Support NeoGAF

[RatskyWatsky]

-Full search functionality (w/ post history etc.) back
-Multi-quote button for easily quoting multiple posts.
-Automatic link back to original post when quoting someone
-Automatic resizing of quoted images for when nubs don't remove the img tags

UI-wise, all looks identical except for removing the redundant "reply" link on the left of each post and replacing it with a multiquote button. And I'll probably remove the google custom search thing since it's awful.

All of those sound great, but the multi quote feature is gonna be especially useful. And I did always wonder why there was a "reply" link, because the "quote" link does the same thing, but, you know, quotes too.

BTW, who is the guy in EviLore's avatar?

 

[Professor Beef]

Evilore is really bringing the big guns. Glad to hear it!

 

[Baconbitz]

Is this real life?

Seriously, is this real?

 

[Vyer]

Wait...what happened on the gaming side?

 

[gdt]

All of those sound great, but the multi quote feature is gonna be especially useful. And I did always wonder why there was a "reply" link, because the "quote" link does the same thing, but, you know, quotes too.

BTW, who is the guy in EviLore's avatar?

Main character of Vagabond, an incredible manga. At least until a ghost pops up and Musashi sits in a cell talking to himself for like 2 years. Then it got dreadful. And there was those 60 odd issues with a mute...

 

[Neuromancer]

Wait...what happened on the gaming side?

What do you mean?

 

[Slavik81]

All of those sound great, but the multi quote feature is gonna be especially useful. And I did always wonder why there was a "reply" link, because the "quote" link does the same thing, but, you know, quotes too.

BTW, who is the guy in EviLore's avatar?

I use the reply link all the time if I want to respond to a thread, but don't want to quote anyone.

 

[Flavius]

Doing my best to muster up the strength to be all bent out of shape over this.

Fuck, think I just used it all up.

Will someone grab me a beer? And will you put one of those little coozies on it? I don't like my hand getting too cold...or wet.

That'd be nice.

 

[Typographenia]

Wait...what happened on the gaming side?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=450058

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Main character of Vagabond, an incredible manga. At least until a ghost pops up and Musashi sits in a cell talking to himself for like 2 years. Then it got dreadful. And there was those 60 odd issues with a mute...

Ah, thanks. It sounds pretty cool.

I use the reply link all the time if I want to respond to a thread, but don't want to quote anyone.

I just quickly erase the quote. It only takes a second.

(multi quote would be useful here. )

 

[NomarTyme]

GAF overreacting! I DO NOT BELIEVE IT!

 

[Risible]

So, given the TOS, I assume Scoularis' permission was not asked for? Did I miss that somewhere in this thread?

Kotaku should be ashamed. Their idea of content creation is re-posting forum users posts from another site? That is just plain embarrassing. And quite frankly I don't understand Evilore's decision to allow this.

As much as I love GAF, I feel this is the start of a long, slippery slope. GAF will be inextricably linked with Kotaku, and Kotaku has the reputation it does for a reason.

And before you cry "entitlement", be aware we are the product that NeoGAF sells. GAF earns its money by selling ads - Evilore sells our eyeballs to ad purchasers for money. In a very real sense we are the product that GAF offers to potential ad buyers. Given that, I don't feel it's wrong to put our two cents in.

 

[Slavik81]

So, given the TOS, I assume Scoularis' permission was not asked for? Did I miss that somewhere in this thread?

Did they not? They say at the bottom:

Ask NeoGAF is a republished thread from popular gaming forum NeoGAF reprinted with express permission from the site.

 

[Fusebox]

Did they not? They say at the bottom:

Express permission from Neogaf means EvilLore, not the actual thread starter.

 

[mcrae]

Oh EviLore, I know you're against this type of shit. What's the deal?

this post seems like 100% ignorance. Evilore is the exclusive decision maker behind gaf, if these are the TOS changes then he must be for them.




...no?

 

[Yaska]

As they said in first few pages. Gaming sites like Kotaku will post our threads as news anyway with or without permission.

So atleast the forum can get something in return for Failtaku shamelessly ripping our posts. And there was the whole ordeal with advertisers because "adult content" on this site after all. Also do note that many use adblockers and such to block all the ads on this forum.

