PSA: Gobias Mods are Back!

[nos.17 5,112]

For those of you who don't venture over to the SC4Devotion too often, you may be pleased to hear that the SC4D staff has decided to re-enable Gobias's amazing HD terrain and water mods on the LEX. The decision was not made lightly; only after some debate over the creator's rights vs. those of the community was a decision reached. Read it here.

For now, however, those who have been searching need search no more!

Download from the LEX

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

Get 'em. Got 'em. need 'em.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

1 hour ago, RandyE said:

Get 'em. Got 'em. need 'em.

I got them all too just in case they go missing again.

[BugeyedDragon 412]

WOAH NELLY

 

[jmsepe 2,038]

Now, those are some nice looking terrain mods.

[matias93 7,535]

I must admit, what surprised me the most was the Deus ex machina-esque apparition of Callagrafx to resolve a months long discussion with just a post.

One always can hope this is not only an isolated visit...

[Mister Giggles 310]

What a merry band of thieves the administrators over at SC4Devotion have become. My membership on SC4devotion is henceforth terminated. Not that it really matters given I lost my password, still! It's the thought that counts.

Sigh. Before the inevitable "You have no idea what you're talking about, read the topic for the reasons" post, yes, I have read the thread. I found the rationalizations for theft wanting, dire in their desperation, and befitting the cesspools of a torrent site. Here's a particularly salient example of what I speak:

Quote

Had Gobias contacted the staff to advise us of his intentions, it would have been much more straightforward, but the silent "hit and run" created more questions than answers,

Killing his account, and closing all his files wasn't considered clear enough to the people who run the site! Oh my God. This is a joke, right? Rite? Guyz?

The people involved in this decision rationalized away a core tenant of not just this community, but the vast majority of functional modding communities. This is the kind of event that murders internet communities, drives off innovation, and makes creators feel like they have no control over their creations. It's disgusting. It's the kind of thing EA would do! Yup.

I hope that sort of nonsense doesn't find itself becoming policy on Simtropolis, or I suppose I'll have to be spending a significant amount of time deleting all my posts so they don't "magically" become Dirk's property after a few months. Sure, they're mostly marginally useful word spewings, but then again, I didn't think a few landscape mods would be enough to sell out principles and long-standing precedent. So who knows.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

I appreciate the expression of individual rights over corporate rights, and the EA policy IS an affront to the concept of Public Domain in that they reserve the right to revoke, however, the justification that convinced me of the actions of SC4D was upholding the rights of Public Domain, and without which there would have never been any community at all in the first place based on the action of unconditional sharing of information and work.

As I'm writing this post I am now opening the Gobias zipfile of most interest to me because it is a water/terrain mod specific to my exact geogrphic location...  Reading the readme.html file...

The license and disclaimer reads as follows:

------------------------------------------
The usage of this download is on your own risk. The mod has been thoroughly tested but errors may still exist. Feel free to modify the files for yourself and show them in your city journals, but please don't distribute them without requesting the authors permission.

 The files included are provided to the end-user without warranty.  By completing the installation process you accept that:

 * SC4D and the mod's author accept no responsibility for any result that may come from the use of this content.  Content is distributed free of charge and user must use at their own risk.
 * You will not claim credit for the creation of this content or re-distribute it in any way but will instead direct parties to the SC4D LEX where this content may be downloaded free of charge.

--------------------------------------------

From my reading of the above statement I determine that the intent is established and sustained that all rights of distribution remain valid as expressed and soley with the SC4D site. I find no expression of a right or intent to revoke at any time for any reason.

I will now with free and clear conscience and sincere gratitude enjoy the great work of Gobias as a work contributed to the public domain.

[matias93 7,535]

I don't want to start a controversy, but only to point how much culture affects this matter. Here in Latin America, a creator, intellectual or not, is just entitled to recover it's inversion and to get enough for a living if it is not getting enough from other sources. This surely stalls commercial ingenuity and blocks development, but we like to see it as our way to do sharing economy: in exchange for not having rights to our own inventions, everyone is entitled to use and share any creation. Piracy is even considered a fair way to earn for a living.

 

Yes. We are crazy as monkeys...

  Edited August 9, 2016 by matias93  
Craziness includes typos

[Aleister 13]

I applaud the staff of SC4Devotion for their courageous decision to restore availability of the content Gobias contributed to our community.  

Certainly some will disagree for their own reasons, and I'm certainly not here to debate, or to justify my own personal reasons for why I believe this was correct . . . It's simply one opinion among many.

Your mileage (obviously) may vary . . . 

