Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Academic Citation of Twine Projects
Suppose that I were an academic in the field of the humanities, and I wanted to cite a particular Twine game/project/&c. in an an academic context. I know that the way of doing so would depend upon the style guide which I used. Most style guides accept a URL as a citation, and that would be the most intellectually-honest way of doing so. However, that citation would be prominently used for a website by which to find the Twine project.
Considering that the HTML for the fruits of a Twine project and the HTML for a website are not synonymous with one another, it would require two separate citations. That would be fine. Yet some style guides insist upon either a digital object identifier (or some sort of universal, unique, and persistent identifier) to identify digital media. Would such a thing be possible for a Twine product?
In addition to that, there is the question of intellectual property. Many of us use handles, pen names, and non-identifying names when producing hypertext documents. Assuming the worst, as Bertrand Russell said, what recourse do we have if one takes credit for the work we have produced or refuses to attribute us at all?
I am not trying to inspire panic or distrust, by any means; but I think these are questions that should be addressed sooner rather than later.
e: I know it's pedantic, but is Twine a signatory party on the Treaty of Babel at the IFDB? I know it mostly deals with TADS, ADRIFT, Inform, etc., but all the features make it an easy candidate. It may be a "meaningless" number, but that way the IFDB can be treated as a database with an absolute set uniquely-identifiable serial number. That would satisfy any academic requisite.
Considering that the HTML for the fruits of a Twine project and the HTML for a website are not synonymous with one another, it would require two separate citations. That would be fine. Yet some style guides insist upon either a digital object identifier (or some sort of universal, unique, and persistent identifier) to identify digital media. Would such a thing be possible for a Twine product?
In addition to that, there is the question of intellectual property. Many of us use handles, pen names, and non-identifying names when producing hypertext documents. Assuming the worst, as Bertrand Russell said, what recourse do we have if one takes credit for the work we have produced or refuses to attribute us at all?
I am not trying to inspire panic or distrust, by any means; but I think these are questions that should be addressed sooner rather than later.
e: I know it's pedantic, but is Twine a signatory party on the Treaty of Babel at the IFDB? I know it mostly deals with TADS, ADRIFT, Inform, etc., but all the features make it an easy candidate. It may be a "meaningless" number, but that way the IFDB can be treated as a database with an absolute set uniquely-identifiable serial number. That would satisfy any academic requisite.
Comments
I can't see a problem. Maybe I'm missing something. There are lots of blogs, tweets, facebook posts etc that need to be cited, the style manuals seem to cope just fine with them, despite their being a bit more casual with details than the academic world.
I've only checked APA and Harvard style guides, but both are ok with citations using nicknames/ handles for blogs etc. You could always provide a link to the actual HTML, which would satisfy most needs.
I'm not sure what systems insist on DOIs, but I guess their style manual would say how to deal with cases without a DOI. (APA and Harvard say they'd like one if it's available, but are ok if there isn't.)
As for "what recourse do we have if one takes credit for the work we have produced or refuses to attribute us at all?", this is the standard problem with anything published on line. A not bad looking summary can be found on http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/
(I know nothing about the treaty of Babel, but this page http://ifdb.tads.org/help-ifid might help if others are, like me, wondering what this is all about.)
For identification, a secure hash algorithm such as SHA256 would satisfy all the requirements you list. However, such a hash does not identify a work, it identifies one exact file: if even a single spelling error is corrected in a story, it will result in a completely different hash for the HTML file.
This is not unique to Twine. In the case of paper books the publisher usually knows who is behind a pen name, but in the digital world it is possible to publish with very little human interaction.
A different but related concern is the conditions for republishing and altering the work. Some authors want to be the sole distributor of their work, some like it spread far and wide but only in its original form, others don't mind derivative works etc. A license metadata field would be useful as a way for the author to state what kind of distribution and content reuse is allowed.
Not all Twine works are interactive fiction, although that is the most common use case. Optional IFID support would be good, in my opinion. A standard place to put the IFID in the source and in the HTML would be useful for tools that manage works of fiction. A <meta> tag? A special passage? Go all the way and provide not only an IFID but also an iFiction record in the HTML?
Would it be useful to also display the IFID somewhere? I think the average reader/player is not interested in it, so making the IFID visible at all times would be unwelcome clutter. One option is to have the IFID in the HTML source only, but ensure it is near the top of the source so it is easy to find. Another option would be to have a link labeled "IFID" that can be clicked to display the IFID string.
A useful feature would be to have the Twine editor generate an IFID for a project that doesn't have one.