my guide, why deleted?

[Blacktea]

I have posted a guide here in sincere hope that it will help severeal players like myself, who had only limited access to any sniping gameplay information when they started playing PS. I have spent 5 horus writing the guide and I dont regret that time.
A mate of mine called me at nigh that someone accused me of copying his guide... The only guide I have ever read on sniping is the lone gunman on official PS website. Now I cant find my work even with search option, so I suppose it was deleted. Why?

I do not bitch, I do not whine that contribution that I have put into this website to help other players was destroyed without even consulting me. What surprizes me is the course of action the peson responsible for this forum and my thread took, perhaps just because someone claimed that I have copyet it from him.

have a nice day

[Jaged]

Your guide was surprisingly similar to his. Do you have an explanation for this?

[Blacktea]

Well order how to write a sniping guide is quite similar for everyone I think. As I have said, only guide that I ever read was on the official site. It is similar to mine in some aspects because explaining certifications and equipment can hardly be done in any other way and I have traded originality for clear explanation. The format is similar, that is all.
The official guide does not include
a) detailed positioning tactics
b) targeting and sniping tricks
c) survival stuff
or only in very vague way.

I CLEARLY STATE AGAIN THAT I HAVE NEVER READ ANY OTHER GUIDE ON SNIPING.

If any person feels that I wrote something like he did, or even that I have copied it from him (which I did not) I am open to discussion.
I would expect that before my thread is deleted, am at least asked about genuity of my work. I would also be in favor of helping each other (me and another author) to make our guides as good as possible, because the intent of writing them (as I hope) is to help other people, not establish oneself.
I therefore protest against they way how my attempt to help other players was dealt with. I hope you will not take this in any offensive way, but as mature attempt to clarify the problem.

Ninamven/LadyMercedes (WERNER)

[BigFreak]

It is similar to mine in some aspects because explaining certifications and equipment can hardly be done in any other way and I have traded originality for clear explanation. The format is similar, that is all.

Can I ask how you know which bits are similar, if you haven't read it?

[Blacktea]

Please read again what I have written:

"As I have said, only guide that I ever read was on the official site. It is similar to mine in some aspects ..."

I was talking about official guide.

again: I have never read any other guide than the official one. Period.

edit: I have not ever read that another authors post about my guide being similar. I had no chance to react. That is what I am concerned about. I am also concerned about the fact that altough I have made some effort to help new players I get only negative feedback from this boards.

[SecondRaven]

You stole his guide blacktea plane and simple...now get over it and go write one for real this time

[Blacktea]

I did not steal his guide, have you read mine? did you? can you compare?
If admins are so quick to delete my posts, what about if they look into my log history on this site and see that I have not logged on for weeks. For weks I did not play PS. Now I returned and wrote guide for my new outfit. I tought It would be good idea to post it here.

Jesus I had enough flaming and boards wars when I played ultima online , did not expect that stuff in here, where Id think most players are 15+.

[SilverLord]

You stole his guide blacktea plane and simple...now get over it and go write one for real this timeDude, I didn't read the other guide made by the other player but you need to calm down and let BlackTea, the other author, and the PSU staff figure it out before you start assuming things.

F**king annoying when people do that.

[Electrofreak]

Blacktea, I am Electrofreak, and I've written a sniper guide and completed it several weeks back. I've given it to the PSU staff to post onto the website, but they've been busy and haven't gotten it up. Eager to get some response on my guide before it was published, I posted a link to a rough version of the guide in IRC chat a week or so ago, and let a few people check it out. Your guide is so amazingly similar to mine in so many ways, I simply find it hard to believe that you did not plagiarize my work. Yesterday, I put up the full version of my guide so that the PSU community could compare mine to yours and see the similarties. The PSU staff then reviewed both guides, and deleted yours on the suspicion that it was plagiarized material.

