92 replies to this topic

[NormanBates]

I don't get it -  i don't think that's what was originally intended. It makes no sense blocking progression just because someone is not contactable. And i don't think "melon" asked Pat Lawlor for permission. I really do understand, that asking for permission is necesarry if an author is still around and is working on his tables constantly but "melon" is absent for MORE THAN A YEAR now - so in my opinion, trying to contact someone for more than a year is more than enough respect.

 

I think that it is very, very, very necessary that VPForums adds a few points to their terms, namely that if someone is not active or contactable for a year his work becomes automatically "open source" to avoid such a mess in the future. Everyone is waiting for an upgrade on one of the best tables ever made, but it is blocked just because someone is around no more - thats self-defeating.

 

How long would it take to build melons parts from scratch? And is it possible to host your table outside the VPBoard? Or send it just via PN without officially releasing it? If, yes - i would be thankful if you could pass your final version on to me.

 

So in my opinion it is time for VPForums to act, because "melon" is inactive for a year - and on other boards you loose the membership.

 

Don't get me wrong, deepest respect for melons work, i wish i could only do a bit of what he can, but now we came to a dead end - so further steps are necessary.

 

Yours

Norman

 

 

PS.: I think we should make a poll on how to deal with this.

Edited by NormanBates, 18 August 2013 - 06:08 PM.

[bill55]

I don't get it -  i don't think that's what was originally intended. It makes no sense blocking progression just because someone is not contactable. And i don't think "melon" asked Pat Lawlor for permission. I really do understand, that asking for permission is necesarry if an author is still around and is working on his tables constantly but "melon" is absent for MORE THAN A YEAR now - so in my opinion, trying to contact someone for more than a year is more than enough respect.

 

I think that it is very, very, very necessary that VPForums adds a few points to their terms, namely that if someone is not active or contactable for a year his work becomes automatically "open source" to avoid such a mess in the future. Everyone is waiting for an upgrade on one of the best tables ever made, but it is blocked just because someone is around no more - thats self-defeating.

 

How long would it take to build melons parts from scratch? And is it possible to host your table outside the VPBoard? Or send it just via PN without officially release it? If, yes - i would be thankful if you could pass your final version on to me.

 

So in my opinion it is time for VPForums to act, because "melon" is inactive for a year - and on other board you loose the membership.

 

Don't get me wrong, deepest respect for melons work, i wish i could only do a bit of what he can, but now we came to a dead end - so further steps are necessary.

 

Yours

Norman

 

 

PS.: I think we should make a poll on how to deal with this.

 

Agree 100%.

[jpsalas]

I don't agree. Just do the table from scratch!

[Replay]

I think 6 months is a reasonable amount of time period.

If you're not gonna even bother to logon and interact with the community, then allow others to improve upon what has been created.

 

I understand RL personal issues, vacations, no time because of GF or new job etc. however, 6 months seems too be plenty enough to compsenate for that.

 

Perhaps for table authors and to avoid this problem in future,  have a selectable spot in their profile which states if no one can contact you are people allowed to mod your tables?  Yes or no choice

Then all we gotta do is view their profile if they don't/unable to login to the site.

 

Image if we had to contact the VP creator for updates (Randy Davis I think?) What version of VP would we be at if we always had to contact him (Similar rules)?

Edited by Replay, 18 August 2013 - 06:21 PM.

[yamgruel]

As the Adam's family pinball would say, it is G-R-E-E-D that is making eveyone want to bend the rules to get this great looking table update. Imagine if someone had pissed off JP in the early days. We wouldn't have half as many tables in our cab.

Cheers everyone and a toast to the authors for the great tables we have.

[rob046]

I did some modding on this table myself many months ago fixing & adding some things & new physics.  Same issue, tried multiple ways to contact him but he has vanished.  There used to be a 30 day rule where if you try to contact the author & he doesn't respond then you can release the table, but I'm not sure if this applies anymore.  I can't find where the latest mod rules are on this site.  I'm just assuming that rule is gone.

 

Although I might have to agree with JP here in that we are in the later part of 2013 with newer versions of VP, might be time to just re-do the table from scratch.  Yes its really not needed & melon's holds up decent with some modding, but IMHO a table like TAF should be, at all times, one of the better & more updated tables on this entire site due to its popularity & the fact that it doesn't even exist in Pinball Arcade.

Edited by rob046, 18 August 2013 - 07:03 PM.

[Dodger]

I think that it is very, very, very necessary that VPForums adds a few points to their terms, namely that if someone is not active or contactable for a year his work becomes automatically "open source" to avoid such a mess in the future. Everyone is waiting for an upgrade on one of the best tables ever made, but it is blocked just because someone is around no more - thats self-defeating.

 

As much I understand the problem here, I don`t agree on this.

[PainkillerAlice]

What would be a problem with creating a recreation from scratch if you can't contact the original author? Sometimes you will discover new things from making your own table from scratch.

[Aaron James]

I don't agree. Just do the table from scratch!

Yes, I think I (we) may just have to do it from scratch, and create a whole new WIP on this....

[fuzzel]

100% ack. I would like to have a TAF version with 3D THING mesh I started one some time ago but real life interrupted me. If someone wants to start a WIP I can support something here

[NormanBates]

Actually this is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing and by no means it has something to do with GREED. But we have a whole new ball game here - and it could happen again in the future. So talking about future approaches now seems to be a good idea - at least to me.

