New forum needs members.

[bluesoul]

www.wifom.net/forum is up and, for the most part, ready to rock and roll. I need to finish a few things with the Usergroups but nothing drastic. There are already a few games taking signups and a few mods waiting on the population to pick up before they roll their games out. Oh, and right now there's no queue on almost everything. If you're on the tail-end of a queue somewhere you might just cut 6 months off your wait time if you're fast enough.

Thoughts?

[mith]

Right. I'm going to rant on this a bit. This needs to be put in an FAQ I think.

I certainly have no problem with people playing Mafia other places. Mafia is great game to play among an already existing community.

I do, however, have problems with people trying to draw mafiascum's players to play Mafia elsewhere, for two reasons:

1. Having played on those other sites, I personally find it somewhat frustrating when people turn up just for Mafia. If I choose to play Mafia on the GL, for example, I prefer it to be among actual GLers. (That doesn't mean I discourage scummers from visiting the GL and seeing if it's for them; some of my favorite GLers started out as scummers).

2. mafiascum.net was created to bring the Mafia addicts from those other sites together - to be a Mafia specific site, as opposed to Mafia being played on (for example) a puzzle website or a forum dedicated to a humor site. Drawing players away to other sites is counter to that purpose. My stand on this has always been - If you want to play Mafia among a particularly community, why not keep it in that community (and players interested in more can visit here)? And if you want to play Mafia on a generic Mafia site, why make a new one when one already exists? mafiascum.net is certainly not perfect, no website is, but the answer is not to create your own Mafia site; give us some input on what we can do to improve things.

Obviously, I can't stop new Mafia sites being created. I can't even keep people from advertising them (though I certainly could classify this sort of thread as spam if I thought it would do any good). But I do discourage this sort of thing.

That said, I can tell you this - your website borders on plagiarism. If you want to have your very own website, at least do something original.

[jeep]

Beat me to it, mith.

-JEEP

[Turbovolver]

This is an interesting topic. The other sites can possibly offer something different, because they might have different rules about modding. and provide a chance to avoid queues. However, advertising them here does feel off, and I speak from experience having done it myself. A decision I regret. My friends that wanted to play didn't want to sign up for a huge site like this though, we just needed a few more players, so that's why I did what I did. >.<

The plagiarisim topic is a blurry one, for sure. It's a point that does have some merit.

I didn't read all of the big long post, just assumed the kind of stuff it would be saying. >.>

Vote: Turbovolver

for a rather non-committal post.

[mith]

Pah, it wasn't that long.

Regarding the "avoiding queues" part, that's actually one of the more annoying things about this. We have queues for a reason (reasons, actually; I ought to put them in writing at some point). We make modifications to them as needed (and as mentioned several times in the past few weeks, some fairly major ones will be coming soon), but attempting to bypass them entirely is a bit... not cool. It basically lets the handful who go quickly sign up over there "cut" in line. If the site were successful, and drawing from the same group of players, it would eventually just stabilize into roughly the same wait times spread over twice the number of lists.

The plagiarism is not that blurry at all (I was being a bit lenient before). It's not as blatant as the guy who copied whole sections of html back in the day. Still, this site has copied much of the organization of this site (the Newbie-Mini-Normal-Theme division is pretty much unique to mafiascum; most other sites that have Mafia games have a single forum for them, or even play them along with other games in a single games forum). Much of the "Mafia Rules" is copied word-for-word from the Read This First, as well. (I believe most of the "Arcade" is copied games, too.)

Plagiarism isn't just unethical. It's illegal.

[tidus_of_zanarkand]

I am going to have to agree.

There have been a rather large amount of new website appearing to play mafia. I personally prefer playing here on mafiascum. I would much rather see a community dedication to playing mafia. The variety of playstyles and themes is excellent. I feel that starting seperate websites only dilutes the player pool and hinders overall growth of an individual. I know mith hasnt said it word for word but it seems the queue is there for two reasons:

a) Giving everyone who wants to a chance to moderate and play mafia games
b) Ensuring the quality of games people join by not having them cancelled two days later

I will be sticking around mafiascum for my mafia fix. I have many ideas for games but limitations of life only allow me to play in a couple and moderate once in a while at best.

