From alt.pub.dragons-inn Sat Dec 16 10:29:35 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8912 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.duke.edu!newshost.convex.com!news.onramp.net!usenet From: rodney@onramp.net Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [ADMIN] OWNERSHIP and responsibilities, a debate start Date: 15 Dec 1995 11:37:36 GMT Organization: On-Ramp; Individual Internet Connections; Dallas/Ft Worth/Houston, TX USA Lines: 248 Message-ID: <4armm0$2qm@news.onramp.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: hou03.onramp.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1PE (Windows; I; 16bit) To start, I'd like to try to head off a feud. I personally don't recognize the claim by jchester@ozemail.com.au to the Dragon's Inn. Until/unless posted PUBLICLY by pope@physics.su.oz.au of such ownership change. Now there _is_ another inn by similar name in town "The Drag On Inn"! It explicitly belongs to hutch@agora.rdrop.com. To propose an appeasement, perhaps jchester has formed the "Dragoon's Inn", suitable for enlistments, press gangs, shanghai, and nefarious on goings. (Sounds right to his description IMHO, so what if the new inn is trying to confuse possible clientele? business is business ;-) imitation is flatery) NOW TO A GENERIC SERIOUS PROBLEM WITHIN APD-I ================================================================= Issue : APD-I features & characters created, (maybe claimed) and abandoned (?) Problem description: Generica is half a million people, huge when you consider Shakespeare's London was about 100,000. There is room for alot of stuff. However, people spot an obvious empty hole and fill the gap, so they can do interesting things. [This is good.] Later, the writer ABC having created useful XYZ, ABC loses his account, or interest and stops posting. A shop, inn, smith, artisan, ... creates no problem. ==>> What hurts is when XYZ is so influential AND obviously needed, that there could really be only one XYZ! Well, so what? you might say. We'll start another (but it doesn't make logical sense!!! two king's bodyguard units?) We'll take it over- call the black shirts, we're having a pogram! (what happens when/if ABC returns from summer vacation?) We'll ignore it (kind of hard for the obviously neccessary organization) We'll work around it (the LAND of hobbits _can't_ incidentally change from northern to southern climate, someone has to supervise consistency) Example (ONLY, someone else has the opportunity have fun ;-) ) time: Currently we say we have a Thieves Guild, and it has stoolies, contacts and such (look hard, they are there in the archives). But we don't have membership requirements, hierarchy, fences, dues, training facilities and other neat organization things one would need to _really_ go about doing a thief with a good, fleshy background. So there is an argument that we don't really have one. Let's say I go all out and post 1 megabyte of stuff making a breathing (killing, pimping, drug pushing, ...) Thieves Guild. It's good. It's tight. You can't swipe a fish in the market that I don't know about it! (Yeah, I'm talking a good story here, but let's presume I actually DID it). Now Generica has a THIEVES GUILD! Things will work okay, I'll be e-mailing every pickpocketing writer, but we get nice consistent protection rackets, drug addictions (and breaking thereof), the same megabuck item doesn't get stolen four times from rich merchant M, and all that neat stuff. Life is beautiful (and I get a cut). Thieves know how to get resources, contacts, contracts, fences, lie low and other such activity avoiding gummy details or writer block! [thank you, thank you, that's why I get a cut, now GIVE! or die in the night ;-) ] THE PROBLEM Suppose I stop writing. Consistancy flops. Another writer _could_ take over, but what about intellectual property rights, especially if I come back and insist that it is all mine, Mine, MINE (ignore 2 megs by new guy)? Other writers need the thieves guild, desparately (sort of). What happened to social responsibility on my part? It is like cutting off utilities (water, sewer, whatever) to everyone else. =================================================================== This is unresolved and needs a concensus policy correction - >>>> What does APD-I do with abandoned characters / features? <<<< =================================================================== Goal: Organization/usabilty with FLEXABILITY and OPENNESS for all! =================================================================== Alright, if this were not the Internet, but a publishing house, THEY would settle it, of necessity. They would put it in their contracts, they can afford lawyers and overhead. We can not. But we CAN create some general, reasonable rules that are stated in the archives of "How to write for APD-I". I personally thought I could avoid this discussion awhile, but I have had a co-author drop out on me. And I see another one going on another thread. Add that to the following: 1) no one seems to claim the church of Ilmater, though six character names seem to be loosly associated with it (no e-mail addresses though). 