 

And so far there have been some good, constructive ideas, i.e.:

- after one year of absent the material becomes "open source"

- every author has to determine up front what should happen in such a case

- ...

 

Of course "building from scratch" is always a possibility but using existing resources is also a thing to consider. I feel this is an important discussion.

 

yours,

Norman

[Noah Fentz]

While I appreciate your perspective, you must understand our MOD rules are as they are through lengthy discussion amongst our VIPs and their years of contributions and personal experience in the matter.

After you've released a half dozen or so tables from scratch and have over 4 posts, you'll probably understand better why they are in place.

Thank you.

[NormanBates]

1st  - there is ALWAYS space for improvements and being flexible and adapting rules is always the best thing

2nd - the situation has nothing to do with making tables and posting posts

3rd  - quality not quantity but if you want i can make 765 posts within the next hours

 

Was just trying to help

 

Norman

Edited by NormanBates, 19 August 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[The Loafer]

Flexible, sure. But a place where some misunderstand is when I see a post stating "did the author have to ask x company for permission" as if to say that leglities is reason why this site has this policy. It is not. My belief is the reason for any of this mod rules is:

A) this site conveys some ownership on the WORK done by the author

And

B) the rule is based on respect towards that very same hard work.

In the old days there was a rule based on time for recreations but there was indeed conversations with many individuals and the consensus was reached, so here we are. Having a time-based rule was a headache of its own anyway, since there were many variations when the time was not in effect. What is its an original? What if the author has died? (RIP Lander ).

My own personal take is, it's nice when the author specifies permission either in the thread or even better yet, in the table info. But as it is, nothing wrong with siding with respect.

It is too bad, this is an awesome mod, hopefully Melon shows up and most importantly, hope he's ok!

[stevebev]

We now have permission to mod right in our download section now, and can be set right in the individual downloads. This table was released prior to that feature, so it's considered 'unspecified' and not open to modding without permission.

 

 

While I understand why "Unspecified" was needed to cover tables uploaded before the permission to mod was added to the download menu, there are still people adding new files, like in the past few weeks, using "unspecified" as their option. To avoid conflicts in the future, they should probably have to declare one way or another for all future additions going forward.

[delta6014]

So, what happens when someone gets permission to mod a table ( ie Indiana Jones) and then gives permission to mod the mod. Should they be allowed to give that permission without seeking the original authors approval. It still is his (Lord Hyru's) work isn't it? The whole thing is quite convoluted if you ask me. Yet I appreciate all the hard work and creativity involved and am happy with whatever the rules are deemed to be. The table authors hard work should be respected.

[Aaron James]

If someone wants to mod a mod, they have to seek everyone's permission, which is exactly what I had to do when I modded cactus canyon. 

[delta6014]

Which was a great mod by the way, and much appreciated. Love that table.

[Jose Sinclair]

Ola everyone! (I have 30 yrs in sottware and database dev't, now retired thankfully - worked for Intuit and Microsoft among others)

1- I love the effort everyone is making here -- and that it's Freeware - this ensures we get genuine fans of the culture, not the profit-motivated

2- I also have fixed tables, bad colors or a script error - even one of JP SALAS himself! I did NOT repost them, I assume to get that one (classic) table to play, everyone had to fix that one line.. (maybe a leftover ref to table.slope? not used in VP9?? - whatever, the fix was easy, minor, and done) - IF someone has a fix to post, maybe no name change, just a .1 added to the end for the fix version

3- I agree that there is implied "open source" going on here, no one has or is claiming a copyright, so there is no legality, just professional courtesy.. this is nice, like fighting wars when there were gentlemen and rules, lol.. thankfully this is just sharing love of "the game", the tables, etc, no competition here -- IF SO, then SALAS has already WON! and as he says, on the shoulders and code of DESTRUK - -this is how ALL development goes, by the way - since 1980 anyway when I taught 28 computer courses in San Jose CA

4- as for "why MODS when so many tables are not done?" - for starters, we don't ALL know HOW to build a table from scratch, I don't know how to prep the artwork yet myself, but as a former pgmmr I can fix tables, alter the awful flippers that sometimes come with 'finished' tables, etc.. I've modified about 50 tables on my own computer, but I'm not interested in putting a MOD back online - maybe the correct color fix for Paul Bunyan's flippers (they are ivory, NOT red and blue! check IPD), but anyone can fix these themselves, and obviously some color blind clown wanted red & blue flippers on Paul Bunyan, even tho they clashed w the table colors

 

enough of my 2 cents, which isn't worth a quarter anymore (2 cents was the price of a NEWSPAPER, hence the expression, from about 1880) -- "that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" (Dennis Miller)

 

ONe day i'll do a classic table, for now I can't do what SALAS does so I'll just play his tables, and some others (Popotte, Destruk, Francisco666, Polygame, UncleWilly, etc...)

 

Melon may have gone to that "truck garden in the sky", no doubt playing some pinball... probably Mephisto, Hell, Gorgon, or Star God! which is my fave, and a SALAS re-creation of a rare SPANISH table -- muy gracias, amigo! --

 

-- Lawrence, aka Jose, aka the Jman

[lowepg]

I don't get it - i don't think that's what was originally intended. It makes no sense blocking progression just because someone is not contactable. And i don't think "melon" asked Pat Lawlor for permission.

I was thinking the same thing.

While I greatly appreciate the efforts of those that contributed to tables here, i also think there's a bit of irony in claiming misuse of someone's work....