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WingedTwilightofthedawn - BANNED


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WingedTwilightofthedawn banned.



Reason for the ban

Violation of site regulations regarding solicitation of donations on a file page.

File removed: Skyrim Romance Mod.

Your project is no longer welcome here.

User clearly posted a link to a paypal account used to "fund" their mod project - which in itself is a violation of the Terms and conditions set down by Bethesda Softworks regarding "modding for money" - and of Kickstarters own usage terms of solicitation for a product for which you lack the copyright ownershop.

Quote from the file page before removal:

 

Want to donate to future projects?
Donate to our Paypal here.


Supplied link deactivated.

A quote from the projects kickstarter page created to fund the project, and help pay the team behind the mod. Note the amount being requested:

 

3
backers
$51.00
pledged of $50,000 goal
43


User also deleted comments pointing out that their actions were not permitted in an attempt to cover their wrongdoing.

-
Our rules regarding requests for donations:

 

We have a 100% no solicitation rule in regards to donations. This means that you cannot request users donate to you anywhere on the site including on your profile, in your file or image descriptions, in your file readme, via images, forum comments or private messages other than by selecting from the already existing donation options in your preferences area on Nexus sites. If you are caught asking for donations anywhere on the site you are likely to receive a warning or an outright ban depending on the severity of the breach of rules.



Reference post

Reference post

 

Edit: User is now known as Maralightfeather. See http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2500729-maralightfeather-reinstated/ -SirSalami

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There's been a little publicity on this ban in the community, and in light of a public apology by Mara, I felt it prudent to write out a detailed response to some of the events mentioned in the apology that contains actual facts. Taken from a Reddit post I made:

 

 

 

