Endarire's unauthorized mod uploads

[Endarire]

This thread was split from "The Gate Project" starting here. It deals with some of the unauthorized and not recommendable mod uploads from Endarire.

I can only advice @Endarire to take this seriously. - jastey

 

Original post:

You have asked of me and I shall answer you.

Regarding Kim the Pirate, the EET update I did I submitted to the original author or its maintainer via email for them to include on their site.  I also emailed them a GitHub tutorial.  I have sent follow-up emails.  Overall, I have encouraged them to accept and publish the update, even if I didn't get credit for the bit I did.  They have not responded in 4 months, and the last time the official Kim the Pirate mod page had a new download was January of 2022 (version 1.63) with the update before that (1.62d) being released over a decade prior in 2010.

After further digging, the last post made by anyone on the official Kim the Pirate forum was in 2014.

I tested the version I sent them for EET compatibility and it, to my present understanding, worked properly.

Technical updates - at least on inactive mods - are allowed without an author's prior permission, which is simply what I did.  Otherwise, resurrections of inactive mods would at their core be entirely against Infinity Engine modding philosophy and policy.  This also applies to you, JohnBob.  Maybe you received official permission for every mod you've updated or hosted on The Gate Project and good for you if so, but if you didn't, you're in a similar situation here about updating others' mods without their explicit permission, even if these mods are or were inactive.

[Guest]

Did you do something else apart from using the EET mod converter ?

Kim the pirate is not your mod, and you don't have permission to upload it on github so please delete your repository.

 

---

 

And what's your excuse for these ?

 

https://github.com/Endarire/Jini-Romance-BG1

https://github.com/Endarire/Rjali-Romance-BG2

You are registered on Black Wyrm Lair, so why did you not post here, at least ?

Austin seem to be the rigthful maintainer.

 

https://github.com/Endarire/BG1NPCsInBG2

Bg1 Npc in Bg2 is  officially hosted on SHS github so your repo is misleading...

 

https://github.com/Endarire/Dark-Tidings-for-BG2

DarkTiding was released three months ago, did you ask Acifer for permission ?

 

https://github.com/Endarire/Diablo-II-Barbarian-Kit-for-EET

Already officially hosted on github.

 

https://github.com/Endarire/More-Style-for-Mages-MSFM-

Quote

Pecca's More Style for Mages at least partially adapted to work with EET.

What does this mean? You release and propose partially working version of mod ?

 

https://github.com/Endarire/The-Undying-Mod-for-BG2EE-EET

We've already talked about this one, but do you think that the addition of three letters to tp2 deserves to be called EET compatibility?

 

https://github.com/Endarire/Dark-Horizons-for-BG

And this, you even link to The Gate Project and to a version not recommanded, again misleading players.

 

https://github.com/Endarire/StoneOfAskavar

Is already hosted here !

 

And I cannot follow all your dropbox versions !

Lena his hosted on github already !

 

https://github.com/Endarire/Shards-of-Ice

A mod on G3 github

 

 

 

---

 

Note that I haven't mentioned all the other mods because they don't have official links...

 

Besides harassing people via PM on every forums, github and discord to get what you want, you give wrong advice to beginners and encourage them to use your fake versions of mods.

 

19 hours ago, Endarire said:

This also applies to you, JohnBob.  Maybe you received official permission for every mod you've updated or hosted on The Gate Project and good for you if so, but if you didn't, you're in a similar situation here about updating others' mods without their explicit permission, even if these mods are or were inactive.

It's very different, since I upload only mods that are really abandonned and do a real work on them !

And I post everything on forums, ask if anyone have anything to say and will delete any repository if they have any doubt about it !

 

Every changes are detailed in readmes and commits can be see by everyone....

Mods that get a release on the Gate Project are really EE / EET compatible...

 

And if I have to stop updating mods for you to stop lying to people, I will, without hesitation!

 

I can't force you to be honest, you have the choice of being a positive member of the community or continuing your little egotistical play.

Edited September 9, 2023 by JohnBob

[jastey]

Good gods, @Endarire, delete the repos you uploaded from mods that are hosted elsewhere!

[jastey]

@Endarire @Acifer's Dark Tidings mod on your repo is months old, and you have no permission to upload it.

Have you lost your mind, are you deliberately working on destruction - and on being excluded from the community?

