Mark Twain said, "The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might."

Oh, I'm sure that the former freelancers can continue to make claims on some ideas for many more books to come. I mean, I would expect in such a small freelance pool as this has been, that there have been a lot of discussions on a myriad of topics.

The ones that are left, get to finish writing.

It only takes one person to suggest the work is copied to cast a shadow. If I were in Bobby's shoes, I would distance myself from Shadowrun and make a name for myself writing for something else. Or perhaps waiting it out until different management is in charge wanting to leverage his knowledge again.

I'd like to clarify that there is exactly one instance - the Mitsuhama profile - which I feel was actually copied, and even that was altered and expanded. Jason (I really presume it was Jason, since I don't see Brandie ever knowingly doing this) left enough behind that it was pretty obvious it was based on my original profile. I'm not accusing anybody of plagiarism, I'm accusing them of very sloppy editing. I know why it was done, I just don't know why such a hash was made out of it that I can still recognize it as what I wrote.

A very reasonable line of thought.

It isn't like he couldn't start up an e-publishing company and come out with his very own game system and run it how he sees fit. Better to channel one's energies into something productive instead of letting frustration fester.

The question is not what he can and can't do, it's whether or not there was sloppy editing. Trying to make it personal won't change that.

Okay, final post on this specific issue. Let me make myself absolutely clear.

While the profile did indeed go through the editing process by SEVERAL people, *I* am the one who wrote it.

Quit dragging my work into your personal feud with Jason.

EDIT: If you'd actually given me any time to respond to your accusations before you posted, you wouldn't be beating a dead horse that doesn't exist.

Okay, if you wrote it and not Jason, then the parallels are just bizarre.

[/edit] I mean, you've seen the side-by-side comparison, right? You can understand why I would see that and go "Well, looks like Jason missed a spot." I know why I made those changes in the first place, I just don't know why you...waitaminute. You got that from the wiki, didn'tcha? And I didn't copy that to the wiki, but somebody could have copied it from my draft to the wiki. Hmm.

Copied from a copy?

http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php?title=...;action=history

I don't see any recent revisions. But I have heard that the wiki could be doing better, maintenance wise.

I guess I'm confused. Why wouldn't the profile of the same company look similar, almost identical no matter who was doing the writing? You have the same derived sources and those aren't going to change...its not like this stuff is a bunch of fiction that was copied, these are kind of like Shadowrun facts, are they not?

AH mentioned that he invented subdivisions which have not been mentioned before. And those seem to be present in the "header", but not the (rewritten) actual text entry.

Because some of those changes were not derived directly from previous sources. This is the heart of the issue. Stuff like the percentage ownership of MCT that Toshiro Mitsuhama has are understandable - we were following the same plot logic, the math worked out the same. The slogan and the major divisions are braintwisters though.

For reference, we're not talking about the public wiki (well, at least I'm not), we're talking about the freelancer wiki, which is not public.

There's a freelancer wiki. Or at least there used to be.

I'm just not convinced that it couldn't possibly be a case of convergent (parallel?) development.

Open foot. Insert mouth. Completely slipped my mind. Too eager to help, i suppose....

Past a certain point, coincidence becomes too unlikely.

I've spent part of the day looking at it, and here's what happened: Bobby's version of the Mitsuhama chapter had already been laid out before he terminated his contracts. When the new material was sent to layout, some of the material in the Corporate Profile box was not omitted that should have been.

The Corporate Divisions paragraph has been removed from from the electronic versions currently on sale. It will not be in the printed versions. If you bought the PDF already, you should be able to get a free updated version.

Jason H.

Not word for word. Even the order of the sections are the same. If Catadmin didn't have AH's docs on hand and opened them at some point, the likelyhood of the finished product including the same sections in the same order are astounding. Assuming that he had read them at some point, it's still doesn't look good.

Not a wholesale copy job, but not a clean break from AH's material either. The whole thing wouldn't stand in a court of law, but it doesn't look very good on Jason and IMR. Of course, that's a shit pile a mile high at this point so you might just be able to make this nugget out at the top if you use some binoculars.

I just wonder why such stuff happens when AH did all he could to prevent it. And why some people still try to blame him.

His use of the forums to air grievances best discuseed in private might have something to do with it.

Transparency is a good thing. It prevents people from putting too much blame on the innocent. And others from simply ignoring said grievances.

Suffice it to say that I find transparency a poor excuse for being too wrapped up in your own tragedy to act with decorum.

Thank you. It's a little thing given the scope of the book, but I think "honest mistakes" like this accurately illustrate why I had concerns earlier.

Jason did the same thing when AH released his self proofed drafts. Jason asked if the drafts were the ones that were edited by himself and other CGL staff. AH clarified that these were older drafts, edited by himself as he originally stated. Jason backed down.

Now AH calls Jason on using his original drafts in the publication of a book and Jason admits that's what happened and made a change to the PDF.

Who's acting without decorum?