[APSMS 1,892]

@Mister Giggles As was pointed out in the thread, part of the problem with deleting your account is that it has the side effect of simultaneously deleting all files associated with that account. His files were not deleted manually one-by-one (or en masse). They were "erased" (the LEX doesn't actually delete files from its database when they are "removed") by virtue of his action of deleting his SC4D account.

Part of the whole problem, however, is that Gobias left no clear statement of intention, and people know him IRL (have access to his Facebook and Real Name). He was reached out to multiple times by multiple people, but he did not reply. A simple, I revoke all my files, and do not want them distributed would have sufficed, especially since these messages were from people who he considered close enough Internet Friends to share with them both his Real Name and his FB profile (and, I think, Skype), and not from random "Admins" on SC4Devotion.

If you happen to ever find your work on SC4D against your will, drop the staff a line about how you want it removed. Pegasus' (PEGProd) files have remained off of the LEX successfully for over 7 years now, in part because of this policy, but silence is not a proper answer, especially when you are still alive and kicking and significant efforts have been made to contact you about the matter from people who considered you a friend enough to know your real name on the internet.

If you really have a serious complaint about the matter, I suggest that you post it on the pertinent thread at SC4Devotion, however, as part of the site rules states that complaints about the site be addressed on the site itself, and not elsewhere like at ST. I am pretty sure ST has similar rules about this as well (apparently, #11). I don't want to discourage discussion about the matter, as I understand your complaint/concern and I feel that the issue is complicated (you'll have noticed my posts in that thread), but it is unbecoming to say something like that about SC4Devotion without having participated in the discussion. I know the circumstances (with your complaint, and the issue overall) are not typical, but that makes, in my opinion, your thoughts all the more relevant, because the staff over at SC4Devotion are unwilling to set precedent, but at the same time unwilling to allow content (which they possess) to remain unavailable when it is not clear that the content was intended to be deleted and remain inaccessible.

For now, I have downloaded all of the files for safety. Barring Gobias popping back in, and saying with finality that his work is meant to be dead to the world, I can foresee no change in the mods' availability but given that no one expected him to up and erase all of his SC4 existence either, I wouldn't bet on it. If he does pop back in and let us know his thoughts, I fully expect the SC4 community to comply with his wishes.

[Tarkus 6,932]

6 hours ago, Mister Giggles said:

The people involved in this decision rationalized away a core tenant of not just this community, but the vast majority of functional modding communities. This is the kind of event that murders internet communities, drives off innovation, and makes creators feel like they have no control over their creations. It's disgusting. It's the kind of thing EA would do! Yup.

I hope that sort of nonsense doesn't find itself becoming policy on Simtropolis, or I suppose I'll have to be spending a significant amount of time deleting all my posts so they don't "magically" become Dirk's property after a few months. Sure, they're mostly marginally useful word spewings, but then again, I didn't think a few landscape mods would be enough to sell out principles and long-standing precedent. So who knows.

I don't wish to drag off-site issues here, but as this topic is being discussed here, and is a useful discussion for the community at-large to have, I am going to respond to these points.

First of all, the decision to reinstate the files was a very tough call, and the upper-level staff (Admins and Global Moderators) had a fairly intense debate about it for about two-and-a-half months, before coming to a decisive vote in favor of reinstatement.  We followed due process by attempting to contact the creator, to confirm that this seemingly out-of-character action was really intended, and offering to handle all support for the file, if that was the rationale for the deletion.  If he had simply moved everything over to the STEX,  or he had sent us a PM asking for the files to be removed, those would certainly be disappointing scenarios for us, but I can guarantee you that we wouldn't be having this discussion now.

I might add that the STEX does not have a delete button for files accessible to regular members ("Hide" is the closest one can get).  It's the same with posts.  Lock functionality was removed from the STEX sometime in 2011.  We are planning on changing the LEX permissions as well, to find that balance between respecting creators' rights, and preventing someone from damaging the community.  The two proposals have been to either remove non-Admin access to the delete button, or to have it lead to a deletion request form, that would require the uploader to at least give a heads up as to why they are removing the files.  Lock functionality is planned to remain accessible, however--it can have the same basic effect as deletion, but it removes the potential for bad links that full-on deletion creates.

Getting back to the point I made in the middle of the last paragraph, I do believe that someone taking the course of action that this creator did is far more damaging to the community than our counteraction.  There was actually one file that referred to the reinstated files as a dependency, and there were actually some Cities: Skylines modders that were referring to one of the terrain mods as a dependency, as the textures, once extracted, could be converted into a form readable by that game.  Additionally, if we were to support this deletion, there are two rather ugly ramifications that would result. 

