Ethics in Interface Modding

***Cairenn*** · 02-23-07, 04:37 PM

Here, fine, I'll make the damn thread myself.

If you want to have a debate about "advertising" or "mods making characters do things without the users' interaction" in mods or whatever else:

a) Take it to ChitChat forum;
b) No "specifics" - it isn't about Mazzle or Cosmos or or or, it's about the morals and ethics of doing it in the first place;
c) Keep it objective. The site rules always apply. I will NOT tolerate the flaming that goes on about this.

But, I'm warning you right now, today is NOT the day to push me. I just spent the last 3 hrs standing around in the freezing cold getting poked and prodded by paramedics and filling out police reports after being involved in a rather serious accident.

STOP PISSING ME OFF!

Obey the site rules. I'm NOT in the mood to put up with anything else. If you can't debate this objectively, then just keep your mouth shut.

Andeh · 02-23-07, 04:45 PM

sorry mum.....

Kamishimi · 02-23-07, 05:48 PM

It sounds like two major interface ethics questions that have popped up recently are how ethical either advertising in addons or having code execute without the express permission of the end user. However, I think another issue needs to be added to this list: using reputation garnered through dedicated UI development to influence the projects of other authors in an open-source community.

Longer, more detailed post coming soon...but I wanted to post these main topics here to hopefully spur discussion.

Garus · 02-23-07, 06:10 PM

Advertising, Advocacy, call it what you want but the motive is clearly to use public in-game channels to spread a marketing buzz. Note the posts edited or deleted that tried to describe how to remove the mazzlegasm. That wasn't just flavor it was a requirement to using the compilation. That some feel this is a good thing demonstrates how dangerous it is. Humans being what they are--with usually good intentions--want to advocate.

If forced advocacy became an acceptable price to using a compilation or mod, it would not be long before a good chunk of spam in cities would be advertisements. This is not acceptable.

We shouldn't cut a little slack for people who put a lot of time and effort into something. It's a pretty safe bet that I spent more time on some of the mods formerly in this compilation than Mazzlefizz and Tigerheart combined. I don't recall being asked if they could be included and it didn't need asking. Almost all mods posted by anyone are made public out of the altruistic culture of the internet.

When they become a little more than public, to the point of making some people yell things they don't want to yell, all slack should be revoked and the motives and ethics carefully questioned.

Cairenn, sorry to hear about your accident and I hope you are doing okay. Additionally, thanks for the new thread and hopefully I can respond to the above without overstepping the boundaries. If not, I'm sure you will let me know.

Okay, I'll give you that technically it is advertising/advocating of the product and marketing is the selling of a product so I guess the price would be putting up with this as you stated.

As for it being an acceptable price, obviously to many, it is not and they aren't forced to accept it. As with anything with a price, if you don't like that price, don't buy it. Those that find it acceptable are free to do so. To borrow your phrase - humans being what they are have differing opinions and are willing to pay different prices for different things.

I’m not asking that programmers be given slack because they put a lot of time and effort into something. I’m saying as consumers of the product we have no right to complain since we didn’t pay anything for it in the first place. If I bought something and it didn’t work properly I should complain. If someone gave me something and I accepted it for free and it doesn’t do exactly what they said or does something I didn’t expect, as long as it doesn’t physically harm me or someone else, what do I care, I got it for free. As for you time spent on these mods and them being made public altruistically, I’m glad you mentioned that. Generosity should not be responded to with complaints on how it should have been done in the first place or should be done in the future. If I give you something helpful, money, mods, etc., I don’t expect to be criticized for it and shouldn’t have to put up with it.

There are plenty of things in the world I find unethical and I choose to stay away from them. This is no different; if you find that a program goes beyond your ethical boundaries, don’t use it. However, I’m not sure that ethics even fits into this; it is just a game after all.

If you take any of this to be a personal flame, it was not meant that way and I apologize in advance. As you and I both stated, people tend to have differing opinions on matters but unfortunately we tend to be unable to express ourselves without pointing fingers or letting our egos get in the way.

SkOODaT · 02-23-07, 06:59 PM

im confused, and ppl are mad, lol, im getting this is over advertiseing in game, isnt that against the TOC from blizz? lol

SkOO~

sorry to hear about the accident Cairenn my managers mom died today and it seems like everyone is haveing a rough day, but on the bright side its almost over

!!!!and its friday,..... the weekend ....lol

!!!!

