Guide Sales

The recent ban of Gtdarkpunisher has revealed a couple major flaws in the current guide sales system that is leading members of Sythe into being ripped off all with the approval of staff.

The first flaw: If you reveal that a guide that is being sold is on the internet for free and you reveal the method you will be banned for leaking. This is a serious grey area, as was mentioned in his pardon, and it needs to be addressed. How can you ban someone for preventing other from getting ripped off? Or that is the way the situation has been made out to seem like.

The second flaw: Most guides in the guide section can be found online for free, because it seems that people think re-writing an already free guide is completely allowed. Then there is the fact of people reselling guides that they get in huge download packs that can be bought for $3 or $4 USD, and trust me I found one pack that contained over 120 guides for only $3.


The solution: The OGV system needs reform, plain and simple. By reform I suggest a mandatory guide submission process to prevent the two previous problems. Yes, it has been suggested and denied before but the system seems to continually fail. If guides are denied on the grounds that they are already free then the guides cannot be sold - if they are denied on the grounds that the guide is poorly written then the author should have the choice to resubmit after revisions. If the guide is accepted it should be 100% original, meaning not copy and pasted from bits and pieces of other guides, and should be well written and thought out. The methods should be thoroughly reviewed to make sure that these are original ideas and not pieced together ideas that is just an amalgam of methods that are found elsewhere.

There should also be much stiffer penalties for those caught trying to pass off guides as their own. An infraction is nothing, when if you plagiarize a piece of software you get permed. Some logic there doesn't add up. How is one form of plagiarizing any less serious than the other, so that it warrants lesser ramifications?

 

Well, I know for a fact that we will never be forcing users to submit the guides they plan to sell/are selling.

As for what you said about "denied on the grounds..." we have already been discussing something of that sort. In my opinion, plagiarism cases should be (and are as far as I know) dealt on a case by case basis. It doesn't happen often.

 

As Superman stated, we can't force users to submit guides.

And it's really up to users to buy guides or not, that's why we recommend buying verified guides, it's verified for a reason.

Though I do have to say some verified guides needs to be re-processed.

 

I used to be a guide verifier myself so I know how much work is out into verifying a guide. We check all angles and spend a lot of time searching and even testing the guide.
It's very rare that something would slip past OGV's, but if it does it can't be very well known and the people who buy it are still getting their money's worth IMO.
The only thing that would be fair (in my opinion) is that the OGV team come up with an estimated price for the guide, based on its effectiveness.

 

Locked as they are aware and doing their best

 

Superman and I are currently discussing a system of reporting a guide without leaking it to the general public. It should come into effect soon.