Hello everyone,
this post is a followup to the post from yesterday. Basically, the issue was that a Polish blog was copying FTR and got endorsed for it by WG EU. Here’s a letter I wrote to Zbiry (the owner of the blog) earlier today. Not how I imagined spending the morning of the first day of the year, but then again, FTR existence was never a calm one, was it.
I hope you readers, Zbiry and the rest of the Polish and other communities do understand this. I am trying to be fair about this issue as much as I can and I really hope this is the end of it (there are measure that it can be escalated with, but that’s not necessery I think).
Hello Zbiry,
by now you are probably aware, why I am writing you and it saddens me
that it has come to this, but I really see no other alternative. Some
time back, you contacted me about the permission to translate FTR to
Polish and I had no problem with that back then.
I generally have no problem with that anywhere (there are several
language mutations of FTR all around the world, including French,
Romanian and for example Chinese) and I never complained or prohibited
anyone from doing this, as I believe the info belongs to all the
players. As you might have guessed, there is however one thing I do
have a problem with: WG EU’s involvement.
In short, I see your elevation to the ranks of community contributors
for copying FTR content as unfair not only to me, but to you, because
it allows them to reap the benefits without acknowledging the work of
not only me, but others, who I have not seen mentioned in your
translations, for example Russian players like Maiorboltach, who did
put together the notes from Fluke’s stream. I hope and believe this
omission in mentioning him is not intentional.
Therefore, to remedy the situation I’d like to de-escalate the
situation by informing you that the agreement with you about taking
content from FTR has been revoked. I am sure you understand why, given
my relationship to Wargaming EU (and I don’t even mention their
treatment of Dom1n).
I of course don’t want to stop you from translating your own notes
from the Russian sources – by all means, do it for the Polish
community. But keep in mind please that it took me practically half a
year to understand what’s what on Russian forums and to develop some
sort of method to gather the data effectively. It’s a lot of work and
a lot of it depends on my interpretation of events, so in short, there
is simply no way of copying FTR content without me knowing. I am sure
you understand what I mean.
Please understand I don’t blame you – I blame Wargaming EU for this
unfortunate situation. I am sure they knew this would happen, even a
daft person would know. This is after all not how I imagined I’d spend
the first day of the new year and I am sure same goes for you.
I wish you good luck in the future
Silentstalker
As nice as you could do this. Still, consider idea i sent you in email.
It was done already, even yesterday. But I’d prefer not to escalate this. In ideal case, Zbiry goes his own way with his blog and actually earns that Community Contributor title.
It wasn’t about Zbiry but future of FTR in general ;) (and, as a side effect it would prevent such incidents).
Someone pointed that there is similar German blog somewhere , with same status.
If i remember correctly, there is Romanian one and a good one too? It may earn get that status from WG one day too.
And what if Dom1n gets one, just for shits and giggles?
IDK if i should write more here…
OK, one more. Look at this: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/user/eikarrramba-2536476/
He is a Community Contributor, too.
Now, look at website url.
Then look for Q&A translations, with FTR as source.
What now?
Nothing. I am not fond of Eikarramba either, but his blog is already well estabilished and he was doing it for a very long time.
Hey, your (and other contributor’s) original content belongs to you. If someone is taking that content, then placing their name on it…and getting recognition, that’s called plagiarism…and is a crime in the US if they are getting monetary or some other form of payment…I don’t know the EU laws, but I suspect that if he continues to steal your content, now w/out permission, you have the means to eliminate that through the EU court system.
redwing6 (soldier MBSTR NA server)
If it is ok i would also write something to this. First of all i love the work from Silentstalker and when i started with WoT-CoM i asked him if i can translate the things. But it is important for me not just being a copy of ftr and i hope the people see it. The other thing is i translate the Stuff with 1-2 days delay so it stays exlcusive first on ftr and everybody who wants to be informed imediate dont use WoT-CoM!
I have been announced much later as a Contributor but i can say honestly that i dont care about it and if Silentstalker want, that i decide between the translations for WoT-CoM oder staying a Contrubutor i would pick the translations.
So i hope i could write a few things to this matter.
Greetings
EiKarrRamba
I say we should REAAAAALLY push SS to get the “Community Contributer” label-thingy. Make it even.
WolvG/Wolfenworks
EU Recruiter WRECK
SEA Soldier ROKOK
NA (semi)Soldier 23RDB
Steam: |VA|Wolfenworks
You handled it well, SS, hope he can be reasonable.