All these accusations going back and forth by everyone are inflammatory. Please consider before making them, and especially consider that these boards are not the appropriate venue for some of these matters.

This is exactly my point. This issue goes beyond AH vs JH, and it would be awesome if they would restrict their personal feud to a non-public venue. Since AH has been the person making active accusations, for the most part, the onus should be on him to do so, as the public nature pressures everyone involved to respond in public lest they look guilty. If AH is angry with JH, he can express that without offhandedly offending the other authors that continue to work for CGL.

*EDIT* Got ninja'd by the mods. My opinion has been made rather overabundantly clear, so its the last I'll speak of it. I'm not at all angry with AH; he had good reasons to do what he did. I just wish he would go about things more...delicately.

Well . . for some, these Versions of the PDF might actually be something of a collectors edition O.o

0o. I made no accusations. I stated a fact. This fact was demonstrable, as I provided the exact text I was talking about. I never accused anyone of plagiarism, I said from the start I thought it was a sloppy copy in editing and I laid it on the person I thought was doing the editing: Jason. Yes, Jason and I have our differences. Including an exchange of e-mails where I expressed concerns about it and was assured (by Randall Bills) that this sort of thing wouldn't happen. It did happen, and now Jason is doing the right thing and fixing it.

I might be an asshole from time to time, but what exactly about this last little flurry makes me the bad guy?

Nothing, I will affirm this statement despite things in the past.

Let me clarify the nature of the mistake, because as I reread my post the wording is a little unclear--Bobby's original draft had already been laid out. When the new file was ready for layout, the layout person, quite naturally, decided to reflow the new text over the old text. The new text did not contain any of Bobby's text, but in the reflowing process, some of the old text in the previous lay out was not deleted that should have been erased. To be clear--the new version that had been sent to layout did not contain the text in question.

Jason H.

No, if such mistakes are swept under the rug, we end up with more "Oh, didn't you know freelancers did not get paid for years?" situations. The worst thing one can do is to keep it private.

No, worse than keeping it private is using it to score points against someone you have a personal grievance with. There's a difference between raising an issue and using it to tarnish someone's reputation. AH has mostly been careful to avoid outright accusations, but he's called JH a liar, made insinuations about plagiarism and blown a layout error way out of proportion. Turns out Hardy was telling the truth, AH's stuff wasn't ripped off and the layout error was a layout error.

Did we read the same thread? AH said it was his stuff, and a lot of people called him a liar, or said it was coincidence. Turned out AH was right.

We can't say who's right or wrong in this - and this board and this thread are certainly not the place for a discussion between AH and Jason Hardy. So please continue this into a private environment. Agreeing with DireRadiant that this whole deabte is close to become a flame war, this thread will be locked down for at least 12 hour to give everyone a chance to cool down (didn't we have that before?).

Unlocked. Play nice, boys and girls!

First the accidental sale of the DotA adventures while Jennifer Harding had pulled her copyright, then the accidental release of AH's text fragment.

This doesn't inspire much confidence in the claims that things have changed at CGL/IMR.

Whilst I do try to see both sides of everything the little slip ups (and I might be being very generous here) cant come at a worse time to breed good will with everyone watching this from the outside.

Which is why it's not surprising that a few posters are quite vocal in their attempts to convince everyone else that revealing such slips should have no place here, and should not be made public.

There's a difference between making this mistake public and an on-going feud between two posters (AH and Jason).

Indeed. And people should not try to mix that up, and mistake making a mistake public with feuding.

Yep.

The moderation team encourages civil discussion on topics of interest. The thread gets locked or warnings issued when posts are inflammatory, baiting, or filled with personal attacks.

This topic is of interest and related to the boards and will continue.

Just keep it civil.

Fuchs, your continued inflammatory accusations are not contributing to the civil discussion.

Whilst I can understand people not wanting a feud to be so public and hostile I find myself thinking that if I was in AH's position with off board assurances proving to be false (no one has yet claimed AH was not emailed to say his work was not included so I will assume this is fact not just speculation) I too would be shouting from the rooftops as it were. I understand that there may be no correct public forum for airing such issues but I also am unsure if had this all been done more quietly the end result might have happened much much later.

I dont believe for one second that any company would correct a error so quickly if it had not been called out in public

For the record I am not taking sides or passing judgement on any single person more commenting on a situation and a company as I am seeing it

I'd like to come out here and state that I'm pretty much fed up with watching Fuchs get it in the ear from the moderation team. Do try and be a bit more impartial.

If you are going to accuse him of being inflammatory it would be nice if you could be extremely specific about what you mean by that word. I don't recall seeing him engage in any personal attacks. He is occasionally a bit blunt but frankly that would seem to be cultural and many of the German speaking members are far less polite about calling a spade a spade. Honesty does not equate to inflammatory in my book.

And for the love of God don't bother accusing him of spamming the boards again, that's just outrageous.

When one guy is being systematically attacked by five or six other posters and he responds to all of their accusations he isn't spamming, they are.

