Rule Clarification [OOC Rules Enforcing IC Status Quo?]

[ArborGold 85]

I’ll start this off by saying I sent an issue very similar to this to several staff members, who I will not name, and did not receive any response from them for a considerable amount of time. As a result I have ended up posting here and in coordination with the recent post of unread rules. I usually stalk the forums for the most part, as I have a lot of things to do in real-life and not much time left for the server, but I decided it would be a good time to ask this question and discuss this issue with people. Here is what I bring before you all for help with and perhaps a bit of transparent clarification:

 

The rule I question is referred in the “Forum Rules” as “Posting Rule #3” (PR3) and reads, “Plagiarism is prohibited. What counts as plagiarism? As long as you credit the author, you are safe. If you obtain permission from the author, you may use their work without crediting them. However, if you neither credit the author nor obtain permission—you violate this rule. Art, literature, builds, and other content are covered under plagiarism” (Telanir, 2018).

I believe the intentions of the supposed bans need to be clarified or the players using the rule to enforce their role-play power need to be informed this is not the case. Furthermore, I question that if the owner of the work is not attainable for permission does the work fall defunct? For example, if a player uses a picture from an artist off this site, without their permission as they most likely do not know them, and they do not explicitly credit the image to that individual/group does this violate the rule? Plainly, does a lack of citation imply claiming the work as your own? So if you do not have permission because the person is unknown to you and you cannot credit them because you do not know who made the image does this violate PR3? The old rule, “Forum Rule 6” (FR6) defined plagiarism as “the act of passing off someone else’s work as your own.” This new rule doesn’t entirely agree with this stance. One could lack citation due to them being unable to cite effectively and permission but that does not imply they have claimed the work as their own. Would a simple “I do not own, nor claim to own, any of the above works of art or literature above, unless otherwise specified within the text.”

 

The reason for me bringing this up falls mostly on one issue I have had for well over a year in the LOTC community, when I do manage to have time to play consistently. Firstly, I will explain the context of how I feel the rule is being abused. In LOTC there is a rather large player-built religion called Canonism. It is a mixed of many of the Abrahamic religions and its existence on the server has evolved over six years. Undoubtedly you and your fellow staff members have heard of it, as it is somewhat large and essential to the human role-play both currently and historically. Within the Canonist system the "holy book" of sorts is four scrolls written by four players of the server, some of which no longer play the game. Their teachings are equated to the words of Canonism and the "God" that is underpinning the whole religion. In the current state of the religion the texts are protected by the clergy and only members of the clergy read and have access to these scrolls. Some players within the religion have informed me there are no physical copies or there is only one, which is held by the High Pontiff. If so, the scrolls are memorized by priests over their lifetimes and the teachings and quotations of this text are strictly limited to the memorization of the character, which I will later address as a separate issue as it does not pertain directly to FR6.

 

The reason for my comments are the supposed enforcement of these plagiarism rules by both the staff and certainly members of the community who operate in the Canonist Church. I have been told repeatedly that any attempt to publish the scrolls in any capacity would see me banned from the server for some considerable amount of time, and that is where I draw an issue with the rule, the staff enforcement of the rule, and the player interpretation of it.

 

Understandably a publishing of the Holy Scrolls, verbatim, as a direct copy and paste accompanied by the publisher claiming to have authored the texts would be in violation of the rules, which previously defined plagiarism as, "the act of passing off someone else’s work as your own" (FR6). However, even citation is not necessary as noted in FR6's previous statement that, "Using someone else’s work is fine, and while crediting them is always encouraged it is not required" (FR6). This draws a question: If the work is credited to other players, named or unnamed, who wrote the text, such as the Holy Scrolls, and/or the person publishing the document RPly and OOCly does not claim ownership of the content, rather simply revealing its existence and contents to the public fall under "fair use?” In the instance above the player is not passing off someone else's work as their own and is fully recognizing, both OOCly and RPly, that the documents were not written by the publishing individual.

