Now unfortunately it looks like I'm going to produce a long post of my own.
Before anything is said publicly there needs to be a staff consensus. With a situation this complex that means that everyone involved needs to understand what to say and how to say it.
Example: I just checked and neither the wording of the official announcement to us by leif nor the sitewide announcment of ori have been changed to match what you tell us is the case. Simple boolean logic shows that when there is this much of a difference between the official statement and the position that staff try to take during the discussion both cannot be true. Someone is telling us something false. This may not be intentional. Someone may know the truth and intentionally be lying. Someone may have been lied to and is repeating what they thought is the truth. Someone may be lying to themselves - even unknowingly. But something false is being stated. Being forced to choose between an official statement and a post by an individual junior moderator or moderator the official statement obviously carries a lot more weight. Knowing you as well as I do, Plotinus, I believe what you just posted. OTOH - as I pointed out early on - the exact wording of something official is what will matter in the long run. Intentions won't. Comments buried in an old thread don't. Since it is the official wording I make the choice to continue to call what has been publicly posted a policy & treat it as until that wording is changed.
As far as I can tell there is a consensus. What I posted here is precisely what all the staff who have posted on this subject have intended, and they've told me so.
Now you may say that what they've posted doesn't match what I've said here. I disagree. I think that what's been posted to date has been somewhat ambiguous, in that the exact status of the Modiquette as it stands and the exact status that is proposed for it have not been made clear. I don't think that what's been said contradicts what I have said here.
In particular, I don't see any contradiction between ori's
announcement and what I've posted here. Ori says that the proposal is to "update" the Modiquette (i.e. change its content) and "formalize" it (i.e. change its status in relation to the site rules). That does not contradict what I said at all.
As I have said already, it seems to me that much of what you're saying depends upon an interpretation of "policy" as necessarily meaning a rigid enforceable rule. I don't think it means that. And, as I have said already, I'm not going to argue about definitions. Let's all agree to disagree about the meaning of the word "policy" if we wish. But if so, please accept my statement that, when ori and leif and anyone else has used this word in relation to this subject, they did not intend to mean that the Modiquette is currently part of the site rules.
I'm sure I don't need to tell a semiotician that trying to apply Boolean logic to ordinary language statements can never capture the intended meaning. Neither do I think it's appropriate to subject the wording of announcements of this kind to the sort of detailed hermeneutic analysis normally reserved for papal encyclicals or the more controversial amendments to the US constitution. This is a gaming site. We're all amateurs. We're all acting in good faith for the good of the site and the members. We will of course try to find as good and as precise a wording for the Modiquette and anything that goes in the site rules as we possibly can. But I have already asked that you accept the clarification I posted as an explanation and resolution of the ambiguity and read the other announcements in its light. To insist that, despite this, you're not going to do so, and you're going to ignore the stated clarification of their authors' intent, isn't just hermeneutically suspect, it's uncharitable to the point of perversity.
[*]Give us a single contact person or no more than two. This helps us identify which staff members are just expressing an opinion and who we need to make sure seriously understands what the whole staff involved need to know. I don't think it's giving anything away to point out that this has been a problem with staff/staff discussions, let alone staff/member interactions.
I don't think it's a matter of "contact people". It's not a policy that we've all agreed on and are just presenting to the members. It's a discussion for everyone. The proposal that was presented was something to be discussed, not the only option on the table. I think it's fair to allow different staff members to participate in that discussion, just like everyone else.
[*]I did the count last night and more members from C3 C&C have posted about this situation in three days than C4 C&C did between January and August when the open thread discussion shifted to C5. This alone should make it clear that we are concerned enough about this to deserve an equal opportunity to have a discussion in C3 where we can define for ourselves what is important to our way of doing things and come to a consensus about what we would like to see in a - potentially - written set of guidelines that will protect our way of working together.
