyrighted content, though it depends on the license of the content.

If you make a Lua script, that script is yours. Just because it's tied to funnee fangame doesn't mean your script *has* to be free, open source and available for everyone. But you'll get a few stinkeyes if you try to paywall a script.
Still constitutes as fan media.

Yes! Yes you can!
Nothing stops you from doing just this!
Maybe it isn't *obvious* since the phrasing in the message board makes it sound like a final decision, but you're not prevented from just going up to someone and asking anyways.
No.
They made it reusable for you, and have made this explicit.
It is considered polite to ask anyways; sometimes they may offer insight on how it works if you tell them what you're going to use it for, or point you to a different direction.

Board rules require that you credit them though.
MB staff lets you attempt to port and release a non-reusable mod given enough time has passed and clear attempts were made by you to contact the author.
The author said "no", therefore the work is no longer allowed to be re-released to the message board.
The author's word is final.

Unless the author were to return and decide on something else, but that's not up to you.
Sucks to be them.

When releasing something on the message board, it is expected that you follow their guidelines and rules.
One of them being the expectation that, shalt thou make your work reusable at any point, it will be reusable forever.

The MB software is supposed to prevent you from simply dodging this.
Basic courtesy. Empathy is expected from you.
Depends on various factors, but the answer to both questions is one of these:
Yourself, staff, or nobody.

Per internet rules, nobody is stopping you from just getting your hands dirty and doing whatever you want with whatever source material.
Nobody can police you regarding what do you do on your private time.
You can take anyone's mod and modify it to your heart's content or make a custom experience for yourself and your close friends.
Hell, if you don't get close to the SRB2MB at all, you won't even have to bother with all of this!

For all you might care, you could easily release it on whatever place you frequent and distribute it. SRB2MB staff can't do anything about it since it's not their turf, and authors would be forced to suck it up or ask something akin to "please, don't distribute this edit". What you do afterwards... would be up to you.

But if you intend to showcase it in this community or use their master server, you have to abide by their rules and guidelines.
They exist for a reason, and these guidelines declare whether you're allowed to engage with the community or not.
Skirting around them because your personal beliefs are incompatible with the rules just means the community is not for you. You're welcome to attempt a change to their guidelines if you do it in a civilized manner, but going on a crusade against everyone is just going to paint you as a crybaby and end with your reputation worse than it may already be.

The great thing about the internet is anonimity to an extent. You don't have to be face to face with whoever, a situation where saying off the wall shit can end with you hospitalized best case.
But even without this quality, people expect others to have the minimum of empathy to at least pay attention and abide by what they say to you and sometimes request of you.

It really is not hard to follow "please don't edit this", even though you have full power to do it anyways.



In the end, the answer really depends on how you feel:
The first frontier is yourself, where you will ask yourself "do I really want to do this?". Not in a life-or-death sense, but more on a "do I really care" scale, Someone is asking you to please not do a thing, but do you care about what they say?
The final frontier is the message board staff, who will enforce the rules on their platform and prevent you from releasing something that violates them. This is an immutable fact if you intend to use it.
And finally, if you really don't give a shit, nobody will stop you. Don't expect to use official places though, or to make friends with the same people you're about to disrespect.
This question is loaded and implies good faith.
No.

If good faith is intended here, you will be willing to listen to the author of the medium you are about to modify and respect whatever request they may have, however odd they may be.

Depends on the actions you carry out afterwards.

If you're keeping it private, no.
If you're distributing it, perhaps, yes.

In a technical sense.
Artistic merit is given to anything that is done with enough expertise.
An artist can make art with a brush. A blacksmith can make art with molten iron. A writer can make art with a keyboard.
A scripter can make art by making a computer cry.

It's subjective. Why do you care?
Even if it weren't, does your stance regarding author respect change?

Art, games, books, mods and the like are made for the recipient to experience and enjoy. That is their main goal. That should be enough to classify them as "art".

Why would they?

The MB staff doesn't really care what other communities do. They're more than welcome to do whatever they want on their own space, but they will take issue when it affects their infrastructure in some fashion (see WS and DDoSing).

Additionally, staff members of either community are not interested in opening a line of communication when it's obvious the result will be negative.
The WS wants stuff that the MB will naturally not abide to, and the MB doesn't want to play childish games.

So people can argument and discuss. You are on a forum.
Topics evolve over time, usually to discuss intricacies of the original question and its implications, or... whatever.
People like restating the same thing over and over in hopes the response changes.
Responses tend to change if the restatement is done on a different light, not under the same lights as the first 35 pages.

