Wedge
Public area => The Pub => Plugins => Topic started by: Arantor on January 13th, 2012, 10:22 AM
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I've been involved in this debate on sm.org, and I gotta say the way it's being handled is so badly trying to be grown up, but it falls short on more than one level.
As I pointed out, not only did a suitable resolution not occur previously but their current stance of 'no little mods can do it' is actually worse than having a clear 'yes/no' rule, because what it means is that it's now totally subjective as opposed to reasonably objective.
So, I spent time thinking about this, and honestly the solution I'm most happy with is simply to disallow it entirely, at least on the public site that we operate in some fashion.
There's a credits page, use it, that's what it's there for. Sadly, I can fully imagine mods putting themselves into that page for every whiff and whim, but it's not the same as forcing into the footer on every page when it's not necessary or desirable. (It's not like there's actually room in any case)
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Agree entirely (and with your footnote). Have a credits/legal/whateveryouwanttocallit page that contains all that [crap] and keep the footer as clean (and brief) as can be.
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There is a credits page in place, there even is in SMF 2.0 but no-one uses SMF's, probably because on a technical level it's broken for mod purposes...
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+1.
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Agreed. ;)
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Should we have any kind of rules about what can or can't be in the credits page? I'd prefer to leave it a bit more unmoderated if possible, but I think it may require rules at some point >_<
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Rule #1: if you're Nao or Arantor, you can add up to 10 kilobytes of credits per plugin.
Rule #2: if you're not, then you may add up to 4 bytes of credits per plugin, or 10 bytes if you're showing them in a <div class="hide">.
I think that should cover for everythin'...
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Aw, you're a bit mean, I was going to allow at least 16 bytes per plugin :P
I'm all for developers being credited for their work, I just don't want them to take the piss as they're currently doing for SMF.
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Aw, you're a bit mean, I was going to allow at least 16 bytes per plugin :P
I'm all for developers being credited for their work, I just don't want them to take the piss as they're currently doing for SMF.
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Well, over 12 bytes they'd be tempted to add [url=][/url] to their credit... :niark:
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Unless they own a 1 letter domain name in a 2 letter TLD (i.e. something like t.co), 16 bytes doesn't help enough ;)
Maybe we could give a helper function to add credits, instead of just a hook... (It would internally use the hook, of course.)
And/or maybe we could show plugin credits inline, instead of as an unordered list. Bit messy, that could be...Especially because you know who the worst offender for footer copyrights is.
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Seriously though, I think a good guideline would be to simply say, "one line of credits"... Because Plugin credits are using a single column in the otherwise 2-column layout in this page, there's plenty enough place. And I suppose having 2 lines would be okay if justified -- we just don't want every single plugin to have several lines of credits or whatever.
Maybe we could give a helper function to add credits, instead of just a hook... (It would internally use the hook, of course.)
And/or maybe we could show plugin credits inline, instead of as an unordered list. Bit messy, that could be...
Aeva Media and its stupid advertisement for Wedge! :eheh:
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Well that's the first time I've looked at / noticed the credits page! Will plugin writers be happy if their only mention is in an unused part of the site?
How about plugins that create their own section e.g. a links directory - should they be allowed a copyright at the bottom of their pages?
Assuming Wedge will have 'themes' will their creators be able to add their copyright? Some writers are very adamant on this!
Back to the credits page, how many of the existing names will you keep on yours?
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Of the default 2.0 credits, the only things kept were the 2.0 dev people, those who had actually contributed to 2.0's dev in some material fashion.
Well that's the first time I've looked at / noticed the credits page! Will plugin writers be happy if their only mention is in an unused part of the site?
Really, it comes down to this: if you want to list it on the official site, then that's the rule to play by. Don't like it? Run your own mod site, then you can distribute what you like.How about plugins that create their own section e.g. a links directory - should they be allowed a copyright at the bottom of their pages?
Assuming Wedge will have 'themes' will their creators be able to add their copyright? Some writers are very adamant on this!
You see, here's the line that's drawn: too many mods shove their copyrights in the footer on every page unnecessarily. If it modifies that page actively (i.e. more than just a new menu item) then I can see the rationale, but too many mods just shove it in regardless of how much code of that mod runs on that page. Never mind the fact that the footer isn't big enough to put much in the way of ads into anyway (and now file edits aren't possible in the core plugin manager, so you have even less opportunity to shove it in)
As far as I'm concerned, mod authors gave up the right to have their footer copyright when it started to be abused a couple of years back for SMF, when little mods that weren't used on every page got a footer copyright (and all the problems attached with it, like copyrights being left in when the mod is uninstalled, and/or install problems because of them), so because of everyone peeing in the pool, NO-ONE has the right to do so.
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Pete. Why would a hook be able to test for dupes more than a handler relying on a hook?
