Modding Guidelines

[Ishan]

Dear TWC community,

Over the history of the TWC forums, there have been a number of occasions where the ownership of materials made by individual modders or mod teams have been called into question, leading to bitter fights between community members and/or modding teams. At times, this has meant that one side of the other has been left the victim of not clearly understanding their rights as a modder, as a team member, and as a user of the this free community forum. After deliberation, the administration of TWC has decided to put together both a Modder’s Bill of Rights to be understood as a standard policy across the TWC modding community.

This has been created in order to protect the rights of all involved, and to prevent the occurrence where a person or team are exploited by the sheer case of not knowing that each person or team deserve a standard level of respect, and that the agreements that they enter into be, at their very least, fair to all involved.

In a perfect world one would assume that all who come to TWC would understand a basis of mutual respect from which to work together; however in a community which is both wide in age and diverse of background, we have seen too often what was once a happy collaborative project turn into a bitter feud. So that all who come here are protected with a basic set of rights, the guidelines below have been written.

Upon reading the Bill, you will find that most of the points are indeed sheer common sense, and written with the purpose to avoid conflict and misunderstanding/ misappropriation of a mod or mod team’s work. Also, since in severe cases the administration is called on deliberate and find a fair solution, we expect all mod teams operating forums at TWC to abide in principal to the guidelines as a bare minimum, and to ensure that all team members understand and agree to the terms and conditions of using TWC as a base of either individual or team operations before they commence on any collaborative or individual project.

Modding Guidelines

As a modder and/or a member of a modding team utilizing the TWC forums, I agree to abide by these guidelines below:

• Modding teams and individuals agree to recognize the work of other modders and teams and not utilize their material, nor modify their base material in any way, without their permission, unless said material has been declared as "free to use resource" by them. In any case, credit is to be given where it is due, for any material used in a public project that was created by others. Failure to acquire permission for third party material used in a public mod will result in warnings, as per the site's rules, and additional penalties at the discretion of the site administration.
• Modding teams and individuals agree to take the appropriate action when asking for permission to include the work of another modder/team within their own and contact that team/modder directly. On gaining permission, a copy of said permission will be stored (in a team development forum or in a members message-box) at that time to be kept as permanent record. Failure to do so may mean that rights to said permission may be brought into question and possibly be lost/ revoked.
• Any work submitted from an individual/team to another individual/team or any work submitted within a time two parties have collaborated for the purpose of working on a joint project is the joint property of both, cannot be revoked at a later date and may be used by either party in any way they see fit, unless a different arrangement is made between them, in which case both sides will be required to provide evidence of it to the site's administration.
• Flaming or disparaging the work of other modders and/or modding teams is unacceptable. In doing so, individuals may be subject to a warning, as per the site's rules, to be subject to change said behavior or have forum rights suspended for a period of time. Team may be subject to revocation of their hosted mod forum, closing of their mod thread and banning of their mod from the site.
• In case of a disagreement between any modder/team and another modder/team, this document will be used as a guideline for consultation and arbitration of a decision. In such case, said conflict of interests will be resolved by a team appointed by the Administration and its decision will be final.

Who to contact:

• TThe current Modding Administrator is lolIsuck. If you feel that some modder is ignoring these guidelines then please contact him via PM for him to look into the matter.
• Alternatively you can also contact moderation staff by using the report function available in the left corner of that individual's post & write your complaint\report in the report box.

[Alexander Iulianus Verus]

Hello,

I have created a battle mod which incorporates changes by Radious, Aeimnestus and Prometheus.

I wanted to get permission from them to post my own mod, which builds upon theirs. I have changed many of their settings or tweaked them, but the mod most resembles Aeimnestus' and has been tweaked with 100 percent desire for Battle Realism. I do not care about anything less. It also contains Prometheus' height modifications and battle mesh changes. From radious, I have the walking/running and charging speeds. Beyond that Aeimnestus' naval warfare is the crux of it, in addition to his morale, projectile, and fatigue settings.

I'd like to post my mod but not without permission, since I know that many are vigilant about this and I am not quite sure of the procedure, since this would be my first mod.

Thank you!

[Prof]

Just send them private messages. They will be much more likely to read them.

This topic might have moved down a few pages by the time any of them check the forums and they won't see it.

[Ishan]

Using another modder's work without permission is against this site's rule. There are 2 ways with which you can attain permissions:
1) By sending them private messages and asking them. This is privately done.
2) By posting in their mod thread and asking them. This is publicly done.

Mentioning them in credits or not, depends on what they personally prefer as some don't care for credit however, generally, if we're using someone's work it's only common sense to credit them.

Generally modders don't have a problem with this sort of thing and are cool in sharing their mods with some other modder or team. However it's known that disputes do take place, and some people do steal stuff. We take that seriously and generally deal with them within the remits of Terms of Service of our website.

On attaining the permissions, please remember what is mentioned in the first post of this thread, I will quote the relevant part:

On gaining permission, a copy of said permission will be stored (in a team development forum or in a members message-box) at that time to be kept as permanent record. Failure to do so may mean that rights to said permission may be brought into question and possibly be lost/ revoked.

Hope that answers your question. PM me if you any further queries regarding this.

Regards

[kanecaston]

This is a joke right? Modders claiming some form of ownership or copyright over their modifications to CAs original creations? Modders do a great job in modifying existing work by CA and if other modders come in and modify the modifications done my other modders of CAs original creations well so what they are doing exactly the same thing as the original modders. You cannot copyright fan works. You cannot ask that other fans do not modify your fan works as you have modified the original work. Its very simple and easy to understand this. If this is not a joke or sarcasm or whatever then some people around here are seriously egotistical or insane. What if CA said no you cant modify our work?