First off, let's look at a hypothetical scenario in which another creator decides to pull a similar "hit and run", and decides to delete a dependency pack that is referenced by dozens, if not hundreds, of files by other creators across multiple exchanges.  The assets of innocent uploaders, not involved in the deletion, are now broken en masse, subsequently rendering a wide swath of content unusable.  Based on the general trends of the community, it would stand to reason that some of those files would be from uploaders who are no longer active.  If we strictly follow the interpretation of creators' rights, those files cannot be fixed, and have to remain broken in perpetuity.  Is that acceptable?

Any game modding community is inherently content-driven, and is maintained by the continued availability of content, and sustained and expanded by the creation of new content.  The reason that SimCity 4, a game released in 2003, still has an active community in 2016 is because of the massive amount of content available, and there's still new content being developed.  If people start cutting bricks out of the wall without replacing them, eventually the whole wall will collapse, and we won't have a community anymore.

Secondly, once Pandora's jar is opened (the "box" is a misconception), it can't be resealed.  If you're a creator who doesn't want to deal with your files anymore, the "hit and run" is just about the worst thing you can do, because you've instantly created a ton of curiosity, and multi-page threads pop up with everyone trading conspiracy theories (i.e. "Paul is dead", "he's in witness protection"--both actually proposed in the SC4D thread on the subject, by the way).  More worrisome, the files aren't going to go away--people still have them, and because of that, there will be immediate demand for an underground market.  I have no doubt that there's been tons of PMs flying around since January, and on sites where there's less concern about this sort of thing (i.e. Reddit, which was okay with full-on plugin dumps run until I repeatedly complained), people have been even more brazen.

It's long been established that the Dirktator made a promise to Will Wright himself not to support such a black market, and while no one on staff at SC4D has personally taken such an oath, we've respected and enforced that accord.  In that "seedy underbelly", distribution is now at the whims of people who have absolutely no concern for creators' rights, who don't care whether or not the creator deleted the files.  They aren't going to care about following due process by contacting the creator, or allowing for a waiting period and community discussion before taking action.  The "seedy underbelly" also isn't going to provide technical support, which is pretty important for terrain mods, as they can cause CTDs if not installed properly.  And since the terrain mods in question are HD, they're incompatible with Software Rendering.  Some newbie pulling the loose .dat files out of some random person's Dropbox folder without the documentation will have no idea, and all the CTDs will turn them off the content that nourishes this community, if not off the game entirely.

If we don't draw the line now and start moving in a more pragmatic, accessible direction, it's game over.  We're only going to see more of these tricky judgement calls where long-held community principles come into conflict with one another in unexpected ways.  Someone has to take responsibility if the creator can't or won't.  I'd rather it be the sites that have fostered this community for over a decade than some fly-by-night randoms on a file sharing service.

-Tarkus

[Mister Giggles 310]

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and you have laid the first tile.

1 hour ago, Tarkus said:

First off, let's look at a hypothetical scenario in which another creator decides to pull a similar "hit and run", and decides to delete a dependency pack that is referenced by dozens, if not hundreds, of files by other creators across multiple exchanges.  The assets of innocent uploaders, not involved in the deletion, are now broken en masse, subsequently rendering a wide swath of content unusable.  Based on the general trends of the community, it would stand to reason that some of those files would be from uploaders who are no longer active.  If we strictly follow the interpretation of creators' rights, those files cannot be fixed, and have to remain broken in perpetuity.  Is that acceptable?

Yes. It is acceptable to me. A dependency pack is not public properly unless made explicitly so by the creator or through contractual obligations. More importantly, it is not yours. When you begin rationalizing why something becomes yours without indication of the creator's cessation of existence, you demolish the most important tenant of free association; The ability to withdraw from it. People become bound to what the tyrant wants, not their own diversions or desires.

What you have done is set a very bad precedent, based on bad logic, that inevitably leads down a slippery slope lubed with KY. There is no stopping this altruist theft from reoccurring now that it's been accepted; every long-standing standard and rule will be abandoned in the name of saving the community, or saving people from themselves, or fighting back against the seedy underbelly of the internet. The reasons will never end. Then will come the day that you stare at someone's request to take down their files and you'll begin to write a long, eloquent post as to why you can't: Because it wouldn't be fair to the people that rely on them.

Yes, that's how it's going to go from hereon, isn't it? If a creation is viewed as important enough it'd be CRUEL to the community to let it go. You're already floating the idea of hosting Gizmo's files. How many months do you give him before his files become yours? The full 8?

Eh, maybe six. Wouldn't want to unduly delay your plans for saving the community.

