This past week at Origins, we had 4 of the Dumpshock mods at the con, and one night we spent a little time discussing the forums a bit. There's a lot going on with Shadowrun, Catalyst Game Labs, and we were figuring out where Dumpshock's place was gonna be in all of that. During this discussion, the SR3 revised thread came up, and all of us expressed some concerns about it.

In a nutshell, we're closing the thread down, and we'd ask that it not be resurrected or restarted here on Dumpshock.

The reason we're doing this is that for a while, the project was little more than just a collection of house rules for Shadowrun 3, and that was fine. But as it's developed, it's becoming more and more of a serious Net Project, which is cool, but it unfortunately is seriously toeing the line in regards to copyright and trademark laws, to one degree or another. There are sections of SR3 text reproduced verbatim, and even with the changes that are being made, there's still enough gray areas involved that frankly, we're not comfortable with it.

House rules are fine, new gear, spells, etc, all that's fine. But once you start reproducing actual text from published sources in an effort to rewrite the entire rules set... Well, like I said, it makes us uncomfortable. Even though SR3 is no longer being produced, it's still owned by Wizkids, and copyright and trademark laws still apply.

Shadowrun is, we feel, on the rise. Despite the setbacks and stumbles that Fanpro had with SR4's production schedule, Catalyst Game Labs is very dedicated to making Shadowrun a serious force in the gaming industry. Add to that the spotlight that the SR Videogame has thrown on our game (Despite the lack of connection between the MS game and the RPG), and we feel that there is an increasing awareness of the SR RPG, and that people will be looking at sites like Dumpshock more often, and with a more discerning eye.

We apologize that it's come to this, but we felt this was a necessary step to protect this site from potential issues or conflicts in the future.

Thank you.

Steven "Bull" Ratkovich and the Dumpshock Moderator Staff

By "closed" you apparently mean "deleted wholesale" (or rather "moved beyond the public view"). I request that a copy of the full text of the thread be made available for at least as long as is required to archive it elsewhere.

Additionally, you may want to look into acquiring Safe Harbor status under OCILLA. Otherwise, you may be liable for material that you do not identify in time. Not a lawyer, not legal advice.

~J

Big fat +1.

I'm totally understanding of locking it (so no further posts can be made), or even of deleting it like this if there was even 24 hours of advance notice for someone to archive it personally in an attempt to save that information. But just going "YOINK!" without any warning to give any of the many contributors a shot at saving anything would be pretty crappy. I really hope you guys can dredge up a copy of some sort to at least give to Kage or someone.

We're in the process of getting a copy to Kagetenshi. You guys did put a lot fo work into it, and I'd hate to see you lose it all, but we felt it best to move it out of the "public view" ASAP.

Bull

Kage, pm me an email address.

...the concern is well understood. The loss to the community is unfortunate.

Always space to work over at the Underworld93, its where the Lounge got driven to.

shadowland's available as well.

So, as it happens, is SR3R.net

I've got an archive, I'll review it today and get it up on the site as soon as possible. Once I get Trac working, I'll probably advertise in some places.

~J

It's not that I'm not upset, but every minute I could spend complaining is a minute I could be spending getting the project back up and running. The action was also less gratuitous once it became clear that Dumpshock was almost certainly not covered by the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA.

I'm thinking of tossing up one last thread in the Community Projects area to take a poll on some logistical issues (forum vs. mailing list, etc.). No discussion of rules would occur within. Can I get a yea/nay on the acceptability of this?

Edit: also, if you have identified any specific areas of the project thus far that stand out as being potential infringements, it'd really help if you could notify me of them.

~J

Re: polls.

Go for it, we'll leave any threads you need for it up for a week.

Kage, I also do still have my notes (although obviously they aren't as complete as the whole threads which fortunately have been saved).

Bull and co., thanks for being cooperative in helping us move all of this. I know as a dedicated SR player, I'd never want to do anything that jeopardized the franchise or the forums, so seeing the transition being done as effectively as it is is encouraging. I'm just hoping Kage can get something setup so we can continue our work at another locale

We don't need to worry about the Drop Bear thread, do we? I haven't backed up our notes there any time recently...

Trac is almost set up, I just need to resolve an issue with fastcgi. It'll take a while because they want me to do some actual work at work.

The philistines.

~J

Kagetenshi, please keep me in the loop as well. There was some good work being done there.

There wouldn't be any objection to a signature link showing the new home of the discussion, would there?

I have no plans to keep future development a secret from anyone

But let's just walk away quietly here. The project will survive.

~J

Project page is waiting on webhost's support staff to fix a configuration issue. In the meantime, some final wrap-up logistics here.

~J

I need to make the URLs all pretty-like and set up the actual project, but for now we're running here.

~J

The WizKids disclaimer should now be on all project pages, please file a bug report immediately if you find a project page that doesn't have it.

We're now officially up and running. The front page doesn't have much useful on it, but the forum is active with some good discussion going on, the ticket tracker is decently set up and the templates for the netbook are getting prepared, and we're very nearly in full swing. Join! Comment! Review! Playtest!

~J