Look, I'm going to give you the chance to explain yourself, but you must realize, there are WAY too many similarities between my guide and yours, and the chances that it is just a coincidence seem pretty small. I worked on my guide for almost a month, it was my project. I've been waiting for it to be published, and let some people have a peek at it while it is in the process of being put up. Then I come onto the forums yesterday and see someone with a guide that for all intents and purposes appears to be a ripoff of mine. I think you could understand how I feel.

Simply provide us with evidence that your material is 100% original work, and I'm sure the PSU staff will allow you to re-post your guide.

[SilverLord]

ElectroFreak, are you here to make a name for yourself and get a title or help newbs with sniping?

[Electrofreak]

PS: Silverlord (and others), SecondRaven saw my guide before Blacktea ever posted his, as well as many others. Numerous people (including PSU Staff) have compared the guides, and pretty much everyone agrees with my sentiment that my work has been copied. Almost anyone who is a regular on IRC chat knows that I've been working on the guide, and quite a few of those had seen the preview of the guide I posted in chat, so I have quite a few people who will vouch for me.

[Electrofreak]

Silverlord, my guide is massive. I spent weeks working on it. I went in game and extensively tested things, and took numerous pictures. A great deal of work went into it. I would like to recieve credit for all the hard work I've accomplished. I'm not being unreasonable. If Blacktea can provide evidence that he didn't plagiarize my work, I will apologize to him and everything. I'm not trying to make a name for myself, or destroy Blacktea's reputation. I just want to be sure that someone else isnt taking credit for my hard work.

PS: Here, I'll provide a link to my guide. If Blacktea will be so kind as to post a link of his own, you can compare for yourself.

Electrofreak's Sniper Guide (http://www.geocities.com/electr0freak/)

[easypickings]

i could not see you link as i am at work and it wont let me open many files here,

but i do feel really sorry for blacktea, as he sounds as though he is telling the truth.
as i say i cant look at your site but to be honest how many ways are there to be a sniper ?

it's mostly just common sence.

i do understand that you have gone above and beyond simply saying just poke your head out, and set up defence or which back up weapons to use e.t.c
i can tell you have put a lot of work and time in to it.
i will look at you guide when i get home as i am very interested in it.

p.s im not tring to say anything bad about your guide or blacktea's guide just that if he is inocent i feel very sorry for the guy.

[Blacktea]

Electrofreak, I am happy that you are rational and want to sort it out. I will explain myself here quickly, but anyway after quickly scanning through your work, I do not see any reason why my work (only maybe there might be a point or two you might have not mentioned) should get published. I didnt even intednt to in the first case.
So here is my story.

I started with PS several months ago (last year sept???) and quickly found out that sniper is the only way am able to cope with the game (56k connection right? no chance of getting involved in big zergzs). So I sniped and sniped and sniped and sniped till January. Then I had some problems at school and gave the account away to my classmate. Last week I started to paly again because I found out that all czech players on Werner are in VS, and I was previously TR. So I took my "try out VS" char and made a sniper. And I found out that I was still good at it. I joined the mostly czech outfit (MYTH) and there was a guy who was new to sniping and was asking for tips. So I promised him that in the evening I sit down and write him a basic guide.
That is how my work came to living.
I published it on MYTH forums and then reaqlized that here it could be published as well here. I tried to get it into articles after I so no sniping guide in them, but did not find any way how to do it, so I posted it in here.
That is basically all the stuff.

As you could have seen, what I have written was just a deep summary of some thoughts and techniques, using same format as official guide, as the official guide is very clear. I just added two sections (I think, I dont remember the official guide that much) positioning and survival
Now I am wondering how it ended up they way it ended up and I have only one explanation:
Is there any other way how to write a sniper guide? You have to put in some introduction, something about certs and equipment and then get to the "real" stuff.
Therefore I do still think that this is big coincidence, as anyone else would have written something similar as well.
I know you have read what I have posted here as a guide, and you clearly saw it was just a few hours work, no format (as I reinstalled my WINS I do not even have english spellcheck yet), to help some other player to quickly get into sniping.
Compared to what you have done, we can all just bow (biohazard as well) because you have made real effort into it and structured and gave it great format and you know what, all those links etc... simply great. I thus see no need to continue in any discussion involving what I have written, because there is not need for it here.