Enow.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

Some of you may recall when I said:

On 6/21/2016 at 5:22 PM, CorinaMarie said:

I'm also in favor of a rule, or at least an option, to indicate any content contributed to ST becomes the property of ST to maintain. Most especially for tutorials that have pics so that when our own photo hosting site throws a tissy fit and ditches the pics they would still be archived here.

@Mister Giggles objected to the mandatory part, but agreed that optional would be ok. I'd like to re-suggest that this be considered for the STEX.

I've said in more than one place that my contributions to ST are specifically for public use and may even be copied to other sites provided I'm always given credit as the content creator. I intend to write myself a canned statement to include in my About Me and to post with my uploads which specifically states my intentions. This, ofc, goes even beyond the original suggestion of content becoming the property of ST, but it is my own preference and is not intended to be a part of the option. (I do realize it's a moot point until I actually create something worthwhile.)

See, I just don't get why peeps would create stuff with the hopes and intentions of everyone else downloading it and using it to only yank the rug out from under everyone some time later. I feel that should not be an option at all. I applaud the SC4D decision with regard to Gobias's content.

 

[Fantozzi 4,067]

4 hours ago, Tarkus said:

I might add that the STEX does not have a delete button for files accessible to regular members ("Hide" is the closest one can get).  It's the same with posts.  Lock functionality was removed from the STEX sometime in 2011.  We are planning on changing the LEX permissions as well, to find that balance between respecting creators' rights, and preventing someone from damaging the community.  The two proposals have been to either remove non-Admin access to the delete button, or to have it lead to a deletion request form, that would require the uploader to at least give a heads up as to why they are removing the files.  Lock functionality is planned to remain accessible, however--it can have the same basic effect as deletion, but it removes the potential for bad links that full-on deletion creates.

Wise decission. And I'm accord with your thoughts. It's a classical conflict between individual rights and public responsability, you've got in - and the decision ain't easy. It isn't you can argue from the individual right alone and discuss individual right isolated. Public action creates also public responsibility. And the owners right on inventions aren't absolute.

Imagine an owner of an airport who says - I'll tear the airport down because I don't like the people using it.

But then, Gobias case is special - as there is no owners will. If Gobias shows up again and declares his will, shurely one had to respect it. But as long as he didn't state something in this sense - one can't argue LEX did something against his will. Again: there is no such will by him - it is only presumed by other people. So the argument LEX is acting against his will is simply untrue.

But regarding the base conflict between individual acting and public interest - well no matter what you do, there will be someone who regards it as the wrong move.

So the only chance to come out of this conflict is to avoid 'moral feelings' and thinking more of 'responsible acting'. And well, right, regarding this last one, the SC4D did even better as the person that deleted Gobias files.

 

EDIT

Let us all remember, there aren't only rules of ownership - there are also rules how things that were once owned become public domain. To insist on ownership would tear a hole in our culture - so deep you can't imagine.

EDIT2

Gobias case is more similar to Ks case. The site has vanished - but can you reconstruct the authors will about his content from this simple fact without  speculating? Most probably Ks forgot about SC4 and playing the game and didn't care much for the community still alive. But also this - pure speculation. So what? Let things vanish because of the fear, the owners feelings of ownership could be hurted? Well and those excavators who find ancient things and they don't know what is the owners will - they have to put it back and close the excavation? With this logic about ownership most of the museums would be empty.  

[rsc204 21,806]

1 hour ago, Mister Giggles said:

Yes. It is acceptable to me. A dependency pack is not public properly unless made explicitly so by the creator or through contractual obligations. More importantly, it is not yours. When you begin rationalizing why something becomes yours without indication of the creator's cessation of existence, you demolish the most important tenant of free association; The ability to withdraw from it. People become bound to what the tyrant wants, not their own diversions or desires.

One thing I think you are missing here, no one is taking ownership of Gobias' property here. No one is also talking about doing this en-masse either. You say you read the thread on SC4D, but it's obvious to me you've misunderstood the rationale behind this.

1 hour ago, Mister Giggles said:

You're already floating the idea of hosting Gizmo's files. How many months do you give him before his files become yours?

A user mentioned Gizmo's content is not available. The team at SC4D said they'd try to do something about it. How is that tantamount to stealing his files or even inferring intent to do so? I can simply not imagine Gizmo's files ever being hosted on SC4D without permission of some kind. Again, that you would present this outcome as somehow inevitable, shows a complete misunderstanding of the principles involved.