Here I really do disagree with you. What would be the purpose of the Civ 3 people agreeing on a policy that they want and then bringing that as a unified front to everyone else? What if no-one else liked it? What would even be the chance of everyone in Civ 3 agreeing on one policy in the first place? Why would this be preferable to everyone, from all Civs, participating in a single discussion as individuals rather than as blocs?
What you're effectively suggesting is that we put together several different committees, each of which will come up with its own resolution, so that they can all be put before yet another committee. I've spent enough of my life on committees to know that this is not an optimal approach.
As it stands, everyone, whether Civ 3 or not, has an equal opportunity as individuals to participate in the discussion about what policy, if any, should be part of the site rules on this matter.
[*]The sitewide thread has been cluttered up with continued wrangling about situations in C4 & C5 that make it difficult to sort out what is relevant to us & what would be better dealt with in their own subforum. I had to stop & think about what a modmod is - in the process losing my understanding of how a long post relates to the overall issue. Had to reread it multiple times. Same thing goes for stopping and thinking about the implications of reusable sections of code. A process I understand but thinking about how it relates to what happens here in C3 C&C forced me to back up and reread long sections of that thread. In the same way there are issues peculiar to our little community that there is no reason for them to care about. C4 people had six months to work things out for themselves & still couldn't do it. We are being asked to sort out what is unique to us in a sitewide thread with all sorts of irrelevant or misguided comments from people - including staff - who have no idea at all of the history and personalities involved.
[*]Examples of things that work for us in C3 C&C that the policy subverts:
- Kyriakos has made clear in the sitewide thread where he stands on the use of his work. It makes no difference whether or not I agree with him. I respect his right to do so. The policy as written would mean that I can extract his files from something like MEM, do what I want with them, repost them and his feelings be damned. That would result in a valued member of our community removing the opportunity for everyone else to use his work. Not good.
- We could not hold our monthly polls in the same way: "Files that were the combined effort of more than one artist will need the expressed permission of each artist involved in this thread." That is in direct contradiction to the policy as it stands. Continuing on from the above hypothetical - I could CnP elements from different city sets by Kyriakos and submit them to be voted on without his permission or even prior notice. By my own ethical standards this would be totally wrong yet it is within the bounds of the policy. I can just imagine what Yang Liu would do with that kind of license.
- Ares Terrain beta which he has been working since 2006 - "DON'T PHYSICALLY EDIT OR CHANGE THE FILES ITSELF WITHOUT PERMISSION" (his emphasis not mine). AFAIK in six years no one has intentionally violated this. I would dearly love to have some bamboo terrain. I started a prototype base on his jungle and then set it aside as needing too much work atm. By following the policy as it stands I could make my modifications and upload them without ever getting his permission. I certainly don't want to lose the possibilities of future collaboration with him, let alone affect the community as a whole if he becomes reluctant to share his work.
This is all fair enough, but these are points that are relevant to the question what policy (if any) should be made part of the site rules. They're not relevant to the topic of this thread, which,
as you've specified, is about how this matter is being implemented, not the text of what is to be implemented.
If you think, for example, that it's not possible to have a site-wide rule that will work equally well in the different C&C forums, then that's a reasonable point to be made in the main discussion thread.
[*]I'm not convinced a sitewide policy is needed - but we at least deserve the opportunity to see what we C3 modders can agree on as a set of written guidelines to meet our needs before we're asked to defend them against people from elsewhere who have their own axe to grind. Neither is there any reason at all that we should need to have our discussion rushed by some deadline imposed by the situation in another subforum which they can internally deal with. Nor by a moderator who is not assigned to this forum and thus is ill-equipped to understand what is important to us & what can be set aside in order to move ahead.
As I said above, I don't think it makes sense to expect the Civ 3 people to come to an agreement of their own before taking that agreement to everyone else for further discussion. I don't see why this would be preferable to everyone discussing equally as individuals from the start. Apart from anything else, what if there is a big disagreement among the Civ 3 people? What if, in drafting a "statement from Civ 3", some people's opinions get overruled? Are they not to be heard in the main discussion?