What I am just concerned now is that I was called plagitarist (not sure about the spelling) by some (not you which thank you for) .I have not used IRC channel you have talked about, and actually I did not even know it exists. I have not been in PS for weeks (months?) and I did not know about your guide. I am sorry that I have caused you to think that someone tried to steal your work.
Now if anyone wants to call me (again that weird word) plagitarist, it is his own business, because I for myself am not concerned, and I hope you accept my explanation and apology.

----------------------------------

Now we were thinking about making a movie about positioning and survival (especially how to fight off enemy snipers) and I would be only happy if you�d like to pull our resources together, or maybe just discuss it. Anyway am sorry for this problem with the guide. You did amazing work.

ps: I really did not intend to do "all knowing guide of sniping" or anything as big as you have done. I was just summarizing my thoughts for my outfit. Cheers.

EDIT: I have just read this : "If you get lucky, you get to reload while the enemy player juggles his coffee, mashes his Esc key, or inserts a long line of "w"s into his chat bar. Hey, it�s a cruel, cruel world." and laughed my ars off. How many times this happened to me when I was not paying attention. Then i wanted to /t my friend something, ending up with wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww/t dannydevitto bla bla bla, and got pissed out... :doh:

[Firefly]

So wait- you gave your guide to PSU people, and he posted his... the way this reads is, he posted his on the forums while you gave yours to someone. Like, emailed it to them. So if that's the case, how exactly did he see your guide?

More importantly, regardless of the above situation- where exactly would BlackTea have copied your guide from?

See here's the thing about this game. Empire-specific crap aside, EACH team can do the same damn thing. Who started what? Is that concept a TR or NC or VS original? Maybe.

If you write a book about the Civil War, it's going to be the same as other books about the Civil War. There's only one way it happened. There's going to be a lot of similar or exact-same things said and written. That's because there's only ONE way that it happened. Same with sniping. With a few minor deviations for personal tricks, it's all the same.

Get a bolt driver. Load it up. Zoom in. Fire. Wash-rinse-repeat. The guy dies. End of story. What the fuck? I just copied your idea.

[Blacktea]

He said he posted a link on IRC chat to get some feedback, however I really did not know about IRC (or was interested) so I could not get it from there.

[Strygun]

:ugh:

The previous guide that was posted by Blacktea was deleted because it had turned into a flamewar, just like this thread.

The PSU Staff have decided to remain neutral in this dispute, because it is not our business to intervene. Electrofreak and Blacktea, you two need to get on IRC together, or use forum PMs to set this straight. Here's something to chew on: How about both of you collaborate and write a guide between the both of you. You both claim to have extensive knowledge to sniping, so maybe the guide written by both of you will be even better than the ones written by yourselves.

Again, the PSU staff will remain neutral in this. We will say, however, that we have received a copy of Electrofreak's guide and we plan on publishing on our website within the next few days.

Any questions can be directed to myself or hamma, via forum PM or IRC chat.

[Firefly]

I've been in there a handful of times. Not everyone on this site goes to IRC, in fact I doubt most of us do. I can safely say I have never seen you in there.

[Electrofreak]

I am trying to decide right now whether I believe Blacktea or not. His claims sound genuine and it is possible that in fact, the similarites between our guides are some kind of coincidence. This will have to be looked into and determined.

I will not be doing any "collaborating" however. Strygun, I realize you are trying to get us to cooperate but thats not going to happen. I've written my guide and finalized it and I'm not going to turn it into some kind of team project.

However, Strygun does have a good point. There is no sense in making this issue into a flamewar. Thus, I will talk to Blacktea and try to get this issue resolved in private.

[Firefly]

I didn't say you. I replied to Blacktea, the post before mine, and was addressing him directly in terms of "you".

EDIT: apparently Strygun posted seconds before I did, so technically he is the post in front of mine.