The files in question were never deleted from the LEX. Some rights were handed over when they were uploaded to the LEX. Gobias' wishes will be respected, if he just takes the time to tell us what they are. No one is having their rights violated here. Each decision will be judged on it's own merits, this isn't precedent, it's just the first time this sort of thing has been managed by the guardians of the community. Even at this eleventh hour, the content could be gone tomorrow, if that's what Gobias truly wants, he needs only to tell us.

I agree as a community we maybe need to reconsider our historical approach, for the sake of continuity in future. I've always been very free with any content I've uploaded, I couldn't care less what anyone does with it. Provided you don't either represent my content as your own or make money off of it. I would welcome giving over such rights to the community when uploading files.

I fully support the SC4D staff in this decision, one which was not taken lightly, the outcome of which genuinely surprised me too.

[art128 4,618]

I wonder, how can we steal something that is already free from the beginning?

 

Also I like all the hypocrites who will complain when the files are gone, prompting for PM or even torrents from people who have the files, and then they still complain when the files are made available again. Make up your god damn mind already! This is seriously worst than politics!

[Fantozzi 4,067]

2 hours ago, Mister Giggles said:

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions

But this is funny ...

I personally think, one of the simplest forms to show respect for ownership is to indicate you're using other peoples words or you're refering on other peoples thought.

Like this one - could be put in quotation marks and perhaps said that these are the word of Samuel Johnson, not yours. And doing so you might see, that the case is different as you state. You wouldn't think, you're taking over ownership by doing correct citations (same as correct reference to dependencies creates automatically credits).

These are still Gobias mods - ownership would be taken, if the SC4D would rename them to SC4D-mods or would keep that they were done by Gobias or would declare them as someone elses work. All those things SC4D didn't do. But shure they honor the authors name. Even if they might violate the authors will - they didn't take ownership. This is not true. These are different things. This is no act af plagiarism. This is more like a reselling of a book without the authors permission. And if the author or the the rights owner aren't reachable (after a research) - it's exactly what you're allowed to do. Otherwise most of the old writings weren't reprintable.

 

23 minutes ago, art128 said:

I wonder, how can we steal something that is already free from the beginning?

 

It's no stealing. But there are wrong behaviors apart from stealing. I lent you my swimming trunks and say: keep them as long as you need them.But then you resell them. You didn't steal them. But you did wrong.

But what is funny - to steal free things is also possible. to withdraw free things from public, like some flowers from a planter in the city, to put them on your ktichen table - this is stealing. But then, seeing it this way, who deleted Gobias files was more a thief than SC4D.

 

[_Michael 2,681]

@Mister GigglesSimilar to what rsc204 said, no one is claiming that they are public property. The SC4D admins have made a decision, balancing private right, and public interest, and have ultimately come to the right conclusion that they should be reinstated. They are still listed on the LEX under Gobias' name, not the admins or anyone else's. This is his work, and will always be. 

And I have a solution to your malcontentedness, don't download them. You don't think they should be there; don't use them. But the rest of the community can and will, and so right they should. 

[noahclem 262]

Thanks for the support (almost all of you)   As has been mentioned, this was not an easy decision and we did our best to do the right thing given the information we had.

One thing that I don't think has been said is that deleting all of one's files is not a very good way to get back at users or staff of a site that one is upset at. Those people will already have the files in question, it's the new and casual members that will suffer. Also, for people that are having problems with a site or its members (and I'm sure this is the case here too) please say something to the staff before getting mad and stomping off the course. It's very hard for staff to help with problems that they're unaware of--I remember an issue with someone else that apparently revolved around PMs, not much we can do to be proactive about that. I supported Gobias throughout his development process, though of him as a friend, and was really surprised when the files disappeared as removing them seemed so out of character. I don't know what actually happened but I like to think he wouldn't have wanted all his work floating around on questionable torrents or unavailable and I'm happy with the decision we came to. If more information comes to light we can review the decision later.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

9 hours ago, noahclem said:

I ... was really surprised when the files disappeared as removing them seemed so out of character. I don't know what actually happened ...

Since no one knows and it's all speculation, let me propose a possibility. Let's say he found he was spending way too much time on this game and it was affecting real life stuff. Perhaps he thought, "I'll delete my account so I'm not tempted to log in.". Now, if in the process of deleting said account it did not pop up a warning message saying, "A side effect of deleting your account will remove all of your uploaded files. Are you sure you want to do this?". Then we can suppose it was an inadvertent consequence of the account deletion of which he was not aware. Other forms of contact may not have the same option to be removed and so he chose to simply ignore them in said effort to focus on RL.

On the other hand, if a warning was given prior to the final "Ok, delete everything including my modded content.", then it's a horse of another color. (Tho my view is still with the good of the community and distribution rights vs copyrights as others mentioned.)