I encourage others to stick around mafiascum and join as a community regardless of if they spend extra time on other forums as well.

[bluesoul]

Here's the thing. I think you're on to a great thing, mith. Plagiarism is the most sincere form of flattery, as they say. I was hoping this wouldn't create a big ruckus because, to be blunt, nobody's in it for the money. And I'd be lying if I said MS didn't give a lot of the inspiration for it because, again, I think it's got it damn close to right. I'm fairly OCD so as long as I was going to make a website for Mafia (which I planned to long before I found scum) it's going to be organized.

(It also wasn't really my idea to just post this thing. I was going to PM you but I had quite a few people saying "Oh, they won't mind, go ahead and post it." I wish I'd listen to my gut more often than others because I was right. If this truly bothers you, shoot me a PM with your biggest gripes about it and I'll do my best to make everyone happy.)

I didn't do this to take away your members. I did it because I'm going to college for web design, I was going to make a Mafia site, and I think that MS is setting the standard for how they should be.

[tidus_of_zanarkand]

Fair enough. Brief summary of my thoughts.

a) I don't want to see players leave this site for another
b) The reasons I'm not visting your website bluesoul is that I don't have enough time
c) I encourage players that do have enough time to play on multiple sites to do so

Thanks and good luck

[Fiasco]

Bluesoul, I'm sure you had your reasons, but how is the site anything else than completely superfluous? The main reason why the mini queues have a long waiting time is that compared to the ratio of moderators vs players in a typical mafia game, there are too many people who'd like to moderate and too few who'd like to play. Setting up a new queue on another site reduces the number of players and slows down the queue here. In the end, you're in the same situation, except some lucky moderators were able to jump the queue at the cost of the others.

In theory, at some point, I could maybe imagine the mafia playing community getting large enough that it gets cumbersome to have them all on one site, but we're not at that point. Splitting the community is bad.

I encourage players that do have enough time to play on multiple sites to do so

I disagree. Unless you want to play mafia with a specific forum community that you're already a part of, why not play more games here? (Or maybe even play the same number of games but actually participate in them, grumble, grumble, gripe.)

[bluesoul]

I don't see how another forum reduces players. I routinely check MTGS, GL, here, and now WIFOM. If you don't have the time, obviously, you'll probably stick with what you know (and what games you're already in.) Considering I advertised it here and on the GL only, the people that register will be people that

do

have the time to play on more than one website.

However, I think you might be pleasantly surprised with shorter queues overall. The Mafia scene

is

getting bigger (I've started about 15 or 20 people playing at my school in the past week or so) so maybe I'm taking the initiative here. (Sarcasm, I've already given the reasons why I made it.)

[Fiasco]

By "reduces the number of players", I meant "reduces the number of players times games played per player", which is what matters for the queues. A player that signs up in your queue is going to sign up for one less game here, and all the mods in the queue here will have to wait for that much longer. On the whole, the average queue length stays the same, except now people have to check two sites instead of one.

[SpamWise]

I like Mafiascum because of the depth of skill here. You won't find it anywhere else. That said though, I enjoy playing on other sites, because you get exposed to a wider variety of personalities. (I swear Fritzler has been in every game I've ever played, bar a few newbie ones)

I would join, but then I would feel dirty, like I was betraying Mafiascum.

[tidus_of_zanarkand]

I would have to say that the more players per forum, the greater likelyhood of a wider variety of players per forum exist. Thats why I encourage people to play on a single forum.

That being said, people are individuals and will do what they want to so I wish everyone the best.

[mith]

Before I start this post, I want to make something clear: I am not angry that someone has started a "rival" website. I find the idea quite pointless, and have discussed (and will continue to discuss, if needed) why.

I am, however, angry about the plagiarism. This isn't the "I hate you forever, bluesoul" sort of anger; in fact, I hope that you will learn a few things from this. But you need to understand how I feel about it. Plagiarism is an important issue, especially when one is a research student.

I am posting this publicly, not because I want to start a flame war (I see no reason why this should go that way; you are being perfectly civil about it, if misguided), but because some things simply need to be made clear publicly.

