(Topic ID: 98746)

Clay's Guides - are they ever coming back?

By Atomicboy

9 years ago


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  • 277 posts
  • 102 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 9 years ago by pmWolf
  • Topic is favorited by 14 Pinsiders

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    #124 9 years ago
    Quoted from cody_chunn:

    That was a sticking point for some. They contributed when the guides were free and expected to remain so. When Clay leveraged the guides into a pay-per-view (for lack of a better term), many contributors said they wanted their pics and/or info removed.
    Instead of leaving the guides as a free resource, he chose to take them down instead of editing the documents to eliminate the controversy.
    Now he says it's too much trouble to edit them for no "upside" of doing so. I guess just making them free again like they were has no "upside" for him either.

    Most of the copyright claims were bogus in the first place. I contributed pictures to his guides and gave him full rights. But the uproar over him trying to use the content to help out a noble pinball-related charity put a bad taste in many peoples' mouths. When you try to do something nice for the community, after doing something nice for the community 100x over for more than a decade, and people still talk crap about you, you sometimes wonder why bother?

    -1
    #126 9 years ago
    Quoted from KenLayton:

    The Pinwiki is still a good source of information. Is it the best source? No. It could be written better, but it does contain a lot of information and pictures.

    PinWiki has a number of issues:

    1. It's a Wiki... it has no real "verification" or editing process - anyone can edit a page and change some information that could cause a person's machine to be worse off than before. There are no checks-and-balances.

    2. PinWiki is not any more stable or secure than Clay's guides. The site has no clear policy regarding copyright - there is nothing saying the content is put into the public domain - it's clearly owned by somebody (or a bunch of people)

    3. When you click on the "about us" at Pinwiki here's what you see:

    "PinWiki was created for the purpose of holding all things pinball in one location. There is a lot of information available on the Internet for pinball but its scattered everywhere. The goal is to incorporate the many groups of information into one centralized location that can be contributed to by all.

    PinWiki was launched on April 21, 2011 at 9pm officially, kicking off with a wiki and a forum. All information contained in this wiki was added from that date on. "

    The owner(s) of Pinwiki as far as I know are secret, and insist on keeping under the radar, and there's no guarantee the site could go pay or disappear from the Internet at any time.

    Some areas of PinWiki are pretty cool - and I can see some potential, but there is no clear overseer taking responsibility for the legitimacy of the content, and the content is not public domain, so the site is as much a ticking time bomb as Clay's guides. There have been discussions about this over and over.. if the site is really intended on being a true public resource, it should require all content submitted to have clear public domain or CC licensing terms like standard Wikipedia.

    #127 9 years ago
    Quoted from tonycip:

    I'm getting a headache... you know if somehow I were to receive a copy of said guides in a pm or email.that would be sweet.....

    And this is a good example of why Clay probably doesn't want to go through this again. He posted here in this thread that the guides are his and don't ask for them to be pirated, and someone does. It's so disrespectful to him. When the community thinks they're entitled to steal other peoples' hard work, it makes everybody else that less motivated to give back to the community.

    Treat other people the way you'd like to be treated. If you create something that you reserve the rights to control access to, give other people the same consideration.

    #128 9 years ago
    Quoted from vid1900:

    That's because it did not happen that way.
    Clay took the website down to sell the information to raise money for PPM.
    THAT'S when everyone got upset - when photos and text they gave to Clay for free distribution, was suddenly for sale without their permission.

    First off, this "everyone" you speak of were a tiny bunch of whiny people, many of whom really weren't even involved in any legitimate claim against him and his work...

    Clay could likely have won the argument legally easily, but PPM succumbed to the faux controversy and rejected Clay's generous contribution. In the end it was incredibly embarrassing that someone who has done so much for the community, and was doing something else really amazing and generous for the pinball community, got crapped on by a small number of outspoken haters.

    I will continue to say those that argued over "copyright" executed the most vile and petty claim I've ever seen. He was trying to help PPM. He was never under any obligation to keep his guides online forever because 1 or 2 dudes gave him a few JPGs. Utter ridiculousness.

