Modding Guidelines

Dear TWC community,

Over the history of the TWC forums, there have been a number of occasions where the ownership of materials made by individual modders or mod teams have been called into question, leading to bitter fights between community members and/or modding teams. At times, this has meant that one side of the other has been left the victim of not clearly understanding their rights as a modder, as a team member, and as a user of the this free community forum. After deliberation, the administration of TWC has decided to put together both a Modder’s Bill of Rights to be understood as a standard policy across the TWC modding community.

This has been created in order to protect the rights of all involved, and to prevent the occurrence where a person or team are exploited by the sheer case of not knowing that each person or team deserve a standard level of respect, and that the agreements that they enter into be, at their very least, fair to all involved.

In a perfect world one would assume that all who come to TWC would understand a basis of mutual respect from which to work together; however in a community which is both wide in age and diverse of background, we have seen too often what was once a happy collaborative project turn into a bitter feud. So that all who come here are protected with a basic set of rights, the guidelines below have been written.

Upon reading the Bill, you will find that most of the points are indeed sheer common sense, and written with the purpose to avoid conflict and misunderstanding/ misappropriation of a mod or mod team’s work. Also, since in severe cases the administration is called on deliberate and find a fair solution, we expect all mod teams operating forums at TWC to abide in principal to the guidelines as a bare minimum, and to ensure that all team members understand and agree to the terms and conditions of using TWC as a base of either individual or team operations before they commence on any collaborative or individual project.

Modding Guidelines

As a modder and/or a member of a modding team utilizing the TWC forums, I agree to abide by these guidelines below:

• Modding teams and individuals agree to recognize the work of other modders and teams and not utilize their material, nor modify their base material in any way, without their permission, unless said material has been declared as "free to use resource" by them. In any case, credit is to be given where it is due, for any material used in a public project that was created by others. Failure to acquire permission for third party material used in a public mod will result in warnings, as per the site's rules, and additional penalties at the discretion of the site administration.
• Modding teams and individuals agree to take the appropriate action when asking for permission to include the work of another modder/team within their own and contact that team/modder directly. On gaining permission, a copy of said permission will be stored (in a team development forum or in a members message-box) at that time to be kept as permanent record. Failure to do so may mean that rights to said permission may be brought into question and possibly be lost/ revoked.
• Any work submitted from an individual/team to another individual/team or any work submitted within a time two parties have collaborated for the purpose of working on a joint project is the joint property of both, cannot be revoked at a later date and may be used by either party in any way they see fit, unless a different arrangement is made between them, in which case both sides will be required to provide evidence of it to the site's administration.
• Flaming or disparaging the work of other modders and/or modding teams is unacceptable. In doing so, individuals may be subject to a warning, as per the site's rules, to be subject to change said behavior or have forum rights suspended for a period of time. Team may be subject to revocation of their hosted mod forum, closing of their mod thread and banning of their mod from the site.
• In case of a disagreement between any modder/team and another modder/team, this document will be used as a guideline for consultation and arbitration of a decision. In such case, said conflict of interests will be resolved by a team appointed by the Administration and its decision will be final.

Who to contact:

• The current Modding Administrator is Gigantus. If you feel that some modder is ignoring these guidelines then please contact him via PM for him to look into the matter.
• Alternatively you can also contact moderation staff by using the report function available in the left corner of that individual's post & write your complaint\report in the report box.