Edit: I don't like it anymore than you do.

 

[joshcryer]

I have no problem with this. I do hope that NeoGAF (ie, EvilLore) is getting at least a small kickback for it, so it can help with site costs and whatnot, otherwise it's really par for the course on internet sites.

 

[Timedog]

neogaf owns Gary Whitta's scripts from now on!

Guys, is this ^^^^ true??

 

[hateradio]

Guys, is this ^^^^ true??

Here's a taste of his latest work.

Blame Space: Dog what's going on here?
Timedog: I don't know Space. It seems that we're in a parallel universe where you and I have switched bodies!
Blame Space: Dude! No way! I'm you, but you're me! It's like we're in each other's mind!
Together: It's mind-off!

© NeoGAF LLC 2011. All Rights Reserved.

 

[ajf009]

Im curious as to why looking up my own post history and thread history isnt possible

 

[Ydahs]

Well, I'm no mod, so I'm just offering advice, but Evilore removed the smiley because people were just making one-word replies (lol) that obviously got annoying. The code is still there.

Which seems reasonable to me. Why bother posting "lol" at all, does it really contribute? Seems sort of infantile.

I thought it was removed because people were starting to use it to for opinions they disagreed with instead of replying in a constructive manner to that opinion.

 

[Mechazawa]

Im curious as to why looking up my own post history and thread history isnt possible

A large strain on resources, apparently.

I will say Gaf doesn't give 501 errors every 3 minutes like it used to, so it might be for the better.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

C. By registering an account at NeoGAF.com and participating (including but not limited to submitting posts or private messages on NeoGAF.com), you hereby grant NeoGAF LLC and our licensees, distributors, agents, representatives and other authorized users, a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license under all copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, privacy and publicity rights and other intellectual property rights you own or control to use, reproduce, transmit, display, exhibit, distribute, index, comment on, modify, create derivative works based upon, perform and otherwise exploit the messages posted or private messages sent on NeoGAF.com, in whole or in part, in all media formats and channels now known or hereafter devised, for any and all purposes including entertainment, news, advertising, promotional, marketing, publicity, trade or commercial purposes, all without further notice to you, with or without attribution, and without the requirement of any permission from or payment to you or to any other person or entity.

What is this in layman?

 

[Ashes]

@flying phoenix: Users give to Neogaf, the company, a license to their posts and pms. Neogaf may use that license how they want, whereever they want, with whoever they want. And they can do this without telling you, or asking you for permission.

Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert. I simply think that I can speak plain English. There are lots of issues related to original I.P and creative content, that have been raised in this thread, and answered to some extent, and EviLore himself, the site owner, has aired his views. And of course, this is all happening on the Internet.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

@flying phoenix: Neogaf users give permission to Neogaf, the company, a license to their posts and pms. Neogaf may use that license how they want, whereever they want, with whoever they want. And they can do this without telling you, or asking you for permission.

Disclaimer: I'm no legal expert. I simply think that I can speak plain English. There are lots of issues related to original I.P and creative content, that have been raised in this thread, and answered to some extent, and EviLore himself, the site owner, has aired his views. And of course, this is all happening on the Internet.

Hmm.

So here are some questions I have:

- I'm currently in a court case accused of being a drug dealer. Evilore digs through my PMs and comes across a PM of mine describing that I have coke parties with friends. So Evilore can bring this up in court without my permission?

- I decided to create a series of short stories on GAF in a thread of mine. I eventually make it big by them. Can Evliore sue me for property control because he owns the content I post?

 

[Buddha Beam]

Here's another question...
If I post an image or post a short story with my watermark/copyright notice on it, NeoGAF, llc. can use that based on the TOS how they like... but can they edit my watermark out and/or replace it with one of their own?

 

[Ashes]

@ flying Phoenix:

1. I'm not sure about criminal proceedings.
2. Where i live, copyright is automatically given to authors. You still own your stories. He can't sue you for printing your works.

Let me just stick my oar in here briefly. Usual disclaimer - details vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so I'm just looking at common law and generally-recognised international copyright law.