JUST SO WE ARE CRYSTAL CLEAR HERE, THESE ARE THINGS FOUND IN MANY GAME AND FANGAME COMMUNITIES AND PLATFORMS, NOT JUST SRB2MB.
SRB2MB DID NOT INVENT EXPECTATIONS. YOU ARE PRETTY MUCH EXPECTED TO ABIDE TO THE RULES AND GUIDELINES STIPULATED BY THE MODERATED COMMUNITY OR PLATFORM YOU INTEND TO PARTICIPATE ON, AT THE RISK OF LOSING THE PRIVILEGE TO PARTICIPATE SHOULD YOU NOT.

I think... that's actually all of the points I've seen! I hope I didn't miss any.


In conclusion:
What a small bunch of you may be missing is that mod authors are people too, and while they aren't owned any of your respect, they are owed basic courtesy as a human being by having some of their simple wishes acknowledged and acted upon. These wishes being how their product can be used.
And that you, yet another human being, has the capability of expressing empathy towards those same human beings, whereupon you would act upon those wishes.
It doesn't hurt to get off your lazy ass and ask for their blessing. You'll be surprised how friendly and helpful the everyday modder can be.

But nobody is stopping your apathetic self from doing whatever you want with a product.
Some players just don't like walking the extra mile by doing things the right way, which ends with these players disregarding these wishes and performing unauthorized edits and sometimes passing it off as a passable experience because they couldn't wait.
It might be an okay port or an okay edit, but it's... not what the author would have wanted.

That said, do you notice how I've been using pretty much the same words through the entire post?
"author's wishes", "respect", "courtesy", "permissions"...

It's not just my limited vocabulary. It's how each new argument in this thread devolves to once you unwrap them. It's more of the same but from different speakers.
The main problem here was never about copyright of any kind (which is already implicit regardless), it's about RESPECTING the ARTIST. It can't get any easier than that.
Even if the "artist" is making a fan creation on a fan creation out of some corpo's IP, they made something for you to enjoy.

This is a fangame, it's supposed to be open source and it's a free community, but a few of you are battling against giving modders autonomy regarding the part of the work that is considered original. Aren't they allowed to have rights to it?
I don't quite get what is the end goal of some of you, trying to argument *against* letting authors decide how their work should be used in the same community they feel comfortable distributing it in.


Do please correct me if I mistook or missed something.
Also,
A few people here are repeatedly heckling this thread because they find conflict of any kind funny, entertaining, or hard to read.
This ranges from trolling, to "lock this thread plz", including "i need popcorn for this", "this thread is getting long", bringing an already solved point back with no new angle, and general derailing by throwing random subtopics that add no substance to the main discussion.
This makes the thread harder to read and harder to talk in.

If you don't have anything to add to the thread, go elsewhere.
Drama is a constant on any community. When it gets large enough to the point that various people with varied backgrounds coexist, conflicts will emerge.
How they're handled varies, but it's a natural course of life.
Commenting on it by being off-topic or generally spammy simply does not help any conflict, but rather incentivices people to be the same degree of annoying.
There are plenty of other activites you can do, like checking out other projects, or playing games, none of them involving flooding a thread with pointless content or commenting on ohohoho drama ecks dee.

Please: Make a point that hasn't been alpha struck already, restate a point with a new angle, or make yourself invisible.
 
Since this feels like a good time to ask this, what is generally the stance on reusable mods from banned users?

There’s a particular user who has multiple currently up reusable mods, yet was also banned for, to my understanding: reposting non reusable mods as reusable

But if mods by a banned account are still up and labeled reusable, does that mean they’re fair game?
 
CILC said:
[...] if mods by a banned account are still up and labeled reusable, does that mean they’re fair game?
Click to expand...
While a staff member can give you a more informed answer, I'm giving you my single cent:

Just because an user was banned doesn't mean reusability guidelines stop acting for them.

So you treat their mods just like you would treat any other mods.
If it's reusable, you can use them. If it's not, you can ask (you'll have to find a venue for that), or simply not bother.
 
amperbee said:
'What if I was told "no", but the author disappeared?'
The author said "no", therefore the work is no longer allowed to be re-released to the message board.
The author's word is final.
Click to expand...
I don't wanna make any crude comparisons, but isn't this situation just similar to respecting a dead person's wishes? There's 3 ways to respond to a dead person's wish:
1. You respect the person and decide to follow their wish
2. You didn't really know the guy, so you decide later if you disrespect it or not.
3. You hated them, so as revenge, you go ahead and disrespect them.
I know you already stated that repeat questions piss you off, but I was gonna ask this beforehand anyway :P
And finally, in one situation, they never said no, but by the time you got to ask them, they left, so this leaves (at least to me) a confused stance.
This is mainly meant for @amperbee, so I wanna know how he feels (yes I know you get pissed at repeats, sorry man I had this thought earlier I was busy)
 
