Crowdsourced Editing for new BRP

[WellMoustachioed]

Having found this forum looking for information on the new version of BRP, I immediately found something that dismayed me:

Does Chaosium crowd-edit all of their new releases? Editing and proofreading are paid work, and by having the community do it, they are reaping the benefits of free labor. 

I understand having the community look over a pdf before the book goes to print, but the folks in the corrections thread are doing a lot of unpaid work.

If this is the standard for Chaosium, they are exploiting the passion of the community. Much smaller companies pay for this service before their products are for sale. 

[MOB]

All of our books are professionally edited and proofread.

But we set up corrections threads here at our forums at BRP Central because if we don't our fans would do so anyway. However, if we Chaosium, set such threads up we can at least corral any suggested corrections into one place and manage what is received. 

[WellMoustachioed]

Thank you for your response. 

I'm still a new member, so I only get one post a day, so this dialogue might be slow. 

If someone sets up a corrections thread, no one asked for that work. They're just doing it out of passion. 

If Chaosium sets it up, it's tacitly asking for help with corrections. At this point it becomes labor. You can see that in the amount of work that has been done. 

I understand that there isn't a good solution to this. We all want a high quality product and no one wants a print product riddled with errors. 

$25 is a reasonable price for a PDF, but that pricetag should include everyone who worked on it getting paid. It might be worth passing the manuscript through a paid committee of passionate fans first, and then as a final step, pass it through the larger community.

[Nakana]

I just want to emphasize that Chaosium to my knowledge has never actively solicited, expected, or relied on “free labor” from the community. 

It is a willingly offered volunteer service in hopes of them making a better product.

It is essentially customers saying “I found a mistake, please fix this” and I think the community at large appreciates Chaosium’s responsiveness and acceptance in the process. There is no confusion or expectation of being paid or credited for doing so.

We, the customers, are going to do this anyway. At least Chaosium funnels this feedback into one thread so each detail can be noted and tracked. How many other big publishers do this?

If it bothers you to not be paid or credited for pointing out an error, simply choose not to do so. 

I don’t like the picture being painted that Chaosium is exploiting its customers for free labor. That simply isn’t happening. 

To solidify my point:

A customer pointed out that the font size in a section of text in the pdf is really small and hard to read. 

Chaosium has already replied that they will change this to make it easier to read before going to print. 

That’s just fantastic customer service is what that is. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Nakana

[Richard S.]

Chaosium also isn't unique in doing this. Setting up threads or other central locations to collect customer feedback and corrections that were missed in editing is fairly standard practice in the ttrpg industry from what I've seen. There's always going to be mistakes that get missed, and the fans are going to point them out already, so it makes sense to set up a place for them to do so in an organized fashion so the company can find and correct them in a timely manner. Listening to customer feedback isn't exploitation.

[Jason D]

Bug submissions and updates are in fact part of all software releases, all the way from the Windows operating system to your car's onboard computer.  

[g33k]

So far as I have seen, *NOBODY* can put out an extremely-high-crunch RPG (such as BRP core) without including a non-trivial number of errors.

Many of the entirely-commercial RPG books on my shelves are notoriously error-ridden (as I recall, at least a couple of them had errors on EVERY  "exemplar"  character printed in the rules (plus the sundry other errors scattered through the book) ) .

While I generally agree that  companies soliciting unpaid labor  is uncool, I don't see this instance as that thing:

•  As @MOB says, the fans will be doing this anyhow (in fact, they did:  the prior "BGB" edition had a largely-fan-collated erratum doc), unsolicited.
•  Providing a space for  something sure to happen  is entirely-different from proactively soliciting that thing to happen; this is called "community engagement."
• With a known & publicized single thread, the community at large is given a rallying-point:  someone who notes an error (eg on reddit or on FB) can be given a pointer here.  Error-reports spread across multiple threads on each of multiple social-media platforms would (inevitably) mean Chaosium misses some.
•  Realistically, the error-trapping / proof-reading will never be 100% complete; even if Chaosium "passed the manuscript through a paid committee of passionate fans" there would still be need for this thread with its larger-community engagement (but as a private pre-release step, would have put the project back by several weeks (at least!) for such a committee to engage & for Chaosium to incorporate the changes).
•  As the foundation of an open/free SRD, including the input of passionate fans is actually appropriate... in fact, excluding them would be -- if anything -- inappropriate.