Basically I'm not too fussed about this at all.

1) Your copyright

You have copyright in anything you post that is original to you (that includes original photos, text, photoshops etc). Licensing these to NeoGAF through the TOS does not take that away. So you have not lost any legal rights if somebody steals it in whole or in part.

2) Licence to NeoGAF

The revised TOS give NeoGAF a perpetual etc etc licence to republish etc etc blah blah. It does not mean that NeoGAF gets your copyright. It does mean that you can't sue for copyright breach either NeoGAF or anyone that NeoGAF lets use it.

The retrospectively applicable TOS looks a bit dodgy - but no more so than many others out there (and they haven't really been tested by the courts, so I am unsure of the impact). It looks a lot of words, but they are mostly in practice harmless except for two things.

First: there's a potential exposure if NeoGAF ever gets taken over by someone less scrupulously straightforward than EvilLore. I'd prefer if the licence were non-transferable rather than transferable, so that (a) we are protected in the event of a takeover (b) EvilLore gets an extra negotiating point to avoid a takeover if he wants to (c) nobody (e.g. Kotaku) will be able to argue they had a transferred licence and syndicate your post off to umpteen million other places.

Second: there's a potential issue if a copied post gives ground for action by a third party. For example, there are some posts on GAF (including some of mine) that are potentially libellous if taken out of the context of the whole thread. And you could end up on the wrong end of a libel case. I don't think that's dreadfully likely though, and in any event EvilLore is not stupid enough to licence such posts out anyway.

3) There's a way around it (there's ALWAYS a way around it)

NeoGAF can only claim to be able to licence the copyright of something that is original to the poster. If the poster doesn't have copyright in the material posted, then NeoGAF can't acquire any such rights by virtue of the TOS.

So, if you're really worried about this, write out your posts and have your wife post them on her account. They're not her copyright, so NeoGAF acquires no rights in them whatsoever.

If you don't have a wife - go get one.

 

[jaxword]

I thought it was removed because people were starting to use it to for opinions they disagreed with instead of replying in a constructive manner to that opinion.

Same thing as what I said, people were being immature about it.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Here's another question...
If I post an image or post a short story with my watermark/copyright notice on it, NeoGAF, llc. can use that based on the TOS how they like... but can they edit my watermark out and/or replace it with one of their own?

with any text that you post on NeoGAF.com in public or private, yes, they can. other than user avatars, user created images aren't hosted on NeoGAF, just the links to them, so images wouldn't be covered under the new TOS.

 

[MMaRsu]

I dont care about search anymore, its been too long..

Just give me the weed topic back man. The fuck :/

 

[Squirrel Killer]

- I'm currently in a court case accused of being a drug dealer. Evilore digs through my PMs and comes across a PM of mine describing that I have coke parties with friends. So Evilore can bring this up in court without my permission?

Assuming you're in the US, if the prosecutors find out about the PM (with or without Evilore's help) they can subpena them and force Evilore to produce them. They could do that with the old TOS as well.

- I decided to create a series of short stories on GAF in a thread of mine. I eventually make it big by them. Can Evliore sue me for property control because he owns the content I post?

Could he sue you? Well, anyone can sue anyone else, but that doesn't mean they have a legitimate shot at winning. Under the new TOS, Evilore still wouldn't have a case to sue you for property control, but he does have a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license to do what he wants with your work. In the unlikely event you make it big based on your work posted on NeoGAF, he could reproduce those works without your permission or the permission of whoever is paying you for your work.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Could he sue you? Well, anyone can sue anyone else, but that doesn't mean they have a legitimate shot at winning. Under the new TOS, Evilore still wouldn't have a case to sue you for property control, but he does have a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license to do what he wants with your work. In the unlikely event you make it big based on your work posted on NeoGAF, he could reproduce those works without your permission or the permission of whoever is paying you for your work.

So Evilore can publsih my short stories on a book or on his site and sell them to make money?

Sorry I'm just intrigued by this.

