Regarding the new sticky

Would it possible for something to be added under the Common Issues & FAQs about at least making an attempt to contact the original author (or the last person to work on it) of a sheet before someone jumps right in?

As far as I'm aware, the roll20 character sheet terms & conditions expressly state that anyone can jump in and submit suggested changes to a character sheet. I am pretty sure this is intentional, and it's probably wise because sheet authors often do lose interest after a while. No-one has ownership of the sheets they contribute, though if you see a pull request or change you dont like, you can go back into github and submit your own changes or raise an issue. The github maintainers seem pretty responsive. 

While this is true GG, in the cases where someone is actively maintaining a sheet, someone randomly jumping in and submitting a PR has high potential to cause negative effects on the sheet as the new submitter may not fully understand the code base. This is especially true if someone is working on a large update and hasn't submitted to the repo in a given week. David's suggestion has my support.

Yes, I am not asking for anyone to gain ownership of anything but a pm on Roll20 or Github should hopefully prevent any bun-fights.

Yes, a recommendation for this would be a good idea to include. The current in the github readme says: Improving Existing Character Sheets If you want to help improve an existing sheet, just clone this repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request. I'd suggest changing it to something like: Improving Existing Character Sheets If you want to help improve an existing sheet, just clone this repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request. If the sheet seem to be actively improved, it's recommended to reach out to other active contributors before creating large changes. I'd also  add a recommendation for all authors/sheet editor who want to stay in the loop to add some prefered contact method, and not just regarding updating the sheet but also to bring up issues or bugs. Of course it shouldn't be mandatory or anything, but it would help things in general. Either on the sheet or the the .sheet.json's "instructions" sections. Because I've seen many forum posts and GitHub Issues pass by virtually unnoticed(to no fault of the authors) that just throws the request/issue out in the open, and the reply from others are just "contact the last editor/author".

This seems sensible and reasonable, and I definitely understand wanting to protect a sheet from going in the wrong direction (as someone pretty much ruined - from my pov - one of the sheets i used to use by jumping in and changing it drastically).  But I have been involved in volunteer collaborative projects before, and the more barriers you put up (even just ones based on polite requests), the more likely that project is to founder and die. Because volunteers do have other draws on their time, and can drift away. Someone acting as a custodian for a sheet might have a family emergency, or maybe just isn't in the mood, and put off responding to a request to change a sheet, and then that new volunteer gives up and goes away. Things like this happen all the time in volunteer projects. trust me on this: it's a huge issue. The slightest bit of friction you put up to slow down collaboration can have massive effects. I am convinced roll20 knew what they were doing when they created the process they did. "Let people submit, and deal with them after the submission is made" seems like a much more healthy approach that keeps the system alive and thriving. Andreas, you may not realise this, but your post underlines how this is a real problem: Of course it shouldn't be mandatory or anything, but it would help things in general. Either on the sheet or the the .sheet.json's "instructions" sections. Because I've seen many forum posts and GitHub Issues pass by virtually unnoticed(to no fault of the authors) that just throws the request/issue out in the open, and the reply from others are just "contact the last editor/author". There are so many sheets where this happens-  the creator or person who might be the maintainer just isn't contactable. This is inherent to volunteer projects and roll20 knows this. The openness we have makes it so sheets don't need an active custodian. Anyone can jump in, if needed. This is also implicit in the license they chose to use for the sheets. Whether we like it or not, only roll20 has custodianship over the sheets. It does have its drawbacks. There's a sheet i created, working off and on for over a year, that I havent submitted because i don't want to lose control over it. So I really do understand the desire for people wanting to be recognised as custodians of the sheets they created. But for a volunteer project like this, it really is better for the project as a whole  the way roll20 have chosen to go.

G G said: The openness we have makes it so sheets don't need an active custodian. Anyone can jump in, if needed. This is also implicit in the license they chose to use for the sheets. Whether we like it or not, only roll20 has custodianship over the sheets. It does have its drawbacks. There's a sheet i created, working off and on for over a year, that I havent submitted because i don't want to lose control over it. So I really do understand the desire for people wanting to be recognised as custodians of the sheets they created. But for a volunteer project like this, it really is better for the project as a whole  the way roll20 have chosen to go. Point out where anyone has asked for ownership of a sheet, is a suggestion in the sticky that someone make sort of effort to contact someone who has been recently working on a sheet so heinous.  What we are not talking  about is some sort signed released from someone who has not worked on a sheet for years.  Does a pm and a couple of days impinge how your idea of how collaboration  works?. Also a suggestion in the sticky that anyone making changes add there userid to the roll20userid  property in the sheet.josn would be helpful to anyone trying to track them down.

I'm using "ownership" in terms of a self-appointed custodianship role. If someone is required to send a request to the sheet maintainer to make changes, this is   a form of ownership. I'm pretty sure there's another reason roll20 want to avoid this, which I didnt feel was necessary to mention earlier. But it is important. Giving some kind of administrative control to volunteers, who dont work for roll20, opens the community up to all kinds of power struggles and heated arguments as people argue over the proper way the sheet should develop, and the person who creates it thinks they can enforce their own view of what the sheet should be. Trust me, this would happen. The current roll20 system - vesting absolute authority in roll20 itself while being quite subtle about it - does a great job of avoiding that.

