Statute of Limitations on Factory and Codex Submissions

[Gilamar Skirata]

"As long as they keep on making upgrades for this baby, the Z-95 will never become outdated."

―Outlaw tech Klaus "Doc" Vandangante

"The Dreadnought stands along ships like the Zed 95 Headhunter in the eyes of spacecraft enthusiasts, serving so reliably and for so long that it has become a staple of naval warfare and a distinguished chapter in in the history of military shipbuilding."
-Spacedock

Hello all. I'd like to put a suggestion forth for the Factory (Maybe RPJ/Admins?) team to think about. The two quotes above are about starships in the Star Wars universe that served very long and very successful lifespans. Currently Chaos has almost 30 YEARS of In-Character History. We've had more than half a dozen wars and possibly hundreds of skirmishes, battles, and altercations. Over the years, both IC and OOC, we've gone through several arms races be it from some new IC wartime strategy (The mandos with their capture of Myrkyr brought about a surge in anti-force user Yslamari-based tech that continues use to this day and more recently the Sun Guard's use of Solar Ionization and Solar Ionized Plasma weapons has slowly made their way into some Sith Empire Tech) and while I as much as the next guy love making my own designs and ships for people and factions I dig...None of these factions will last forever, and MANY have fallen and just as many members have left, never to be heard from again.

So my suggestion is this:

• Put a statute of limitations on Factory submissions that are semi-unique or higher production. This would allow people to if not outright use what in some cases would be almost 30 year old tech at this point, but also allow people to take old submissions and create custom versions of said tech.
• If a Major Faction is recalled or disbands, after 6 months their old tech is considered Open-Market to be used or adapted in future submissions
• This would be put into effect immediately for Major factions that have already been disbanded/recalled within 6 Months and Minor factions that have been deleted/the OG writer hasn't been on in at least 9 Months
• These checks would be up to the submitter to screencap and display in their submissions/or at Judge request.

This does a few things. Chiefly on MY mind are:

• Makes the universe feel more lived in/a more believable star wars space
• Breathe life into old factory submissions
• Allows people who have been here forever to reach on back and use things without the hassel of using blood magic to find the original poster (if they've left the site) to get some sort of approval to use their tech.

Reasoning:

• Chaos is LARGELY a cooperative writing space. We all live and breathe in the same universe and to assume otherwise or that your tech suddenly vanished from existence into one of the Black Holes of the Maw when You and X person had Y disagreement is childish. Get over yourselves.
• Mostly that. You're not special and neither is your "tech genius" We're flying that X-Wing copy #287 from 15 years ago and there's no stopping us.

Empathy Time:

• I understand that we all want to feel "In charge" of our own stories, submissions, and ideas but the Factory and Codex isn't a copyright office. This is already fan fiction. You've joined a universe and decided to put those ideas into the universe. As much as you want to fight it, they and you are both a part of this ever flowing thing we call Chaos now. Please just be a good community member and love us like we love your X-wing #196

At the end of the day, Permission is ALWAYS best. But sometimes we just can't OR it makes no sense because its 25 years old and outdated anyways.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

I see no reason for this.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

No. Period. No way this is in any way fair to the creator of the sub. There are tons of ways to allow for this without forcibly ripping creative control from the subs author. Some folks have what they make in the Factory & Codex as a big part of their story. Leave it be.

Besides, asking permission or cloning in all but name work. This seeks to fux a non-existant problem, to the detriment of the system

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

Chaos is LARGELY a cooperative writing space. We all live and breathe in the same universe and to assume otherwise or that your tech suddenly vanished from existence into one of the Black Holes of the Maw when You and X person had Y disagreement is childish. Get over yourselves.

Maybe this came out a little harsher than intended. But like...

Why wouldn't you want to be a part of Chaos history.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

Needless capitalisation just looks silly.

Staff has better things to do with its time than implementing this rule. It's also disrespectful to the submitters. A major faction no longer being around doesn't mean the submitters aren't.

If they want to make old stuff available to everyone, that's up to them (I believe a bunch of tech that belonged to the old Sith Empire was made open market by the submitters after the faction dissolved, but that was their choice). And people can always try to carry out raids, reverse-engineer and so on.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Gilamar Skirata"]

I'm gonna side with [member="Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori"] here. We're very big on keeping things distinct if people want them to be. If someone has made something and haven't shared it, it's not fair for someone else to just move in.

If you like it so much there's no dev threads anymore, no restricted materials, you can make a new version...so long as it's not a flat copy.

Besides, so much of the old factory stuff is using ancient and outdated rules which no longer make sense in the present.

I don't often shut down discussion, but this is going to be a no from me.

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

Even if a raid is commited and tech is stolen it is still up to the submitter if the stealer (is that a word?) can use it. And Reverse-engineering rules were gotten rid of a while ago.