 

[Izayoi]

Could he sue you? Well, anyone can sue anyone else, but that doesn't mean they have a legitimate shot at winning. Under the new TOS, Evilore still wouldn't have a case to sue you for property control, but he does have a perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable (in whole or part) worldwide license to do what he wants with your work. In the unlikely event you make it big based on your work posted on NeoGAF, he could reproduce those works without your permission or the permission of whoever is paying you for your work.

Huh.

That's... kind of shitty.

I know Evil himself wouldn't do something like that, but what happens if a less ethical party acquires the site?

 

[Scotch]

Was hardly past post 100 and you couldn't CTRL+F 'Evil' on a couple pages?

edit: So the thread in the OT the other week got 57 banned, what's the over/under for more people over reacting to this and leaving/getting banned in the process?

When was this thread? Link?

 

[Flo_Evans]

ALL OF YOUR POSTS ARE BELONG TO US.

 

[SuperÑ]

How is this different that what we had before?

 

[iNvid02]

so i think i got it

- images hosted elsewhere aren't affected by the TOS so you should still be able to post your shots etc in photography threads without worry

- for all the creative writing and amazing stories all you need to do is post it onto your blog first or use tinypaste which is a timed service with passwords etc.

so its all good right?

 

[Sneds]

so i think i got it

- images hosted elsewhere aren't affected by the TOS so you should still be able to post your shots etc in photography threads without worry

- for all the creative writing and amazing stories all you need to do is post it onto your blog first or use tinypaste which is a timed service with passwords etc.

so its all good right?

In practice yes, my understanding is that you would be covered.

Morally, I still think the new TOS is dubious.

 

[gofreak]

How is this different that what we had before?

You owned the copyright to your posts.

I think you still do despite the ToS modification. I mean if it was ever challenged. So maybe nothing's really changed.

I don't mind the ToS change per se. I mean, it's nice to know now. I think it might dissuade some people from posting certain things, but as long as we know.

I would be interested to hear though if anything has been said about how things are going to be handled differently in the future, or if Evilore and Kotaku have reflected (i.e. apologised) on what happened yesterday, privately or otherwise to ScOULaris?

In most cases ToS changes like this are purely technical/academic, but the incident yesterday was a really bad exercising of the intention/spirit of a ToS change like that. And I'm not sure Evilore has expressed any regret on it?

It would be nice and would restore a bit of confidence IMO.

As a humble suggestion, I think Evilore also needs to consult more with the community before enacting things like this. We've had two recent incidents (this Kotaku one, and the prior 'sponsored thread' one) that have gone down like lead balloons, and that could have been avoided with broader consultation.

 

[Mista Koo]

Well that kills any plans for me to write long original OPs that could work as blog posts even though no one would read them then.
I'm not allowed to make "Click here for the rest of the OP"s, am I?

But then you're giving your search data to evil Google.

Better than giving it to Kotaku.

Spoiler

I'm kidding.. I swear I am!

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

You owned the copyright to your posts.

I think you still do despite the ToS modification. I mean if it was ever challenged. So maybe nothing's really changed.

I don't mind the ToS change per se. I mean, it's nice to know now. I think it might dissuade some people from posting certain things, but as long as we know.

I would be interested to hear though if anything has been said about how things are going to be handled differently in the future, or if Evilore and Kotaku have reflected (i.e. apologised) on what happened yesterday, privately or otherwise to ScOULaris?

In most cases ToS changes like this are purely technical/academic, but the incident yesterday was a really bad exercising of the intention/spirit of a ToS change like that. And I'm not sure Evilore has expressed any regret on it?

It would be nice and would restore a bit of confidence IMO.

As a humble suggestion, I think Evilore also needs to consult more with the community before enacting things like this. We've had two recent incidents (this Kotaku one, and the prior 'sponsored thread' one) that have gone down like lead balloons, and that could have been avoided with broader consultation.

What would Evilore/Kotaku apologize for exactly? What was "really bad exercising of the intention/spirit of a ToS change like that"? Enacting things like what? It's always been the policy he just never had it explicitly put in writing which he did this time after he granted permission to Kotaku.

 

[gofreak]

What would Evilore/Kotaku apologize for exactly? What was "really bad exercising of the intention/spirit of a ToS change like that"? Enacting things like what? It's always been the policy he just never had it explicitly put in writing which he did this time after he granted permission to Kotaku.