[Electrofreak]

Ah... I understand now Firefly. Thanks for clarifying.

(Edits previous post)

Edit: Oh and Firefly, I'd think you'd understand better if you checked out my guide. As you can see its quite large and took a lot of work. Thats why I'm so concerned about this whole issue. Also, if you could compare Blacktea's guide to mine, you would see some of the amazing similarities which would seem to point to plagiarism.

[Firefly]

I bet I could, if I read both. I read yours, because I wanted to make sure that my outfit's sniper guide wasn't the same.

But I haven't read both, and all I'm saying is that you cannot prove he ripped it off. Similarities or not- if you write a book about making Dove soap, and someone else does, it's gonna be the same, cut-and-dried. There's only one good way to snipe in this game, as I said with minor variations for personal tricks. And the rough draft that you linked on IRC means effectively zero. Was he on IRC? He says he doesn't even know what it is or that it existed or something (I don't speak foreigner).

That's all I'm saying.

[Blacktea]

I think protagonists of this did not get into any flamewar, only antagonists did.
I have finished reading his guide a while ago, and man, there are huge similarities. Some in content (although the structure varies more than I have expected) and we for example use man similar sentences like "now we get to the real stuff" etc. I am not expecrt with internet, in true am a bit lame. I�d like to publish what I have written so that people can compare. -any suggestions hot to do that...?
I have written about tricks he did not use (eg. when defending tower, get out of it and snipe enemies getting assault in and getting out wounded. and things like this)

For me is this talk very much over, and I believe that I will not be viewed as someone who tried to steal someone elses work. If yes, many of you people out there are here not to judge me, nor I care about your judgement. I care what the author thinks, because to him I own the grief. As well as the staff.

I believe this is over.

[Electrofreak]

Ok. Blacktea and I had a chat in private, and I've come to the conclusion that in fact, this is just one hell of a wierd coincidence. He's provided me with evidence to prove that his material is original so I have no problem with him reposting it at all. It seems him and I have an extraordinarily similar writing style, and formatted our guides similarly as well. I would also like to officially apologize for the altercation I've caused. Blacktea has done nothing wrong, and I'm sorry for damaging his reputation.

However, I guess one good thing came out of all this. The PSU staff have put up my guide as a downloadable .pdf file in the Downloads section. Blacktea also included in his guide several subjects which I didn't even think to cover in mine, so his guide is definately worth a read.

I'm just glad this whole mess has been resolved. Blacktea, please feel free to repost your guide, and again, I apologize for the incident I've caused.

[Blacktea]

True, the matter is finally settled. Do not forget to read Electrofreak�s sniping guide if you are interested in sniper proffesion, because it contains the very essence of sniping, provided in coherent, well written and readable way. As Electrofreak said, there were thinks we have both mentioned that the other did not know about, and am already contributing from what he has written. (Thx for that Rokletgun tip in equipment, I had no clue what to choose as self defence, but few nades or medium assault)

[scarpas]

Edit: stupid post, sry to take up space, just deleted it

[GreyFox]

Blacktea, I apologize for accusing you in that other thread, but it really did seem like you had copied it.

Sorry :)

[Lartnev]

There's only so many ways a sniper can be shot in the back by an AMP ;)

[Happy lil Elf]

I was actually trying to decide who to believe here.

Then I realized this is one of the bigger geek arguments I've seen in a long time. No, that's not intended as an insult. It's a argument about the credit for a player written guide about an aspect of a MMOFPS game, and one that isn't even all that popular in the larger picture. I'm honestly not trying to be a dick here guys, I know that you probably put a lot of hard work into this (or at least one person did /shrug) but seriously, take a step back and try viewing it from the persepective of someone who doesn't even know what PS is.

They'd be so fucking lost :lol:

[KIAsan]

Ok, everyone is happy now. So, please put the deleted work back up so we can see this extra material that is not in the "official PSU" guide. Or at least, put up those paragraphs.

[SkunkPunk]

wow, kind of like that secret window movie... watch it