OGC Wiki (merged)

[Rasyr]

And all Phil's saying (if I can put more words in his mouth) is that the recent emergence of an OGC Wiki with a respected industry figure putting momentum behind it means that he has to reassess the risks.

A respected industry figure whose livelihood would not, in any way, be threatened by setting this up.

 

[BryonD]

You didn't - sorry if that's how it came across. However, the "hypocritical" argument I presented above is one I have seen time and time again over the years and your post reminded me of it.

I think Wulf Ratbane pretty much summed up my feelings far better than I can, anyhow!

Fair enough.

 

[philreed]

Another thing to consider with the OGC Wiki concept is the fact that more than likely, someone is going to screw with it by adding OGC for non-d20 systems released under the OGL as well. So an OGC Wiki might not be as helpful as one might think, once you find yourself sorting through material for several game systems.

And some people will just delete massive amounts of material.

 

[Rasyr]

I think Wulf Ratbane pretty much summed up my feelings far better than I can, anyhow!

Perhaps we should all vote for Wulf as the spokesperson for the anit-OGC-wiki league!

 

[BryonD]

You need not leave OGL behind to leave OGC behind. The OGL does not mandate any minimum quantity of new material be released as OGC. It doesn't even actually appear in the D20 STL, either. The only place where new OGC is mandated is in the D20 style guide that accompanies the D20 STL.

For ARP, the choice is to move to the PCL instead (Prometheus Compatibility License). Their style guide explicitly states that there is no requirement for mandatory new OGC to appear in any product released under the license. We have already released a number of recent products bearing the Prometheus mark rather than the D20 mark, and it has not hurt sales a bit.

I agree.

I thought he meant stop producing SRD based material altogether.
I was mistaken.

And I really agree that the environment seems to have evolved. Early on there seemed to be a fear of being OGL without being D20. The first few non-D20 products seems to draw some
"oohs" and "ahhs" and great speculation about this wild departure. Now it seems to almost just be one of the marketing choices a publisher makes.

This is a good thing.

 

[DanMcS]

And some people will just delete massive amounts of material.

If people come in do that, the wiki will become moderated by trustworthy users, and it won't be a problem.

 

[DanMcS]

Go right I ahead. My words sound better if someone else puts them in my mouth.

Something I think people are overlooking is the fact that an OGL Wiki benefits WotC more than anyone. WotC designers would be able to go through, search tons of OGC quickly, and then paraphrase and revise the material enough to make "new" content that doesn't require acknowledging the OGC source. I'm not saying they would, but they could.

If I sit back and say to myself:

"If I were sitting at WotC as a new employee and learned that the OGL is harming more than it's helping, what would I do?"

I'll tell you what I would do. I'd advocate a site that would collect all OGC and could potentially harm my competitors.

Yes, Phil, it's obviously a massive conspiracy by WotC to put you out of business, because they're worried about your pdfs outcompeting their latest full-color, hardcover release.

Edit: That probably looked like I was denigrating Phil's books, which I'm not. My point was, WotC sells more books than everybody else put together. They're not worried about MnM2e, Iron Heroes, Spycraft2.0, the new WoD, or anything else. They can release 4e tomorrow and 5e next year and sell them in multitudes.

 

[Rasyr]

Yes, Phil, it's obviously a massive conspiracy by WotC to put you out of business, because they're worried about your pdfs outcompeting their latest full-color, hardcover release.

Please, no need to be snarky. Phil DOES have very legitimate concerns involving this idea. If Mearls were still a freelancer when he proposed this idea, that might have been something different, but with him currently being an employee of WotC, that puts a very different spin on things.

 

[Cergorach]

If people come in do that, the wiki will become moderated by trustworthy users, and it won't be a problem.

Not to mention that folks get real vindictive when someone pulls a wiki sweep, things like IP get logged with the actions taken. So the offender gets his ass tracked and some unfriendly folks will start breakin'some virtual bones... *grins evily*

 

[Cergorach]

Please, no need to be snarky. Phil DOES have very legitimate concerns involving this idea. If Mearls were still a freelancer when he proposed this idea, that might have been something different, but with him currently being an employee of WotC, that puts a very different spin on things.

And we all know how easy it is for folks that work for a subsidiary of Hasbro, around christmas time they all start getting real nervous (each and every year). In other words there's no such thing as job security when working for WotC.

btw. I thought Mike was working for Monte, he change employers?