BREAKING NEWS: The Daily Neopets Battlepedia

[Guest HBK]

<br />Xepha says that she really doesn't want to work on an iteam database any soon! She knows how long it was to add 1000 weapons (since it's about the share she added) and there are way much more items in Neopia than weapons!<br /><br />Though, we should put some efforts onto a customization guide!<br />

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Well, I was thinking more like this: you (the staff) invite a bunch of members to participate being temporary Item Adders. Their job is to lookup items and add them to the database. Now, actual staff members will orientate the process, but it the Item Adders job to see if the item number, descriptions, etc...is correct.

 

It's kind of like TDN Y2 Beta. You invite people to participate, with a series of pre-requisites (+150 posts, etc...) and if accepted, they enter that project and agree to help them out. I believe it's a good suggestion, although I bet the whole staff team are quite tired after compiling such a large battledome database. :)

 

Customization...yeah! That's a good idea, actually. With the NC Mall getting quite popular and more customizable items being launched weekly, it's kinda hard to follow up, and I think it should be all in a database, without prices (otherwise it'd be too hard to maintain, what with inflation and so on), and with a nice general description and a sample image of a pet wearing that same item.

 

I'm sure many people would be interested in participating (including myself), and with TDN growing bigger by the day, it's our job to provide our visitors and current members with up-to-date news, guides and Neopets information. ;)

 

At least, that's my view on it. :P

[The Big Cheese]

Item Adders... seems familiar ;)

 

 

I think our next project is redoing the customization guide... but who really knows?

[Guest HBK]

Item Adders... seems familiar ;)

 

 

I think our next project is redoing the customization guide... but who really knows?

 

I know, it was JN's project a while ago....

 

I just believe that the customization guide could be spruced up a bit what with the quantity of wearable items out today. ^_^

[nannerz]

Sorry to burst your bubble but In-Depth Battlepedia has been around for YEARS and is considered THE resource for all things battledome. I can't help but notice you guys are basically taking what amounts to countless hours of testing IDB members have done to find weapons stats and simply copied into your database. Sure you're presenting it in a slightly different format, but it doesn't change the fact that you have not done those tests on 2500 items as THEY have done. I have been a fan of the IDB for years, and to be perfectly honest, am infuriated anyone would dare to present their own "battlepedia" without having invested the same amount of work.

[Samuel]

Nannerz, throwing around allegations like that with no support is, unfortunately, quite regrettable. The team has been working on this since October. They have - and for some time I with them - worked their backsides off bringing that project to you guys, I assure you.

 

Competition between sites is what makes sites stand out. A major rival site has released a database which is exactly similar to neoitems.net; they've not done it because they're bored, it's to gain more visitors, provide a good feature which people use, and ultimately shine through.

 

And, in my view, this competition has shone through on TDN's side; the site provides information in a much cleaner, much easier, much better way than IDB does, and is up-to-date as much as it can be.

 

And regardless of that, IDB provides a link to a Creative Commons licence on every page of their site, which is a recognised licence which states that they give the right to non-commercial use of their work to share (copy, transmit and distribute) and remix (adapt) the work on the site. Even if TDN did make use of IDB's resources and community intellect - which I can assure you they did not to such an extent that it would be "stealing" - it would be legal under the licence applied to the site anyway.

[nannerz]

Trust me, I have looked up several weapons descriptions on this battlepedia that are uncannily similar to what IDB presents. Where are your credits for who performed the weapons tests? You HAVE to do tests not only to come up with the icons, but also the cases of icon averages on variable weapons, partial icons, and weapons that have a variety of different effects.

 

Even working since October, I doubt that's enough time to go through and test EACH of the claimed 2500 weapons one-by-one. First off, some of those are near impossible to get your hands on, much less have tests run on them.

 

If you want to honestly complete as another resource, please start from scratch and do your own research has IDB has put YEARS into doing (not months, YEARS).

 

And I'm pretty sure that when you copy and paste some of the text word for word, it constitutes at least plagiarism and therefore stealing.

[Samuel]

I didn't claim that the staff had done that much testing, that they'd tested a load of weapons. That's true. But we did as much research as we could - and you'll notice TDN is doing weapons tests right now on the weapons that they cant find.

 

And nonetheless, TDN is legally free to copy and redistribute the whole site pretty much in whole - word-for-word - if they had wanted to, because of the Creative Commons licence which IDB has put themselves under, effectively giving TDN the right to copy as they so desire with accreditation - if they had wanted to.. Stealing isn't a matter that appears in this situation, simply because IDB has entered themselves into a licence which allows you to take the information - much like Wikipedia. (And do you think that major companies don't use information from other resources? All the world's major news agencies take most of their news from companies who report the news, and don't actually make it themselves. A lot of the world's major broadcasters rely on other resources, such as Reuters and Associated Press, to do the job for them. TDN could do that with IDB, but they haven't.)

 

That's besides the point. I know full well how much effort people put into that department, and they've come up with an end product that is much easier and much nicer for visitors to use. And that's exactly the point of competition. Of course TDN want to honestly compete as a resource - and seeing as they haven't copied word-for-word from IDB as you claim, they're already doing that. They're very much competeing as a good and better alternative resource, with the layout and tools they've already implemented (and I know there's more to come, that IDB certainly don't have).

 

Let's not get all shouty, anyways. Ooerr.

[Ian]

We realize that a few of our notes have been copied from IDB and we are working on correcting this. All of the staff here (combined) added weapons to our database and some of the staff here, I guess, thought it was OK to plagiarize. We apologize for this. When I heard about this, I took serious concern and am extremely sorry for this. I'll be speaking with each one that did plagiarize and reprimand each one accordingly. Please do not hold the entire site at fault, as it was a select few that stole the information. We're reviewing every single weapon right now and editing stolen content.