[*]In the post above Plotinus has referred to it both as a policy and as rules. The implication is that by formalizing a set of guidelines written to accommodate C4 into something enforceable the whole site will benefit. There is no reason at all that an enforceable policy needs to be identical in C3 C&C and C4 C&C any more than the strictures on language and decorum are the same in OT and in Site Feedback.
Again, that may be so - but it's a matter for the main discussion about what to implement.
[*]We are being repeatedly told by staff & others that if we don't like the policy we can leave. It's the sort of comment I would expect a moderator to make to a recalcitrant OT troll who ignores the policies on foul language and race-baiting. Are particular creators - by asking us to give a little bit more respect to the individuality of their work than the rest of us expect - worthy of being treated the same way as people who have been permabanned because they won't follow CFC policy?
I've gone through every public thread, and every PM to which I'm privy, on this matter and I can't find an example of this.
Before I sum that all up i want to make some remarks about my own posting style in these two threads. I have been thanked privately for bringing this issue to my fellow creators' attention. None of them are at all responsible for what I myself have said or how I have said it. Ogedei posted that the way staff handled this felt like a slap in the face. Ares has referred to it as ugly and offensive. I don't think either one of them has ever been characterized as hostile, a conspiracy kook or - prior to this situation - as an"angry creator".
It was you, BM, who
used the "angry creators" phrase first. When Gegemon
used it he was quoting you, as the quotation marks indicate.
I can't find any instances of staff members calling Ogedei, Ares, or anyone else "hostile" or a "conspiracy kook". All I can find is
you inferring the characterisation as "hostile" from the use of the word "virulence" by Gedemon. I think if you're going to analyse the language of a non-native speaker and attribute to him words he did not use you should check with him that that's what he meant first.
It was embryodead, not a staff member, who
implied that you thought there was a conspiracy, and he was addressing just you, not Ares or Ogedei or anyone else.
Now if Gedemon is intruding into a forum he is not assigned to and publicly posting his distorted version of something that was written confidentially then he is doing something both unethical and immoral. It's also foolish since he has declared by doing so that it is fair game to say things publicly that I would otherwise have kept private.
Gedemon has the right to post wherever he wants. He also has the right to post explanations of staff or site policy wherever he wants (just as anyone else does). He doesn't have the right to issue infractions or otherwise moderate here, except in an emergency, and he hasn't done that.
As far as I can tell he hasn't made any post here that's on the basis of anything confidential, and he hasn't distorted anything. The worst he's done, as far as I can tell, is to
warn you that the moderators of this forum might take unkindly to your tone in this thread.
You, on the other hand, have
dismissed him as a "cat's paw", told him to "stay away from C3 C&C until you either are assigned here or get your wings", and
called him a "totally ignorant flunky"
and a barking puppy. In addition to that, in a PM to me you characterised his warning to you, mentioned above, in terms that I won't repeat here.
Now I don't like to play "he said"-"she said". And I'm not going to make this thread any more personal than it already is. I'll just remind you, again, that this is a
gaming website. We're here because we like to play a game and we want to help each other improve it. Making personal insults and trying to belittle others over a clumsily worded announcement isn't proportionate and it isn't acceptable.
If you want things to calm down here's some advice.
Get every single staff member who has posted publicly on this issue to apologize publicly. At minimum get an administrator to do so. But getting the people who did the damage to be the ones is the only way that will really work. Be clear that apology doesn't mean telling us we misunderstood. You are - both individually and collectively - going to have to admit you were wrong. Anything less and we may appear to have calmed down. But think about what it means to deal with people who are used to remembering everything involved in a complex project that may take years and who also have an excellent memory for who has done what, who is good at what and what kind of problems there are in dealing with people you can't avoid.
I'm not going to make them all apologise, because I don't think any such apology is needed.
I have said that I think the announcement of this and the description of what was intended was unclear (although not contradicting what
was intended or what I have written here). Leif has apologised to you in private for this quite explicitly. Gedemon has also
apologised for the way in which the thread concerning it was set up.