[Acifer]

@Endarire: You asked me if you should upload my mod on Github and I said no. Why is it there now?

Edited September 9, 2023 by Acifer

[jastey]

1 hour ago, Endarire said:

Technical updates - at least on inactive mods - are allowed without an author's prior permission, which is simply what I did.

And if you are asked to take them down, you take them down.

What you uploaded to GitHub aren't even technical updates.

Take your unauthorized mod versions down. This can't get any clearer than this.

[jastey]

Split this into an own thread, because it is important.

I can only advice @Endarire to take this seriously.

[subtledoctor]

Thing is, it’s just not necessary. Weidu mods are completely open - their “source code” is available for any user to inspect and alter. I personally have custom, modified versions of EET; Tenya; Drake; Rose; Fishing for Trouble; Spell Revisions; Item Revisions; IWD_EET; some of Lava’s mods; and I don’t even remember what else. Every mod allows you to change it to your own desired state. 

But you don’t need to upload them to the internet for that. The only reason to publish your modified versions is to distribute your version of the mod. And that is precisely what mod authors almost always do not want you to do. 

Unless you feel both competent and authorized to actually take over responsibilities for maintaining a mod, publishing and distributing it is a bad idea. 

EDIT - yeah, as Frenzgyn says below, just make the Github repos private. Problem solved, mostly. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Frenzgyn]

@EndarireI don't like when things excalate for futile reasons. I think that almost no one here or elsewhere is a paladin of justice obsessed with licensing, rights and stuff, let's say a "Vahilor" person. It's obvious everyone have a certain degree of tolerance.

- If you would like to modify, tinker, translate, break or do whatever you please of a mod already present on Github you can just fork the repository and do what you please, with 100% transparency;
- If It is not present on Github, well,  you can upload it there and make it PRIVATE. Same for your cloud spaces or whatever, JUST PRIVATELY, not PUBLIC;
- You could ASK the author following this easy rule: A "NO" is a "NO",  No response is usually a "NO" and a "YES" is permission granted to do what you asked.

While I *understand* why it seems good to preserve for posterity stuff on Github, Dbox or whatever, expecially in light of what's happened with Chosen of Mystra or SHS, there is a RIGHT way and a WRONG way to do it.

As subtledoctor said, if you PUBLISH it without permission and/or ADVERTISE it as something "better", reccomending it to new users, it's the WRONG way, not only because you're not respecting authors' wish and community rules, but because this cause confusion and problems in bug reporting and support with so many several different parallel tinkered unofficial versions out there and YOU KNOW exactly to what and who I am referring.

If you have a mod archived on your cloud storage/website or whateverr and suddendly the platform where the official version is hosted explode so you're the only one in the world having that mod, well, you'll save the day and be a hero, that' the RIGHT way of doing things FOR POSTERITY.

Just don't be a dick, please, and don't make this thing personal, IT'S NOT.

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Frenzgyn

[Guest]

So it seems that Endarire has only removed the mod DarkTiding and choosing to ignore the rest as if nothing had happened...

I don't know what to think of him anymore...

Edited September 9, 2023 by JohnBob

[morpheus562]

I brought this up on the discord in January, but after I blocked @Endarire a new account was created named bodyknock that immediately started asking for feature requests, the exact same feature requests I blocked Endie for. I called both accounts out for potentially creating a duplicate/alt account, and for the first time I can remember, Endie was silent. Bodyknock had not posted since I made that comment. 

I bring this up as it seems to mirror more and more the Rox situation but with more incompetence and less technical skill. If the mods here have the ability to check posters' ip addresses, it may be worth seeing who else matches with Endie.

Edited September 9, 2023 by morpheus562

[Graion Dilach]

 Disclaimer:  I wrote most of this post before I managed to get to a grape harvest, so there's 10 hours between my core of thoughts.

22 hours ago, Endarire said:

Technical updates - at least on inactive mods - are allowed without an author's prior permission, which is simply what I did.  Otherwise, resurrections of inactive mods would at their core be entirely against Infinity Engine modding philosophy and policy.  This also applies to you, JohnBob.  Maybe you received official permission for every mod you've updated or hosted on The Gate Project and good for you if so, but if you didn't, you're in a similar situation here about updating others' mods without their explicit permission, even if these mods are or were inactive.