[Fantozzi 4,067]

18 hours ago, noahclem said:

Those people will already have the files in question, it's the new and casual members that will suffer. Also, for people that are having problems with a site or its members (and I'm sure this is the case here too) please say something to the staff before getting mad and stomping off the course.

Me, I did that. At another place - deleting everything and my account in fury.Half a year later, I missed it, looked there again. They were doing as they did before I quit - they missed me a week or two, then the missing was over. I had to discover, it's like a divorce. There are no winners. But the group can recover your loss much better than you can recover the loss of your group. Nothing can drag you down more than pack critisizing and beating you with arguments. But don't forget the other side of the medal: the good feeling when a group embraces you.

To be, in such debates, sometimes all mouth and no trowsers, to hoax here and there, to give likes and to be liked - all this will go on without me. It's only me who will miss it.

The bad mods in a group, they are like a storm. The waves slowly get bigger as more people join the confrontation. A storm builds up but it finishes immediatly. Well - what's the right behavior in a storm? Just hide from it. Get you a safe place till it's over. Pretty simple. Other people like it, to stay in the middle of the storm and have the wind beating their face.

How some people enjoy conflicts in social forums - that reminds me always of Lt. Dan in "Forrest Gump":

https://www.google.de/?gws_rd=ssl#q=forrest+gump+storm+scene

If those two different 'characters' meet - those who tend to hide, who don't enjoy the storm, will always get hurted. And the other part, the ones who enjoys beeing in the middle of the storm, to fight with the elements (the dynamics of the group) won't understand why the others ar hurted. And me? Well I try to behave like forrest does in this scene - with a maximum of simplemindness.

So sometimes people find the conviction, they have to emigrate  to a place without storms. Well, this is sad. As were is community there are storms. And a place without such storms - that's a places without community.

So thinking about Gobias - without knowing, what realy happened – I feel guilty.  Because it's careless and selfish to think, well, I've got his terrain mods - why should I be worried about him. Forget about the victims, the emigrants. After the storm - life goes on. And what's gone is gone. That isn't careful thinking. As we don't know ... if you act under pressure, you can't call this a free will for real. Most of the time emigrants feel forced to move, they don't move voluntary.

So to give a sign - here's still shelter for you, you are still wellcome, we would be glad if you come back - WE RESPECT YOU, BUT WE DON'T SUPPORT YOUR DECISSION TO LEAVE - this isn't such a bad action at all.

********************

With SC4 becoming historic - there is no way back or around, that parts of sites like Simtropolis and SC4 Devotion become some sort of museum. And from there arise new tasks, also the task to remember artists that went and passed away. And this means to nurse their artwork.

I personally think both sites could honor former contributors better. There could be some rememberance days, presenting their best works in a review or something else.

But I personally think, @Tarkus is quite right about that. If those sites don't take their historic task - regarding the conservation of custom content – with taking action on disappearing content, they just sit and watch how things get lost. This isn't a very respectful behavior. Well, shure this means, the sites have to change policies and to rethink old ideals on some subjects. But, again, if we are talking about computer games, SC4 modding and modders already have reached a historic state. And some of the first artists, like SimGoober f.e. - well to me and others, wo showed up, when he was already gone, they are almost like legends. It is inacceptable for me to simply forget about those people. And the same with Gobias. And many others.

What happend to the SimPeg, for me, was a real warning to rethink the conservation task the remaining sites already have.  Were all contributors on the Simpeg asked before if they would like to move over to SimTrop? Would it had been a solution to loose hundreds of quite essential mods? What was done with the SimPeg already showed - that there is no way around of this conservatory task. We're already in. We! There's no sense in making this a moderators only thing and then put all the guilt on the moderators. This is cowardly.

And it is a very good idear to rethink policies now - to get a foundation for doing this conservation job right.

I strongly believe we should honor those artists. And the best way to do is - is to respect their artwork and to keep them as one would keep an art treasure. This isn't a task that is in conflict with copyrights. This conflict is more a construction, deriving from worries and fears. Yes, it's good to talk about them too - it's not, that we should whip them away. But preserving is almost the oposite of stealing. Well, yes, you can say many museums got their objects in a way that is very similar to stealing. They were collected by archeologists often without any permission. But then - all this is negotiable and if the owner shows up, shure museums give the artwork back - but the owner in many cases says, no, it's okay, a museum is a good place, where the artwork, i own, is secure and nursed and many people can enjoy it.

Well, finally I think this is an important debate, that aroused here. It's like debating about the future of custom content. And again I'm delighted of this community and their moderators, handling things with great impact on the future with the appropriate circumspection.