 

Within the same conversations with some of the members who operate within the Canonist chats I have heard that the staff has banned people in the past under the guidance of the aforementioned previous rule, and rules before that, when they attempted to publish the document. I was told that the staff "meticulously scrubs out the Holy Scrolls on the forums," by deleting posts and banning players for extended periods of time under the intention that they are the worst violators of plagiarism. Noted I do not know if they claimed full rights to these works but failing to credit those who are not reachable to give consent to the publishing should also be enforced on those using the scrolls for all uses then. For example, if a member of the Church uses these scrolls and quotes from them they are not required to cite, despite the fact they are in fact using another person’s words without giving permission or citing. If the punishment goes to those who do not cite and ask permission because the players that wrote the text are gone and unreachable why does the punishment not go to those in the Church who do the same things. Look to this post where quotes from the scrolls are released verbatim with IC citations but fail to use OOC citation or recognize the author/gain their express permission. So, would this count as plagiarism and is this person to be banned? Would this post count as plagiarism for the same reason? Just as well, look to posts with even pictures from off-site sources. Would this post equate to the punishment as he has not cited the picture?

 

Theoretically, if someone released the scrolls or a book of the scrolls due to the memorization the Church claims, which will be addressed later, and they did not cite the people who wrote the document, who they do not know or know even play the server anymore, and they do not ask permission, as for the same reason, are they in violation of this rule? And if so why can the text be used freely by Canonist Church members without being held to the same standards? Should they not also be forced to get the express permission and/or the correct OOC citation in every post where they plagiarize/copy work they did not write in the form of a quote from the scrolls?

 

SUMMARY OF ABOVE:

Spoiler

Simply, does a lack of citation mean you are in violation of the rule? Does a lack of citation and permission because the author/creator of the content is unknown or impossible to reach for the purposes of minecraft role-play servers mean the material is fine to use without permission and citation? That is the ultimate point of this post, and also to figure out if there were bans for this reason, and why were they enforced this way and other not?

 

Finally, and in close relation to my previous point, the players who run the Canonist Church could be guilty of power-gaming to a degree, in my opinion, but that the enforcement of OOC rules to prevent role-play is both in bad taste and extremely disappointing for any true role-player in the community. Defining power-gaming as “the act of any character doing something they'd realistically be unable to which is detrimental to Roleplaying through the breaking of immersion, and a loss for fairness to other players” (Cited from LOTC Wiki). Firstly, to address my accusations of power-gaming, if the church solely operates off memorization how is it that members of the Church can recall the entire wording of the document and are given a document OOCly to cite from instead of being taught these skills in-game? How is that a 'bible-sized' document can be perfectly remembered for generations upon generations without a single word or comma falling out of place or changing? On top of this no one has even seen the text since they are not allowed to make copies? So, they are simply memorizing a book perfectly for hundred of years and don’t have the referenced material on-hand, as it is locked up? Sounds far-fetched to me. To this I say that the book has been written down and that it has been written down on plenty of occasions, the excuse of it being solely verbal or that a single source exists and is rarely ever seen was created with the express purpose of deterring people from releasing the Scrolls on the forums or in other public domains. This is accompanied by unfair enforcement of the hazy rules that exist around the subject.

 

Just as well, OOC rules are not meant to be structured as to suppress role-play. Here, however, they clearly are. Players openly know that the scrolls are essential to the human culture and they state that the supposed rules prevents any individual from "ever" releasing the scrolls under any circumstances since they did not write them and all players who wrote them did not consent to their publication. And if that is so, why are they free to use them without the written consent or OOC citation required by others? I find this a gross abuse of rules to suppress player-driven role-play. They claim that since players created the lore they cannot be published when many people have open access to the document themselves. I argue that these intentions are solely biased and, as stated earlier, some of the players do not play the game anymore making their release, under the Church's opinion, impossible.

 

Is this so? I would like to know why? Why is it structured this way and unevenly enforced? If the scrolls are IC related things leave them to that realm and cease a system where small caveats for certain groups exist.

 

PS:

Spoiler

I do not want any trouble, I just want answers and clarification. In no way was this meant to step on anyone’s toes or make them upset, I simply want an answer to my questions from people qualified. Since I did not get a reply in private from members of the forum and admin team I have brought the issue to light and in a space where the public can voice their opinion and concerns, over me or the rules. I hope it will be a fruitful discussion. Hopefully I wasn’t too ramble”y”. I apologize of the long post and any mistake I have made in my grammar.

 

Thanks,

James

 

[ScreamingDingo 20568]

Yeah the rules are pretty crap and backwards I have no clue why the scrolls are the only document on the server that can’t be released through dynamic RP.

[Suxals 529]

If the document exists ic then it belongs to Lotc and thus you can irply publish it in the forums.