While what happened with this mod is very unfortunate considering how great it was and the clear time and good work that went in to it, and I welcome an apology, I do not welcome an apology with stipulations and "buts" that some how try to paint the Nexus in a bad light, and I do not follow the line of events provided.
Lets do a timeline of events:
1\. File was published on the Nexus and received good attention.
2\. It came to the attention of the Nexus moderation that the file contained textures made by other authors and used without permission. The file was placed in to moderation mode, Mara was contacted and the situation was resolved amicably. The file page was taken out of moderation mode and all was well.
It's important to note here that typically we would normally issue a formal warning for this sort of infraction. We see it as a major infraction of our TOS and there are warnings posted in a lot of places, in bold font and different colours, not just in the TOS, when adding a file to the Nexus database that you must only upload what is yours, and only yours, and if you don't there will be serious consequences. There is no valid, justifiable excuse for doing this. Irrespective, we gave Mara the benefit of the doubt considering the obvious good work that had gone in to the mod and not wishing to sour relations.
During this point, one might think about reading our TOS...
3\. At some point, the file page description was altered, adding links to a paypal account and asking for donations in the description of the file. This is a grievous violation of our TOS. Even if Mara never read our TOS, Mara claims in her apology that she tried to get our donation system to work but couldn't work it out. During that point, it would have been hard to miss, in big bold capital font type against a green background, the text on our preferences page that specifically says:
"YOU MAY NOT ASK FOR DONATIONS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM ON THE SITES, INCLUDING IN YOUR FILE DESCRIPTIONS.".
4\. Site users comment on the mod page, stating that such requests for donations and payments were a breach of site terms, Bethesda EULA and so on. These comments were hidden by the author.
I find it hard to believe that there was enough time to go through all the comments being left on the mod page at work, but there wasn't time for the author to hide the mod page (something that takes 3 button clicks) from view until research could be done on whether people were actually telling the truth about it being a serious breach of our, and Bethesda's, ToS and EULA.
On the topic of horrible comments being left on the mod page I'll say what we always say in this situation. Mod authors, and indeed other users, are asked to make use of the "report" functionality at any time to lodge official complaints with the moderation team when they see something they think breaks our ToS. We look at every single report sent in and when we see a ToS violation, we send out warnings or bans accordingly.
I just checked, and we never received a single report from Mara about malicious comments. So if comments were deleted, they weren't reported to the moderation team.
When a mod author "deletes" comments on their file pages they're actually "hiding" them to everyone except the moderation team. So we can still see what posts were made and hidden by the author. It's important to note that not all of the comments deleted by Mara were malicious in any way, shape or form. In fact, our records show only 3 comments were deleted from her page about this Kickstarter or the donations, and these were as follows:
On the 21st of January at 7:56 PM, Kojak747 wrote:
"Are you really looking for a 50k kickstarter for this? Im pretty sure thats 100% against Bethesda's TOS."
In response, Sluvsj wrote at 08:19 PM:
"Yeah I thought that was a joke because the video makes fun of the mod. I'm kind of a tomboy so this mod is too girly for me, but obviously plenty of other girls enjoy it. It would be a shame if it got taken down because of a silly kick starter. "
At 10:03 PM, jokerman5 wrote:
"They're also in violation of KS's TOU if I'm not mistaken. Sec 9:
'You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Kickstarter all the license rights outlined here).' "
These are the only comments on the Skyrim Romance Mod file page that were written about the Kickstarter, they're also the only comments hidden by the author.
To compound this issue, at 10:42 PM, Mara wrote a response to someone else on the mod page saying:
"Thank you so much for you comment!!! I look forward to Cael as well ^^ "
These actions were taking place a full 3 hours before Mara was banned from the site.
5\. Also during this time a Kickstarter for the project was brought to our attention by another site user, and this tied in with the paypal account link present on the file page. In the interest of clarity and transparency I've just checked the file page again and can confirm that the Kickstarter was not mentioned on the file page on the Nexus. However, the requests for donations were.
6\. File was removed (to our wastebin) and the author was banned from the site, this occurred on the 22nd January 2015 at 01:57 AM: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2500519-wingedtwilightofthedawn-banned/?hl=%2Bwingedtwilightofthedawn
7\. On the same day, at 02:50 AM, Mara sent in an unban request. Unban requests are sent in via this page: http://www.nexusmods.com/games/about/unban/?
It's important to note the guidelines and instructions we leave on that page. Specifically, the very last point states:
"Unban requests require the approval of at least 3 moderating staff members, and we discuss each unban request in detail before making a decision. This can take several days. Please be patient during this time. If you make a new account to try and circumvent your ban then it's extremely like that we'll (1) find out about it and (2) enforce your ban with an IP ban as well."
8\. On the same day, at 03:09 AM, Mara creates a new account: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?showuser=19911384
9\. The new account is banned as soon as it's spotted by TVD on the same day, at 03:26 AM: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2500729-maralightfeather-banned/?hl=%2Bmaralightfeather
10\. Mara's unban request is denied (in private, as is Nexus policy) because it's become apparent by this point that she still has not read our TOS and still does not follow the guidelines written clearly on the very pages she's using.
As far as I'm concerned Mara broke our TOS on several different occasions and for us there's just absolutely no excuse for doing it. I think you'll find it hard to come across someone in the Skyrim Modding Community who doesn't know that we take our TOS seriously. Perhaps too seriously, but that's another debate entirely. We don't just throw out a generic TOS which we don't enforce. We enforce it. Rigorously. We do not, and have not ever, accepted "I did not read the TOS" as a viable excuse. You agree to the TOS when you register an account on the sites and you agree again each time you submit a file on to the sites (along with ticking another box to confirm that all the work you're submitting is your own work or used with complete permission from who's work it is).
As posted elsewhere, I'm following up with TVD about whether he posted on the Skyrim Romance site at all. The assumption that TVD was the only one who knew about her being banned is completely wrong, however. The ban, like all our bans, was and still is completely public knowledge and can be seen here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2500729-maralightfeather-banned/?hl=%2Bmaralightfeather
If, when I speak to TVD he says that he has not said anything of the sort and/or not written on the site then I will be more than inclined to believe him. He can be heavy handed at times, but he is not a liar.
This situation is unfortunate, but we cannot and will not accept responsibility for taking punitive action against people who have wittingly or unwittingly broken our very clear rules and guidelines simply because they have decided against reading them. Such responsibility lies solely with the offender.
Edit: I'm mostly a Reddit lurker and rarely post. Seems I can't do a numbered list without the formatting breaking, so now trying a bulletted list.
Edit 2: I give up. It still reads fine, it just isn't formatting how I'd like it.
Edit 3: I have now spoken to TVD on this issue. I asked him whether he had ever written on the Skyrim Romance Mod site at all. His response was:
"This is a complete fabrication. I have never posted on her site."
This settles the issue for me and will not be pursued further.
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