Farjo. The goal of credits is usually to spread links to your site. I assume people would be happy with a credit page that has exposure. Remember that Smf's credit page is well hidden, hence why no one uses it...
Themes I don't know about. Honestly I've never ever installed a third party theme on my sites.
We are keeping the usual SMF credits as you could see. We just shortened them (only kept the nicknames).
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Pete. Why would a hook be able to test for dupes more than a handler relying on a hook?
But if there's a secondary handler, by definition the handler's the one handling the credits - so what the hook sees/gets/returns is only its own. So the handler would have to do the work of figuring out duplicates. (That is, assuming the handler is being set up to prevent abuse. If not, the handler becomes unnecessary because the entire variable just gets passed directly to the hook in the first place)Remember that Smf's credit page is well hidden, hence why no one uses it...
The problem with standard editing is that it's fragile, because the entirety of its code is thus:
$context['copyrights'] = array(
'smf' => sprintf($forum_copyright, $forum_version),
/* Modification Authors: You may add a copyright statement to this array for your mods.
Copyright statements should be in the form of a value only without a array key. I.E.:
'Some Mod by Thantos © 2010',
$txt['some_mod_copyright'],
*/
'mods' => array(
),
);
if (!$in_admin)
{
loadTemplate('Who');
$context['sub_template'] = 'credits';
$context['robot_no_index'] = true;
$context['page_title'] = $txt['credits'];
}
That's the end of the SMF credits function after that. So the only thing you can do is rely on not hitting something else that another mod has - because if you do, while it's possible that it'll still work, it's more likely that one, or other, or both of the mods will cease to be uninstallable thereafter.
Without actually having a hook for credits, the page becomes next to useless to have.
Oh, and note the fact that it's not indexed by search engines. I'm undecided whether that should change in Wedge - but there is good reason not to.
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My bad, looks like the plugin section is not on its own column... It used to be, though. We'll have to figure out whether we should 'split' the column each time we reach a certain number of credits in it...
But if there's a secondary handler, by definition the handler's the one handling the credits - so what the hook sees/gets/returns is only its own. So the handler would have to do the work of figuring out duplicates.
Not only that, but it's actually impossible to cleanly add to the list and be reliable. There is no hook in SMF to attach to, so short of some other hack introducing a layer in Who.php, that manipulates $context['copyrights'] as an _above template so that it's applied before the main layer is called, you're reliant on standard editing.
Oh, and note the fact that it's not indexed by search engines. I'm undecided whether that should change in Wedge - but there is good reason not to.
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Another thought occurred to me. The plugin spec already allows for an author to specify a site for themselves, and one for the plugin itself (separately, too) - there's no reason why we couldn't pick that up automatically for the enabled plugins.
What we'd have to do is add a copyright date facility into the plugin spec, and some way to indicate libraries/icons used by a plugin, and we could do it all that way - without needing to issue a hook. Something similar can be done for themes, if needed.
The upside is that it's less prone to abuse, and it's actually one hook we can dispense with at that point because if it's not required by anything after that, and it's less likely to be forgotten about by authors, IMO.
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Wouldn't this slow down the credits page noticeably...? (Well, for the server at least.)
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Not necessarily noticeably, especially with caching. I'm just thinking of making it easier for mod authors to toe the line, and really it's probably not that different, it's still a file that will normally be loaded and parsed.
On the other hand, what you might find on the flip side is people shoving in credits into existing files which might make parsing slower.
Hard to say really.
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Yeah, maybe they wouldn't know that putting credits into the xml would be reflected in the credits page and might break the layout etc...
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I don't think that's a huge problem, actually. Especially since the *required* elements wouldn't be enough on their own - you'd need a year as well, which would make it a conscious action rather than a thing that 'just happens'.
The one thing I should point out is that there is actually nothing preventing mods from doing footer copyrights on a technical basis; all the tools for doing it are in Wedge just as they are in SMF (and they're better in Wedge, incidentally), and still without so much as a file change. So my view on it is just about preventing it as part of how things go as standard, but if third party sites want to do it, best of luck to them.
I'd rather make it much easier for people to build a mod that appropriately credits them.
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Sure. If you feel it's all right.
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There are things I'm clear on and things I'm not. Footer copyrights are something I don't want to see - period. No rule I've seen will allow for reputable authors to get credit when it's due and not allow miscreants to abuse it, so either every plugin can, or no plugin can (subject to where I have any say in the matter)
On the other hand, I'm also aware that miscreants can and will abuse whatever provisions they are given. I can imagine plugins that could remove everyone else's attribution (accidentally or otherwise), so the fewer places a mod author can screw it up, even accidentally, the better. I know full well that the base copyright can be derived from what's in the manifest, should they choose to use it, but that removes the *choice* of the author to have one or not have one.
You see, I want to give mod authors the tools to do it properly, but I can't trust them not to abuse it.