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

inb4 the FMs hide this thread

[Sultan 3953]

11 hours ago, ScreamingDingo said:

Yeah the rules are pretty crap and backwards I have no clue why the scrolls are the only document on the server that can’t be released through dynamic RP.

 

Simply fact of the matter there are no Copies of the Scrolls, there is only one of each its a unique thing. Some of the Scrolls are not even within the grasp of the Church. 

 

Priests do not get to read the Scrolls, they do not get to see the Scrolls at best a Priest would have access to transcripts written by High Pontiffs with quotes. They get what they are taught at “Priest teaching” or whatever you want to call it. For ease of access oocly you are given access to the OOC documents containing this info. IRP you would never have such a document at hand or ever see it in your life. There are a handful of people that have access to them one being the High Pontiff the Scroll of Owyn and the Scroll of Sigmund / The Patriarch of Horen family has the Scroll of Godfrey + The Scroll of Horen.

 

And the legal owners of the writing are here, myself being one of them.

 

And to the author you are mixing OOC and IRP. In IRP 99% of Humans, Priests included have no access to the Scrolls, just because you have access to a doc, does not qualify as you in RP having access to them.  

[Archbishop 1784]

Don’t speak about something which you have no knowledge of, as mog stated above basically nobody has the scrolls in rp, instead they have snippets and quotes. So if somebody gave you this in rp then they were powergaming 

[Guest]

If you don’t have the document in-Characterly, publishing it as your character would be meta-gaming. 

[drfate786 1690]

12 hours ago, ScreamingDingo said:

Yeah the rules are pretty crap and backwards I have no clue why the scrolls are the only document on the server that can’t be released through dynamic RP.

 

It makes no sense and I agree, if someone infiltrates a church holding a scroll and then copies it and leaks its contents for the whole world to see then by all means that is dynamic RP and NOT against the rules. My guess is that they keep it written on some google document and don’t actually have it written down on any books in-game, which is actually meta since it wouldn’t exist IRP. It’s probably also a copy paste of the dead sea scrolls or something hideously copied in that nature.

15 minutes ago, Heathen said:

If you don’t have the document in-Characterly, publishing it as your character would be meta-gaming. 

 

Read what I said, there’d be no way to obtain the document if they keep it on a google document and don’t have it in-game as an actual item.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

Did you seriously use an APA in text citation on a mineman roleplay forum 

[Old Man Boiendl 1454]

I would like to address your claims of its not realistic to memorize these writings through oral tradition. 

 

First it isn’t horrendously long. 

 

It is completely plausible and possible for a clergyman to memorize things which are orally passed down. It’s how oral traditions arise in the first place and how many of the stories we know in contemporary society have come about. 

 

As Mogroka said, oocly priests and others are granted access to the scrolls because it’s a matter of ease of access. When this ease of access is allowed, it follows suit that there probably won’t be variations in the writings of priests. But that isn’t particularly a matter of RP, it’s just the realities of life and the limitation of a block building game. 

[Nathan_Barnett36 1564]

1 hour ago, drfate786 said:

 

It makes no sense and I agree, if someone infiltrates a church holding a scroll and then copies it and leaks its contents for the whole world to see then by all means that is dynamic RP and NOT against the rules. My guess is that they keep it written on some google document and don’t actually have it written down on any books in-game, which is actually meta since it wouldn’t exist IRP. It’s probably also a copy paste of the dead sea scrolls or something hideously copied in that nature.

 

Read what I said, there’d be no way to obtain the document if they keep it on a google document and don’t have it in-game as an actual item.

Did you read mogs response? Nobody has access to the scrolls. If you were given them in to then fine, but no one has. Releasing them is both metagaming and powergaming if you have no to access to it. You really do hate the empire and it clearly shows. Anything anti empire/ human, you pounce on it.

[ArborGold 85]

Let me take a few minutes to point out some of the good points made and some of the points that fall inconsistent with the real reasons behind this protection of the document.

 

11 hours ago, Suxals said:

If the document exists ic then it belongs to Lotc and thus you can irply publish it in the forums.

 

Is this so? I cannot find a rule stipulating this, however, this may be in the terms of registration that everyone reads past. If this is the case does all work published on this site fall under that claim? Does that void all rights held before posting on this server? Does this mean LOTC claims all non-cited work, including those from off-site sources such as deviantart or other well known websites creating images used by several members of the community in role-play posts?