[Dude with the Food]

This is a joke right? Modders claiming some form of ownership or copyright over their modifications to CAs original creations? Modders do a great job in modifying existing work by CA and if other modders come in and modify the modifications done my other modders of CAs original creations well so what they are doing exactly the same thing as the original modders. You cannot copyright fan works. You cannot ask that other fans do not modify your fan works as you have modified the original work. Its very simple and easy to understand this. If this is not a joke or sarcasm or whatever then some people around here are seriously egotistical or insane.

The bits in bold are what I agree with. Modders do a great job improving/changing CA's work and deserve credit for their work. Not only credit but if someone wants to use it, it is only decent that the origional modder knows this and agrees it can be used for that. It stops people claiming work as their own without actually doing much.

What if CA said no you cant modify our work?

If CA said modding TW games was banned, then people would have to stop modding them. They would or CA would sue them and despite the hate CA would get, TWC would support that decision. However, CA say people can mod the game and if you want to mod tho mod you should get permission like the original modder has in the first place.

[Ishan]

This is a joke right? Modders claiming some form of ownership or copyright over their modifications to CAs original creations? Modders do a great job in modifying existing work by CA and if other modders come in and modify the modifications done my other modders of CAs original creations well so what they are doing exactly the same thing as the original modders. You cannot copyright fan works. You cannot ask that other fans do not modify your fan works as you have modified the original work. Its very simple and easy to understand this. If this is not a joke or sarcasm or whatever then some people around here are seriously egotistical or insane. What if CA said no you cant modify our work?

As per EULA (end user license agreement) CA does own ownership of any derivative works on their games. No one is conflicting that and this thread has nothing to do with it. However if a modder is making new textures, models, animations etc and doing all sorts of modification on some game then the material he's adding is his alone & no other modder can simply rip someone else's work here and then claim it as their own. That's what this thread is about.

People have been banned from TWC for ignoring these rules. So, no, it's not a joke. These are rules placed within the terms of service of this website, something everyone agrees to abide by before joining the forum.

[AdmiralThrawn]

Hey, so I get the whole rules-are-rules thing, but why not change them? They fail to take into account users who have left the forums for years (we all know who I'm talking about) and as such why not just include a new provision for that? All rules are subject to change when new circumstances make it necessary.

[Ishan]

Hey, so I get the whole rules-are-rules thing, but why not change them? They fail to take into account users who have left the forums for years (we all know who I'm talking about) and as such why not just include a new provision for that? All rules are subject to change when new circumstances make it necessary.

If you want to change any current TWC rule or policy then start a discussion of your own and talk to site administration about it, in the Questions and Suggestions forum. Moderation only enforces the rules they have been asked to enforce.

[Lyrithus]

Wow, good thing I found this. Don't want to get banned or anything :O but after reading this thread I skimmed for subjects of this related to mod authors who've posted their mods here, and several other sites/modding communities, and even steam. Most seem to have associated themselves and their work mainly to TWC, but for the sake of promoted their work, and spreading the joy to all fans, some authors natrally releasing said works to other sources.

In this instance, I don't believe it logical to expect these terms to be followed by modders who decide edit such works that have been distributed elsewhere. That said, there are many new modders emerging from "new exposure" to modding itself, largely credited to massively modded games like skyrim, and the mod-supported community of huge companies like Steam. I'll get right to it; there are going to be a large number of younger gen to stumble upon modding as I did, and a lot sooner than I did too. I can rarely think of a time, even now that I'm older, ((though I'm sure still going to be considered part of the generation i speak by older ladies and Gents)), that I ever actually read terms and conditions until it becomes relevant to something I intend to do, generally because such things are as Ishan pointed out, common sense.

Nonetheless, I think it important for TWC administration to see that this set of important rules are going to be relied on far heavier than before, and that an effort should soon be made to make these rules apparent to this group of young adults and even adolescents. Therefore, even though it has been posted here as its own thread, I do believe additional measures should be taken, though it may seem too extreme to do so, or just too trivial, the fact that this was posted in the first place means that it was necessary to help solve and prevent issues. That issues like this ever came up shows that with an increase in modding community, especially among the younger gen, these issue will also continue to grow, and at a pace that could drive administration bonkers in dealing with these petty arguments, anger the modders themselves as well, and strike the Fan community dumbstruck with how silly or ridiculous it all may seem to them.

Ok, I know I blabbed a lot, but only because I thought the points were valid and that the size of the post might get some attention. Simple solutions could be to provide a link right smack dab in the top menu of the Home page to terms and conditions, and make it brazenly obvious. Nothing wrong with being completely thorough and over-achieving a few times to avoid constant and tedious smaller reminders. Make these rules easily accessed anywhere on the forum. Links links links. Add a rule stating to all modders of this site that choose to provide their works on other sources aware that these terms may not then be followed, and that do so lies outside TWC power to protect due credit of intellectual property for that very reason.

My conclusion is that there are currently three main problems with the current setup of these rules:
A) NOT BE SEEN OR SKIPPED OVER- mostly due to: *outside TWC modders*, *only been presented to them once upon signing up, which I'm sorry, people just don't read*
B) Not be taken seriously, (particularly by younger community, no age prejudice intended)
C) The missing rule I suggested that states clearly to modders uploading works outside the TWC should automatically result in said work losing of the TWC Administration's "Due Credit" protection of the author's said work.

Phew, that was quite a bit larger than I originally anticipated :/ if I made any incorrect assumptions, mistakes, accidentally incorrect claims, and or false understanding, be it the rules themselves or the TWC collective, please let me know. Due apologies and/or corrections will be made if necessary. No offence of any detail in this post was intended, including anything seen as an attack on the TWC Administration, or anything seen as an accusation of negligence to any member of this community.

Your Biggest TWC fan, supporter, and willful contributor, Lyrithus