 

[WellMoustachioed]

I appreciate all of your feedback. 

Whether this is how everyone does it or this is how it's always been done is immaterial: we should push to make sure that people are being treated fairly. 

I'm not saying that Chaosium is evil, bad, or even unique. We're at a point where ordinary isn't good enough. 

Chaosium has made tremendous strides in many aspects of equity and representation, but there's always room to improve. 

Wouldn't it be lovely for Chaosium to give back to these passionate fans? That's all I'm suggesting. The user SaintMeerkat has done SO much for this new version of BRP, all in the matter of a few days. Think if they had gotten it early, and knocked out 80% of the errors? Isn't that worth a few bucks, or a free copy of the game?

This can't be accomplished retroactively, and it will take some consideration. I think Chaosium is open to change. If we can't criticize the things we care about, they won't improve. 

Thank you all for engaging with me, even if you don't agree. 

Edit: I miscredited SaintMeerkat as St Germain 

Edited April 10, 2023 by WellMoustachioed
Edit: I miscredited SaintMeerkat as St Germain 

[Barak Shathur]

Moustachioed is coming from a good place. However, I just want to say (and I hope I’m not sounding like a useful idiot) that one of the things I appreciate Chaosium for is their willingness to engage in dialogue with us, their fans (and we are a vociferously opinionated bunch). We’ve been nitpicking at BRP and other games of theirs pretty much since they came out, and sometimes our suggestions even make it into the rules! When it comes to offering corrections, I for one gladly will do it for free, since if nothing else it leads to a better product for me. And hey, the proofreaders are still going to have to proofread the corrections!

[g33k]

1 hour ago, WellMoustachioed said:

I appreciate all of your feedback. 

Whether this is how everyone does it or this is how it's always been done is immaterial: we should push to make sure that people are being treated fairly. 

I'm not saying that Chaosium is evil, bad, or even unique. We're at a point where ordinary isn't good enough. 

Chaosium has made tremendous strides in many aspects of equity and representation, but there's always room to improve. 

Wouldn't it be lovely for Chaosium to give back to these passionate fans? That's all I'm suggesting. The user St Germain has done SO much for this new version of BRP, all in the matter of a few days. Think if they had gotten it early, and knocked out 80% of the errors? Isn't that worth a few bucks, or a free copy of the game?

This can't be accomplished retroactively, and it will take some consideration. I think Chaosium is open to change. If we can't criticize the things we care about, they won't improve. 

Thank you all for engaging with me, even if you don't agree. 

Smaller publishers don't always have the funds to hire "at the going rate" -- you don't see much Elmore or Brom, for example, in Chaosium products (Elmore might not suit; but Brom certainly would!!!).  So the project budget won't necessarily stretch to cover funding another pass to catch the things that slipped past the editor and proofreader that Chaosium already paid for.

That said... I think it'd be very cool for Chaosium to (for example):

1. tote up all the errata Chaosium found to be actionable (and who first found it)
2. offer a comp-copy to the person with the most "first instance of each specific erratum" presented
3. offer a comp-copy (or a few copies) for the single (or few) "most critical" erratum found (not to be the same recipient as the prior)
4. offer an "editors choice" comp-copy for whoever presents the most I-can't-believe-I-missed-that-editorial-facepalm erratum presented
5. offer one more comp-copy on a lottery-basis for everyone who found errata (one "ticket" for every "first instance found" of each erratum)
6. etc for a few more (or a few less) comp-copies, as Chaosium sees fit

On the other hand, it's easy for me (us) to spend other peoples' money :  we're talking possibly hundreds of dollars in comp-copies and thousands of dollars in time operating the bounty/lottery system (which would in turn have to be reflected back into the final price of the book (which is likely already set, since the PDF is priced, and Chaosium usually sells it for half the cost of the hardcopy).  So, y'know, maybe this is not a good idea at all.

[Nakana]

On the other hand, we will have every right to take the eventual free SRD, make whatever changes or corrections we see fit and produce via POD for personal and/or commercial use.