Banjo268 said:
isn't this situation just similar to respecting a dead person's wishes?
Click to expand...
dog.png

you don't need to think that deep into it, but it's something like that, yeah
person gone? do what they requested last (mb lets you port after a few months)

options 2 and 3 can get your mod rejected if they don't allow mantaining. option 3 specifically will get people to tell you to fuck off

Banjo268 said:
they never said no, but by the time you got to ask them, they left, so this leaves (at least to me) a confused stance.
Click to expand...
dog.png

same deal as before
person gone? do what they requested last

i should note the mb doesn't let you publish a mod without declaring your stance on edits since january or so
 
amperbee said:
View attachment 101474
you don't need to think that deep into it, but it's something like that, yeah
person gone? do what they requested last (mb lets you port after a few months)

options 2 and 3 can get your mod rejected if they don't allow mantaining. option 3 specifically will get people to tell you to fuck off

same deal as before
person gone? do what they requested last

i should note the mb doesn't let you publish a mod without declaring your stance on edits since january or so
Click to expand...
Didn't mean to go that deep either lol
One last thing: That part where you say, "mb lets you port after a few months". Are you saying that you can port regardless of their stance after a few months?
 
Banjo268 said:
That part where you say, "mb lets you port after a few months". Are you saying that you can port regardless of their stance after a few months?
Click to expand...
Not quite.

1695775958592.png

If they chose "IN MY ABSENCE" or above for mantain, there's your answer.
If they chose "NO", then no.
 
the workshop is an alternative to the message board
it houses content, most of which is low quality
there are also portlegs, which according to our good old friend frostiikin, don't hurt the creators at all!
1695808826794.png

there, a simple answer instead of the whiny argument that started
 
i don't think a random comment from one of the moderators counts as a be-all end-all definitive answer, it's just a certain viewpoint on the topic. there's still room for discussion.
 
Rolly Polly Pal said:
Tangentially related to this whole debate, it appears that extremely recently the reusability system has been tweaked to change the wording. Instead of "YES" or "NO" the options for the Modify category have been edited to "YES" and "ASK ME". I for one think this is a positive change and should (hopefully) clear up a lot of the confusion surrounding this whole reusability debate.

View attachment 101471
Click to expand...
I still think there should be a "No" option, in case the author doesn't want people to ask them at all and just take no for a definitive answer.
 
ok.
some of us like to on the workshop to create lazy mods. and thats why it exists.
why do you guys act like the workshop is a forbidden website that's against the law?
the owners are nice but sometimes egotistical.
 
SonicHacker141 said:
ok.
some of us like to on the workshop to create lazy mods. and thats why it exists.
why do you guys act like the workshop is a forbidden website that's against the law?
the owners are nice but sometimes egotistical.
Click to expand...
nobody's saying it's forbidden????? there's literally nothing stopping you from posting mods to ws. do whatever the hell you want
 
SonicHacker141 said:
some of us like to on the workshop to create lazy mods. and thats why it exists
why do you guys act like the workshop is a forbidden website that's against the law?
Click to expand...
i literally wrote a segment about why the workshop has the bad rep it has, and it is because it was founded in bad faith and the community has attacked this community at least once

it isn't forbidden nor anything of the matter though, it just has dogshit reputation from a few eyes

Muffin kid from Brazil said:
Most of the times they are nice
Click to expand...
but what when they aren't :threat:
that's the part that spawned the whole 35 pages

XyloKlonoaFan said:
portlegs, which according to our good old friend frostiikin, don't hurt the creators at all!
Click to expand...
true as it may be (it's just making a derivate, doesn't make the og product any different lul), it kinda varies from person to person
just because a moderator declared something regarding ONE mod author doesn't mean all other mod authors feel the same about it
 
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amperbee said:
true as it may be (it's just making a derivate, doesn't make the og product any different lul), it kinda varies from person to person
just because a moderator declared something regarding ONE mod author doesn't mean all other mod authors feel the same about it
Click to expand...
yeah i was mostly just making fun of how nu-stjr likes tossing around the fact that portlegs hurt artists or whatever when we've got a moderator here saying that they don't

i still think the whole ws rant that happened here is stupid though, you can just ignore the ws, when you release an updated version of your mod, no one will play the portleg of your mod and instead play the official version
and if you don't make an updated version but still are mad about portlegs of their outdated character, stop being a fucking bitch
 
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