 

1 hour ago, ImperialTortoise said:

Don’t speak about something which you have no knowledge of, as mog stated above basically nobody has the scrolls in rp, instead they have snippets and quotes. So if somebody gave you this in rp then they were powergaming 

 

Never claimed this, read the OP please.

 

1 hour ago, Heathen said:

If you don’t have the document in-Characterly, publishing it as your character would be meta-gaming. 

 

This does not address many of my points. Does the rule cited above, PR3, mean that all work must be cited and/or permission given from the creator to be used? If this is the case why can the scrolls be quoted freely without following this guideline? Why has a piece of material seemingly owned by outside sources that refuse to give access to the community allowed to be integral to the role-play of an entire race? Furthermore, my claims of power-gaming were blatantly ignored. How is it possible that this document can be fully remembered when one of the authors claims only two people/ one person and a family have access to the scrolls in their written form? How is it that they can be seamlessly remembered for hundreds of years without a change or edit once taking place? The definition provided, by the server’s wiki team I may add, cites unrealistic acts as power-gaming. I will address this further when responding to Mog as I feel it becoming that he gets a longer response.

 

And under your comment, can the document be published OOCly? Without permission and with proper citation? Does not citing any work imply you are claiming ownership? According to PR3 it does, since an individual needs to cite and/or gain permission of the author.

 

Is this the logic other players have been banned for publishing the scrolls for in the past? Or was it an act of suppression? I am generally uninformed.

 

1 hour ago, drfate786 said:

 

It makes no sense and I agree, if someone infiltrates a church holding a scroll and then copies it and leaks its contents for the whole world to see then by all means that is dynamic RP and NOT against the rules. My guess is that they keep it written on some google document and don’t actually have it written down on any books in-game, which is actually meta since it wouldn’t exist IRP. It’s probably also a copy paste of the dead sea scrolls or something hideously copied in that nature.

 

Read what I said, there’d be no way to obtain the document if they keep it on a google document and don’t have it in-game as an actual item.

 

I would like to know if the scrolls are actually an in-game item? Or is this all solely off of a google doc that several people have access to, including myself. The document is roughly 10000 words long, give or take a hundred or so because of formatting with titles and all. It is a 24 page document as well. The church cites it often but remember that, as stated by Mog, basically nobody has laid eyes on the text. I go more into this soon.

 

49 minutes ago, Old Man Boiendl said:

I would like to address your claims of its not realistic to memorize these writings. 

 

First it isn’t horrendously long. 

 

It is completely plausible and possible for a clergyman to memorize things which are orally passed down. It’s how oral traditions arise in the first place and how many of the stories we know in contemporary society have come about. 

 

As Mogroka said, oocly priests and others are granted access to the scrolls because it’s a matter of ease of access. When this ease of access is allowed, it follows suit that there probably won’t be variations in the writings of priests. But that isn’t particularly a matter of RP, it’s just the realities of life and the limitation of a block building game. 

 

I understand and agree with you, to an extent. I agree 24 pages, 10,000+ words, isn’t that long for a holy book, but it is for a minecraft server.

 

Oral history stands up nicely except if you look at the reality of the societies you cite. First off, while they do not write down these stories they are changed. Over generations the original meaning, symbolism, wording, phrasing, rhythm, and more are changed or lost. This is not the case for the canon, is it now? No, it had stayed the same and not one bit has been lost by the clergy who some how managed to memorize the entire thing, unchanging, for generations upon generations.

 

Now someone will say, certain members of Islam memorize the entire Koran. Yes, they do. And they have referenced work to read off of. They memorize from a book. Canonist do not. They memorize out of thin air. They simply have left 10000+ words unchanged for hundreds of years, and that is believable to you?

 

In fact, in the religions Canonism attempts to mirror there were in fact variations in writings, that is the simple fact. The fact is the church, and certain players as well apparently, do not want the Canon getting out. It is simply there way of holding onto power and using the text as they see fit to drive their role-play, while using it against others. While I mean no disrespect, I will call it how it is. It is a matter of RP when they keep all RP writings standardized as a result OOC control over the document and rules.

 

2 hours ago, Sultan said:

 

Simply fact of the matter there are no Copies of the Scrolls, there is only one of each its a unique thing. Some of the Scrolls are not even within the grasp of the Church. 