There really is no right to complain. 

[WellMoustachioed]

59 minutes ago, Barak Shathur said:

Moustachioed is coming from a good place. However, I just want to say (and I hope I’m not sounding like a useful idiot) that one of the things I appreciate Chaosium for is their willingness to engage in dialogue with us, their fans (and we are a vociferously opinionated bunch). We’ve been nitpicking at BRP and other games of theirs pretty much since they came out, and sometimes our suggestions even make it into the rules! When it comes to offering corrections, I for one gladly will do it for free, since if nothing else it leads to a better product for me. And hey, the proofreaders are still going to have to proofread the corrections!

Thank you. I'm a passionate fan too (my CoC shelf spans all of the editions)! Dialogue is what I'm after, and we all want the best product at the end. 

 

52 minutes ago, g33k said:

Smaller publishers don't always have the funds to hire "at the going rate" -- you don't see much Elmore or Brom, for example, in Chaosium products (Elmore might not suit; but Brom certainly would!!!).  So the project budget won't necessarily stretch to cover funding another pass to catch the things that slipped past the editor and proofreader that Chaosium already paid for.

That said... I think it'd be very cool for Chaosium to (for example):

1. tote up all the errata Chaosium found to be actionable (and who first found it)
2. offer a comp-copy to the person with the most "first instance of each specific erratum" presented
3. offer a comp-copy (or a few copies) for the single (or few) "most critical" erratum found (not to be the same recipient as the prior)
4. offer an "editors choice" comp-copy for whoever presents the most I-can't-believe-I-missed-that-editorial-facepalm erratum presented
5. offer one more comp-copy on a lottery-basis for everyone who found errata (one "ticket" for every "first instance found" of each erratum)
6. etc for a few more (or a few less) comp-copies, as Chaosium sees fit

On the other hand, it's easy for me (us) to spend other peoples' money :  we're talking possibly hundreds of dollars in comp-copies and thousands of dollars in time operating the bounty/lottery system (which would in turn have to be reflected back into the final price of the book (which is likely already set, since the PDF is priced, and Chaosium usually sells it for half the cost of the hardcopy).  So, y'know, maybe this is not a good idea at all.

That's a lovely straw man you've built! 

Chaosium's finances are their own business and I refuse to speculate speciously (say that 3 times fast) on what it would or wouldn't cost them. Chaosium is a mid to high tier company in the RPG space, and they have the budget for lovely art and layout. 

I specifically said that any changes couldn't be retroactive. I also said that they would take some thought as to what was appropriate and affordable. Please don't mischaracterize what I said. 

Doing the right thing is rarely simple, and almost never free. 

 

[Nakana]

30 minutes ago, WellMoustachioed said:

That's a lovely straw man you've built! 

A straw man argument is when you take a point, distort it to an extreme, then argue against the extremity as if it were the original point. 

A great example of this would be making the claim that a company is exploiting its customers for “free labor” when said customers are simply submitting the literary equivalent of bug reports, general feedback, and other suggestions. 

Edit: that said customers are happy and willing to do without solicitation in the first place. 

2nd edit: Reiterating my last post, now that the BRP is ORC’d any person will be within their rights to attain the SRD, proofread, edit, make corrections, and resell for their own personal gain. Again, really no right to complain. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Nakana

[WellMoustachioed]

5 minutes ago, Nakana said:

A straw man argument is when you take a point, distort it to an extreme, then argue against the extremity as if it were the original point. 

A great example of this would be making the claim that a company is exploiting its customers for “free labor” when said customers are simply submitting the literary equivalent of bug reports, general feedback, and other suggestions. 

Edit: that said customers are happy and willing to do without solicitation in the first place. 

I'm glad you understand a straw man argument, even if you don't recognize one. 

You can be exploited without knowing you're being exploited. We've all had jobs where we were pushed beyond our limits because "we're a family." 

If I drew a cool picture and gave it to you, and then you published my cool drawing, that's probably legal, but unethical.

I'm still planning on buying the new BRP book. This isn't a deal breaker. If you want to work for free, I can't stop you. But I think Chaosium can do better. 