 

[markussaage 762]

I am personally using Gobias' SV Terrain Mod, since it was released. It is an awesome mod. And lucky, I do have the original files in an backup. But still I was surprised when I figured, he deleted his account and all his files were gone. He did amazing work with those mods. Bottomline here: we don't know nothing, right? It's all speculation. Even close friends don't know anything about his decision, right?! That is kinda sad I think. But it gives us a lot to think about. And "talk" about... Funny in a way.... He didn't say or said a word about it. Think about it?! So anyway, because I wasn't affected by Gobias' decision and even if I don't know him at all, it left a very sad feeling. What I know is the fact, that am here every day poking around reading. And learning. And I miss this community when I can't do it. Because it is a great community and still a great game. Maybe Gobias' misses it, too. Who knows?! All speculation again. I respect the moderators decision to upload Gobias' files again, so others have the chance to explore his great work. And as long as we don't hear a word from it's creator, it will be all speculation...

Kind regards!

[catty-cb 4,381]

14 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

...And it is a very good idear to rethink policies now - to get a foundation for doing this conservation job right.

I strongly believe we should honor those artists. And the best way to do is - is to respect their artwork and to keep them as one would keep an art treasure. This isn't a task that is in conflict with copyrights. This conflict is more a construction, deriving from worries and fears. Yes, it's good to talk about them too - it's not, that we should whip them away. But preserving is almost the oposite of stealing. Well, yes, you can say many museums got their objects in a way that is very similar to stealing. They were collected by archeologists often without any permission. But then - all this is negotiable and if the owner shows up, shure museums give the artwork back - but the owner in many cases says, no, it's okay, a museum is a good place, where the artwork, i own, is secure and nursed and many people can enjoy it.

Well, finally I think this is an important debate, that aroused here. It's like debating about the future of custom content. And again I'm delighted of this community and their moderators, handling things with great impact on the future with the appropriate circumspection.

 

I couldn't agree more about the need to have an agreed policy between all the community sites as to how they handle this situation, as the situation with sites disappearing like SimPeg or custom content creators leaving for whatever reason is only going to get worse, on my site Krio and Paeng have left clear instructions as to what they want happening with their files, but all too frequently people just disappear and you are left with ...

Take this example when SimPeg disappeared it had a number of SC4 Plugins for a Cruise Ship Port they were uploaded on to SimPeg by Becca (RebaLynnTS) and s(he) posted over at SC4D that anyone could upload her files as long as they were clear she was their creator all well and good you would think ... so why haven't I uploaded them here

https://community.simtropolis.com/clubs/26-city-builders-website/cbex?folder=PLEX%2BFiles

Because I pretty certain they weren't Becca files and they were uploaded at SimPeg on behalf of someone else ... and that someone else despite my attempts at contacting them has disappeared from all the community websites and can't be reached to find out what they would like to happen with their work.

So having a clear policy that all the community sites could follow would be great, I'd certainly enforce it over at CB if we had such a policy.

-catty

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

1 hour ago, catty-cb said:

So having a clear policy that all the community sites could follow would be great, I'd certainly enforce it over at CB if we had such a policy.

I concur. And I believe what we need is a well articulated referendum on all the major sites with regard to how best to preserve all the communities's works. It would be a shame to see them disappear one by one.

[catty-cb 4,381]

26 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I concur. And I believe what we need is a well articulated referendum on all the major sites with regard to how best to preserve all the communities's works. It would be a shame to see them disappear one by one.

If than means deleting files I've got over at CB and uploading them to a different site that fine as well, as they aren't my files to begin with, the only drawback to that is wherever they ended up would have to be somewhere that was going to be around in the future ...

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

1 hour ago, catty-cb said:

the only drawback to that is wherever they ended up would have to be somewhere that was going to be around in the future ...

It seems to me that redundant backups on as many sites as can handle them would be more prudent. That, ofc, will grate on some peep's nerves so I would propose step one would be simply finding peeps of the same philosophy that they do want their content preserved even if it means being hosted in more than one place. If I had any such good content of my own, I'd be very much in favor of that. The only restriction is that I'm always given credit for my work. I doubt plagiarism is much of a problem with city builders. Those who have the mentality to enjoy this game seem to have a better moral view than the average.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

5 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

It seems to me that redundant backups on as many sites as can handle them would be more prudent. That, ofc, will grate on some peep's nerves so I would propose step one would be simply finding peeps of the same philosophy that they do want their content preserved even if it means being hosted in more than one place.