 

Priests do not get to read the Scrolls, they do not get to see the Scrolls at best a Priest would have access to transcripts written by High Pontiffs with quotes. They get what they are taught at “Priest teaching” or whatever you want to call it. For ease of access oocly you are given access to the OOC documents containing this info. IRP you would never have such a document at hand or ever see it in your life. There are a handful of people that have access to them one being the High Pontiff the Scroll of Owyn and the Scroll of Sigmund / The Patriarch of Horen family has the Scroll of Godfrey + The Scroll of Horen.

 

And the legal owners of the writing are here, myself being one of them.

 

And to the author you are mixing OOC and IRP. In IRP 99% of Humans, Priests included have no access to the Scrolls, just because you have access to a doc, does not qualify as you in RP having access to them.  

 

So let’s continue to analyze these statements. Keeping in mind all the above information I have written about how the full memorization of oral history unchanged for hundreds of year is in fact unrealistic, and power-gaming as a result. That is the crux of the argument. Since no one has these referenced materials that actually uses them, besides the two aforementioned people in Mog’s post, how is it that the wording, grammar, pronunciation, and everything in unchanged for hundreds of years? I need an explanation to how this is legitimate and how this is not unrealistic, and hence power-gaming.

 

Could you name the other writers of the document, I simply do not know them. Have you and the other authors given permission and/or have been credited for the aforementioned, a many more, uses of the scrolls on the forums? If not, why are these people not being found guilty of PR3.

 

I in no way confuse the two, however I believe that there is a reliance on OOC to defend IC power. The scrolls are protected by an unwritten OOC rule and the people who use them in the Church as if they are fully memorized are committing power-gaming as they cannot possibly have had this unwritten oral history and have it unchanged for hundreds of years, especially when it isn’t even their goal to memorize the document nor is it possible for them to correct mistakes by going to look it up.

 

12 minutes ago, Nathan_Barnett36 said:

Did you read mogs response? Nobody has access to the scrolls. If you were given them in to then fine, but no one has. Releasing them is both metagaming and powergaming if you have no to access to it. You really do hate the empire and it clearly shows. Anything anti empire/ human, you pounce on it.

 

I will reply to this as an edit. He in fact did not say “nobody has access to the scrolls.” He explicitly mentioned two people who do, see the above quoted section for clarification. No one should’ve claimed to have the scrolls in-character, nor did I ever claim this. The two people with access will not release them, obviously, but how did the priests learn to memorize 10,000+ words with no changes for hundreds of years. Power-gaming has to be the reason, plain and simple.

 

---

 

I think I will lay out my points in a list later, in an effort to help get straight answers from the staff and other members of the community. Thank you for helping in this discussion and I hope we can find answers to these questions.

[Archbishop 1784]

29 minutes ago, OverlordCommand said:

The two people with access will not release them, obviously, but how did the priests learn to memorize 10,000+ words with no changes for hundreds of years. Power-gaming has to be the reason, plain and simple.

You clearly did not read Mogs response properly. Priests are taught quotes and the like throughout history, taking them from previous church documents too, they are given the scrolls ooc’ly for ease of use. For example when I made my first thesis, I spoke to the pontiff about what it was going to be about and he found a section of the scrolls which would fit it. 

[Telanir 6975]

Hello OverlordCommand,

 

 

Creative work is especially meaningful in our community—a haven of writers, artists, and builders. Like nothing else, plagiarism undermines creative work. Here we reference works by other authors frequently, however, we have separate rules governing in-character and out-of-character interaction.

 

In-character, your personas may share information privy to them—something they discover, learn, or invent. Anything outside of this sphere is known as metagaming. We do not cite anything in-character.

 

Out-of-character, you may share anything you find of interest (provided it is appropriate). The rule itself is ”Plagiarism is prohibited.”—the spoilers below each rule are useful examples. When the author is unknown (an unlikely scenario), you should act in good faith and respect the material. This means doing what you can, even if it is as little as “The works cited are not my own.”

 

 

Now, a separate issue, about the work of writing cited in this topic. Clear to me, as little as I know about them, the people invested in the “Holy Scrolls” painstakingly safeguard and screen the documents. If you have read the work then there are “good-faith” use-cases. The players posting roleplay-topics as in-character clergy violate no rules. If you discuss a certain section of the work you may do so provided it is clear that you quote it. 

 

However, there is no “good-faith” use-case to my knowledge which involves the copy-paste or document cloning and subsequent mass sharing. On a hub-PvP or hunger-games server none of this matters. But, in the hardcore roleplay-oriented LotC world—I would punish that, no doubt.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Telanir.

[Zacho 2177]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.