 

[Nakana]

31 minutes ago, WellMoustachioed said:

If I drew a cool picture and gave it to you, and then you published my cool drawing, that's probably legal, but unethical.

That actually would not be legal unless I had your permission to do so. I would have to argue that reproduction rights were implied as part of the gift. If you can prove otherwise, then you could pursue the matter in a court of law and win. 

I’m thankful you’re here to point all this unrecognizable stuff out to me and I feel safer knowing you’re here to protect me from exploitation. 🙄

I’m walking away from this discussion as I don’t see it improving. 
————————

The point I was trying to make is if people recommend a product or service that they themselves appreciate, it doesn’t mean they are being exploited for free advertising. 

Choosing to notify a publisher of a typo, also, does not equal exploitation of free labor. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Nakana

[g33k]

10 minutes ago, WellMoustachioed said:

That's a lovely straw man you've built! 

No, it's not.
I'm addressing the same topic, in a reasonable manner; you're saying that I am not writing in good faith, but I am.

I'm not clear on the details of your "straw man" allegation; but "discussion of the CO$T" seems to be the crux of it?
If I'm mistaken, please clarify your accusation.

 

11 minutes ago, WellMoustachioed said:

... Chaosium's finances are their own business and I refuse to speculate speciously (say that 3 times fast) on what it would or wouldn't cost them ...

Here it is.  The money hits the road... or... something.

It's pretty easy to see that it'd cost them $50 per comp-copy; I suggested 5+ copies, so $250+ for those.
I infer a cost somewhere north of $1000 for the time tracking errata by first-reporter, reaching out to those users, generating and tracking comp-copies; I suggested "possibly...thousands" which isn't an unreasonable estimate (I'm pretty sure "a few hundred" would be too low, and "tens of thousands" would be too high).

When you are making an ask -- and that ask is for someone to spend money -- it ill behooves you to then dismiss other comments as to the possible costs incurred.

You can "refuse to speculate" all you want, but the whole reason the current product-lines are thriving is because the new Chaosium management pays close attention to the bottom-line... including costs such as the one you "refuse to speculate" upon... which leads me back to question whether you're asking in full faith, or posting your own straw-man with built-in "but this part of the discussion is off-limits" armor?
 

29 minutes ago, WellMoustachioed said:

... I specifically said that any changes couldn't be retroactive. I also said that they would take some thought as to what was appropriate and affordable. Please don't mischaracterize what I said ... 

And I mostly agreed with you, suggested a possible structure for comp-copies... but noted the potential costs might be rather higher than one would think, and might not make good business sense.  I'm unclear how you read that as being a "straw man."

Could Chaosium have added a "compensated community edit" pass?  Probably.
Should they have?  Possibly (but there's some strong arguments to be made against it being a good idea).

Should they consider such a step for new projects going forward?  Probably; but not necessarily (among other things the fandom wants, is they want it now; and the more-passionate the fan, the sooner they want their "now" -- so the very fans who would be the best candidates as "compensated community editors" could well be the ones saying "no, I want it NOW not after another pass").  But I'm guessing you'll call this line of reasoning another "strawman."
 

[WellMoustachioed]

5 minutes ago, g33k said:

No, it's not.
I'm addressing the same topic, in a reasonable manner; you're saying that I am not writing in good faith, but I am.

I'm not clear on the details of your "straw man" allegation; but "discussion of the CO$T" seems to be the crux of it?
If I'm mistaken, please clarify your accusation.

 

Here it is.  The money hits the road... or... something.

It's pretty easy to see that it'd cost them $50 per comp-copy; I suggested 5+ copies, so $250+ for those.
I infer a cost somewhere north of $1000 for the time tracking errata by first-reporter, reaching out to those users, generating and tracking comp-copies; I suggested "possibly...thousands" which isn't an unreasonable estimate (I'm pretty sure "a few hundred" would be too low, and "tens of thousands" would be too high).

When you are making an ask -- and that ask is for someone to spend money -- it ill behooves you to then dismiss other comments as to the possible costs incurred.

You can "refuse to speculate" all you want, but the whole reason the current product-lines are thriving is because the new Chaosium management pays close attention to the bottom-line... including costs such as the one you "refuse to speculate" upon... which leads me back to question whether you're asking in full faith, or posting your own straw-man with built-in "but this part of the discussion is off-limits" armor?
 

