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City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

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Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They" implies multiple No. It doesn't. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘…

Well, one can cherry-pick one's authority on grammar, but any online translator will translate "They walk" to "Ils marchent". One also wouldn't write "they is", so, yes, it's a plural. At least, a sentence should be consistent and not intersperse "they" with "him".

The OED is far from a cherry pick - it's been the dictionary of English longer than any other.

You have the air of that fundamentalist branch that forked off in central north america to worship a prescriptive Elements of (Our) Style by Stunk & Whine.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They" implies multiple, and you are starting the sentence with a singular "the person", and finish the sentence with singular "him". Just stop playing stupid grammar games.

> "They" implies multiple No. It doesn't. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘…

Indeed, please learn English. Finding vague references to the use of plurals for individuals does not make this part of the vernacular just like 'pluralis majestatis' [1] does not do so.

Language evolves so paper dictionaries from the beginning of the 21st century will not be entirely accurate but given the way some publishers of online dictionaries have taken to using their products to push language revolution instead of following language evolution those old paper books are more accurate guides to how people use it than their ideologically-driven on-line counterparts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They" implies multiple No. It doesn't. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘…

Indeed, please learn English . Finding vague references to the use of plurals for individuals does not make this part of the vernacular just like 'pluralis majestatis' [1] does not do so. Language evolves so paper dictionaries from the beginning of the 21st century will not be entirely accurate but given the way some publishers of online dictionaries have taken to using their products to push language revolution inst…

English frequently uses they to refer to a singular person.

It's been common place all my life and that's going on six decades now.

'Merkin English, however, likely has prescriptive rails and a lingering shrinking horror stemming from the inappropriate touch of Webster.

> those old paper books are more accurate guides to how people use it than their ideologically-driven on-line counterparts.

Exactly - see the full OED (Oxford English Dictionary) entry on the long historic use of 'they' over seven centuries and the many ways in which it has been (and continuous to be) used contemporaneously both as singular and plural.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn’t. The fact that you can make a false claim in copyright law and cause damage is not an indictment of the system of copyright.

But the reason the above commenter has a point is because it’s unclear if the claim is false. I know nothing about the game, but the article claims this 3rd party spent so much effort creating a new way of playing the game that the game studio meant to implement those changes and even mention this 3rd party in the credits. So the commenter is right: this person (apparently) created a work (IP) and thinks they have a…

The part of the game that he "worked on" hasn't been released yet. He has no ground whatsoever to demand rights over the work that he based his own IP on.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet not one of the biggest sites with user content was formed before the DMCA. Why didn't any of those fully functioning internet user sites dominate? Certainly other, non-user content sites from then were big. Its almost as if providing safe harbor allowed such sites to grow......

With as much evidence, one can say that it's almost as if the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 allowed it. Geocities, say, was huge before the DMCA and died after it.

Geocities had ~1.8M users in Dec 1997. They were often sued for copyright (e.g., here[1]) infringement since then providers were liable. This made it harder for them to raise money, since as copyright holders became more saavy about what companies were doing on the internet, they were increasingly targeting them.

After DMCA when those suits were gone, they raised $$$, became much more valuable, grew, and soon got bought by Yahoo. They went from the 5th most visited to 3rd, even with much more competition. They grew the user base.

The same thing happened to Tripod and Angelfire from that time.

Instead of trying to cherry pick one example, look at all companies before and after. That is the accurate way to see what happened. If you think the safe harbor content protection did not and does not matter, look how hard current companies are pushing to keep Congress from removing such laws.

[1] https://washingtontechnology.com/1996/11/publishers-push-pir...

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They" implies multiple No. It doesn't. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘…

Well, one can cherry-pick one's authority on grammar, but any online translator will translate "They walk" to "Ils marchent". One also wouldn't write "they is", so, yes, it's a plural. At least, a sentence should be consistent and not intersperse "they" with "him".

P1: Who is that person over there?

P2: The person in the green coat?

P1: Yes, that one.

P2: I don't know them. Do you think Joe knows who they are?

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#118
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are apparently false DMCA letters. Attribution or payments aren’t really relevant. According to the article, the person filing the claims has no ownership of the copyright. Even if they were being ripped off (which it doesn’t seem like they are) that wouldn’t give them ownership of the copyright.

The person is claiming rights to a version of the game not yet released because they wrote a game guide about how to do it and the game creators agreed to credit him in the new IP. This has led to him filing the DMCA requests and initiating a claim against the new product. The DMCA requests appear to be retaliatory. That's my understanding from the minimal information provided in the article. Note however we are gett…

Regarding the DOOM Eternal Soundtrack, no reasonable person should have every believed the original story as claimed by Stratton in the first place. Unfortunately, taken as a whole gamers are a toxically childish and entitled community and it was all too easy to weaponize them against Gordon.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They" implies multiple No. It doesn't. The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘…

Indeed, please learn English . Finding vague references to the use of plurals for individuals does not make this part of the vernacular just like 'pluralis majestatis' [1] does not do so. Language evolves so paper dictionaries from the beginning of the 21st century will not be entirely accurate but given the way some publishers of online dictionaries have taken to using their products to push language revolution inst…

I'm a native English speaker who grew up in the US speaking English through the 80s and 90s. Use of 'they' as a gender-neutral third-person singular was common long before the ideology you're mounting this pathetic attack against.

Re: City-Builder Taken Off Steam After Fan Goes Rogue

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With as much evidence, one can say that it's almost as if the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 allowed it. Geocities, say, was huge before the DMCA and died after it.

Geocities had ~1.8M users in Dec 1997. They were often sued for copyright (e.g., here[1]) infringement since then providers were liable. This made it harder for them to raise money, since as copyright holders became more saavy about what companies were doing on the internet, they were increasingly targeting them. After DMCA when those suits were gone, they raised $$$, became much more valuable, grew, and soon got bou…

None of that automatically means a safe harbor provision can only exist if claimants are able to make obviously bogus claims without redress, though, which is what the original point was before or was derailed into a false dichotomy of having any safe harbor vs not. Either the DMCA is defective in that regard, or it's a deliberate feature. Either way, it's open for abuse.
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