depman2004 wrote:I cant understand why someone would want to do this.
Are we talking about one individual here that has done this?
We are..(well were)
Plagiarism in Activity Creation
Moderator: Moderators
I reckon it's easy:
To avoid any problems, start any activity from scratch. Do not use other player ,service or traffic paths - make your own. Leave other peoples time tables alone - they don't work for you anyway. Make your own.
With consists it can be difficult with some routes - there are only so many available which make sense.
In short:
Do your own stuff from scratch and you stay out of trouble. It's more fun anyway - if you don't go for quick fame only, in which case you should forget about the whole thing fast.
Greetings
Roland
To avoid any problems, start any activity from scratch. Do not use other player ,service or traffic paths - make your own. Leave other peoples time tables alone - they don't work for you anyway. Make your own.
With consists it can be difficult with some routes - there are only so many available which make sense.
In short:
Do your own stuff from scratch and you stay out of trouble. It's more fun anyway - if you don't go for quick fame only, in which case you should forget about the whole thing fast.
Greetings
Roland
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depman2004
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Well I must of missed something.buffy500 wrote:depman2004 wrote:I cant understand why someone would want to do this.
Are we talking about one individual here that has done this?
We are..(well were)
I wasn't on until last night.??
I have a good idea who it is.
Ans I take it this person cant be named.
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phill70
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Bigclue time, have a look at another thread in this section(site admin)depman2004 wrote:Well I must of missed something.buffy500 wrote:depman2004 wrote:I cant understand why someone would want to do this.
Are we talking about one individual here that has done this?
We are..(well were)
I wasn't on until last night.??
I have a good idea who it is.
Ans I take it this person cant be named.
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depman2004
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jp4712
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I feel a bit uncomfortable us talking 'around' a third party who may not be able to respond, it's probably best to talk about principles rather than personalities.
[/moderator] Roland's approach is certainly the safest, but if you have a route that runs from A to B, and the CD includes a bog standard path running from A station to B station, it seems to me to be reasonable to reuse that path rather than create one for the sake of it. Maybe the distinction is between 'provided' paths that come with the route, that the author intends as a helpful base for activity writers, and paths created by post-release uploaders?
Similarly if a route is operated by a finite number of trains in fixed formations (eg two-car DMU) it seems silly to create a new consist for the same train. However I think the point has already been made that you should ask. I have asked for permissions for loads of stuff and I cannot ever recall being refused, ever.
Paul
[/moderator] Roland's approach is certainly the safest, but if you have a route that runs from A to B, and the CD includes a bog standard path running from A station to B station, it seems to me to be reasonable to reuse that path rather than create one for the sake of it. Maybe the distinction is between 'provided' paths that come with the route, that the author intends as a helpful base for activity writers, and paths created by post-release uploaders?
Similarly if a route is operated by a finite number of trains in fixed formations (eg two-car DMU) it seems silly to create a new consist for the same train. However I think the point has already been made that you should ask. I have asked for permissions for loads of stuff and I cannot ever recall being refused, ever.
Paul
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buffy500
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I would say consists are a given.
The same train formation will create what should be an identical consist file. It would be pointless to duplicate that.
In general, paths probably are similar (although some paths can take a while to perfect), but the same path will create a virtually identical file.
The real time consuming, and major element of an activity is the service and traffic. Much time can be spent perfecting these, and the timing of each bit of AI can be crucial.
To me this is where the creative part of the act comes from, and its also the bit where your own 'idea' and work can be 'stolen'.
If someones new activity is actually 'your' activity with a loco changed in the consist and the player train leaving 5 minutes earlier the majority of this activity is really 'yours'.
No one would support someone taking a loco, changing the number and calling it your own reskin would they ? This is the activity writing equivilent of it surely ?
I think that the final straw is that no attempt is made to credit the original author with the majority of the work.
The defence that what if you don't know who is responsible for writing the activity does not hold water, as you should know what activity you opened when you started yours so its not impossible to cover yourself by saying "Based on act xxxx from xxxx route" or similar.
