Stolen walkthrough?

Per

Vault Consort
Staff member
Admin
Hello everyone,

I used to come here for a while about 1,5 years ago after I completed the game for the first time. I wouldn't expect anyone to remember me, I only recognize a few names myself... though it's good to see people are still interested in the game. I'm going through the archives one page at a time and things look more or less exactly the same as back then - couldn't find a Sulik's sister sighting yet, though. Ah well, you can't have it all.

I recently decided to write Yet Another Fallout 2 Guide, and have been looking at Fallout 2 pages, boards and guides for info. (There's a lot of knowledge veterans dish out here that appear in _no_ existing guide that I know of, and just waiting to be assimilated.) One thing I found bothered me a little, a walkthrough published on NMA and "copy righted" to a certain Mathew Faucher, aged 12.

Only it turns out the walkthrough is nothing but an early version of Cristian Golumbovici's walkthrough. And there doesn't seem to be any question about who actually wrote it; reading the guide you get the distinct impression it was written by someone who can actually spell "copywright" and "email", and is older than 12.

Claiming credit for something you didn't do is bad enough, but this guy seems to have actually slapped a copyright notice on a stolen text, which is pretty fucked up. So unless there's something here I'm not aware of, maybe Miroslav could be made to remove the "Faucher" guide. If so, does he read the board, or should I mail him about it, or should one of the admin notify him?

Another question I might as well ask, about the board: If I respond to an old post, will it move to the top of the board so that people actually notice? Er, maybe I should just read the help page.

Oh, and another thing: if there absolutely has to be a board script about the "u/ur" thingy, does it have to include the words "complete fucking moron"? Or is the idea that people who can't spell "you" and "your" will respond to insults but not to a simple straightforward notice?

/Per
 
Good idea on an updated F2 guide.

Yeah, I'd let Miroslav know about the plagiarized walkthrough. BTW, does Faucher rhyme with pucker??

Responses to old posts will go to the top of the list. Don't know how old of a post you can respond to.

I think the ((((( "U" u ))))) thing is going a little overboard. It was funny at first, but know it is just as annoying as mispellings. I mean I guess I expect some semblance of grammar, but I am not that anal.
 
[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Nov-01-01 AT 03:01AM (GMT)[p]
Due to numerous complaints, I have removed that entire message, instead opting for a more...perhaps subtle approach to the issue. ;) I hope the new way of handling u or ur will not be as...disturbing...

As for the walkthroughs in question, I will diff (UNIX command to check code versions and differences) them out and see if that will be any indication, and also read through them as well.

Edit note: I see where the Cristian Golumbovici walkthrough for Fallout 2 is, but I cannot seem to find the other. If you could tell me the location of the walkthrough in question, I will take a look as soon as I can.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/fallout2/walk/
 
[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Nov-01-01 AT 05:21PM (GMT)[p]I noticed it's not in the list, but

fallout.gamestats.com/fallout2/walk/mathew.shtml

will get you there. By the way, I don't run into any server errors anymore, which is good.

Let me make 2 updates to that:

1) The file exists on www.nma-fallout.com as well, and

2) I suddenly ran into a whole barrage of server errors.

/Per
 
[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Nov-02-01 AT 01:28AM (GMT)[p]>I noticed it's not in the
>list, but
>
>fallout.gamestats.com/fallout2/walk/mathew.shtml

Having looked at this, I do see something about it that does strike me funny. I don't know why it's not on the list, but I can take a guess - once it was found to be a plagiarised version of Cristian's it was removed from the list and left in a "unlinked" page for archival purposes. I took a look at the file dates, and Faucher claims that his is copy right (instead of copyright) is 1999, when the last modification date on Cristian's was back in 1998, plus he mentions it's the second edition. What it looks like is Faucher took the first edition and renamed and perhaps made a few additions or whatever, because just by estimation with my eye, it has over 60% common lines, and all new material is in Cristian's (and keep in mind the new stuff is in Cristian's).

In fact, here's Cristian's v 1.02
http://fallout.gamestats.com/fallout2/walk/cristian.shtml

I think Miroslav might have seen this, and decided to unlink the one 'walkthrough' from the site. If you know where it's linked to on the site, I'll go ahead and take care of that. Otherwise I'm going to put a link to the real walkthrough on that page.


>Let me make 2 updates to
>that:
>
>1) The file exists on www.nma-fallout.com
>as well, and

Same place, different DNS route.

>2) I suddenly ran into a
>whole barrage of server errors.

Happens a lot around noon-7PM PST. Nothing we can really do, it seems.
 
>If you know
>where it's linked to on
>the site, I'll go ahead
>and take care of that.

It seems likely the clone was already removed from the list of walkthroughs. I can't remember how I found the page, but it was probably some other link collection, or (less likely) a web search.

> Otherwise I'm going to
>put a link to the
>real walkthrough on that page.
>

Is there a need for anything but the second edition? The new list looks a bit cluttered. :)

/Per
 
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