Auralei · 02-23-07, 09:18 PM

Honestly, I've done a lot of thinking about this issue lately, well, since last week anyway. I fully believe that if the author is going to code that stuff into the addon, then that same author should have the common decency to also code in an "off" switch.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Blizzard didn't have to give us the privilege of having an interface as easily customizable as we have. I feel like it's basically an author taking that privilege for granted and abusing it when they take it upon themselves to code advertising into their addons. To put it bluntly, it's spam. Unnecessary spam that could cause Blizzard to rethink that privilege they gave us and take it away. Spam is against the Blizzard TOS and I feel like this sort of thing in addons should also be agaisnt the Blizzard TOS. So basically, hypothetically, a few really selfish authors could ruin it for the rest of the player base. Will that actually happen? Who knows, who really wants to test out that theory???

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to debate this anymore. When I install new addons I will enter an instance or get on a gryph to actually enable them. If they scream anything, I will search through all the code until I find the offending lines and I will delete them, no questions asked, no posts posted. And if I can't find the offending lines, I will delete the addon and pass the word on about the offending spam to friends, guildmates and players from every server I play on. I think adding this kind of thing to addons is a low down tactic, I don't support it and i won't tolerate it. I'm not cutting any slack to any author, for any reason. If people find my stance on this offensive, I'm sorry, but that's the way I'm going to deal with it.

airdragon · 02-23-07, 11:07 PM

I think as a whole the main problem of the issue is that people tend to take things to extremes. We sit here asking, "What is ethical" when this is clearly a "Who is ethical" question.

I ask you this, someone walks up and sells you a product. The person explains before hand that you are responsible for buying it. You say its what I want so I'll buy it. You buy it and it doesn't do something that you thought it would and it angers/annoys/perturbs you. You take it back. You demand change and say "I hate your product for what it does." The seller remarks back "But I told you that you were responsible for buying it."

Who was more ethical? Simply, neither. The buyer should have came back and said "I don't like what your product does, so please either change it or take it back." Then the seller would remark back "well what do you want me to change?" After a dialog a compromise that made both parties could EASILY be reached and away both go happy.

In reverse the seller could also have responded to the prior with "Well if you hate it what can I change about it to make you not hate it." Clearly trying to both solve their own dilemma at the same time as help out the buyer.

So rather than debating who is right or wrong, which in ethics you could go on for literally millions of years, let us instead ask "What could I do to have solved this better?" Sitting around and pointing fingers this way and that just hurts feelings and is pretty darn unethical.

Remember people, we are here to have FUN. Do try to realize that sometimes rather than being right, you do the right thing. THATS what being ethical is really about.

Tekkub · 02-24-07, 12:08 AM

Hrm... I wonder what all this could be targetted at? *grin*

Fine, I'll make my two simple points here...

1) Spam is spam, I don't like spam. I've been know the write mods that block all sourts of spam *coughBossBlockcough* User or computer generated, get your spam away from me.

2) I do not pay for software. Yes, you heard me. I write code, have for quite some time, and I'll never pay a cent for software. I'll gladly donate to "feed the programmer" funds, but the minute that a piece of software *demands* I give money or it'll stop working, I'll never consider paying for it again. Do I understand the costs to make software? I damn sure do. Do I think developers should be paid, damn right they should. Should the home user be paying for this? Hell no. The average user doesn't earn any money using software, they shouldn't pay for it. Businesses, however, should pay for what they use. If it's commercial, buy a license for every copy you use. If it's open source they damn well better donate to help keep it open source. It earns you money, you're obligated to help keep it's maintainers alive.

And yea, by this screwy logic of mine, I think Blizzy should be rewarding addon devs. If the "America's stupidest home videos that can't be broadcast on TV" sites can reward their content providers, why shouldn't a game company with such a huge userbase and so many addon authors?

So yea, that's my twisted ethics as a programmer. And before you ask, yes I run that OS that ends in "ista" and no, I didn't ^^

Garus · 02-26-07, 01:56 PM

Auralei,

Your post made me realize that I was looking at this whole argument from only my perspective: I knew the item was in the mod when I downloaded it. I'm guessing most people are arguing this from the perspective that it is wrong given the user does not know the mod is going to make their character do something they didn't expect. If you download a mod with full understanding of what is going to happen you can't complain about it. On the other hand, if it does more than the developer stated and it is something debatable, complaints are understandable.