Frankly it's a bloody miracle that he managed to remain as civil as he did during those episodes. I'm a little ashamed that I wasn't willing to stick up for him while half a dozen posters I'd barely heard of previously poured bile and scorn over a forum regular. I can't say Fuchs is someone that I often agree with but he's someone that's earned my respect.

Not taking sides or passing judgment is fine. I believe what Fuchs wants in this situation is people to acknowledge the failings of CGL and not to hand waive them away.

We aren't talking about shooting offenses here, but we are talking about wrongs. They were done, Jason fessed up; and if we are to move on we should do so while maintaining the knowledge of them. What you conclude and infer from them is up to you and all are welcome to state those inferences and speculations on them.

Just to be clear I'm not directly accusing you of this action. I'm only pointing out that behavior because I'm worried that it was going on in this thread and others.

Actually, yes. This is a cultural thing. Generally, German-speaking peoples do consider bluntness honest and up front, not rude. Though Fuchs, being Swiss, is not among these, many Germans - especially from the East - consider the kind of politeness practiced and demanded by American culture phoney and dishonest ('better spit in my face than smile and stab my back'). This can be extremly grating and causes problems with even other Germans - particularily Swiss, who often feel offended by Germans' bluntness (and to a lesser degree, with Austrians, too).

Thus, both my way of stating criticism and - I assume - Fuchs' are not intended to be insulting, but just factual. While I can see how Anglos, especially Americans with their strict codes about politeness, can feel insulted by this, this is in al likelyhood just a misunderstanding.


My understanding is that he feels public pressure is needed to ensure CGL corrects such mistakes (which I personally assume they were, Corp Guide being the hack job it is, and given the fact copying that little table would gain CGL absolutly nothing).

I still don't think anyone's said beyond a vague "mid-June", but what is the actual expiration date of the license? Is this for both Shadowrun and BattleTech or are the two licenses separate?

Here's a big one. What happens if the license is not renewed,? Can CGL continue to sell products they've already developed (like Corporate Guide), will they get to finish anything that's in the planning stages (Sixth World Atlas/Almanac or whatever it's called and other projects that are closer to finished than not)? Or do they have cease production/printing immediately and no longer sell anything they have in stock? Will they have to turn over all their work to Topps or whoever gets the license, or will the freelancers have to go themselves and re-pitch, going through editorial and everything again?

I think before anyone could answer this, we'd need to see the actual legal documents in the license and probably someone to interpret them...but hopefully one of the insiders will know. Basically, it's the difference (if the license isn't renewed) between whatever CGL's release schedule is, haphazard as it is at the moment, and probably nothing new in Shadowrun for a year or so.

I agree with Crizh. I don't have a horse in this race, but I find overmoderation (in particular when directed against a particular individual) offensive. Fuch's and the others' points are relevant and on topic. When I want to hear what they have to say regarding the CGL situation, I read this thread. When I don't, I read another. I'm an adult. I like having the choice in my hands and don't need anyone holding my hand to guide me through the bad words and bad intentions on the internet.

Mesh

A few things:

America's a big country. What's acceptable in the Deep South is much different than what's acceptable in New England is much different than what's acceptable in Southern California. The German bluntness would be right at home in Boston. (BTW: go Lakers!)

There's a thread already started about moderation fairness. This conversation probably belongs there, but since I'm not a moderator and it's already been brought up, my 2 cents:

I'd like to see the moderation stepped up a bit. It's frustrating to check in here for news and have to scroll through pages of discussion of the word "the" or interpretations of copyright law from non-Washingon Bar, non-copyright specialists. A prominent poster was permbanned for 10+ instances of personal attacks after being warned. There are several active posters on these forums that we could go back and find at least 10 instances of unwarranted personal attacks. The mods have a tough job to do and I think they're doing their best. There's years of precedent for their actions. Let's all remember these are free forums and the mods can do whatever the drek they want.

My humble suggestion: create an compartmentalized, unmoderated section of dumpshock and let posters bait, troll, flame and generally run amok. But, for civil discourse, let's stick to the TOS and the years of precedent.

So if it's culturally ok to beat my children when I'm having a bad day that's cool right? Just so we're clear here.

I do believe Fuchs has been systematically looking for a fight with anyone who's not ready to lynch everyone still working for IMR/CGL and burn down the offices. You may agree or disagree but that is my perception and frankly it's as valid as that of anyone else.

He does post the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and ctrl-v etc. Looking back at his posts there is a LOT of ......but COLEMAN! EMBEZZLEMENT! Warrrrrgabbbbbble! Admitedly this thread has been pretty spectacular in that field from all quarters. Before you go defending poor Fuchs this is the same guys who tried to spin one line of a legal brief into a new accusation of wrong doing because it would not hold up to snuff in his own country, only to have someone who practiced law there come in and tell him he was wrong.

In short, I think he protests too much. Mesh too tbh.