I'm happy to repeat this apology on behalf of the staff: we're sorry that we didn't make it as clear as we could have what the Modiquette was all about or what the proposed changes to it would involve.
In my view the offence was a mild one, of omission rather than anything else. Unfortunately it led you to think that a far worse offence had been perpetrated, namely the secret discussion and implementation of a rule on everyone here without asking them. If that had been the case then I would entirely agree with the expressions of outrage on the first page of this thread. But as I have said, this is not what happened. The staff didn't do that. So I don't see any reason to wheel them all out and force them to apologise - particularly not when such insulting language has been used about some of them here.
Back completely off from this idea of imposing a written policy on us. At least for the present. And make it blindingly obvious that is what you are doing. If you do want something formal and workable do the same with us as was done with the C4 modders. Our own thread in our own forum. With a clean slate as far as any codified policy goes. If you do nothing else in this list this alone would do the most to defuse things.
If you think that Civ 3 C&C should have its own policy (in whatever sense of the word) distinct from that of other forums then I have no objection in principle. But the case would need to be made for it, and the place to do that is in the discussion about the proposed changes.
Get a single spokesperson. Other staff can certainly speak their mind. If you want us to stay coolly rational then eliminate the contradictory statements. Make it blindingly obvious who is presenting the official position.
The spokesperson doesn't necessarily need to be the staff member in charge of what is going on at the staff end. It should not be a plain old old light blue moderator running the show on something this complex.
I've said above that I don't think this is necessary and I don't think it would help. I accept that the staff statements on this have not been clear. I don't accept that they've been inconsistent.
The posted consensus of C3 modders seems to be that the fundamental problem with the way this is being done is that we are not having the same opportunity as was given to C4 modders. This sudden push for a single policy to cover everything feels quite artificial. Is there is some time sensitive need we don't know about? If there is then staff are just going to decide what to do regardless of what works for us. If there is no externally imposed deadline then why not give us the time and work with us to meet our needs?
Sure. I don't think there's a time-sensitive need beyond the need to deal with the incident that sparked this. We'd rather get it right than rush it.
But to reiterate, the C4 modders were involved in an attempt to articulate the existing "gentlemen's agreement", as such. It was not an attempt to create new rules that people had to abide by. You've never done this here, because it's never been needed.
What is now being proposed is the creation of new rules that people do have to abide by (based on that "gentlemen's agreement"). Everyone is being given the opportunity to discuss that equally.
As I said above, if people from Civ 3 think that the status quo here is fine as it is and shouldn't be changed even if new rules are added elsewhere, then that's a plausible view which you can argue for in the discussion.
Plotinus, you and other staff continue to speak in terms of making changes. In order for something to be changed it must first exist. There is no C3 modiquette. And asking us to comment on one that was formulated in response to a specific problem with specific people in C4 will not meet our own needs. Asking for our individual comments on their document is too scattershot to get a sense of what we need as a community. I'm not convinced the author of that document really cares enough about what we might say to make substantial changes to it based on our individual comments. We have a way that works well enough that most of us aren't even conscious of it. Trying to articulate it for the first time in a thread where they are still wrangling out a current problem is counterproductive.
It seems to me that there first needs to be a discussion in this forum involving only C3 modders & the staff assigned here. If something sitewide is needed I think that the final policy would be more robust if a C3 modiquette existed to compare to the C4 one. Points of commonality, strengths of one that could be added to the other, points where compromises can be made, and things that truly need to be different would all be more readily recognizable. The resulting sitewide policy could even be that each modding subforum needs to have some kind of document in place but they could still differ from each other. Or evolve over time.
Again, if that's your view, then fine - argue for it
here. I don't want this thread here to be a discussion of what policy we should have, because that's just confusing and not fair on the non-Civ 3 people. But I'm not just arbitrarily making that change because you've asked for it here. It might be that having different rules for different forums would be simply too complicated or cause more problems than it would solve. (It might not, of course. I don't know. Hence the need to discuss it more openly.)
