Ema's RPG Sheet Website down...

[Scribble]

I would consider it legal competition. Legal competition is one thing, policy is another. One influences the other in most cases but they are not the same. So the leaps you are talking about. But policy is not something as a written laws -one approaches to understand policy by weighting-judging things as they happen in practice. You are talking about leaps and jumps and whatever. So you are practically saying we should not make conclusions about one's policy. Well I disagree.

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here but- I'm not saying you can't make conclusions. I'm simply saying I don't see how any conclusion other then "a site was taken down with the stated reason being because it's owner received a C&D letter for some unknown reason."

Any other conclusions you draw on top of that "Because wizards doesn't want online competition," "because the site had pirated material," "because space aliens fighting a war with fuzzy bunny slippers could use the site for ill will against our feet" is all guess work, with one guess being as good as another.

Except the fuzzy bunny slipper one. That's obviously true.

 

[mudbunny]

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here but- I'm not saying you can't make conclusions. I'm simply saying I don't see how any conclusion other then "a site was taken down with the stated reason being because it's owner received a C&D letter for some unknown reason."

Exactly. WotC (heck, pretty much every major corporation, will not talk about legal matters, either before, during or after. It is a matter of policy in most cases. And I find it unlikely that Ema will say anything beyond what is on his website (or the remnants of) and the conflicting emails that have surfaced in this thread, possibly due to not wanting to get involved and stir things up more, but more likely due to an agreement between Ema and WotC.

Anything beyond the statement "the site was taken down after the owner received a C&D order" is speculation, at best.

That being said, this *is* the internet, and WotC being the large company, they are automatically placed into the role as "Bad Guy" who is trying to shut down the little guy.

I guess this is just me tilting at windmills.

 

[xechnao]

with one guess being as good as another.

Perhaps for you. I understand this may depend on bias too. People generally weight things, judge things by their experience and are able to say their opinion if so they want-hopefully their honest opinion. This is a way of people reacting. Depending on the level of reaction things may change one way or the other. It is a balance game.

 

[xechnao]

Anything beyond the statement "the site was taken down after the owner received a C&D order" is speculation, at best.

Generally speculation is more important than laws even in real life because in real life the laws are made by speculation. They do not descent from god or something. We change laws change all the time. Besides the media is semi-officially considered the fourth power. Propaganda or criticism is something that exists. It is normal. But what baffles me is that you are trying to defend Wotc by decrying the value of criticism. If that be the case you should not be defending Wotc first place. You are speculating against speculation.

 

[mudbunny]

Generally speculation is more important than laws even in real life because in real life the laws are made by speculation.

No. Laws are not made through speculation. Laws are generally made through two routes. The first is jurisprudence and case law. The second is laws as passed by governing bodies. Speculation rarely enters into it. (Well, speculating whether politicians have a clue or not, maybe )

They do not descent from god or something. We change laws change all the time. Besides the media is semi-officially considered the fourth power. Propaganda or criticism is something that exists. It is normal. But what baffles me is that you are trying to defend Wotc by decrying the value of criticism. If that be the case you should not be defending Wotc first place. You are speculating against speculation.

I have *never* said to not criticize WotC or that the criticism is worthless. What I would like to see is people criticizing WotC for stuff that they actually did, not stuff that people think that they did. I am also not sure what I am "speculating" about...

All we know is that WotC sent a C&D. That's it.

We don't know why. We don't know what WotC required Ema to do. We don't know what they asked (if anything) of the ISP. We don't know if there were attempts prior to the C&D to get Ema to stop doing whatever it was that resulted in the C&D. We don't know if there were attempts by Ema to contact WotC before this happened.

We. Don't. Know.

Yet there are numerous people in this thread (as well as on the WotC forums) who are slamming WotC (and Ema, to a much lesser extent) for stuff that we don't know actually happened.

 

[catsclaw227]

So I am a little unclear here. Are you saying that a software based character generator, if all it did was take 4E terms and allowed the user to select them, then based on those selections did any approrate math, and then filled in a form based on these selections, it is OK and doesn't require a license? What if the terms used were from outside what the current SRD allows?

Or are you saying this is NOT OK to do?

And if OK to do, then what happens when money is charged for it? Does that change the landscape? What if that money is donated? Does it matter?

It sounds like this to me too. I am also very curious about it, because I have been plugging away on a combat manager that should be kosher with the GSL, but I wasn't sure about the Math part. If I only use names of powers, all math is done hidden in code so the user doesn't "see" the formulas or calculations and it only simply processes steps, like initiative, to hit, dice rolling, etc., then it should be OK.

Heck, I am also noodling a CharBuilder import. And my Encounter builder is simply a monster list that notes where they are in intiative and ticks off HP and maybe set conditions, but only for tracking, not for math (not yet at least).

BTW -- what is Heroforge written in? I am going for WPF and .NET using webservices (even for local access - it makes the app portable incase I go web-based on Silverlight).

 

[xechnao]

No. Laws are not made through speculation. Laws are generally made through two routes. The first is jurisprudence and case law. The second is laws as passed by governing bodies. Speculation rarely enters into it. (Well, speculating whether politicians have a clue or not, maybe )



I have *never* said to not criticize WotC or that the criticism is worthless. What I would like to see is people criticizing WotC for stuff that they actually did, not stuff that people think that they did. I am also not sure what I am "speculating" about...

