How to design your own script

If you're new to these arts, this is the place to ask "stupid" questions and get directions!
Visocacas
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Visocacas »

Aevas wrote: 14 Nov 2020 09:52
Visocacas wrote: 13 Nov 2020 20:30...
Has clawgrip given you permission to edit and repost his work?
I did reach out to notify Clawgrip and offered to make any requested accomodations or feedback. I didn't get a response. Clawgrip seems to have been active since then, so I can only assume they either didn't care enough to reply or chose not to for some reason.

But I understand people can be sensitive. In case anyone regards this as some form of plagiarism, here are some points in my defense:
  • The very first thing beneath the title is an acknowledgement of Clawgrip's original authorship, as well as the contribution of Salmoneus. There's even a hyperlink directly to this forum post.
  • I do not profit from this in any way. Maybe you could consider promotion of the subreddit as such, but that too is not monetized in any way and again CBB is linked more prominently at the top of the page. Ads at the bottom of the page benefit Wordpress since I made the site for free.
  • This was no simple copy-and-paste job. It was actually a huge undertaking, much more than I thought it would be. Both the big-picture structure and sentence-level writing have been thoroughly reworked. I would challenge anyone to read them side by side and try to argue that it's not an immense improvement.
  • I feel confident in doing this in the service of promoting knowledge and skill of this hobby. I think it speaks for itself that this is driven by passion and a desire to make it easier and more accessible to newcomers.
Unrelated: I saved a PDF of the original CBB post. If Clawgrip or anyone wants it to recover the broken image links, contact me and I'd be happy to help restore them.
Last edited by Visocacas on 15 Nov 2020 16:48, edited 1 time in total.
Salmoneus
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Salmoneus »

Even if you've modified the work enough for it to be legally permitted under fair use (although given that I think you use at least some of clawgrip's images unaltered, I can't see how it would be legal!), it's still extremely tasteless to steal someone else's work without their permission. Not responding to you is not the same as giving you permission.

[having said that, I guess I personally don't mind - what you've taken from me is very small, after all, and didn't require any particular work on my part, unlike Clawgrip's contribution]

[No 'e' in my name, incidentally]


[for what it's worth, obviously my 'no curves in carving' thing was careless and correctly refuted. I think, though, that a more specific guideline is probably true, but i'm not sure how I'd express it: that carved fonts are likely to avoid 'difficult' curves. Yes, Roman capitals have curves: but all the curves are relatively large, and they're all basically circles or semicicles (ie curves of constant radius). I'd be surprised to see a primarily carved script filled with tiny loops and a variety of sinuous curves (though of course it's not impossible). I think it's probably true that primarily carved scripts will tend toward straight lines rather than curves, and that the curves they do have will tend to be large and simple. But of course even that probably has counterexamples. [and now I'm wondering whether the fact both futhark and roman have a lot more verticals than horizontals is a coincidence either - maybe the effort and motion of carving tends to encourage verticals and downward diagonals, and discourage horizontals, which would mechanically be more difficult to control? But this is just speculation]]
Khemehekis
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Khemehekis »

Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 No 'e' in my name, incidentally]
I believe you mean no 'o' in your name.
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by lsd »

Khemehekis wrote: 15 Nov 2020 02:13
Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 No 'e' in my name, incidentally]
I believe you mean no 'o' in your name.
I believe you mean no eo in his/your name
Visocacas
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Visocacas »

Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 ...it's still extremely tasteless to steal someone else's work without their permission.
Let me reset the tone of this discussion so it doesn't escalate. I realize now that I've made etiquette errors and assumptions about the legality of modifying another person's work. I want to assure everyone that I'm acting in good faith. Someone who intends to 'steal' content doesn't preface it by acknowledging the original author(s), linking directly to its source, and informing the original author and community, while not monetizing or even identifying themselves.

I thought citing the author and linking to the source would be enough. I thought repackaging freely available content on an equally free, non-monetized platform wouldn't have legal concerns. I even thought Clawgrip might be flattered that someone would pour a lot of time and effort into making their great guide even better so that it may be exposed to wider audiences and promote awareness and skill in this hobby.

Now I realize that I should have thought more carefully about these assumptions. And I definitely should have contacted Clawgrip before embarking on this project.

I have a lot of respect and gratitude to Clawgrip for creating this extremely helpful free resource. I don't want to get on anyone's bad side for making blunders. My intention was for this project to be a gift to the conlanging/conscripting community, and my hope was that it would be received positively by fellow creative linguistics geeks.

