Anti-Piracy, Respect, and Its Relationship to the TI-Programming Community

*** Short Disclaimer: This article was written by Alex10819, and the views expressed within may not reflect the views of the site hosting this article. Should anything within this article offend you in any way, shape, or form, don't be mad at them...

In any online community, conflicts exist. These conflicts are often detrimental to the mood of the community, and often spring from a number of sources. Lately, two major conflict sources have been worrying me: Software Piracy, and a serious lack of respect towards others.
I used to play a MMORPG on the Internet, but I was driven out of the community by the swarms of new players, who had absolutely no respect for others. I quit the community about 2 weeks before i entered the TI community, and I was quite pleased by how well most people get along inside the TI community. Most TI programmers are extremely intelligent, and are capable of showing respect to others. The community forces out those who do not adhere to these standards (Hays games), and generally takes care of itself, though it requires help.
There have been several cases of piracy lately, where someones program was directly taken, renamed, and released onto an archive site. I will use a program by TI-Freakware for my example. TI-Freakware authored a program called AOD (Age of Darkness), and it became extremely popular on Calcgames.org. However, recently it has coe to light that someone has copied this program, renaming it and giving absolutely no credit to the original author. Blatantly taking a program, whether it is in TI-BASIC, ASM, C, or any other programming language, is unethical, and shows a lack of intelligence on the part of the copier. If you want to use a program someone else has made inside your own, there are ways to do so, and everyone will be much happier. If you want to use the TI-City (yes, I'm using TI-Freakware as an example again) battle engine, you should contact the author of the program, ask permission, and make them a co-author when you upload to an archive site. You should also make sure that you give them due credit inside the README file.
The other thing that has been irritating me lately is a blatant lack of respect. The TI community gets along fairly well, as long as you program ASM without a glitch. Lately, Kévin Ouellet (Author of Reuben Quest, a fully grayscale RPG written in TI-BASIC) has been coming under fire for programming in BASIC, when many of the people criticizing him could never come close to touching what he has done. If you have a problem with a program someone has written, it is not necessary to email them and say “j00 <|2@$|-|3|> /\/\'/ <@|_<!!!!!!!!! 1 P0|\|23|2Z j00!”. Instead, act like a normal human being and fill out an actual bug report. If you don't know what one looks like, you can find an example at http://archives.madpage.com/bug.html , and don't try to speak 1337 when you do so. Believe it or not, 1337 is not the universal language of Homo Sapiens... no matter how fun it may be to type. (but thats another rant)...
Also, think before you contact a programmer. As a programmer, I don't have time to read “Your program stinks! It doesn't really emulate grayscale, it just flashes lines on and off to make different shades of light black!”, and respond to it in an intellectual manner. No programmer wants to waste time explaining something so stupid, not even a new programmer, who might crack under the stress of idiots emailing pointless things to him/her. The point is, Programmers don't have the time to deal with idiots, unless that idiot has a good point. While i understand you might not know how to link your calculator to your computer, don't email a programmer about it. Yeah, the programmer will reply, but the answer will either: A) be a sarcastic comment B) be a link to the TI-Connect website C) be a link to a site that has a good FAQ (like calcgames.org). So, the moral of the story is simple: Think before you contact a programmer. I have created a list of Do's and Dont's for your entertainment.
Do contact a programmer if:
1.you have a good idea
2.you found a bug
3.you have an intelligent reason
4. You need help, and can speak clearly
Do not contact a programmer if:
1.you have an urge to Spam
2. the programmers product crashed your calc, and you cant be reasonable about it
3. you didn't bother to read the README file
4. you think string cheese is for wimps

The last thing I want to mention is the over usage of the term “noob” (in all its forms). The term originally applied to someone who was new to a community, but now seems to apply to everyone who isn't the person saying it. I consider myself a noob in the TI-Programming Community, mainly because I have only been programming TI-BASIC for about 6 months now. However, I have heard several people called noobs for reasons i cannot begin to comprehend. How can someone be a noob for trying to stop a flame war? How can someone be a noob for sticking up for a online friend? How can someone be a noob because they are better at TI-BASIC than many others? How can someone be a noob because they had a program pirated? How can someone be a noob for discovering a bug in a buggy program? I have seen people called noobs for all of these stupid reasons, and then some, and i want to know: When will it stop? Am i a noob because i know what GUI stands for? I think we need to tone down on the usage of the word noob, and do it soon. I'm sick of seeing good programmers shot down by people who are jealous. Recently the Omnimaga Forums were taken offline, and the Owner was threatening to remove all Omnimaga files because people were calling him a noob. While i do feel this was an over reaction, i don't believe that calling the creator of one of the coolest RPG's ever a “noob” shows intelligence. In fact, it just makes the community look bad.

If you don't agree with anything i have said in this short article, you can email me. If you agree with anything i have said in this article, please email me! You can contact me on Calcgames.org, Cemetech, alex10819 productions, calchaven, Tifreakware, TI-Programming Union, and several other calc related sites. Tell me what you think!


Accompanying Interviews:
Kerm Martian, author of DoorsCS, 2 time victim of direct software piracy http://archives.madpage.com/kerm.html
Jc, Calchaven.tk Admin, author of Bobgame. Calcgames.org regular poster http://archives.madpage.com/jc.html
Myself (alex10819), Author of TIM, Frequent poster on several forums

First we need the HTML format.