DylanDude
Overeager Raposa
It's not that you are under the rules of someone else, it's that you're still treating them with respect.
What in the world is SRB2 Workshop?
- Thread starter Void Animates
- Start date
amperbee
thunderdome denizen
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
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
i *could* ignore person X and still port mod Y to new version (henceforth called mod Y.1)
however that would make me: a prick
and the community would see me as: a prick
and mod Y.1 would be: rejected from the message board (person X said no)
and the person would: blacklist me from interaction (person X said no, and i did it anyways)
moral: don't be a prick
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Sls64LGamingBro
An ordinary coder...
Actually, there's a chance they might get mad at you for thinking that you're not treating them with respect.
amperbee
thunderdome denizen
that would just be the author being hotheaded
that would be out of scope for this thread
Sls64LGamingBro
An ordinary coder...
I guess that's far, am not that smart in conversation.
MetalDeskFan42
Yes, I own 30 Metal desk fans.
The two sides in this argument are as follows: Pro-Reusability and Anti-portleg, and Replace reusability and Pro-Portleg
- Side A (Pro-Reusability and Anti-Portleg):
- Mod(s) and their code is art, they are owned by the author and people should ask for permission before using it. dropping their project if the mod's code they used becomes non-reusable
- "Portlegs" are generally shitty and don't respect the modder's vision for their mod(s) (i.e: I make Shitflinger the Catapult in 2.2, then when 2.3 rolls around, someone ports Shitflinger the Catapult to 2.3 with generally worse code than when I built it) (I will not make Shitflinger the Catapult, that was a goofy ass example)
- Since mods are art, no one should be using the magical command set known as Copy and Paste with the magical tool of SLADE and "stealing" code (I stole code and I only use it on my personal mods, I won't publish stolen code unless I credit the person and actually take the time to make my own)
- Side B (Replace Reusability):
- Mods are not art due to the code not expressing artistic intent (To an extent, the sprites are still art)
- The reusability system is broken af right now due to the ability to abuse it and shut down a lot of mods, therefore it should be replaced with something that can't be exploited
- "Portlegs" help preserve mod(s) by making it easily accessible to the people that are looking for the mod(s) (Think Sonic Gems Collection or Sonic Origins)
This is a hot mess, and I might have not represented my point (B) well, If anyone can help me further define Side B, I invite you to, but please don't be Shitflinger the Catapult
DylanDude
Overeager Raposa
This is not at all what we believe, in fact... you know this is impossible on the MB, right? It will not let you change reusability status.
Using copy-and-paste is fine. Private edits are fine. Publishing those edits without permission is not okay. We've gone over this multiple times.
Again, this is impossible. You also didn't understand Open Assets earlier, are you sure you know enough about this to be having such strong opinions on it? Your account is less than two weeks old and most of your eight posts are within this thread.
MetalDeskFan42
Yes, I own 30 Metal desk fans.
Thats because I lurk and usually look for mods, I just found this whole topic fun to talk about
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I really don't interact with the mb much because I rarely look for more character mods
DylanDude
Overeager Raposa
That is fair, but I don't think you have a strong grasp on how the reusability system works. I think you should look more into it before you form such strong opinions on it. Multiple claims you have made have been entirely wrong.
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I'm not sure which FSonic you're talking about, but both pre-date the modern reusability system.
EDIT: Clarified in DMs. This was from seven years ago when it was conditionally usable thanks to a line at the bottom of the post, pre-dating the fixed reusability system altogether. It wouldn't happen today, because things are now mechanically controlled by the forum software, which prohibit this sort of thing from happening. Apparently, addons using those sprites were also allowed to keep them. Still, that kind of thing was bad and it's good it's gone.
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Dingus McNingus
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
NOOOOOO
RitzyJuice885
make believes reborn
ah so putting months of your free time into writing code and drawing sprites isnt art, gotcha
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having an opinion on things = backseat moderating?? what
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.bit late, i was writing
I'll take some of my mods as an example
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
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).
Maybe some pointers too, if you tell me what your use case is.
Note this is just me and how I currently feel about it with the mods I have up anywhere.
I might change my stance once I experience something else, but until then...
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.
My response will be a little wordy, but you seem genuinely invested in this topic, so lemme speak my piece so you can have some important context. I need to say it because of how often the "why can't you guys leave them alone? They're just minding their own business." keeps coming up. They have explicitly not.
Here, this is the end of the discussion I had with Mikhael Blur (one of the owners of the workshop) on September 2nd, 2022.
A brief bit of context: Mikhael Blur had been banned at this point. The reason was he submitted a resource pack featuring various authors' work in it. We told him he had to remove Sonic1983's work and resubmit. Why?
It's an unusual ruling; we do not usually refuse to release a banned user's work (being more interested in archiving stuff than anything else) but at this time, Sonic1983 was on a warpath of harassing and spamming everyone he could willy nilly, (including people who had naively collabed with him), so we figured "maybe this will both send a message to him, and get people to stop naively giving him the attention he wants." Feel free to judge this as a bad idea or a good idea; it was just an attempt to stop him from being up everyone's asses all the time. Never got to see how it would have worked if it weren't for what happened next so idk how I feel about it myself LOL
In keeping with this rule, we explained to Mikhael why we wanted him to remove Sonic1983's stuff out of the pack and then resubmit. He did not do this, he simply removed Sonic1983's credit from the pack and resubmitted, without being transparent that Sonic1983's work was still in. This earned him a ban for trying to pull a fast one on the judges.