But, noted

 

[Ravenfire]

[member="Gilamar Skirata"]

This entire suggestion comes across harsh. Sure we are still flying whatever someone came up with years ago and that’s fine but that was at the digression of person who posted it at the time. What you are suggesting however great that we would be able to access older subs still doesn’t account for the og creator. Cause it basically is asking for the ability to have not been within a faction while it was active but once it goes under still get tech people actively made for it.

I am completely against this. I don’t see a reason for it firstly as you can basically remake the sub in your own way anyways if you source it as a primary source with some story as to how you managed to get the plans this one time some years ago. Secondly because you’re asking for people’s tech that they maybe in character have been keeping in good nick for the thirty odd years to be null and voided. Lastly because Factory is a place for people to do whatever they want. If they remake the x wing for the three thousandth time I still wouldn’t mind because they had fun making the sub.

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

Cool

EDIT: This was to the thread getting shut down not the above post.

EDIT EDIT: Its becoming a little clear that everyone didn't read it in its entirety. The suggestion of "Just sub a new one" keeps coming up but part of the suggestion is to allow folks to link to the originals as inspiration/continuing the canon of the tech or place which currently isn't allowed

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

EDIT EDIT: Its becoming a little clear that everyone didn't read it in its entirety. The suggestion of "Just sub a new one" keeps coming up but part of the suggestion is to allow folks to link to the originals as inspiration/continuing the canon of the tech or place which currently isn't allowed

Where would this not be allowed? You can always link an older/someone else's sub in your own sub to show that it's where you've drawn your inspiration from.

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

[member="Scherezade deWinter"] Currently you have to have permission to do so. Its one of those unspoken, unwritten enforced rules we love so much.

 

[Vora Kaar]

Here are my thoughts on the matter. Mind you, these are my opinion, and have no real hard facts or statements Its just ramblings of my mind. Take it worth a grain of sand.

I enjoy this idea for a couple reasons, however can see the argument for a lot of bad reasons. So lets go over the good first. Since that seems prevalent. to what Gil here is talking about.

1. It opens the market for people to use things where the submitter has been gone from the site, or nobody has any form of contact to the submitter.
2. It allows older submissions to be expanded upon, brought up to the standards of the 5.0/whatever-iteration-the-factory-and-codex-are-at, as well as potentially improving their usage. Many items were limited by Dev threads, or being limited by rules that are now considered trivial at best.
3. This could expand future "companies" and "Factions" for exploring or discovering older factions gear so that they can incorporate it into their own. Every Sith Empire that has ever been, has never really started from scratch to my knowledge. They had a basis, already had a following, and the materials needed. They just needed to condense it into one pool. And the process happens over and over again. With the One Sith building off of the First Sith Empire's stuff, and that Empire building off of the Sith Triumverate. Or how the Lords of the Fringe was built into the Vagrant Fleet, and later into other factions such as the ORC and SJO in limited, but still there roots. Hell, the Jedi Order, was based off of the Je'daii Order, which was based off of another order that used to be ONLY one species, until they expanded so their teachings wouldn't be lost. (If its lost or not is up to debate but the roots of their teachings are still there)

Yes, this does quite a bit for what Gil is proposing. And I see a couple valid arguments against this. Namely ones that I agree with to an extent. So here is where the Cons are.

