A Role Playing Games Blog
Site News
Feed troubles
0I am currently having some trouble with my RSS feed. Somehow my review of Microlite20 breaks my feed and I am currently trying to find out why. I have removed it for the time being.
I apologize for any inconvenience!
Update: The problem is resolved now. It was a single silly character that I copied from the Microlite20 pure essence PDF that broke everthing! Grrrr…
Trouble with Internet Explorer
4Some people have told me that my blog produces error messages in Internet Explorer and sometimes they can not even access the site. This is probably related to one of the plugins I use since the error appears directly after the first few sidebar widgets are rendered. I am currently trying to find out what causes the problem and I would appreciate any help in that endeavour. If you have had the same problem with a WordPress blog before, please let me know.
In the meantime, if you use IE, why not check out one of those other browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari or Chrome? They are all free, more secure and faster than Internet Explorer and they are much more standard compliant. I currently use Google’s Chrome browser.
Update: It seems only the outdated versions of Internet Explorer is affected, Internet Explorer 7 works fine.
Listen to this blog!
1
Following into the footsteps of Dice Monkey I added an Odiogo “Listen Button” to my blog’s sidebar. Odiogo is a service that provides an audio version of your regular feed. The text-to-speech technology used is quite decent, so it turns your RSS feed almost into a podcast. You can also subscribe to this podcast using iTunes, so your readers can listen to your posts while communiting to work for example.
The WordPress plugin that is used by Odiogo also adds a “listen now” button to each post, which allows your users to listen to your posts while reading the site.
For more details on how to set up Odiogo for your blog, check out Odiogo.com.
Stargazer’s RPG Stuff
3Inspired by fellow RPG blogger Zachary’s post “Using Google Sites For Your Campaign” I created a Google Sites site of my own that I will fill with everything that goes beyond the scope of this blog. Most of the stuff you’ll find there will be mostly of limited value to you since its half-baked stuff that I transferred from my wiki or its written in German.
Nevertheless, feel free to check it out!
Check out this d20!
0February 12, 2009
While reading Wil Wheaton’s blog (yup, that guy who played Wesley Crusher back in the day), I stumbled upon this post.
I just had to share this awesome d20 with you. I wish I had one of those in front of my house! Awesome!
And on another note: Things are a bit slow at Stargazer’s World right now because I am working on a translation of Christian Kennig’s old-school game “Dungeonslayers“.
RPG Anthology, blog comments and Creative Commons
3January 31, 2009
With the upcoming RPG Blog Anthology some discussion about copyright and other legal issues on the RPG Bloggers Network was inevitable. Perhaps you already have read the posts on The Bonemaster and The Core Mechanic.
Jonathan from The Core Mechanic included comments from the original posts into the first draft of the RPG Blog Anthology. That is not uncommon for this kind of publication and it was his impression that comments are considered part of the blog post and that the comment’s author has already given the blog author the right to share, modify and republish the post. Others are not so sure and added some “Terms of Service” to their site to make sure they don’t have to ask the permission of the blog’s author when they want to use the comment in future publications.
And perhaps you’ve noticed that I decided to release the content of this blog under a Creative Commons license. Then it struck me! I already have a binding contract with Jonathan in which I gave him a non-exclusive license to publish one of my blog posts in the upcoming RPG Blog Anthology. Does he have to release the anthology under the CC now, too? Or have I broken my agreement with him? At first I was a bit worried, but then I noticed a small word that at once solves everything: non-exclusive. The CC license is non-exclusive, so as the owner of my content I am still allowed to enter any other non-exclusive agreements.
But back to the comments issue. From what I know the US law regarding copyright etc. has already been adapted to the internet age. That’s not the case in many other countries like Germany, where I live. That makes things a bit more difficult. But even without a TOS we can take some things for granted:
- the comments are owned by their respective authors
- the comment’s author already gave you a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the comment solely for the purpose of displaying on your blog
I thought about adding some legal mumbo-jumbo in addition to the CC license already there, but I decided against it. When I want to use a comment in something like the RPG Blog Anthology I will just ask nicely for the author’s permission. And if I don’t get it or I can’t contact him or her? Then I am obviously out of luck and live will go on…
Creative Commons
0I’ve finally decided to release my blog’s content under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
This means you can now share and remix my posts as long as you credit my work properly, don’t use it to create commercial works and you have to release your results under the same license.
To reflect this change I’ve added a CC logo to the sidebar and there are more extensive information on the site’s license on my About page.
If you have any questions and comments please let me know in the comments section.
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