Kotaku published something they had no right to.

Evilore had no rights over that content. It wasn't his permission to give.

If Kotaku wanted to publish that content they should have contacted ScOULaris directly.

It was only after this was raised that suddenly the ToS changed - which I think changed nothing about the circumstances of the above.

(And, by the way, I think they should still do that in the future to make sure it's water tight. Why bother going through Evilore? Get permission from Evilore to use the 'neoGAF' name in the column title, but ask the poster for the right to use the content. That would sidestep any mess and respect everyone. Evilore says there's no money involved here so there's no loss to him - in fact it's less bother for him this way.)

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Kotaku published something they had no right to.

Evilore had no rights over that content. It wasn't his permission to give.

If Kotaku wanted to publish that content they should have contacted ScOULaris directly.

It was only after this was raised that suddenly the ToS changed - which I think changed nothing about the circumstances of the above.

(And, by the way, I think they should still do that in the future to make sure it's water tight. Why bother going through Evilore? Get permission from Evilore to use the 'neoGAF' name in the column title, but ask the poster for the right to use the content. That would sidestep any mess and respect everyone.)

What you feel they should do does not mean they are legally obligated to do so.

 

[gofreak]

What you feel they should do does not mean they are legally obligated to do so.

Yes, the latter part of my post is perhaps less about legal obligation (although I'd question if the ToS change would hold up anywhere), and more about simple respect and courtesy for the community.

But the former? About the ScOULaris post? They absolutely had a legal obligation to ask him and they didn't. Whether an apology has happened there isn't really any of my business, I just hope it happened, and if it did it might reassure others.

 

[demon]

wait wait....what's this about ScOULaris? And who's ScOULaris?

 

[onken]

Those things will never hold up.

 

[Futureman]

As someone who posts photos/drawings/videos on here, I'm not too concerned. All of my stuff is hosted externally, so there is no issue? Even so, most of my stuff is basically unfinished/unmarketable content, I doubt someone could make a buck off it.

but the Kotaku thing is beyond bizarre to me. To be honest, I thought Kotaku was banned on GAF? I guess not if we are giving them free content to publish.

 

[noah111]

^ Yeah, I also remember Kotaku being banned on GAF a while back, as well as some other site which I forget.

 

[FlyingTeacup]

^ Yeah, I also remember Kotaku being banned on GAF a while back, as well as some other site which I forget.

they redeemed themselves by pissing off sony if not wrong with some early expose on home.

 

[gofreak]

wait wait....what's this about ScOULaris? And who's ScOULaris?

Since some people may not be fully aware of what happened, and are under the impression the ToS change was merely some administrative tidying up or a technicality, this is roughly what happen.

ScOULaris posted a rather nice thread here a couple of days ago: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=449968

A day later, yesterday, the post appeared word for word on Kotaku, under a new 'neoGAF Asks' column. Apparently with "with express permission from the site".

The problem is, it was not NeoGAF's permission to give. ScOULaris was never asked permission, or indeed even informed by anyone before it popped up on Kotaku. No poster ever gave license to NeoGAF to syndicate their posts to third party commercial interests.

A thread appeared, some posters started to question how this could happen, and in the process of this thread the ToS was updated to include a clause laying claim to reproduction rights to posters' content.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but since then, there's effectively been silence from Evilore on what happened, and whether he considers what happened there to be OK, and what his intentions around syndication are in the future, whether he'll repeat this etc. etc.

I'm troubled by it because when I think of any other context, it would be entirely outrageous, and I think it is no less so here, really. If Facebook started trawling user's posts for things that might be of interest to the New York Times or CNN, and such content started to appear on sites like that without the user's permission or knowledge, there'd be world war 3 over it (and a swift backdown and apology, I'm sure). People say 'meh, every site has clauses like this, look at Facebook etc.' but I've never heard of major site doing what happened yesterday here.

Fundamentally, IMO, when people post here the spirit and intention is that it's a voluntary contribution to this community. It's not a license for things to reposted elsewhere for the profit of others.