    #130 9 years ago
    Quoted from ChrisHibler:

    Jesus Christ man...let it go. You've made your point over and over. We get it. We (Wiki authors) don't agree.

    Why don't you all post an IP policy?

    Why are you so cryptic over who owns the site and who owns the content?

    As long as you're going to promote PinWiki, others are going to want to know why they should contribute and what happens to their contributions?

    This is a basic policy that every other Wiki on the planet has. Why won't you address it?

    This is a very important question. It's not worth "letting go." It has to do with whether or not anyone's contribution on that site ends up being owned by someone else, who the owners are, and what their intentions are. It makes no sense to not outline the site's terms regarding intellectual property. This could be addressed instantly, yet for years, you refuse. Why is that?

    Look, if you simply say, "I put a lot of content in that system. I own the domain, and I reserve the right to that content, and I can do with it what I want to do." then I respect that. But at least say that. I will say that over my site, pinballhelp.com - I own that content, it's mine. I'm going to do what I want to do with it. If PinWiki is your site, why not just say so? Why is it secret?

    -4
    #140 9 years ago
    Quoted from ChrisHibler:

    Is it so hard to believe that there are a few of us who make content available solely to help other pinball hobbyists?

    Then be honest about it and come clean about your intentions and who owns what property.

    Why is that so difficult Chris?

    If it's your intention to own the content on PinWiki.com and reserve the right to monetize it at some point in the future JUST SAY SO, so we can avoid another debacle like people had when Clay tried to monetize his content.

    The irony here is, Clay pulled his guides because people complained about this, and PinWiki popped up to "save the day" and it's positioned to create the exact same mess that Clay was in.

    So if you really want to do the community a favor, make it clear. Do what every other reputable web site and wiki has done and *Post a clear policy regarding who owns what intellectual property*. Until you do that, people have every right to be suspicious of what the site is up to.

    Look, I respect and appreciate your knowledge and contributions. I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm encouraging you to adhere to the community standards that your site (assuming it is your site - you continue to be evasive about who owns it) that all other online resources adhere to. Why is that so difficult?

    I have hundreds of repair videos and lots of information to share. But PinWiki.com has no discernable terms of service or IP policy. It would be foolish of me or anybody else to contribute to the site without knowing what the terms are.

    #148 9 years ago
    Quoted from ForceFlow:

    You need to file for a patent or trademark in order to reap the benifits of legal protections for a patent or trademark.

    But you don't necessarily have to "file" to claim a trademark or patent.

    http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426680

    Must I register my trademark?

    No. You can establish rights in a mark based on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration. However, owning a federal trademark registration on the Principal Register provides several important benefits.

    What are the benefits of federal trademark registration?
    Owning a federal trademark registration on the Principal Register provides several advantages, including:

    Public notice of your claim of ownership of the mark;
    A legal presumption of your ownership of the mark and your exclusive right to use the mark nationwide on or in connection with the goods/services listed in the registration;
    The ability to bring an action concerning the mark in federal court;
    The use of the U.S. registration as a basis to obtain registration in foreign countries;
    The ability to record the U.S. registration with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Service to prevent importation of infringing foreign goods;
    The right to use the federal registration symbol ®; and
    Listing in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online databases.

    #150 9 years ago
    Quoted from stangbat:

    He has a valid point that I raised very early, within the first few days of Pinwiki being created. April 22, 2011 to be exact. See this thread:
    http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=180989
    And here:
    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinwiki
    Who owns the content? It is one thing to say, "Nobody, it is free." It is another to spell it out and make it undoubtedly clear that it is free and in what context. Free as in speech? Free as in beer? Early on Casey implied that it would be Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike and GFDL like Wikipedia. The simple reason to do this is so that there are no arguments or about ownership, copyright, or fair use. It is a question that concerned me from the beginning. It is a valid point, and it still concerns me. The fact that it still hasn't been addressed and answered years later is troubling. In the end it may be a middling, nitpicking point. But it needs to be addressed and resolved so that we don't run into problems at a later date. Think progblems can't happen? Think again.
    There was already one instance when Pinwiki's server went down and the site disappeared. Content was not available and the mirrors that supposedly existed weren't there. Myself and others started to wonder if this resource had disappeared and we were repeating history (I say that with no disrespect to Clay intended.) From my understanding this incident spurred some action and mirrors are now in place and it isn't an issue, but clarification would be nice.
    Basically all we're asking is to officially decide on a license for content, and update the About page and Privacy Policy to reflect it. Do that and all this handwaving and worrying is over and done with.

