Credits? Do I really have to write this here?
Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 18:49
I've touched this issue thrice in our private e-mails. I posted mailing list - not sure if things got through as I've asked to be removed after I went bitter and retired. Anyways, I mailed, posted and got not a reply, neither action.
There is a lot of wrong in regard of maintaining authorship information (a.k.a credits, copyright, license ownership etc.). Additionally to usual negligence in the source files and the docs, it also looks like any info is gone from the web page for some months now and wiki provides inaccurate history with erratic data. I know the reasons behind what's missing, you don't have to explain. I know the job is dirty, worms happen often. I think this is why the problem needs to be fixed once and for good.
To give you all an example: every card comes with a copy of a template. I was responsible for mending and bending template files to a point where they don't fall apart and are easy(-ish) to use. However, I wasn't responsible for processing copyright or licensing information for these templates and I don't know who is the author of these templates exactly and I know nothing about the offficial license of the original artwork. I know other devs worked with these templates as well, I remember some, but I'm not sure I'm aware of all. In the end nobody is credited. And that's like one minor thing out of a hundred. With font that's used in these templates the history may be different with every custom character introduced to it, as we were properly brainstorming and pushing ideas around. Etc, etc.
Just to touch some problematic aspects of things being in this state:
I believe WT can't legally publish anything under GPL license without naming all license holders and parts of the project they're responsible for. For example: wiki is online, thus it is published. But it doesn't hold the correct information of who is the author. If it's a part of the project, it should carry vital information or it should never go online to start with.
Any new project can't legally take any content that misses authorship information. Some parts are OK (I remember I was caring for the artwork so that each piece landed in the right folder that was properly described). Some are missing and some (wiki page history) after some turbulent past are incomplete or just wrong.
The way things were maintained, published, moved and credited was always orchestrated by Stefan, the person responsible for the project over all the time of it's existence, including holding the archives of the pages, administration, webpage content, quality control etc, etc. He has not fixed the problem of this missing information over the years, but made it worse instead. Sure I'm pointing the finger. Sorry.
I know it's not an easy topic, but I believe it's vital to rectify it for the project well-being. Here is an example of how BfW delt with this issue, and I think what they did simply works.
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits
I'm sort of happy there's a fair bit less work in case of WT than with BfW. Forums user list may be a good place to start collecting some data, I think it lives the longest without having it's content erased, though I'm sure it have happened at least once back in the days.
I hope I'm not insulting anyone or being abrasive. This is basic stuff, not quite a bug that needs to be fixed, but something of an importance quite a bit bigger than major malfunction. I know you guys, if you care, you're also busy. But please, be responsible, there's hardly anything more serious in a project than invalid or missing copyrights.
Miss you guys dearly!
Cheers!
There is a lot of wrong in regard of maintaining authorship information (a.k.a credits, copyright, license ownership etc.). Additionally to usual negligence in the source files and the docs, it also looks like any info is gone from the web page for some months now and wiki provides inaccurate history with erratic data. I know the reasons behind what's missing, you don't have to explain. I know the job is dirty, worms happen often. I think this is why the problem needs to be fixed once and for good.
To give you all an example: every card comes with a copy of a template. I was responsible for mending and bending template files to a point where they don't fall apart and are easy(-ish) to use. However, I wasn't responsible for processing copyright or licensing information for these templates and I don't know who is the author of these templates exactly and I know nothing about the offficial license of the original artwork. I know other devs worked with these templates as well, I remember some, but I'm not sure I'm aware of all. In the end nobody is credited. And that's like one minor thing out of a hundred. With font that's used in these templates the history may be different with every custom character introduced to it, as we were properly brainstorming and pushing ideas around. Etc, etc.
Just to touch some problematic aspects of things being in this state:
I believe WT can't legally publish anything under GPL license without naming all license holders and parts of the project they're responsible for. For example: wiki is online, thus it is published. But it doesn't hold the correct information of who is the author. If it's a part of the project, it should carry vital information or it should never go online to start with.
Any new project can't legally take any content that misses authorship information. Some parts are OK (I remember I was caring for the artwork so that each piece landed in the right folder that was properly described). Some are missing and some (wiki page history) after some turbulent past are incomplete or just wrong.
The way things were maintained, published, moved and credited was always orchestrated by Stefan, the person responsible for the project over all the time of it's existence, including holding the archives of the pages, administration, webpage content, quality control etc, etc. He has not fixed the problem of this missing information over the years, but made it worse instead. Sure I'm pointing the finger. Sorry.
I know it's not an easy topic, but I believe it's vital to rectify it for the project well-being. Here is an example of how BfW delt with this issue, and I think what they did simply works.
https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits
I'm sort of happy there's a fair bit less work in case of WT than with BfW. Forums user list may be a good place to start collecting some data, I think it lives the longest without having it's content erased, though I'm sure it have happened at least once back in the days.
I hope I'm not insulting anyone or being abrasive. This is basic stuff, not quite a bug that needs to be fixed, but something of an importance quite a bit bigger than major malfunction. I know you guys, if you care, you're also busy. But please, be responsible, there's hardly anything more serious in a project than invalid or missing copyrights.
Miss you guys dearly!
Cheers!