• Currently proposed, Semi-unique and above are considered fair game. Instead, I feel that it should be raised to Limited or Minor. Enough of a production for people to actively get hands on these items in question, without making the really powerful Semi-unique or maybe Limited production items feel like they are being cheated on.
• It needs approval from the submitter to be as such - I agree on some terms with this. If the writer is no longer on the site, and hasn't been here for literal years, then I do not see a huge issue with this. The limit of 6 months seems okay to me, but if it's wished to be expanded upon a bit for different criteria for this proposed "open to the masses" then I am A-okay with this.
• It devalues the work of those who made the submission - To be frank here, As a factory judge, I have seen submission after submission where it is quite literally almost the exact same item made over and over again, with different skins, and a different name for the stamp. In fact, there were some items in the past where the idea of the technology was straight ripped from another writer, and used by their own company, just because they wanted the do-dad for themselves and didn't want to go through the hassle of asking the person to get one or two. We have 11,459 topics in the Technology section ALONE! Starships is close second with 4,457 topics. Only 1-5% of all of these submissions are actively used. Why? Because we currently have the unwritten rule of "Just make one of your own." Which means that person needs to go make one, which means I need to go over it and make sure it wasn't copied word for word from the old one, make sure its not breaking rules, and had permission in the first place, and then approve quite literally, the exact same item, with a different picture on it. While I have been a Factory Judge twice now. Once under Cira, and now under Gir and Runi, I see literally the same items I approved on when I worked with the Factory years ago, being approved today. Because people just want to make their own. Why not allow someone to make an item based upon older items? I mean, lets be real. If you look at the gun market IRL, you could get over hundreds of thousands of parts that do the exact same thing, for a simple AR-15 platform. No joke. If I and another 100,000 people were to make one. All of us would in some form have something different. Be it the scope, the trigger, the magazine we use, the upper and lower parts being the same or different. Maybe all of the parts came from the same manufacturer, or it could be a Franken-gun where the parts are literally from 70 different companies. Saying we have to make our own to get what we want, means that I am going to be seeing pages worth of submission of the exact same thing. So why would it be that big of a deal to allow other people, to just make a unique submission of technology, that hasn't been used for literal years? (Sorry its long winded)
• You already can use it as a basis - As mentioned, yes you can link the item as a source for what you wanted to create. However, as Gil did mention, typically you have to ask for permission to use anything other than your own stuff in your submission. Even if its open market and mass produced! Because it was posted by someone else. That is the rule of the factory. If the writer accounts don't match up, we have to ask permission. There are a few cases with Vanir Technologies where they have a Blanket Approval for everyone to use their stuff because they were leaving the site. Which is *kisses fingers with a smooch sound* Magnifico! I would love if people did this more often and had an actual post for it, because then all the submitter would have to do is link it as proof that they can use it. And its open to EVERYONE! Yes please. This makes approvals so much easier for everyone.
• You need to have approval for everything - Yes, I agree. Approval is best case scenario. Yes, you should get the OK from people before using it. However, for people who have not been here for years, there is a case that they are likely not coming back. For instance, I know a writer who left the site, and gave his entire company over to [member="John Locke"], because he didn't want to have his stuff go to waste. He handed it to him and allows him to do whatever he wants. Why? Because the writer who did it in the first place, isn't going to be coming back. As much as I hate to have that happen, it does.

So, as a Factory judge who may happen to be working on this in some form if there is enough of a voice for this, I feel like instead of shutting down this idea with flat "No, its stupid, go drunk are you home?" Give some ideas to how we could improve this or change it. Maybe increase the criteria for this to be accepted? It has to be only factions that are older than a given time, or it can only be from companies that have had inactive usage, OR it can be all volunteer based where if any of your tech is considered open market, or could be replicated, then allow others to use it.

I myself have started like 8 different companies that I all ran into the ground because of my muse being chite and because of my busy schedule. (Company tiers anyone?) So I would 100% open up all of my companies to anyone if they wanted the stuff from it. I don't use it. I likely won't ever use it again, and if it lives on because someone else can expand on my idea or just make an exact copy for their snowflake of a character, then do it.

Again, this is just my view as a two time Factory Judge, as well as just someone that literally looks up new technologies in the real world for fun. *Legit read blueprints and tech papers over this stuff just because I can* So don't take my opinion too seriously. Its just my point of view.

 

[Judah Dashiell]

[member="Gilamar Skirata"]

Hard no.

 

[Fatty]

[member="Gilamar Skirata"] to clarify, from what you are saying, people are not allowed to use the "Primary Source" field to point to an old submission which does not belong to you as the source of inspiration? I mean, I believe I've done similar stuff, albeit I've only done it for my own old submissions (some of which are archived/denied).

 

[Grrwunhoooll Agaburry]

Isnt there a quote somewhere saying something like..."A bad artist imitates, A good artists steals"

 

[Adron Malvern]

I dislike the thought of something I made being used without my expressed permission or consent. For that reason, it's a no from me.

 

[Grrwunhoooll Agaburry]

If the wording didnt suggest removing the "control" & accreditation out of the OG writers "hands". Also if it didnt devalue the creator. Feathers get ruffled when one says your not special and not as smart as you like to think. Even though its in a sense true. Truth hurts. Remove the bits that could feel like an threat/attack on someones creation and I like the idea.

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

[member="Gilamar Skirata"] to clarify, from what you are saying, people are not allowed to use the "Primary Source" field to point to an old submission which does not belong to you as the source of inspiration? I mean, I believe I've done similar stuff, albeit I've only done it for my own old submissions (some of which are archived/denied).

This would be the light version, yes. I don't remember if I put it in an edit or not but also limiting it to limited and up and only Faction Manufactured items would probably be ideal rather than companies, that way it would make sense IC for their stuff to be floating around post Faction-Mortem

 

[Malok]

I dislike the thought of something I made being used without my expressed permission or consent. For that reason, it's a no from me.

I love it when [member="Adron Malvern"] reads my mind

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Particularly given some bits I caught of your behavior in the Corellian Confederation Discord post the reaction to this being overwhelmingly negative, I can only further assume this is pointed at a particular Faction (though who, I don't know). Even if not pointed, your reaction tells.

Please don't turn your personal issues into "Site Issues" when they clearly are just selfishly motivated. Poor form. Make your own things. You are *more* than capable and original/creative to rival pretty much any other mind on here in terms of tech and such, so no reason not to.