And if the acts involved have the initials of the author in them your defence gets weaker and weaker.
Its NOT about stifling contributions or limiting peoples creativity (although how creative is copying someone elses act?), its about giving credit where credit is due for reuse of work.
I'm sure that if you want to write an act which IS based on an existing act, but change the time to simulate a delay, no one would stop you, as long as you ask or credit the original.
The same train formation will create what should be an identical consist file. It would be pointless to duplicate that.
In general, paths probably are similar (although some paths can take a while to perfect), but the same path will create a virtually identical file.
The real time consuming, and major element of an activity is the service and traffic. Much time can be spent perfecting these, and the timing of each bit of AI can be crucial.
To me this is where the creative part of the act comes from, and its also the bit where your own 'idea' and work can be 'stolen'.
If someones new activity is actually 'your' activity with a loco changed in the consist and the player train leaving 5 minutes earlier the majority of this activity is really 'yours'.
No one would support someone taking a loco, changing the number and calling it your own reskin would they ? This is the activity writing equivilent of it surely ?
I think that the final straw is that no attempt is made to credit the original author with the majority of the work.
The defence that what if you don't know who is responsible for writing the activity does not hold water, as you should know what activity you opened when you started yours so its not impossible to cover yourself by saying "Based on act xxxx from xxxx route" or similar.
And if the acts involved have the initials of the author in them your defence gets weaker and weaker.
Its NOT about stifling contributions or limiting peoples creativity (although how creative is copying someone elses act?), its about giving credit where credit is due for reuse of work.
I'm sure that if you want to write an act which IS based on an existing act, but change the time to simulate a delay, no one would stop you, as long as you ask or credit the original.
I don't mind anyone who uses my services, paths, or consist files from any of my activities. Anyone is free to do so without my permission. However, for TRAFFIC files, that's a different matter. As these would have taken many hours to set up, tweak, and fully complete. For me to spend say 20 hours setting a traffic file up for an activity, and then someone using that traffic file in their own activity without asking my permission and not creditting me in the readme credits, I would not be too pleased.
I couldn't believe it when I discovered that a certain someone had uploaded an activity. Then I found that they've simply took my activity including the traffic file, and simply changed the player train and start time to 10 minutes later. And then uploaded it as their own activity! When in fact I am actually responsible for 99% of the activity!
If anyone really wants to use my traffic files in thier activities, they should ask my permission first. That's not too much too ask.
I couldn't believe it when I discovered that a certain someone had uploaded an activity. Then I found that they've simply took my activity including the traffic file, and simply changed the player train and start time to 10 minutes later. And then uploaded it as their own activity! When in fact I am actually responsible for 99% of the activity!
If anyone really wants to use my traffic files in thier activities, they should ask my permission first. That's not too much too ask.
Thats all very well for a little activity with 4 or 5 items of AI traffic, but what if its got 80 or 90 items of AI? Can you imagine how hard it would be trying to identify who made possiably 40 odd different paths? Forget it!NeutronIC wrote:There are technical reasons why re-using existing paths etc is a good idea - the more you've got the slower things get, the more ram it uses etc. So if there is a path from an activity already there and you can identify its owner then why not request permission and just re-use it.
Matt.
Jim
That hasn't been thought throught properly. With a popular route your going to very quickly end up a hugh number of multiple paths that will make msts almost grind to a halt. I've never been able to understand what the problem with using somebody elses paths, its good house keeping and benefits everybody. Only altering it and keeping the same name will cause chaos. TRF files and player service files is another matter....RolandSA wrote:I reckon it's easy:
To avoid any problems, start any activity from scratch. Do not use other player ,service or traffic paths - make your own. Leave other peoples time tables alone - they don't work for you anyway. Make your own.
With consists it can be difficult with some routes - there are only so many available which make sense.
In short:
Do your own stuff from scratch and you stay out of trouble. It's more fun anyway - if you don't go for quick fame only, in which case you should forget about the whole thing fast.
Greetings
Roland