Shut up. You never knew what you're doing unless you were right via blind luck. You are mentally incapable of doing a technical update, simply because you don't understand how the mods or the games actually work.

As someone, who contributed to The Gate, I always considered as an intermediate step. My modus operandii regarding the mods on TGP was to first have something to fix and maybe only then upload. Take Klatu. It is available on IEGMC so that doesn't mean it needs a mirror. I had a reason to upload klatu from the get-go since my 2022 Manual of War fix was only thrown into an SHS forum post but even after that I was still etchy about uploading it to TGP. Until I fixed the validator bug, which I considered serious enough to look into a method to distribute the bugfix without actively trying to step anyone's toes. I take full responsibility for the Klatu mirroring on TGP vs SHS and I even pinged skellytz directly about it because back then he was doing the misc mod uploads to SHS's own GitHub.

For the record, the TGP repo of klatu's have 1.7 as-is attributed to klatu@noreply.shsforums.net. Because that's the best assumption I could have done with all my mere-user powers. Make of that what you will, you're welcome.

To put it bluntly, by the time I considered uploading Klatu, I already had two actual bugfixes to contribute to it. I didn't just made a mirror first then tried touching them up. And I really would wish to move Klatu over to SHS longterm anyway. I still feel etchy about abusing TGP to distribute my fixes to that mod (Which is also why the mod lacks PI metadata or labels or a GH compatible readme as well).

Similarly, the moment Dark Horizons or Paladins of Faerun was picked up, they were imminently worked on. Massively, I may add. While @JohnBob also lacks the technical affinity, he still provides the transparency necessary for the trust required for this job... something you assume he lacks, and you assume that he wouldn't provide. He tries. You just uploaded all your mods behind everyone's back then try to call out people when you got busted.

I'm pretty sure that @JohnBob would destroy all my contributions in the first moment he would be called out due to authority and it's all fine. I don't think you'd do the same. You proved you lack the transparency. Exactly through the mods this topic showcase.

GitHub isn't a necessity. GitHub is a tool anyone may or may not opt in to choose (and if anyone drops it now due to it's 2FA enforcing, be my guest). At least fucking respect if the active people decide to opt in.

That's all there's to it.

Do I agree with TGP? It is sketchy. And yes, I am unsure how far it can go and actually, I don't always agree with it either. It is a very thin line TGP chose. But I do trust @JohnBob that when the chips are down, he'll make the morally right choice and I do acknowledge that most of the mods (maybe excluding the IWD-EET projects, but those I wouldn't touch anyway due to reasons explained elsewhere on this very forum) uploaded weren't inspired by lack of self-awareness or simply "to provide a mirror" or a bad EET conversion.

TGP is better than Roxanne due to the points above. Unlike some rando fucker whose IQ can be measured within a single digit and who was merely very annoying until this point but now stepped over all the red lines one shouldn't have.

Edited September 9, 2023 by Graion Dilach

[Cahir]

As silly as this may sound, Endarire is the main reason I rarely visit BG forums anymore. He simply jumps out from every freezer these days. I almost feel like being stalked.

 

[Zaramorte]

About mods with authors still active, or with someone who still support them, i agreed... and what  this Endire have done is absolutely wrong.

But, generally speaking: what about patching and updating older mods?

BG is a game from '98... some authors could be inactive, or even dead... ok to respect ownership, but u don't burn the Divine Comedy just because Dante is dead.

i made a few mods for morrowind and skyrim an age ago... nothing special, eh... but, since i no longer even go in a forum related to those games, if someone still play them, like them and have the time or will to improve\fix them... well, i would be just glad to think one of my works is still alive somewhere. If my intention had been for no one to get an hand on them, i would have deleted them...

P.s. it's not my intention to get my hand on any BG mods (and even if it was my intention, i haven't the skill to do it)... I just want to understand how work current netiquette.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Zaramorte

[jastey]

2 minutes ago, Zaramorte said:

But, generally speaking: what about patching and updating older mods?

The community tries to provide updates, especially technical ones.

It's just that there is good and acceptible ways to do it, and then there is other ways, and these other ways We Do Not Do.

And first prerequisite is that you have the technical skill. Which @Endarire, so far, did not show. His "EET compatible updates" are a risk to the players' installs.