1. Plagiarism may be flattering, but it's also theft. Whether anyone is "in it for the money" is irrelevant.

Putting "As seen on MafiaScum." does not make things better. For one thing, it is a poor citation; only parts of those rules are from here, and having our name attached to those is as much a problem as not having our name attached to what is ours. For another, it suggests that I am (or mafiascum as a whole is) endorsing your website and your use of that material, which is untrue.

Also, while written consent is not necessary for using another's work (with citation) in all cases, this does not fall under "fair use". Giving credit does not, on its own, make it ok.

You've mentioned that you are going into web design. This is not web design. So far you have shown that you can install a publicly available piece of software, which pretty much anyone is capable of, complete with a ready made layout, and steal content from other places. It shows very little original thought. This sort of thing won't succeed in the real world. It won't succeed in university. Heck, it would quite likely get you kicked out of university.

So, my first "gripe" would be to insist that you remove any directly quoted material from any part of your site. And never assume that someone is going to be ok with something, particularly when you don't know that someone personally. If you have any doubts, ask.

2. I still see no good reason for another dedicated Mafia site. Whether you wanted to do it before you came across mafiascum.net (which I find somewhat unbelievable anyway, but I'll leave it at that, it doesn't matter what I believe), the fact is that it hasn't just been done, it's been done for four years. And, like it or not, that changes things.

You've given your reasons, but:

If you are doing this for a project, or web design practice, you do not need actual users (and there are other Mafia related project sites that you could make anyway).
If you are doing this for friends you've introduced to the game, you could have designed a site specifically for that group; or, if you just wanted them to play on a dedicated Mafia site, you could have brought them to the one that already exists.
If you are doing this because you feel there is room for more Mafia, then encourage more Mafia here (or if you like playing with a particular group, on the GL or wherever else you play). It's not as though even you are playing all the games you possibly could here (or on any of the other sites); why play games on a fourth for no good reason?
If you are doing this for shorter queues, well, this has already been addressed. We have queues for a reason.

It's great that you think we're doing things well. If anything, that should suggest that another site doing exactly the same thing is pointless.

[Turbovolver]

Haha mith, if you thought that post was too long for me after my comments then you haven't seen me playing mafia. I just didn't read it that time because I went straight into making a response.

I agree with a lot of what mith has said. When I said the plagiarism thing was blurry, I didn't know he was copying the rules from this site or anything. I thought we were just talking about the concept of a site dedicated to mafia.

[tidus_of_zanarkand]

Copying and pasting directly from an already well established website is not cool man. I discourage plagarism in all its forms regardless of any other factors.

WIFOM.net gets my official boycott

[Twomz]

Bluesoul... a word of caution. When Manatap.com first started up, I decided to start a mafia section, in order to possible recruit new people (although it really didn't, because almost everyone from that site also goes to MTGSally) We had several games (I tried to keep things in order... because Me and diggy were in charge... ) But it's gotten to the point where we can't even fill up a 12 person signup list (and the one other ongoing game is getting VERY lurky).

There was also an offshoot (forumgames) that was made because they didn't want to have to scroll threw a bunch of stuff to get down to the mafia games ( ). That site got pretty much pwned. It died almost as fast as Itopia did.

The point is... you're probably gonna get a few games going... you're probably gonna finish a few... but eventually people are going to start to lurk (A LOT) (unless, it's just your friends from school who are playing there, as a private group) and the site may die. It's a whole lot easier on everyone if we just stay consolidated on one site (i'm trying to cut back on mafia games on MTGSally, but we got some crazy mofo mods over there... (Az, Puzzle, CP, Axelrod, etc.) so it'll probably be just a one or two games at a time thing).

[Adele]

/boycott

[bluesoul]

mith, I'd like to talk to you on AIM later today so we can get down to business. I want to work with you on what you'd like changed. Basically, I'm acknowledging most of the content is yours, and I want to come to a happy medium as far as the layout goes.

Those of you that want me to close down the site, however, may as well give it up. Boycott all you want, but don't tell me what to do with my time and money. Those of you that have been harassing me via PM really have no reason to do so. I'm tired of it. You have an opinion and that's fine, but without giving me at least a little respect I'm going to ignore what you have to say. I hope any further PMs will be slightly more pleasant.

[Mr. Flay]

I've got nothing to say in general that other people haven't said, however...