Sounds fair and reasonable.
I don’t see how is that unfair. I mean yea, sure, he only translates your work, but that’s a work in itself too, right?
And why is it so bad that he got promoted? Its not like he is taking from your wallet, and seeing that he probably is saying from where he got his info, that is indirectly promoting FTR too, right? Cause if he is not giving credit where credit’s due, then that’s a problem, but if he credits FTR for the info in big letters there should be no problem…
Then I should start to translate books and sell them as they are my own.
That’s a whole different matter entirely. You sell them books for money, wich is taking money directly out of the author’s pocket, which is illegal. I don’t see that polish guy taking money out of SS’ pocket.
Ok, It is like using stolen or false passport. Or like falsing exams on studies – u get unfair profits from both. U don’t make money on It, but it’s illegal
No its not. Stop trying to make analogues. For using stolen pasport you can get imprisoned, and for falsing exams if you get busted you pay the price.
The money is involved. Community Contributors got KV-220 and 7500 gold recently, and SS didn’t get anything.
Well, TECHNICALLY, money could have been involved if I for example had ads here and he “drew away the readers” (as I posted, Polish people, make a significant readerbase). But no, even that I wouldn’t mind (just as I don’t mind Dom1n putting ads on his site). What pissed me off is the “community contributor” title to a blog that is a FTR copycat.
Look at it from the bright side, there is a community contributor that got his rank from your work, which technically makes you a rank above the community contributors, aka more important than them.
But you still retain the dignity of not being WG’s bitch that only glorifies them without showing their fails.
He doesn’t credit FTR, that’s the problem.
Just get on his blog and click that FTR button ok? We will see where it will redirect you. Here’s a little hint bro if you cant find it: http://imageshack.us/a/img855/6684/dg9u.png
Althought not every post will have it cuz’ their are using other sources as well.
PS:Their are going to stop translating FTR and thei will focus on other russian sources.
the problem was that he deleted ss initials before annotations marking them as his own. plus not citing where ss sources for that info came from.
Yea, SS could have just demanded more credit for his work. Stealing your words out of your mouth is not cool.
maybe post on your real nickname
This is my real nickname?
Your treatment by WG EU says a lot about their mindeset. Your leaking information from the past in my opinion was advertisement for WoT, and not hurting it at all. It is amazing how they reacted to this, only suspecting trouble for WG.net to come of it, and how made a persona non grata out of you. Narrow minded paranoia are the words that seem to suit best here.
Here’s what falathi (Polish community manager said about this situation)
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/338685-silentstalker-zly-czlowiek/page__pid__6860231#entry6860231
“Since I see there are some people waiting for a statement from a community management, it’s time to add a couple of words.
First of: pluralism is a good thing. It’s OK if players get their news and gather many different opinions from vaious sources. That’s how freedom of speech works. Quality of the sources is a different matter and that’s something for people themselves to judge.
When it comes to being a CC and how to become one… It depends on the level of commitment from candidates and how good their work actually is – the relationship with the community (here it means wg eu, not the “playerbase” part of it obviously – orzel) doesn’t matter here (orly?… – orzel). The relationship with WG as a whole is no indicator either, provided that no rules are broken and the candidate pays attention not only to the actual content, but to the form too (so remember guys – if you want to stomp wg eu into the ground – write a sonet or someting and they’ll love it – orzel). For example: hallack5, have received a few warning points on the forums and his relationship with wg eu is neutral at best. But, we (wg eu – orzel) found his videos informative and helpful, that’s why he’s a cc.
Therefore I don’t think that the blog mentioned (cyberzbiry – orzel) will be used to “spew wg propaganda” (some guys have noticed and mentioned in this topic that articles about wg eu failures were not translated by them – orzel). What’s more – I wouldn’t want that (yeah, that’s why wg eu is always so butthurt when there’s yet another WG EU FAIL article on ftr lololololol – orzel). I hope that this blog will be a valuable source of info – from players, to players. And I’d rather like it factual than “uncritical” (that’s the right word? I don’t know… O_o – orzel)”
Soooooooo, if that’s the case…. Where’s CC for SS? Or are you just a hypocrite falathi? Anyway – I had some respect for him, but after such a big dose of bullshit it went down right ’till it hit the “0″ mark. Well done.