Over the next few months, he discussed with me in DMs, basically saying "if we get him to stop harassing you guys, will you feel differently about this?"
I agreed that if they were actually able to make him calm down and stop harassing people, that as A-Okay with me.
They were completely incapable of this, as I kind of expected. Over the next few months multiple staff had to block the dude (Sonic1983) for spamming friend requests. He tried to get around that on other social media. Multiple (poorly done) smurf accounts slipped into discords trying to nonchalantly stir up trouble or bring attention to his own work. He later admitted to this as well -- so don't cry paranoia or something silly. If you'd talked to the guy you'd know how easy he is to pick up the mannerisms of. :p
Regardless, 6 months later, Mikhael was back in my DMs, asking why *our decision on Sonic1983's stuff couldn't be changed. I explained that the harassment had not, in fact, stopped at all. The dude was still a dick, and we weren't willing to go back on our decision yet. *Edited for clarification
NOTE: They themselves had also banned this guy from their own community repeatedly (and he's banned as of speaking, I believe. They do not even like him around themselves, but wanted to demand we let him have a presence in ours.
Mikhael's response to that was to threaten to make the workshop. He wielded it like some intimidation tactic, but as I told him then, I was completely fine with it, and he could do it however he wanted. This is just reality. People can host their own websites. They can make their own rules. Whether they get traction depends on how much people like the culture they've created. We don't host the SRB2 community here because we want to conglomerate power; we do it because we like the game and try to encourage a healthy modding environment in our company.
That's still the stance I have, too! If someone thinks they can do better, by all means, try -- and I mean that in as friendly and genuine a way as possible. But people who want to make their own sites need to be connected to reality enough to understand that society will judge you for the decisions you make. And make some unpopular decisions, they have.
Here's the kicker.
September 2nd, 2022 to September 19th, 2022. Two weeks went by, and they put their site (the Workshop) up and proceeded to immediately DDoS our forums.
Keep in mind, DDoSing is legitimately prosecuted as a cybercrime in both the US and Russia.
tl;dr next time anyone goes "why is everyone so mean to the poor workshop? They're just trying to mind their own business!" remember the response I gave them, "You don't have to ask my permission about what you do on your own site" and the fact that we were DDoSed by them two weeks later as they put their site up.
This is the kind of reason people here dislike the workshop as much as they do. The debate about ports without permission can be had as much as people want, and by all means it should be had. But if we want to talk about why people don't like the Workshop, the owners bombing hard at "rule #1: don't be a dick" is no small part of it.
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Garrean
Member
This is an interesting aspect of the discussion that I definitely agree with, though I find it a bit misrepresentative considering it's literally not a response to my original post, but instead a different topic entirely. I was responding to Banjo by explaining that authors don't owe you a "good reason" to not port something, and you dismissed that in favor of moving onto much broader hypotheticals.
DarkWra1th
Member
I ask for the attention of the discussion participants. Charyb brazenly lied about two things:
1.None of the members of SRB2Ru and the Workshop demanded that the Sonic1983 ban be lifted. The demand was much more reasonable: to refuse to ban jointly made content. Many people suffered because of this ban.
2.SRB2RU did not organize a DDoS attack on MB. Claiming that SRB2Ru organized a DDoS attack on MB is the same as claiming that SRB2MB organized the mailing of 18+ photos to minors (everyone knows that it was Sapheros). The fact that DDoser was not banned does not make other participants involved in DDoS. And if you think otherwise, then you have problems with either logic or semantics.
1.None of the members of SRB2Ru and the Workshop demanded that the Sonic1983 ban be lifted. The demand was much more reasonable: to refuse to ban jointly made content. Many people suffered because of this ban.
2.SRB2RU did not organize a DDoS attack on MB. Claiming that SRB2Ru organized a DDoS attack on MB is the same as claiming that SRB2MB organized the mailing of 18+ photos to minors (everyone knows that it was Sapheros). The fact that DDoser was not banned does not make other participants involved in DDoS. And if you think otherwise, then you have problems with either logic or semantics.
Bullshit. Don't compare SRB2 staff banning a pedophile and filing a police report to Workshop staff jeering and encouraging one of their friends to openly DDoS people. If SRB2 staff had jeered at Sapheros' victims and and encouraged him to keep sending dick pics to kids, they'd be absolute villains. But that didn't happen, because we hold people accountable here.
Also, your post is written nothing like your previous posts. It's obvious you're using your account to relay messages for a banned user.
Not at all. I'm simply pointing out that authors do indeed owe people good reasons, for anything they ask, if the good reason isn't already obvious.
RitzyJuice885
make believes reborn
so are you just gonna ignore those screenshots of srb2ru talking about the ddos orrrr
User in question was talking massively out of character, and by the amount of times things like this come up and I get some a ban appeal a few months later like "Xntimodern made me post it, he said he'd ban me if I didn't" -- and get proof too -- I'm going on the educated guess that the same or similar was happening here.
RitzyJuice885
make believes reborn
I honestly don't get how they can do all the shit they did and still think the Workshop is some kind of noble crusade