And I mostly agreed with you, suggested a possible structure for comp-copies... but noted the potential costs might be rather higher than one would think, and might not make good business sense.  I'm unclear how you read that as being a "straw man."

Could Chaosium have added a "compensated community edit" pass?  Probably.
Should they have?  Possibly (but there's some strong arguments to be made against it being a good idea).

Should they consider such a step for new projects going forward?  Probably; but not necessarily (among other things the fandom wants, is they want it now; and the more-passionate the fan, the sooner they want their "now" -- so the very fans who would be the best candidates as "compensated community editors" could well be the ones saying "no, I want it NOW not after another pass").  But I'm guessing you'll call this line of reasoning another "strawman."
 

This post is much clearer than your previous post, and much less dismissive, so thank you for the effort that you put in. 

Chaosium is smart. You are smart. This community is smart. If this was something that Chaosium was interested in doing, they can work out the financing. 

If you want some back of the napkin math, $200 per person plus a prerelease pdf ($0) multiplied by 4-6 people is $800 to $1200. That feels reasonable to me. 

Would that meaningfully affect their bottom line? I have no idea, but I doubt it. 

I wouldn't put up such a fuss, but it's not a spot correction here and there. It's pages of hard work. 

I'm going to stop here. I think we've come as close to agreeing as we're going to.

[g33k]

13 hours ago, WellMoustachioed said:

... If you want some back of the napkin math, $200 per person plus a prerelease pdf ($0) multiplied by 4-6 people is $800 to $1200. That feels reasonable to me. 
Would that meaningfully affect their bottom line? I have no idea, but I doubt it ...

Your napkin needs enlarging; there are 10 folks (so far) reporting errors; so $2000.  But I could see such a project, sure.  Chaosium would need to ID a  suite of reliable proofreaders to solicit for this project, and they'd all have to be willing to work under NDA (not everyone is), &c...  Do-able, but yet more overhead co$ts for the project.


Some data for you; you self-report as new to the forum, so the data may be new to you:

Chaosium has previously declared no further support (supplements, errata, updates, etc) for the "BGB" edition of BRP or for Magic World (later that was modified to eventually available as POD, probably; but getting there is a low priority for us).

They specifically cited their sales records -- that titles with strong IP's (such as Call of Cthulhu, and RuneQuest) sold well, but "Generic" books (Magic World being the Elric!/Stormbringer mechanics, with Moorcock's Eternal Champion IP removed) & settingless books (BRP as bare mechanics without a worked setting, i.e. the BGB) did not sell well.

Then came Hasbro/WotC's self-own OGLpocalypse, and Paizo's open invitation to use the "ORC" license.

And that seemed like an opportunity to Chaosium, so they re-prioritized BRP & MW... and here we are.

Note that:

• this was a highly-urgent re-prioritization, to get a product out to gamers while the OGLpocalypse was still fresh on everybody's mind (so adding a month of extra pre-release error-trapping may have been seen as a project-killer by Chaosium)... and:
• it has already cost Chaosium a non-trivial amount of money, both in salary-paid to writers, layout people, editors/proofreaders, &c; and in the delays on multiple other product-lines which have ready, proven markets... all to update a fan-loved but poorly-selling product... and:
• given the aforementioned lack of sales of prior editions, I expect it's largely up to the customers, now, to buy the product if we want to see more Chaosium materials for it (such as a long-anticipated "Companion" volume).

 

13 hours ago, WellMoustachioed said:

... I wouldn't put up such a fuss, but it's not a spot correction here and there. It's pages of hard work ...

Note that it takes largely the same effort to close-read and error-trap, whether you find roughly one error per chapter (which I'm  arbitrarily assigning as "spot correction here and there") or multiple pages of errors.

But arguably, it's harder for the less-frequent errors:  you need to keep that "error-trapping" focus over pages and pages of "nothing-found," as you read through material you personally find absorbing and "distracting" from the error-trapping!  I'm not terribly good at that sort of thing these days, but this is what I've seen remarked by others, who are.

I agree that the sheer number of errors is a bit daunting; I wish I had a better solution to offer.