I didn't advocate for it to be required to contact the maintainers, merely that a soft encouragement to do so would be included. but I guess however such a encouragement would be written it could still be seen as mandatory, in the way you have interpretended my suggestion. Anyway, you're probably right G G , it might be best as it is now. It's not like I have any real knowledge of how projects like these are wisest to manage, merely drawing my opinions from limited experience and how I understood actions or statements from Roll20 staff or mods. 

I have brought this thread to the attention of the Devs. Please feel free to discuss the matter further, though. It's probably a good conversation to have. You folks are doing a good job of keeping things civil.

I do think it would be great if the devs made contact details for people who have added them to sheet data more prominent and easier to access. Because as your previous post mentioned, Andreas, people are often advised to contact sheet authors, but it's often pretty hard to figure out how to do that.

G G said: I'm using "ownership" in terms of a self-appointed custodianship role. If someone is required to send a request to the sheet maintainer to make changes, this is   a form of ownership. Again,where did you get required from did you miss the bit where I said it would be helpful of the devs suggest that anyone wanting to change a sheet that was being actively maintained should  try  and contact someone to avoid any conflict or wasted work. opens the community up to all kinds of power struggles and heated arguments as people argue over the proper way the sheet should develop, This already happens, for example the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu character sheet which someone, who had only a basic grasp of the rules,  decided to go and remove important elements from the sheet  despite there being no self-appointed custodian that you are objecting too and no-one has asked for.

G G said: I do think it would be great if the devs made contact details for people who have added them to sheet data more prominent and easier to access. Because as your previous post mentioned, Andreas, people are often advised to contact sheet authors, but it's often pretty hard to figure out how to do that. Yeah, it's hard to figure out for most average users to find the author with only a name to go with(what could have been changed already). In almost every case I've helped people with sheet issues or similar, I've every time gone and first checked who the author of the sheet is from the sheet's  sheet.json  file   on GitHub, and checked the sheet's history if the author is still active. Otherwise I've pointed to the seemingly most relevant contributor in recent times, but that only works if they share a name on roll20 or are one of the well-known active contributors. When you select your sheet for a campaign(or change int in Game Settings), it tells the name of the authors, but not the Roll20 user id, nor does it make the name a link to the user. I purpose that it could be made an option to make the name link to the user's Roll20 profile, but not mandatory. If this change could be made, some sections in the repository's Readme should be changed(as it is to my understanding the most official guidelines for contributing to the sheets):  roll20userid : A simple string telling the Roll20 User ID's of the authors (e.g.  1  or  45672,145678 ). Just used so we know who to credit internally, won't be shown publicly on the site. instructions : Markdown-formatted instructions for using the sheet. If there are any particular setup steps, special rolls you want to make the player aware of, etc., this is the place to put that info. Try to be succinct. The fact that the repository is public, makes the author(s) findable for those who know to go look for this. The instructions line could include a suggestion to leave a link to the author for ease-of-contact. 

David said: This   already happens, for example the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu character sheet which someone, who had only a basic grasp of the rules,  decided to go and remove important elements from the sheet  despite there being no self-appointed custodian that you are objecting too and no-one has asked for. Largest part of these detrimental edits are caught by the people who works to approve the merges. Pull requests that remove attributes without a sheetworker to migrate the information, or large overhauls without proper explanation or comments from other active contributors doesn't get automatically approved. That being said, some of my earlier work on sheets got approved despite it not being too well made. I manage to temporally remove an attribute by correcting it's spelling, without realizing the implications, and I didn't even have Pro to test my changes(I swear I've improved since).

Andreas J. said: G G said: I do think it would be great if the devs made contact details for people who have added them to sheet data more prominent and easier to access. Because as your previous post mentioned, Andreas, people are often advised to contact sheet authors, but it's often pretty hard to figure out how to do that. When you select your sheet for a campaign(or change int in Game Settings), it tells the name of the authors, but not the Roll20 user id, nor does it make the name a link to the user. I purpose that it could be made an option to make the name link to the user's Roll20 profile, but not mandatory. I agree. it would be nice to have a link there (if provided by the author) to the roll20 profile and/or optional contact details (an email or web address, for instance), since many sheet authors dont seem to check out the forums that often. 

David said: G G said: I'm using "ownership" in terms of a self-appointed custodianship role. If someone is required to send a request to the sheet maintainer to make changes, this is   a form of ownership. Again,where did you get required from did you miss the bit where I said it would be helpful of the devs suggest that anyone wanting to change a sheet that was being actively maintained should  try  and contact someone to avoid any conflict or wasted work. When something is suggested in the requirements , it is very hard to avoid it being interpreted as a requirement . People will wonder, and delay posting submissions by sending messages to ask if they need permission to contribute. Some will give up without asking. Any friction introduced which adds doubt or extra administration hassle to posting submissions will lead to fewer submissions being made. The system that roll20 are using (both the specific software github, and the collaborative push-based process) is used by millions of people for similar projects worldwide, and is proven to work. Ultimately its the roll20 team's responsibility keep things working smoothly, and the safeguards are there, at the roll20 side, where they should be.

When something is suggested in the requirements , it is very hard to avoid it being interpreted as a requirement . People will wonder, and delay posting submissions by sending messages to ask if they need permission to contribute. Some will give up without asking. Any friction introduced which adds doubt or extra administration hassle to posting submissions will lead to fewer submissions being made. I have made a suggestion  to the Roll20 team for something to be added to the character sheet creation  FAQ whether or not you see that as a requirement is up to you. 

OK folks. The suggestion has been made and the Devs have been informed. It's up to them now whether to act upon it. Thanks to everyone for their input. I'm going to close up the thread. Cheers.