Those of you that want me to close down the site, however, may as well give it up. Boycott all you want, but don't tell me what to do with my time and money. Those of you that have been harassing me via PM really have no reason to do so. I'm tired of it. You have an opinion and that's fine, but without giving me at least a little respect I'm going to ignore what you have to say. I hope any further PMs will be slightly more pleasant.

Your level of plagarism on that site is enough to possibly get a lawsuit, or get you in trouble with your ISP. Check the Terms of Service of the folks providing you with hosting space; I'll bet they make mention of plagarism, copyright violation, and illegal use of materials.

Copyright is automatic, and doesn't require a formal submission to the U.S. Copyright office, that just makes it easier to prove. With a web forum with archives and records such as mafiascum.net, mith would not have a hard time proving his case if he wanted to do so. You're the one who is getting increasingly rude about a very reasonable request.

You have every right and freedom to start your own mafia site. What you don't have a right to is mafiascum's material, which is all that mith is really requesting of you (the rest is discussion about the 'why', IMO).

[mith]

bluesoul, you're saying you want to work with me, but you're not reading anything I'm saying. You can acknowledge the content is mine all you like, but as long as it is up without my permission, you are breaking the law. As long as that is the case, further discussion (with you, at least) is entirely pointless.

As for closing down the site, I don't really care what you do with your time and money, but I do feel you are wasting it. I don't condone people harrassing you over it, but perhaps when you start giving respect to the property of others, they will give respect to you.

[Turbovolver]

Is it really illegal though?

It's definitely plagiarism to copy huge wads of text or whatever, but if they are referenced then that isn't illegal, is it?
And even if they aren't referenced, do plagiarism laws extend to random text posted on a phpBB forum?

[Mastermind of Sin]

i pretty much agree with mith here. I don't agree with those who are boycotting or being rude, but I agree with mith. There is no point in starting another site. If you bring more people to mafiascum, the wait times for mods will become shorter, because more people will sign up for games. By creating your own forums, you not only slow down the wait times on any site that you recruit from, but you also will slow down your own wait time as you get more people on the site, which inevitably means more people that want to mod. So while I have nothing to say about whether or not you should continue with your forums, I agree with mith in that it is a useless endeavor. I tried to start playing mafia games on a forum I was on, and we didn't even get through one game. People lurked and wouldn't finish it out. In the end, I invited the more dedicated people to mafiascum and was able to add to the playerbase both on mafiascum and ultimately on scumchat, where they (Schrademan and Zaxafel) spend most of their mafia-playing these days.

[Dead Rikimaru]

The plagiarism is not that blurry at all (I was being a bit lenient before). It's not as blatant as the guy who copied whole sections of html back in the day. Still, this site has copied much of the organization of this site

(the Newbie-Mini-Normal-Theme division is pretty much unique to mafiascum

; most other sites that have Mafia games have a single forum for them, or even play them along with other games in a single games forum).

Much of the "Mafia Rules" is copied word-for-word from the Read This First, as well

. (I believe most of the "Arcade" is copied games, too.)
.

Bluesoul, I have a suggestion:
Why don't you redo your forum's organization to make it different from MS?
The division of MS Games between newbie/mini/normal games is (at least I think so) the result of transformations done to this site according to the demand of players.
Nowadays you have just few players, why don't you just make a signup forum, and a "play mafia games" forum?
As time goes by if your site is successful you can make new branches according to your own needs, and you can even make standards different from those of MS.
IF MS have mostly games for 7(newbie), 12(mini) and 20+(normal) players your forum in the future may have as many divisions as the demand for and according to your own standards, while today not only they are causing you trouble but they are not necessary for the workings of your site as well.
I believe that, unless I'm missing something, as soon as you do those changes most of the problems mith pointed out will be solved.

[bluesoul]

So you want me to de-organize. I used the Noob-Mini-Normal-Theme-Experimental layout because it's the logical way to group games. Damn near every game fits into one of those categories. What about moderating experience? It doesn't take as much experience to run a 7-man newbie game as a 30-man theme game. Grouping everything into one lump forum is counterproductive. I'm not being unreasonable here; a Mafia forum needs to have more than "Mafia Signups" and "Mafia Games."

Most of the Mafia Rules were revamped yesterday. Having the site up for a few days helped to decide what was important and what was not.