Listing the citation practices in boardgames and tabletop role-playing games for the On the shoulders of Cloud Giants project.

Why citing ?

What are we citing others authors and sources ?

to pay homage ;

to acknowledge we are not the original author ;
to put ourselves in filial relationship ;
to position ourselves in opposition [3] ;
to be protected by the person we dedicate the works ;
to explictly ackowledge an adaptation, an imitation, a remix, a mash-up ;

to display our erudition ;
to help assess the original idea [1] ;

to support the veracity of an idea with factual informations or call to expert authorities ;
to show the angle of the study (which field, which method, etc.) ;
to help understand the context of the birth of an idea ;
to help assess the impact of an idea (calculating the number of citations, publications, etc.) [4] ;
to track or understand the evolution of an idea [1] ;

to create an asynchronous space of conversation between reasearch of the world ;

to web a social network of documents ;
to list a curated selection of sources on a topic ;

to help the reader to re-use an original idea (CC).

Why Not Citing (sic) ?

Here is a list of reasons why people don’t cite.

« The type of document I am writing doesn't need to cite. »

ex : an home-made rule, an invitation card to a private convention, etc.

« The type of document I am using in my own work doesn't need to be cited. »

ex: a sentence said by a game designer in a panel of a conference, etc.

« I don't know a thing in copyright, plagiarism or intellectual property. »
« I was inspired by a work but I want to show the original ideas are coming from me. »
« Everything come from me. »
« Newton and Einstein didn't cite much. Me neither. » [7]
« Citing will burden or confuse the reading process. »
« It is not esthetically beautiful. »
« There is no place to put all these informations. »
« I don't want to explain my method, I just want deliver the results. » [6]
« Some authors, who re-use copyrighted content, were legally prosecuted, even if they cited well theirs sources. »

Ex: Cease and desisit of the Tolkien Enterprises vs. TSR, leading to abandon all references to Tolkien in the 6th print of D&D (1977).
Ex: Cease and desist of TSR vs. Grimoire Games (Arduin) ;
Ex: Agreement between Chaosium and TSR about Elric of Michael Moorcock and the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft ;
Ex: Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate vs. TSR (Warriors of Mars wargame) ;
Ex: TSR vs. Gary Gygax's Dangerous Dimensions [8];

« Game authors who used to cite, doesn't cite anymore. » [5]

Lyrism on citation practices

« It is textual DNA. » Dan Martin, 2018.

« The references and the bibliography ? They are the documents' social network. » Pascal Martinolli, 2018.

Bibliography

^{[1] King, Peter, & Andrew Arlig. « Peter Abelard ». In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2018. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/abelard/. Part 7.}
^{[2] Anderson, Elizabeth, 2011. “Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony,” Episteme, 8(2): 144–164. [read in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/]. Part 3.}
^{[3] Deslauriers, Marguerite. « Lucrezia Marinella ». In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2018. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/lucrezia-marinella/. Part 6.}
^{[4] Nickles, Thomas. « Historicist Theories of Scientific Rationality ». In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2017. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/rationality-historicist/. Part 1.6.}^{[5] Vianney, & Manuel. « Qui possède le game ? » Ludologies, du jeu sous toutes ses formes, 2019. https://soundcloud.com/ludologies/76-qui-possede-le-game. at 00:56:01.
[6] Jean-François Dortier, Descartes : Pouvoirs et limites de la méthode, Sciences humaines, no. 308, 2018, p.55.
[7] Jean-François Dortier, De Socrate à Foucault, Les philosophes au banc d’essai, ed. Sciences humaines, 2018.
[8] The Ultimate Interview With Gary Gygax. Interview by Ciro Alessandro Sacco. The Kyngdoms, 1999. http://www.keithrobinson.me/thekyngdoms/interviews/garygygax.php.}