They wont give SS a CC title, because he is not afraid to uncover their own bullshit.
They are correct in case of hallack – he is even less than “neutral” but he is polite enough not to start every video with “FU WG EU morons!!!”.
It is also true that his yt channel aims to be commercial and part of this politeness is because he knows better than to make enemies when not necessary…
Nixxxie, all your posts you write here, makes you look like a WG EU staff member. It’s the way you keep defending wg, no matter what big of fucktards they are.
Lol, any way you can fix me some money from them :P , so i can be rewarded for my “work”?
It’s really disappointing how fewer and fewer people can read carefully, understand the text and then make conclusion using reason and sanity. I see this here in comments and in forum topic regarding this shitstorm – people make all kinds of BS assumptions that could be avoided if they had used their brains properly at the first place (and spare them them shame – but they probably don’t feel shame anyway because hell, internet is about writing, not reading).
Perhaps SS could have made those WG EU fail posts in a more tactful manner but then again he was never the one to mince words for the sake of PC. WG EU’s treatment didn’t exactly give him any reasons to do so either. Respect is earned, not given.
Players want uncensored news about game and that can be achieved only by people who are not involved in any kind of relationship with wargaming (or any other company in other games case). Its not that community contributors will allways lie (or not tell whole true) and write only good things about developers, but if someone want to save impartiarity, he will never agree to be decorated by people hes writing about in first place. Every community contributor writing stuff about WG products, got in their subconsciously thoose premium tanks with gold, and this CC tittle under their nicks, and that can influence stuff they write without even knowing it.
We got plenty of examples in real life. For example big pharmaceutics companies are funding vacations for various md (medical doctors). Thoose md l8r are selecting medications for their patients and guess which company products they will assign to them hmmm?. Yes youre right, medicaments of same company whos funding nice stuff to them. Currently there is a proposal in European Pairlament to cut thoose practics off for good.
In other words, if there is any doubts – then there is no doubts!.
+1
Well said..we have that problem here in the US…most of our journolistic outlets have become the mouthpiece/propaganda organ of one party…
To be a genuine reporter, you have to be unconnected w/any other organization. That way your reporting can’t be tainted in any way. You will always have a bias of some kind (we’re human after all), but you can do your best to limit how that influences your writing.
FRT is one of my daily reads for real news of a game that I genuinely enjoy. learned on the US server just how petty and mean WG can be. During the North American CW map rollout, WGNA essentially set things up to give the top 4 alliances a million gold pay off. There were 14 of us “mid-tier” clan leaders who protested vociferously, both on the forums (Council of Armoured Forces & General forums) and behind the scenes. We managed to put together a 300+ clan coalition representing more than 30,000 players who essentially said that if the tournament wasn’t changed to give ALL the reasonably competitive clans a chance, then we’d turn off the money spigot. WGNA sent representatives to all of the coalition clans TS/Vent servers to talk with the clans.
WGNA was really shocked when they heard over and over that huge numbers of players were quite pissed about how they were giving a payoff to those 4 clans who manipulated the 4 landing tournaments so that the 4 top clans all “landed”…furthermore, they didn’t realize how angry people were when those 4 clans/alliances were informed ahead of time that the landings would be opened earlier than originally planned thus they had advance warning when to drop their chips…Needless to say, that didn’t go over well with most of the clans on our server.
But, to make a long story short, Jinx77 told us ringleaders that there would be repercussions to leading the protest…all 14 of us were booted from CoAF, and developed “bugged accounts” that kept us from posting on the forums. I was the last to have my account “unbugged” when I resigned leadership of my clan (after 21 months) and left that clan….imagine that, once I quit my clan, I could suddenly post on the forums again. All of the ringleaders were able to post on the forums…AFTER they both resigned leadership positions and left our clans…but WG is very fair, right?
I have been systematically removed from Balkan Forum community by two moderators just because my popularity in the same community was exceeding theirs and for telling the truth how they never do anything for us and use their powers just to shut people who say even benign things about WG.
Guess what, they started piling up warning points on to my account, one after another, for things that were totally non braking any rules of the forum. When I wrote to the EU manager about their actions he didn’t even respond, and when they found out I was complaining they stopped with the abuse for a while, saw nothing bad happening to them and then just perma-banned me.
That is the reality of WG EU and their employees. So, I understand your case.
Welcome to the club.