Tekkub,

Given your logic, any software that does not have a commercial purpose would not exist. For the most part, software is created with the intention of making money off it, particularly games. If they couldn’t charge the home user they wouldn’t make it. This wouldn’t even work for programs used by commercial entities because the developers would just up the charge to make the same profit and that additional cost would be born by the end consumer, which is your typical home user. As for Blizzard rewarding addon developers, I think your analogy is a little off. The video people need people to supply the videos (their content) whereas Blizzard does not need the addon developers to supply theirs. The game exists and most people buy it without any expectations of addons. However, I do like the way you think and would appreciate a shipment of that “ista” program.

Auralei · 02-26-07, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Garus

Auralei,

Your post made me realize that I was looking at this whole argument from only my perspective: I knew the item was in the mod when I downloaded it. I'm guessing most people are arguing this from the perspective that it is wrong given the user does not know the mod is going to make their character do something they didn't expect. If you download a mod with full understanding of what is going to happen you can't complain about it. On the other hand, if it does more than the developer stated and it is something debatable, complaints are understandable.

Well, actually, the reason I even replied was that an addon that had one of these features did not even mention it anywhere in the description until way after release. Embarrassing. To say the least. But also, not very cool. And actually, if I did know that the addon contained anything in the way of advertising or spam, I'd download it, go through the code, delete the offending lines and have done with it. I will not be forced to advertise an addon in anyway but word of mouth.

sid67 · 02-26-07, 03:58 PM

I fully believe that if the author is going to code that stuff into the addon, then that same author should have the common decency to also code in an "off" switch.

For me, this stikes at the heart of it. IF the author has some common decency then he should provide the option to turn it off. However, I think it's his choice on whether he wants to be decent or not. Likewise, it's my choice if I am willing to be abused by their indeceny by using THIER addon.

Ahh.... but there lies the rub. What if it's not just THIER addon? What if it's a compilation of addons? Or an addon that includes the work of others (embedded libraries)?

IMHO, at that point, being "decent" is no longer a choice but a requirement. Why? Because it's not just THIER addon and the author no longer simply represents himself, he also represents all the other people that put in work towards the addon. Now-- If all the other people represented in the addon made the decision to be indecent, well, that's different. But when THEY haven't made that choice, you don't have the right to make that choice for them.

Tekkub · 02-26-07, 04:27 PM

I fully believe that if the author is going to code that stuff into the addon, then that same author should have the common decency to also code in an "off" switch.

What if the author prefers to provide small mods that do one thing and do it well? THere's a number of us out there that would rather write a half dozen little mods than provide one big "it does everything you want" mod.

But aye, anything that effects OTHER players damn well better be controlable. You have power over your addons, but you don't have control over your raid leader's.

Tekkub · 02-26-07, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Garus

Given your logic, any software that does not have a commercial purpose would not exist. For the most part, software is created with the intention of making money off it, particularly games. If they couldn’t charge the home user they wouldn’t make it.

Touche. In my wacky mind games don't fall under software so that thought never entered my brain.

However, I will refute your point about most software being written to make money. I think that the general infastructure of the majority of the internet proves that wrong. would the internet be what it is today if every ISP and web host had to buy some commercial package just to get started up? Yes I do still believe that these businesses should share their profits back to those that created the underlying OS they use, but paying up front for software just to be able to use it... meh.

I know I'm being an idealist here. I highly doubt that any money-making entity that's based off free/open source software are sharing their profits back. Humans are inherently greedy after all.

Okey, so how about a different approach... and yes I know this one would never happen but still... What if Blizzy were to add a simple "lend a hand" section to the subscription fee? My electric bill and tax returns are always pestering me to give a lil extra to help so and so in need. What if users could say "sure, I'll pay an extra dollar a month to compensate addon authors". Heck, blizzy could even keep simple useage statistics on addons directly from the client, so they wouldn't have to rely on questionable download numbers from addon sites. Imagine the improvements that could be made to the popular mods if their authors saw some incentive for their work.