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- Oct 28, 2013
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Hello everybody. Staff have been talking about a few small changes recently. In order to avoid constant announcement posts, I’m wrapping them up into one larger announcement.
1. It has come to the staff’s attention that a few maps have been taking inspiration from outside sources, and we wanted to clarify where we stood on that issue. Copying from tutorial or style guides is ok, but we want to avoid using larger pieces of pre-existing content without the creator’s permission. In addition, we want to avoid “asset flips” where users copy a pre-existing build onto the server. I’ve bundled together all the information about publishing a map here for the time being:
https://wiki.minr.org/Publishing_a_Map
It’s worth noting that maps that lean heavily on outside sources will not be considered FFA+ material. That title is meant to promote our own communities work.
1.1.With the changes noted above, a few tweaks to the map-submission form have been added.
2. In recent efforts to chronologically date all maps, we have discovered that an FFA+ map had all aesthetic elements copied from a pre-existing build, with many parts being a 1:1 replica of the original. This map has been relocated to the valley until we can get permission from the original builder of those assets. While we believe there is no legal/licensing issues in this particular instance, the staff decided it would be ethical to seek permission before returning the map to the eyes of the public. If permission is not granted, the map will be removed from the system entirely.
3. In 2017, I led an activity check and purged all absent staff members due to security risks, as seen here. https://forums.minr.org/threads/removal-of-inactive-staff.2647/
During the last promotion wave, the staff voted to begin enacting purges of absent staff on a yearly or bi-yearly basis as needed. Unlike most servers, absenteeism is measured from the last time a user has logged into the server or visited the forums when logged in. We do not want to purge inactive staff, but also want to ensure that any accounts with elevated permissions remain secured and in the hands of their proper owners. It is my personal opinion that measuring the last seen date rather than activity strikes a good balance.
Returning staff that wish to regain their rank will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The most recent check removed all staff that had not been seen in any capacity since before Jan 1st, 2017. Current thinking is to remove for staff that have not been seen in any capacity in the last 2-3 years.
Thanks for reading,
AJ
1. It has come to the staff’s attention that a few maps have been taking inspiration from outside sources, and we wanted to clarify where we stood on that issue. Copying from tutorial or style guides is ok, but we want to avoid using larger pieces of pre-existing content without the creator’s permission. In addition, we want to avoid “asset flips” where users copy a pre-existing build onto the server. I’ve bundled together all the information about publishing a map here for the time being:
https://wiki.minr.org/Publishing_a_Map
It’s worth noting that maps that lean heavily on outside sources will not be considered FFA+ material. That title is meant to promote our own communities work.
1.1.With the changes noted above, a few tweaks to the map-submission form have been added.
- A new question asking if outside sources were used has been added to the form. It currently defaults to “No”.
- Map promotion is now opt-out rather than opt-in. This means that if you do not want your map to be used for advertising purposes (videos or articles/posts on external sites), you need to directly un-check the “Yes” button at the time of submitting the map. If your map pre-dates the submission process and you do not want it used, please fill out the form and check “no” on the advertising question, and mark the map as already published. Full details are in the wiki page.
2. In recent efforts to chronologically date all maps, we have discovered that an FFA+ map had all aesthetic elements copied from a pre-existing build, with many parts being a 1:1 replica of the original. This map has been relocated to the valley until we can get permission from the original builder of those assets. While we believe there is no legal/licensing issues in this particular instance, the staff decided it would be ethical to seek permission before returning the map to the eyes of the public. If permission is not granted, the map will be removed from the system entirely.
3. In 2017, I led an activity check and purged all absent staff members due to security risks, as seen here. https://forums.minr.org/threads/removal-of-inactive-staff.2647/
During the last promotion wave, the staff voted to begin enacting purges of absent staff on a yearly or bi-yearly basis as needed. Unlike most servers, absenteeism is measured from the last time a user has logged into the server or visited the forums when logged in. We do not want to purge inactive staff, but also want to ensure that any accounts with elevated permissions remain secured and in the hands of their proper owners. It is my personal opinion that measuring the last seen date rather than activity strikes a good balance.
Returning staff that wish to regain their rank will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The most recent check removed all staff that had not been seen in any capacity since before Jan 1st, 2017. Current thinking is to remove for staff that have not been seen in any capacity in the last 2-3 years.
Thanks for reading,
AJ