So I ask that I be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as someone acting in good faith despite blunders I might have committed. Let's work together to resolve any unintended problems that this might present.

(Salmoneus I've corrected the spelling of your username.)
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Salmoneus »

Khemehekis wrote: 15 Nov 2020 02:13
Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 No 'e' in my name, incidentally]
I believe you mean no 'o' in your name.
The inviolability of Hartman's Law...
Salmoneus
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Salmoneus »

Visocacas wrote: 15 Nov 2020 18:48
Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 ...it's still extremely tasteless to steal someone else's work without their permission.
Let me reset the tone of this discussion so it doesn't escalate. I realize now that I've made etiquette errors and assumptions about the legality of modifying another person's work. I want to assure everyone that I'm acting in good faith. Someone who intends to 'steal' content doesn't preface it by acknowledging the original author(s), linking directly to its source, and informing the original author and community, while not monetizing or even identifying themselves.
Fair enough. Sorry if 'steal' was too harsh a word.

I thought citing the author and linking to the source would be enough. I thought repackaging freely available content on an equally free, non-monetized platform wouldn't have legal concerns. I even thought Clawgrip might be flattered that someone would pour a lot of time and effort into making their great guide even better so that it may be exposed to wider audiences and promote awareness and skill in this hobby.
To be clear, citing and linking is a good thing - it means that this isn't plagiarism. But I think it's still at least morally, and potentially legally, copyright infringement (I am not a lawyer, and I don't know where the dividing line is between infringement and 'fair use' - but I think it must be at least questionable).

For what it's worth, I agree that this should be flattering to Clawgrip; I'd find it flattering in their position. I'd also probably give permission for it in their position. But the point is that that has to be up to Clawgrip, not to anybody else.

[for clarity: I was slightly annoyed you didn't ask my permission too, as a matter of tact. However, I don't think that my contribution was substantial or specific enough to merit protection - so while I think it would have been better for you to ask me first (politer, more tactful, classier), I don't think asking me first was morally required, or that I should have any moral right to prevent you from quoting/paraphrasing me in this way.]
Now I realize that I should have thought more carefully about these assumptions. And I definitely should have contacted Clawgrip before embarking on this project.

I have a lot of respect and gratitude to Clawgrip for creating this extremely helpful free resource. I don't want to get on anyone's bad side for making blunders. My intention was for this project to be a gift to the conlanging/conscripting community, and my hope was that it would be received positively by fellow creative linguistics geeks.
And my intention is not to seek to dissuade enthusiastic people from creating resources. It's just that these issues of seeking consent are common mistakes that people (particularly younger people and newcomers, I think) often make, and I think it's important to set these boundaries when it happens.
So I ask that I be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as someone acting in good faith despite blunders I might have committed. Let's work together to resolve any unintended problems that this might present.
For what it's worth, if Clawgrip doesn't give you their permission, but you want to present a version of the guide anyway, I think the priority would be replacing his graphics with your own. I've not looked at the text side-by-side, but in general it's much easier to rewrite text, maintaining the general principles while becoming more independent in the details, to move from 'wrong' to 'grey area', and 'grey area' to 'OK'; but using specific images that someone else has created is a red line for a number of reasons.
[a) they take a disproportionate amount of time to create; b) they're more specific and creative; and c) it's easier to separate them conceptually as works in their own right, so that even when fair use applies to the document as a whole it may not apply to the use of the images as works in their own right.]

But again, to be clear, I'm not a lawyer.
(Salmoneus I've corrected the spelling of your username.)
Thank you.
clawgrip
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by clawgrip »

Sorry for failing to respond for so long.

1. I haven't seen your document, but if it has acknowledgements and links, I think that's good enough.
2. As far as legality goes, one of my images is scanned straight from a book I own (I mention this). The Devanagari and Hieroglyphic images were taken from websites and I am no longer sure where I got them. So my own guide is already not quite on the level.
3. The name servers for the hosting website changed, but I have now updated them, so the images in this thread (and elsewhere) have returned.
4. I might still add to this guide in the future.
Khemehekis
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Re: How to design your own script

Post by Khemehekis »

Salmoneus wrote: 15 Nov 2020 22:25
Khemehekis wrote: 15 Nov 2020 02:13
Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2020 23:35 No 'e' in my name, incidentally]
I believe you mean no 'o' in your name.
The inviolability of Hartman's Law...
TIL that Hartman's Law is a variation on Muphry's Law that states: "Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror [sic]."
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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