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Wrye’s Notes on Open Modding:

There are essentially two ways that modders view the place of their creations in the modding community: The Cathedral view, and the Parlor view.

In the Cathedral view, modding is viewed as being like a joint effort to build a cathedral. Individually, our contributions may be small – and may not be worth doing for themselves. But by each person contributing something, we construct something larger and more worthwhile than any of us could do on our own. Under this view, creations are contributions – and may not be taken back. (Just as in building a Cathedral, it would not be allowed for a person to contribute a stained glass window and then later take it back.)

The Parlor view in contrast, is the view that mods are more like privately owned works of art displayed in the modder's parlor. The modder invites others into the parlor to appreciate and enjoy the work of art – but may at any time close the parlor door and ask their guests to leave. And of course, the modder may be very selective about who they invite into their parlor. Under this view, our creations are never contributions; rather we continue to own and control them – takebacks are normal and accepted.

The Parlor view allows the creator to retain complete control of their work. But the Cathedral view creates a much larger, more enduring and more perfected body of work – and for that reason, I prefer it.

Based on what has happened over the past few days, it’s become clear that guidelines need to be established to prevent something like this from happening again in the future. To that end, WCC will be adopting a Cathedral view for things such as site mechanics, systems, lore, and rule pages going forward.

This does not affect anyone’s individual artwork, template work, characters, or anything like that unless they were explicitly made under this view; those are still their creator’s own to handle as they see fit.

But anything implemented after today that directly affects the site as a whole (again: mechanics/systems/lore/rules), going forward, may not be rescinded by any one person or groups of people. They belong to the Cathedral--in this case, WCC--rather than solely belonging to the individuals who worked on them (though said individuals can and should still be credited for their efforts).