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by g33k
consistency

[pansophy]

5 hours ago, WellMoustachioed said:

If you want some back of the napkin math, $200 per person plus a prerelease pdf ($0) multiplied by 4-6 people is $800 to $1200. That feels reasonable to me. 

Not everything can be measured in money. As you say, you are new to this forum. It might be new to you that most of the forum people here were supporting BRP even during times, when Chaosium was not putting out products for a long time and RuneQuest was out of print. People stepped in, created content, Monographs and supplements for free. Just to keep the game system alive and breathing. Nobody ever asked for money in this forum - it is, was and always will be a labour of love.

This community helped to keep the system alive and kicking during not so golden times, and everybody seems to be simply excited that Chaosium actually got out a new updated version of the BRP book, even if they always said it there will not be a new version and it is not financially beneficial. I'm not sure how who convinced them to do this, but I am very glad that person actually pulled it off. I think what you are now seeing is just a 'thank you' and everybody just wants the best possible version of the print product - because there might not be another chance to get it right for a long time.

If Chaosium will show some gratification towards the people who stepped in to post errata, then more power to them. If they don't, then I won't hold it against them, because I still get a better product in the end; which is all that counts.

[Susimetsa]

There's a Report Content Error function in my Kindle Paperwhite. I'm not paid for the work I do if I report errors in the novels I read, nor do I expect to be paid. I do it because I want to improve the product for readers who come after me. According to the logic of the OP, Amazon should be paying me since they set up a system for me to use...?

ATTN: I've actually stopped using this function, because it seems that it is causing problems for smaller publishers (Amazon may apparently remove the product from the store until it is fixed and the fixes may necessitate a lot of labour from the publisher in the form of lay-out etc.). I've not dug deeper into these complaints and I do not know anything more about what's happening.

[Greg]

Interesting thread.

I was a bit dismayed at all the errors included in the initial PDF, especially the known errors noted in the BGB's errata. It makes sense if, according to @g33k, it was a quick turnaround to get on the ORC train. And, thanks to g33k, I am considering creating a post-OGLpocalypse scenario for the new BRP ☺️.

I think I understand where everyone is coming from. There was an unfortunate shift in tone at one point in this thread. 

My 2 clacks? I am very glad that Chaosium cast a Resurrection spell on the BRP line. I am very appreciative of the BRP community (we are all us, after all). I seek to help out where I can because (1) I am passionate about the products and (2) I am pretty sure ain't nobody getting rich off of them.

[trechriron]

I agree with all the sentiments.

1. The number of errors in the initial PDF are high. Extra spaces, missing page references, word choices. However, I assumed two things. 1) This was put together quickly to jump on the OGLpocalypse and the ORC train and 2) Chaosium WAS crowdsourcing the edits for thoroughness, expediency, and cost. Frankly, I'm good with that. I'm excited about BRP being open source and being able to publish with it. I'm willing to pitch in to help keep that a reality. There are several small publishers who do this very thing and expressly admit to it.

2. Publishers should pay editors to edit. However, at even .02 per word that gets UGLY expensive. Free copies is a cool reward for editing and likely WAY more cost effective. But let's be honest -- a free copy hardly covers the bill. A 90k word book is $1,800 at .02 a word. The art in this edition is magnificent! I would be surprised if they paid less than $2,500 for it. There's like 10 full art pages for each version of the DE Vinci Man and I've seen those advertised for around $500 a piece. I believe the intent of the fans in this case is simply -- if I pitch in, and reduce costs, it inspires the publisher to keep supporting and investing in this cool thing.

3. The labor here hardly qualifies as exploitation. Misleading people to believe they are going to get paid or rewarded and then not actually doing it -- is exploitation. Quid Pro Quo (you want some water? Here, edit this document for me...) is exploitation. Asking for help is just being honest IMHO.

4. Bringing this up hardly qualifies of accusing Chaosium of bad faith. It's a good reminder that people working as creatives in a creative space deserve compensation. Even if it may not be as relevant here -- it's certainly relevant in the industry! Don't work for "exposure". Ask what you believe you are worth. Standing up for people comes from the heart. We should always applaud people who stand up.