Guild of Writers

okay,

First, I think electroglyph is making you worried about: nothing.

Having spent years, and years AND YEARS with the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) which is a non-profit org, we have held contest after contest, after contest in which prizes were given away. This includes things like Bingo, turkey shoots, carnival events, etc, etc, etc.
At no point, at least according to both local city, county and state laws was any of it considered gaining "profit". Nor was it ever been so on the national level with the National VFW.

If you want to host a contest in which you are going to award the winner prizes that you have purchased out of your own pocket: that's YOUR business.

There can be exceptions to this: you charge admission to submit contest entries.
If you do that, then you could have a problem, unless you are using the funds that were collected for admission to purchase the prizes.
But you're not doing that, you're purchasing the prizes from your own pocket, nor are you charging anyone who wants to submit an entry.

This runs afowl of the rules Cyan laid down for age creation.

Total hogwash! When making statements like that, you need to find where it says that, and show how it relates to what is going on here first. Not make bold statements like that.
First off, you're totally off on the fact they they are "rules". The world "rule" is no where in that title. RAWA posted "Guidelines", and they are "Guidelines" for what Cyan wants as far as Age Creation goes for things that MIGHT POSSIBLY be submitted for Cyan's MOUL:a game server.

Has NOTHING to do with a private contest being held here at the GoW.

Now Matthornb, you can either continue this contest as is if you so desire, or you can change it if you want. I'll be damned if someone is going to walk over here and try to scare you out of something that is your own private business, especially since it isn't the GoW that purchased anything, but simply you personally.
If you are that worried about it, change the wording from "Contest Award" or "Reward" to "Personal Gift From Me".

And there's NOTHING stopping you from giving someone a Personal Gift.

Andy speaks the truth.

More people trying to speak for Cyan, declaring what goes against their version of the rules.

matthornb2 wrote:...That is, if you all want to do things that way.

I don't think anyone wants to do things that way. It's unfortunately the structure we all have to work under. I kind of agree with Andy in that we are woried about "almost nothing" Who's going to pay a lawyer several thousand dollars to go after a hundred dollar crime? We're not just playing bingo,we took the bingo card and changed the name to gowdoh and even added a few squares.

A non profit can make money. It just has to give away everything it makes. It can spend it on saleries and keeping the lights on or give it away at bingo games and turkey shoots. Even then, the VFW is non profit, but the winners of the bingo and turkey shoot still made profit. Unless the GOWis incorporated as a 501c3(the VFW is) I'd advise against giving prizes.

How about this? Release the textures publically.

Have a contest where the entrants have to use X number of testures, or as many textures as possible in their age.

Give the winner(s) a little graphic they can use on a website or resume like coolsite, 3D cafe, etc. does.

Then you are not paying people to do work, They are just doing work with something of value you created.There's no fixed contract. In the other way you are getting a first, second, and third place age for a first, second, and third place texture pack. Go to 3Dtotal and look at their seamless texture packs and you can find a comperable market value for your prizes.

This way you are giving out a first place texture pack. You could get none or many ages in return that could use all or few of your textures. It's impossible to know what type of payment you will receive beforehand. Likewise it's impossible to assign the value of the little graphic you give in return. It could be as simple as another trophy on your virtual wall or as big as a job offer from a studio like Blur.

Again, you're worried about /nothing/. not "almost nothing"... "nothing" =P

Stop scaremongering. =)

*closing my eyes and shaking my head sadly, wishing that people that post in threads would bother to READ the entire thread before posting........*

electroglyph,

This contest is NOT an Age Creation contest.
This contest is NOT a texture making contest....

This contest IS a "Tutorial Creation" contest: A contest in which the entries are tutorials. Said tutorials can be on: Age Creation, Using Blender, Using Max, Making Textures, Baking a Pie, How to Burp Politely......you name it.

If you had bothered to read up to page 5 of this thread, you would have seen where that was decided. you also would have seen the prizes that Matthornb is planning on giving the winners:

BTW, here's the prize list I'm planning to give out. It's a little bigger than I'd planned on initially; the total value of the prizes is about $200.

4th place: Blender for Dummies

3rd place: Mastering Blender, $5 Amazon.com gift card

2nd place: Creating the Art of the Game, Blender for Dummies, $10 Amazon.com gift card.

1st place: 3d Game Textures (2nd Edition), Mastering Blender, $15 Amazon.com gift card.

Books and gift cards that HE paid for. NOT the GoW. How many times do I or others have to say it?

One more time folks: NOT THE GOW.

