Re: enough is enough, and it's time for a change.
Defender, I like almost every bit of your proposal. It's a lot of legwork, and I feel that a bit of that legwork is needless, but otherwise, we're in agreement here.
For instance: I don't believe that the copyright holder should be the only one who can start an investigation. I've hit on this before.
I also am not a fan of restricting action against well-known violators of these standards - i.e., those who have already been well-documented - when that evidence overwhelmingly proves that assets are being used irrespective of copyright or ownership.
I do believe, however, that a framework like yours is an excellent way to deal with future projects whose status at present is truly unknown.
Key, I said it before, I'll say it again. You say no harm is being done by using assets from big companies. First of all, they don't know they're being pirated, so how can you say there's no harm? Second, are you willing to inform them that there are copyright violations in our community, in order to give them a fair chance to respond? Third and probably most damning, let's assume for just a moment that I buy the "no harm done" argument regarding big companies. Do you really think this hypocrisy - where it's okay to steal from Nintendo but not okay to steal from other devs - actually -helps people? Do you think that maybe, I dunno, it might be encouraging bad dev practices by being too soft on behaviour we really ought to try and move away from? Because I do, and by and large, the rest of the team does as well. So the harm being done is potential - if a big company gets hold of it and decides to raise hell - and internal (because our community has a bad habit of just taking shortcuts and claiming it's okay because the folks they're stealing from aren't going to go bankrupt or be financially impacted). In case you forgot, some of the rules we espouse here on this forum deal with decency. This is why you get warned when you personally attack someone. This is why you may get cautioned or warned if you can't keep your constructive criticism from boiling over into attacks. This is why we have rules against spam, against topic hijacking, against phobic language and racism and all the rest. Is predicating this rule change partially on decency really such a new and amazing precedent? If that were our only reason, or even our primary reason, then maybe you'd have a strong argument. But it's not, and you don't. Communities are governed not just for the financial and professional safety of developers, but also with respect to the indecent things some forum members participate in, support or in many cases try to hand-wave as tolerable. That's just how it is.
And at this point, I'd -also like to remind you that we aren't talking about being iron-fisted on this, banning everything, banning users for single accidental infractions. We can't read your PMs and we're not going to try. We're not going to stalk you off the site and use that info to build cases against you. We seriously do not care what you play and how you play it outside of this very specific space; your choices are truly your own. But in this space, we have a duty to do what is best for the community. Sometimes that means updating or creating a rule to deal with new behaviour that is unacceptable. Sometimes that means taking a firmer stand on an issue that has the potential to cause harm, and which fosters problematic behaviours in the community itself. It also means accountability, honesty, integrity and transparency. That's why we're here. That's why we apologize if we do something wrong. That's why this process I alluded to, and which Defender laid out, sounds like an extremely good working frame for how to deal with situations like this. This system is not punitive or retributive. It's collaborative. Work with us and we will happily work with you. It's not rocket science.
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