2) Traveller, of the Gateway hasn't been heard from (as if there could be two of those!) Other city characters and maybe PC's exist that I could challenge the average lurker/potential writer to take an hour or more to find! (who claims Miggung's anyway?) [Ever wonder why more doesn't get written?] We don't want ADP-I to die under it's own bloat of features, bloat is good infrastucture! It's good to have more than one magic shop (I think I found three). A city this size deserves the richness of the many organizations that should be there! But they need to be "work-withable". =================================================================== Philosophy: The owner has description responsibility along with rights to change. Those come as a pair. Proposal - (let's debate, 3? months anyway before setting up rules) Character / feature conditions: definition of terms Claimed: person, e-mail address in CHARACTER SUMMARY (Spider Boardman) city feature, e-mail address in TOURIST GUIDE (Bret Rudnick) land/world, e-mail address in ATLAS (Pete Calvert, changing?) (or whoever may take over such duties of any of these) Public: anyone may write for and about the XYZ, consistent with description in reference document. Anyone may file claim! Service: not claimable, just write consistent & don't destroy (bus stops, town criers, utilities, ... created, described, available to all) Status: PC - declared Personal Character in character summary, claimed (write the author to use, active or not, see How to write for APDI) Active* - has been seen in post in three months or less NPC don't kill (NPC-DK)- so declared in character summary, claimed maybe (best to write author, but open to harrassment) NPC - totally unclaimed, one of many incidental characters that writer's are forced to invent and name (best to give 3 months from appearance to dealing with, just in case creator has more plans) * I've been talking of character and feature. A writer being active counts all his stuff being active (he doesn't _have_ to involve his Joeseph Beleau character unneeded in his [Sally] thread.) But situations (below) may be on a character/feature basis, i.e. "Joe" might be in the care of writer Fred Flinstone and "Sally" might be handled by Betty Rubble for some period. Situations: A. "I'm not going to be around, but intend to come back, maybe". 1) Let's have the owner (ABC) of character/feature (XYZ), pass responsibility for maintenace to someone of his/her choice. 2) After reasonable time (debate point, year?, year and a half?) such transfer is assumed permanent, for artistic license purposes. May be reclaimed IF ABC posts such claim to APD-I. (Not reclaimable after 1.5 years?) 3) If no notice of departure, and no e-mail response from address given after N (debate, 6?) months, then XYZ becomes public NPC-DK. I have heard other groups do it this way. 4) During this period of N months, one may write about XYZ, knowing a repost may be reccommended/demanded/provided by ABC "cleaning up" usage. 5) Any writer may assume use/ownership of public NPC-DK. 6) A year of NPC-DK owned status may make it PC for the owner. B The "I'm leaving folks" situation. 1) The owner _could_ pass ownership deliberately (post keeper of document). 2) The owner _could_ exit stage left, retire, die, implode (power vacumm), go to andromeda. Others could (when desired) build a new "greatest world sewage and fertilizer plant", knowing they have the only one that could be. 3) If we are notified, it goes to immediate public NPC-DK status. Thus citizens know they still have a place to take the night soil in their slop jars and farmers a source of enrichment. There are all sorts of interesting ways to pass ownership- inherit title of lord XYZ (Melvin becomes Murphy), sell the shop, lose in card game, get beatout as sole purveyor of silver inlayed-ruby thimbles (there can be only ONE!), have bad health and seek the water cures elsewhere, whatever. Implimentation BS (required consideration if talking timed statuses and we are) Service status is no problem. Pure NPC's no problem until "deceased" / major status alteration ("you did it, you fix it" notification rule applies toward archive update). 1) We have recorders of ownership already, its just that people haven't used them well. After we decide what we are doing, give 3-6 months (document keepers only debate) for ownership to get requested, the rest becomes public NPC-DK. 2) Temporary ownership becomes a suppliment document. Maybe once every two weeks posting or web address (no sweat in spreadsheet: name, e-mail, feature name, date assumed, status sort on feature name, I actually volunteer) 3) Lack of recent claim, similar but once a month, to quote unnamed sources: (I'll let them claim their parts) >Someone could maintain a list that got posted once a month (someone >who decided they wanted to stick around long enough) that tracked who >has failed to own what for how much time. (Like "6 months left >before this piece becomes pure NPC" or "the last time that person >posted anything was 13 months ago we can probably declare it NPC"). More like, last known post was mm/dd/yy for items with a date at the top. ====>> Do a database sort by name and one by last known date. <<==== > That way, if the owner returned before the deadline, or was reading >but not posting, they could reclaim it. Otherwise, it's a public >declaration/warning which helps establish a precedent - you _know_ >something will go public & out of your private hands if you don't >deal with it in X amount of time. ***===>> Commercial rights would still be by law. Your source and copyright would apply. (But someone else might use the name "John Brown" or Dwarf "Gimli". These are fictional names, not corporate trademarks.) ====================================================================== Other ideas? Comments to create workable systems only, "I don't like it" whining ignored. I strongly suggest public posting of comments for debate (I would like a copy explicitly sent to me, rodney@onramp.net.) votes on time periods? If you don't own a feature declared, your vote doesn't count with me. (covers lurkers/non participants & non claimers / the problem in the first place). If we point fingers at document keepers, be prepared to volunteer to replace them. Rodney Taylor http://rampages.onramp.net/~rodney