This is a private individual, who is hosting a give away of gifts, that HE bought (NOT THE GOW), to individuals who have created FREE tutorials that ANYONE can read.
No one is being made to buy textures. No one is being made to sell textures.

Once again, the GoW is NOT hosting this, it just happened to be discussed here on the forum. And don't say it makes the GoW the host, because then that means AT&T must be hosting a contest simply because some people discussed it via a 3 way conference call.

So as I said, the GoW is not hosting a contest where large cash prizes are being given away in an official contest. If it were, then it might be a different matter. What we are doing here is the same as someone having a party at their house where they had a limbo contest and gave away some prizes for it. I have see the police show up....because of the noise......not because prizes were given away at the party.

Please stop assuming things, and READ the entire thread first. Matthornb wanted to host a contest about tutorials (NOT the GoW). He's going to give away gifts that he bought to those that he thinks did a good job (NOT the GoW.......and according to your thinking, the next time I give people gifts at Christmas, I'd better worry about having my butt incorporated as a 501c3? I don't think so). No one is having to buy ANYTHING to receive said gifts.
The GoW Forum was simply a communications medium for us to discuss this. Just like your local telephone company, celluar company, or postal service.

This is starting to remind me of Shakespear's "Much Ado About Nothing" .......

I'm sorry you are so upset but from the first this thread was titled,"Investing in GoW Production" not "Matthornb wants to help out."

Who's going to judge?

I think we'd also need to think about not just judging criteria but who will judge; I'd like impartial members of the community (i.e. those who didn't submit any of the entries) to be involved in judging,

Members of which community was that?

The winners will be announced and contacted where exactly other than this forum?

A contest for Investing in GoW Production, posted on GoW boards, and judged by GoW members sounds exactly like a GoW sponsored contest to me. At least that's what I got after reading through all eight meandering pages again. I'm not attacking the idea. I'm not attacking the intent. I am concerned that members of this website do things like post the message redacted banner. You want to get in a pissing match with Cyan you have to be squeaky clean everywhere.
I look at how this has been presented and think it could be used to hurt the guild or Matthornb so I spoke up. You can rip me a new one all you like. I'm trying to protect you, not spoil your fun.

If Matthornb is nice enough to act like a generous uncle at christmastime I for one, don't think he should stop. Let's not have anymore talk about who should be involved in judging, especially in an open and publicly accessable forum. That would make this a contest not his generous gift. If he wanted to consult about the entries with other people that should also be done by IM or email not in an open forum. It should be understood by the rules that Matthornb is the only and final judge for the giveaway. The requirements should be posted in a new thread with a less misleading subject and consolidated on a single page not spread between pg 1-8. Statements like the judging panel that would make this a contest should be removed from the final rules. As for judging criteria,this is a private giveaway sponsored by Matthornb not a contest. We don't need to be told a point system or how he decides.

Except the [[Message Redacted]] thing is not illegal, so, why the pants should we be squeaky clean because of it?

Contests are not illegal, and Blender, and PyPRP are licensed under an open source license (PyPRP under GNU GPL, and not sure what Blender is, off the top of my head), so it is perfectly fine to make a profit from open source licensed things. <g>

Also, the Guild of Writers is an internet community, and not a legal entity, a forum, and not a company, or legally-recognised organisation.

Your concerns are NOT relevant, and are merely scaremongering.

Contests have been done for a long time, etc, for all sorts of rewards, in all sorts of communities. This is NOT an issue.

I know I'm going to regret getting into this, but...

I've seen people in this thread apparently trying to argue the legality of the proceedings. This makes no sense. The majority of the Guild's activities are simply illegal, and the only real question is whether Cyan will get pissed off enough to do something about it.

This is important to be clear: there are no technicalities here. If Cyan, in their sole discretion, decides they don't like it, then they'll send a C&D; and if they decide they're okay with it, then they'll keep quiet.

It doesn't matter whether the particular thing that happens to piss them off is actually legal, because they can always retaliate by suddenly enforcing something else.

That's really all there is to it. No law is relevant, only Cyan's mood.

About the best fan ages contest? I assume all the work hasta be from scratch or can you use a few bits and pieces downloaded from the net or from other sources. If so how much or how many. Cuz I just noticed their are a wealth of stuff available for download and several sources to choose from as far as age creation is concerned?

Pavitra wrote:The majority of the Guild's activities are simply illegal, and the only real question is whether Cyan will get pissed off enough to do something about it.

No, you're mistaken. The majority of the Guild's activities cannot be talked about on mystonline.com without getting deleted. But Cyan doesn't decide what is legal or illegal :P