I'm with you - but I don' think this would work. There is a difference between storing and distributing. Storing on different hardware: yes. Distributing through several channels: problematic. I would think that, we - users - are the best backup. I think if we are talking about 'lost' files, they aren't 'physically' lost. They are still there, on our hard drives, spread out on private storage - they are only invisible to the public, the public access was lost.   As we shouldn't take ownership but can only take care, this would mean someone had to be responsible, one could think of a 'goodparenthood'. Similar to  what catty-cb does. Regarding distribution there should be a person or an institution  - it always should be clear who is the caretaker of those files. You must imagine as if we're becoming advocats and those files are our clients. In my opinion there should be strict rules what such an advocat can do with the files he took in custody. And the community has to have an eye on this working. So I think for transparency it would be better when distribution is always limited to one or two sources. The homeless files must have some kind of 'new home'.

But thats a little bit far away now, imprecise, as the steps to take first are still unclear. And so - now talking about the end of the path - must be vague.

I need at least one night to collocate my thoughts on this.

[APSMS 1,892]

6 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

I'm with you - but I don' think this would work. There is a difference between storing and distributing. Storing on different hardware: yes. Distributing through several channels: problematic. I would think that, we - users - are the best backup. I think if we are talking about 'lost' files, they aren't 'physically' lost. They are still there, on our hard drives, spread out on private storage - they are only invisible to the public, the public access was lost.

It's interesting to note that, in the case of CJs/MDs and the imageshack debacle, many of those CJs and MDs are actually well and truly lost for good, gone forever, and they no longer exist on even the creator's computer.

The WayBack Internet Archive is unfortunately incomplete, especially if you don't explicitly ask for it to look at sites like these. I know that there are other instances where the images remain, and the files themselves (of, say BAT dev projects) are lost, because the images were uploaded to a host, and the computer in question crashed or was stolen. Greenacre, and any mods @threestooges made for it, are lost forever because the laptop was stolen about 18 (? It could be longer now) months ago, and all the backups were inadequate and located mostly on the machine itself.

Which makes the loss of sites like SimPeg all the more devastating when they happen, because sometimes the work is truly unrecoverable.

[Tarkus 6,932]

On the matter of Imageshack's policy change, it was a real gut punch to the whole community.  It hit me pretty hard as well.  One of the popular alternatives, Majhost, went completely under, which made things even worse.  Most of Tarkusian Cities is wiped out, as are a ton of development pics.  Fortunately, I do happen to have most of my image files stored locally, but they are spread across several hard drives, and I haven't had the time to re-upload and re-integrate everything. 

Having gotten to know quite a number of content developers in this community, by virtue of being around these parts for over a decade, and being part of the NAM Team and the SC4D administration for most of that time, I've seen a lot of licenses and heard many opinions on distribution.

The only requirement I've seen that's virtually universal is that proper credit be given.  Additionally, most creators I've encountered want their work to continue to be used and enjoyed while they are inactive.  When long-inactive creators decide to make a cameo to check on things, they're usually pleasantly surprised to see the community still going, and even more so if they see that their work is remembered.  Some of them are more particular than others in laying out how they want their content handled in their absence, particularly if they had strong allegiances (i.e. Pegasus).  Larger teams often had designated custodians, including both the BSC and NDEX did.  But as the BSC is now much smaller and scattered (they completely lost their massive private board to database issues about 4 years ago, and that killed interest for quite a few of them), and NDEX is presently a team of zero, neither team has a point person anymore.  We do have part of that remaining BSC contingent on staff at SC4D, however, and Jeronij himself is a BSC member, so we've pretty much become the caretaker for much of that content.

I would be genuinely surprised to see ST or SC4D disappear from the internet anytime soon, as both site owners are committed to keeping things going, and are vigilant in backing up the databases.  Given catty-cb's RL background, I have no doubt that CityBuilders is similarly well-prepared for the long haul, and with the German community, SimCityKurier isn't going anywhere.  The other, smaller sites that are run by a single creator (or a very small group of creators) are an unknown quantity, and I'd say that's where the concern lies, particularly if they have content that isn't available elsewhere.  SimPeg wasn't exactly small--it was #3 on the Alexa ratings for English-language SC4 sites, and about the same age as ST--and it went down with database failure.  Fortunately, aside from some of the attachments, much of the content there was also here.  The exchange that CSGdesign had on his site, however, is toast.  dmscopio's site is gone.  And, of course, we've lost quite a few Japanese sites, including one very recently (and ST staff allowed Haljackey to rescue a file from there).

I will say that I'm happy to participate in any sort of informal/formal cross-site discussions that may occur about preservation and related matters.  It's an issue I care about quite deeply, and one we're going to have to tackle if we want to ensure the SC4 community lasts another 13 years.

-Tarkus