 

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

[nannerz]

Maybe you should do some comparisons yourself Sam, and you'll see how many are copied straight off word for word.

 

For your example, yes companies hire other companies to do jobs for them, but first, they always credit their source. Second, they don't republish the same thing under a different name wrapped up in a different package.

 

The sheer volume of information "borrowed" at least warrants an acknowledgment that you took your information straight off of their site. That common courtesy isn't attempted anywhere.

 

And at this point, I find it really disappointing that you guys act as if you have done nothing wrong.

[Samuel]

As i've stated twice now, it is totally legal because IDB have agreed - when they added the CC licence to their site - that the information is free to reuse in any shape or form.

 

Nonetheless, Ian has just apologised for the few mistakes that were made, and I'd hope you'd accept that.

 

I don't need to make comparisons - I speak to every staff member here and I know that they're all reliable people who do their jobs amazingly well. (And seriously, how many ways can you phrase some of the notes that would be on some items? There's only a few ways of saying "limit one", and "limit one" is the most obvious one that anyone would use - hence why it's a phrase that TDN staff members probably chose.)

 

Legally, nothing is wrong. That's that. Morally, there've been a few cases where plagiarism might have occured, but that's being dealt with. I think, unfortunately, you fail to see the amount of effort that has gone into tdnBP. The site is much more functional than IDB, and runs much nicer; in addition, the workload was spread over around 6 people, whereas IDB probably has loads of staff and certainly uses its community to keep it running. Six people to pull that off is a remarkable ask, and they've certainly pulled it off very well.

 

Personally, I consider that the end of the story; Ian certainly has apologised, and I'd imagine you'd do well to understand the various issues raised. tdnBP is perfectly legal, is (in my view) a much better competition for IDB, and the effort that has gone into it is astounding. They've done really well, and Ian's made sure that it won't happen again (and they're going to check all the items again anyway to stop plagiarism)...I'm sorry you feel so bad about it, but try to understand the reasoning I've laid out, if you could. :)

[nannerz]

Don't get condescending with me.

 

And while TDN may have put a lot of effort in, some IDB members have certainly put in more. And all the 6 people really had to was copy the information, and input it into a database. o.o'

 

And yes, Ian has acted in a completely respectable manner. I was replying here specifically to your own posts, Samuel.

[finalhit]

IDB's licence

 

You are free:

 

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work to

Remix — to adapt the work

 

Under the following conditions:

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

 

 

TND doesn't follow 2 (actually all 3) of the conditions. Attribution (which is by far the worst offense) because it seems the site has been bot-leached as the information on this website includes HTML formatting from our site. It includes bbcodes, spelling errors, etc. If i didn't know any better, I might even say you got a SQL dump of our database. There is aboslutely no sign of any attribution.

 

Your site has ads. This makes you a commerical institution.

 

______________

 

You do not have a CC licence similar to what we have.

 

I'm sorry you guys spent all this work, creating your backbone infrustructure, but that doesn't protect you from the licence infringment you put yourself under. You can't have the content without following the licence.

 

_____________

 

 

btw, we don't need to check every item to prove plagiarism. We only need a statically significant random sample, which we already have (and documentented). I'm been in contact with Ian since yesterday, and it seems i'm being ignore. We're trying to be ammiable about it, but no effort is being done on their part.

 

This post has been edited by a member of staff (Matt) because of a violation of the forum rules.

Off topic.

Please check your user inbox to see if you have been contacted regarding this incident, then review our rules.

[Samuel]

I'm not getting condescending with you, and I'm confused a little by your last comment - as if to say I was acting in an irrespectable manner? Perhaps that wasn't your intention to claim that, I'm not sure. I'll ignore it just to stop an argument. :(

 

To be honest, it's not my concern how much effort IDB users have put in. I've stated numerous times how it is legal and how I think it's viable competition.

 

I'm sorry you don't agree. I just hope things will get a little better after Ian's investigation is complete. :(

 

-Edit-

 

Attribution will be given as far as I'm aware in due course.

 

However, I'd like to point out that your site was in no way bot-leached, and I personally resent any claim that it was. Members of staff - myself included - spent months on end inputting everything into the database, item by item. They spent a lot of time, and to say that it was a quick hitch-job is just totally...wrong. TDN uses BBcodes to run the formatting (for instance, in the inputting form, inputting [l] into the 'attack' would produce a light icon) - as it does with the main site ([eurl=url]text[/eurl] gives an external url), and spelling errors are most likely mistakes which are unavoidable.

 

The battlepedia - a department of the site - doesn't carry adverts. The main site carries adverts, but provides no content from IDB or tdnBP where the ads are shown.

 

I'm sure the CC licence will be resolved.

 

I'm going to ask for this topic to be closed pending the investigation that Ian's conducting. I'm sorry it's got a little nasty; hopefully everyone can come out of the situation well. :(

[finalhit]

I just sent another PM to Ian about it, he read it, and logged off. This is not very proffessional.

[Xepha]

Ian has other things to do, unfortunately, that he can't avoid. He'll get back to you in due course.

 

Please conduct any further complaints via PM or emailing [email protected].

 

Also, it might be worth reading Samuel's addition to his post, above.

 

 

This topic has been edited by a member of staff (Xepha).

Topic closed, pending Ian's investigation.

Please check your user inbox to see if you have been contacted regarding this topic.

Per the reason above, this topic has been LOCKED. Please contact Xepha if you have any questions regarding this action.