All we know is that WotC sent a C&D. That's it.

We don't know why. We don't know what WotC required Ema to do. We don't know what they asked (if anything) of the ISP. We don't know if there were attempts prior to the C&D to get Ema to stop doing whatever it was that resulted in the C&D. We don't know if there were attempts by Ema to contact WotC before this happened.

We. Don't. Know.

Yet there are numerous people in this thread (as well as on the WotC forums) who are slamming WotC (and Ema, to a much lesser extent) for stuff that we don't know actually happened.

Every defined process on human behavior (such as jurisprudence) originates from human speculation. Definitions are a matter of speculation in sense of their value among human beings as shared processes. And knowledge? It is a matter of measure of certainty or better let me say trust. In the case you are not sure if the proclaimed level of trust expressed is honest you call it faith or belief. But your claimed measure on trust or belief here is too discrete, too rigid. More rigid than what human communication can achieve and thus it seems you want to limit its scope. Besides, how do you value what is actually done or not done? By the way we act or react. And thinking makes part of this process. You can not say: do not think about it. In other words how are we supposed to tell the difference among what one does and what we think that he does without resorting to the ultimate preposition: thinking about it.

And I would not say that a phrase such as "all we know is that Wotc send a C&D" represents the general consensus here. There are many factors such as details on the historic of who was the one that received the C&D letter and who is Wotc.

I understand that you too have thought to claim such rigid measures of thinking. Am I supposed to think your words here are being honest with you? I was trying to present Wotc's behavior by my POV yet your point is that I cant because I do not really know, it is only what I am thinking about it. It is true I am no authority and this allows me to be more open about my feelings on how I trust things are or even let me say about my beliefs if you so wish. But you can't call me on doing that. You may say that you do not agree with how I trust things are because of how the case been talked about here seems to be different to you than it seems to me. Even say that what I am saying seems more or less improbable to you. This I would accept. But you do not even have said such a thing. You have been calling me on stating my opinion.

 

[mudbunny]

And I would not say that a phrase such as "all we know is that Wotc send a C&D" represents the general consensus here. There are many factors such as details on the historic of who was the one that received the C&D letter and who is Wotc.

Huh?? We know that WotC sent a C&D to Ema, because Ema's website says so. Unless...WotC is Wizards of the Coast.

You have been calling me on stating my opinion.

Again, I am not saying that anyone is lying or anything like that. I would just prefer that people comment on the facts of what we know, and right now, we know very few facts.

1 - WotC sent a C&D letter to Ema.
2 - The ISP took down Ema's website because of a C&D letter.

As far as I know, those are the facts that we know for 100% certainty. Pretty much everything else, be it why the ISP took it down, or why Ema was sent a C&D, to whether or not there were other options less harsh that WotC could have taken, they are all random guesses pulled out of thin air.

 

[xechnao]

Huh?? We know that WotC sent a C&D to Ema, because Ema's website says so. Unless...WotC is Wizards of the Coast.



Again, I am not saying that anyone is lying or anything like that. I would just prefer that people comment on the facts of what we know, and right now, we know very few facts.

1 - WotC sent a C&D letter to Ema.
2 - The ISP took down Ema's website because of a C&D letter.

As far as I know, those are the facts that we know for 100% certainty. Pretty much everything else, be it why the ISP took it down, or why Ema was sent a C&D, to whether or not there were other options less harsh that WotC could have taken, they are all random guesses pulled out of thin air.

Not of the same randomness though at least to some people. This is what we are talking about. For you perhaps everything is equally probable. For some people it may be not.
And my point about what we know about the case or not is that it is not limited to the letter in question. Even if we found this letter and thus knew what was exactly in that letter, but without knowing anything else we would really have much less clues about what it would be about. It is rather a more complex, a more complicated scene, something like a puzzle. It is good if you have all the pieces, but even if you do not it does not mean that you cant see anything. It also happens that you see something and then upon finding some pieces you may be surprised. Haven't you ever seen an investigation thriller in tv? We fans are investigator wannabes when there is a scene of interest -because this is what fans are about. But this is normal. What is not normal is calling on fans about doing what they are supposed to do as fans.

 

[mudbunny]

Not of the same randomness though at least to some people. This is what we are talking about. For you perhaps everything is equally probable. For some people it may be not.
And my point about what we know about the case or not is that it is not limited to the letter in question. Even if we found this letter and thus knew what was exactly in that letter, but without knowing anything else we would really have much less clues about what it would be about. It is rather a more complex, a more complicated scene, something like a puzzle. It is good if you have all the pieces, but even if you do not it does not mean that you cant see anything. It also happens that you see something and then upon finding some pieces you may be surprised. Haven't you ever seen an investigation thriller in tv? We fans are investigator wannabes when there is a scene of interest -because this is what fans are about. But this is normal. What is not normal is calling on fans about doing what they are supposed to do as fans.

I'm sorry. I don't know if it is because I am really tired, but I have no idea what you are trying to say.