Alien species compendium

[droidscotty]

My "alien compendium" in .doc format is no longer available.

[redwood973]

You might want to give credit to those whom works you are using.

I see works from almost everyone on these boards in this Compendium. Would have been nice to have each credited for their hard work and efforts.

[Evan van Eyk]

I think it is a great idea to create such a complete collection of alien species templates. Very handy and useful and it sure helps to get characters that do not belong to the few very prominent species. I also like the style you used for the compendium.
However I agree that the templates, which were not created by you need to be credited properly. Its only fair I think.

[droidscotty]

I totally agree with you and I’m sorry if I shocked you.

But it would be very difficult to me now to retrieve every name (or even pseudonyms) for each template as it took me months to find and assemble those in a right way.
I’ve specified all books and internet addresses references. I can’t do more. I've tried to change the last page of the books to be "more" fair with the authors.

Be sure that I didn’t realize this book to usurp any work from anyone. I just wanted to simplify the access to the species by putting them in one place only. If you don't agree with it I accept to simply remove the compendiums from this site.

[First of Two]

It's an excellent idea, in theory.

But it would be very difficult to me now to retrieve every name (or even pseudonyms) for each template as it took me months to do this.

Yes, it would be difficult. That is why it's called "work."

I’ve specified all books and internet addresses references. I can’t do more.

If you know where the data came from, it can't be that difficult to go back to the sources and add the little "by" line. At least, the Alien sheets from this site all seem to have the writers credited somewhere prominently in their entry. They wouldn't be hard to find at all.

So "can't" is not the appropriate word here.

I've modified the last page to reflect this.

It should say "compiled by" instead of "written" to denote the segments which are not yours. You should, of course, credit yourself as the writer for all of the work which you did yourself. An appendix of author credits would do this satisfactorily.

You don't necessarily have to credit every entry in the published books (unless the books credit them individually) but you should credit the authors/publisher.

I don't mean to be rough on you. I'm a research librarian and copyright issues play a big part in my job, and you wouldn't believe how touchy some people can be about them. I've seen some incredibly talented people stop contributing their work - work they were doing for free, mind you - because they felt that they weren't being respected. We don't want to see that happen again.

You've done a good job on a compilation here. It's true that the researcher/data compiler's job is not an easy one, and you deserve credit for that.

[droidscotty]

It should say "compiled by" instead of "written".

It's done.

I've seen some incredibly talented people stop contributing their work - work they were doing for free, mind you - because they felt that they weren't being respected.

I feel so in this moment. More even because English is not my native language. It's sometimes extremely difficult for me to express anything correctly.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The formatting seems weird ('le formatage semble bizarre'?) .

[droidscotty]

('le formatage semble bizarre'?)

Thanks. I understand english well, it's just more difficult to write it.

What do you find strange? Could it be better if I convert it in pdf. file?

[RealPity]

Personally I didn't get the impression you were trying to take credit for everything, you're just offering up a handy compilation of everything in one spot. Thanks very much for the work.
Maybe in the future just keep track as you go along, or check with the people beforehand if possible.
Myself I couldn't care less for the credit, but I know lots of people are indeed seemingly touchy about it, especially if a lot of work went into something. Just personal preference for individuals.

[droidscotty]

Well, I thank it was just an RPG forum, but obviouly it's not true.
I'm wondering about closing all this thread and remove the books.

I've posted it only to help but seeing now the reactions, I will finish to think it has been better for me to keep it for myself only. I'll wait until tomorrow to see if some other people have something to say.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Thanks. I understand english well, it's just more difficult to write it.

What do you find strange? Could it be better if I convert it in pdf. file?

There's huge uneven gaps between the templates, but I'm opening the file in another program, not Word. PDFs are generally better for distributing documents online...

[droidscotty]

The formatting is okay with Word.

I tried to convert the files in pdf this morning but they are too huge for my "pdf creator" program. It tooks about 15 minutes to convert only 3 pages. So as there is more than 100 pages to convert, it will take several hours to do. I've no time enough for the moment, sorry.

[Evan van Eyk]

Well, I thank it was just an RPG forum, but obviouly it's not true.
I'm wondering about closing all this thread and remove the books.

Especially with free work for RPGs it is essential to credit those, who did it. They do not have legal protection so they depend on the "good manners" of the fellow contributors/ users.
However since you are just beginning, mistakes are bound to happen. Just learn from it and next time note the credits right away. My comment was just meant as a heads up and not intended to be offensive. As I said mistakes happen and I never got the impression you wanted to "steal" anything.


As a compromise I would do the following:

Put credits at the end or beginning, where you specifically note which of the templates were done by you yourself and the names of those you still remember. Afterwards shortly explain the situation as you did here - that you collected the templates for personal use and then realized it would be handy to compile them into one file, only to realize you no longer remembered who did what, but still feel that the compilation would be useful to the community of players. At the end you could make a call to notify you if anyone sees one of their own templates or remembers templates' authors, so you can update it.

[droidscotty]

I'll do my best to do as you say. But now I've really no time to do it as I'm really very busy. I prefer thus to suspend the diffusion until I can correct my mistake.

Deeply yours,

Droidscotty