Hi all,
I would like to get a feel for the etiquette around publishing
modifications to existing piecepack games on the wiki. I have read
through the entire archives of the mailing list (quite a while ago now)
but I don't recall this being discussed.
Presumably someone who modified an existing game (assuming the original
is under a licence that allows publishing modified versions) could just
replace the current version on the wiki with their new version. But
unlike Wikipedia where articles are (ideally) a matter of fact, games
are more like art in that they are a matter of taste and two very
similar artworks may appeal to different people. However having 10
versions of what is essentially the same game in the games list may
flood it just as openclipart.org is flooded by endless remixed
variations of essentially the same clipart (this problem is reduced
somewhat by the search feature but that doesn't help if you're just
browsing).
Looking at precedent:
- Many of the rules pages have links to two versions of the rules in the
rules section already (pdf and text, although the content is the same
sans pictures).
- On the Alien City page a link to the updated version of the rules has
just been added in the Rules section rather than replacing the link to
the old rules, even though they are from the game's original author. The
header of the Alien city page currently refers to the version number and
date of the first version (probably just because no one thought to
change the header when the updated rules were uploaded).
- A couple of games (Men Overboard, Zombie in my Piecepack and possibly
others) don't have links to rules, but rather have the rules on the game
page itself. Editing these pages replaces the earlier rules. On the
Zombie in my Piecepack page the author section mentions that the rules
were edited by Ron Hale-Evans (though this editing may have happened
before the game was put on the wiki).
- Tula variants (alternate layouts for Tula) have their own entry in the
Games list. There are also a few variants for Tula mentioned in the
comments on the Tula page, but they are absent from the rules document.
- There are two different versions of Senat, each with their own entry
in the games list (plus Pub-sCrawl which is Senat with a theme).
- There is one Chess page with an alternative way of using a piecepack
to play Chess in the comments.
My suggestion is that anyone who has modified a game try to contact the
original author (maybe they could even collaborate to improve the game
further) who would no doubt be interested to see what others are doing
with their work. If the original author also thinks the modification is
an improvement then the new rules can replace the old rules in the rules
section. And the header can be updated with the newest version information.
However if the original author and the modifier are of different minds
about which version is better (or the original author is not
contactable) then the rules section on the game page could link to both
sets of rules, but maybe with a little blurb about what the differences
are so that different prospective players can have some idea of which
version they're likely to prefer. I'm not sure what to do about the
header though.
In the case of games where the rules are in the game page rather than
being a separate document the rules for each version would need to be
put on a separate page (eg. CoolGameV1-0 and CoolGameV1-1) and linked to
in the rules section of the main game page.
However if the modifications are not changing the gameplay, just
expressing it more clearly or correcting spelling or grammar mistakes,
or any gameplay changes are added as optional variants rather than
replacing the original rules then I think it would be fine to just
replace the current rules on the wiki.
What do you think?
cheers
- Jessica
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Posted by: Jessica Eccles <jade@...>
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