    I honestly do not see why they are so secretive about this.

    There is NO GOOD REASON to be evasive on this issue unless the owners of the site are trying to mislead people.

    Ultimately it makes no sense. Because in the absence of an clear licensing/IP agreement, contributors could argue their content is on the site and cannot be exploited without their permission. HOWEVER, if the owners of the site mysteriously make the edit logs disappear, they might be able to "disappear" any evidence that anybody else contributed content to the site, and put the burden on the contributor to prove they added content that is theirs.

    In any case, the whole deal is dubious. Wikipedia would not be in business with an ambiguous policy. And until PinWiki comes clean on who owns what, nobody should contribute to the site, and if nobody is in charge and nobody takes responsibility for the content, who is to know whether anything there is reliable?

    I would love to see this resource prosper. I am happy to contribute, but I'm not going to do so when we don't even know who owns the domain. Why so secret??

    Domain Name: PINWIKI.COM
    Registry Domain ID:
    Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.netearthone.com
    Registrar URL:
    Updated Date: 07-Apr-2014
    Creation Date: 21-Apr-2011
    Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 21-Apr-2015
    Registrar: NetEarth One, Inc.
    Registrar IANA ID: 1005
    Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
    Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
    Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
    Registry Registrant ID: PP-SP-001
    Registrant Name: Domain Admin
    Registrant Organization: Privacy Protection Service INC d/b/a PrivacyProtect.org
    Registrant Street: C/O ID#10760, PO Box 16 Note - Visit PrivacyProtect.org to co ntact the domain owner/operator Note - Visit PrivacyProtect.org to contact the d omain owner/operator
    Registrant City: Nobby Beach
    Registrant State/Province: Queensland
    Registrant Postal Code: QLD 4218
    Registrant Country: AU
    Registrant Phone: +45.36946676
    Registrant Phone Ext:
    Registrant Fax:
    Registrant Fax Ext:
    Registrant Email: [email protected]

    #152 9 years ago
    Quoted from stangbat:

    I don't necessarily think it is a matter of secrecy or any plan. I think it is just a case where the boring and no fun issue of content ownership hasn't been addressed because nobody thinks it is a big deal. And it isn't a big deal, until it is a big deal.
    So just bite the bullet, post a policy, clear the waters, and be done with it.

    Except that for years, they've been confronted with these arguments, here, klov, rgp, and elsewhere and every time the topic comes up, they ignore it. It would take 10 minutes to settle this issue. But why won't they? This is the $64M question.

    I don't mean to harp on this but it's now becoming a fascinating mystery...

    -4
    #221 9 years ago
    Quoted from newmantjn:

    You should really get more informed prior to saying things like this.

    Another zero-content, ad-hominem. "The Pinside Effect."

    #222 9 years ago
    Quoted from KenLayton:

    This is why there is pinwiki,..

    If the community really wants a long-term information site, they can have it any time they want. Just start setting up pinball repair pages at wikipedia.com. If Pinwiki won't publish a policy, just start creating and editing pages at Wikipedia. They have a clear policy regarding information content and this can insure the online guides will be there forever, and no single person can make them disappear.

    -3
    #225 9 years ago
    Quoted from Arcade:

    What is this? Sanity in a thread full of crazy?
    I'm in.

    I'll be happy to host and help set up such a resource...

    but it also occurred to me... why not just use Wikipedia? Why bother with PinWiki.com, when they won't post a clear policy for content and contributions and their site can disappear any time as well?

    Wikipedia on the other hand, has very clear policies - we could start creating and editing pages in their main database and it would likely stay online forever. It might need a little policing but that's one way to deal with the situation.

    Either way, I'm willing to help.

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