Gopher

Yeah, you are going to have to learn blender, which has a pretty steep learning curve compared to Nifscope.

In my experience you are an optimist if you expect people to read beyond the second line of the mod description let alone comments or anything as obvious as the README file :) Sorry I could not resist that. But you are right of course that reading the comments section is a thousand times better way to get a feel for a mod than some endorsements.

@LadyMilla I used to feel the exact same but after reading many such threads and talking to quite a lot of modders I am somewhere in the middle right now. I see peoples point when they say if a mod has 300 endorsements but 50 negative endorsements, I look at it a lot more carefully before downloading that I would a mod with 50 endorsements but no negative endorsements. The one with 300 plus votes is obviously liked by more people, but equally as obviously something about this mod is an issue. Whereas 50 plus votes with no negative votes suggests a mod that has only a small group of fans, but has no issues. So I sort of see the point. But like you, I loathed the negative endorsements and do not want them back in their old form. And the admins have stated clearly it will not be re-instated, so the discussion really should be : How do we get the benefits of the old rating system, without the downsides? Myself I am beginning to think what they should show on the mods pages are the number of endorsements given in the last two months. Generally that is a good indicator of how good a mod is right now. I mean plenty of mods got 600+ votes in the first few weeks of the games life, but dont get used anymore as they are obsolete. But the current display of 800thumbs up leads people to feel it is a popular mod when in fact it is essentially something that crashes your game now. I think 2 months is a good period as it gets past the silly period when a mod is first released and picks up the 'new mod' boost, and the mod is now well tested and played. I think something like this might also highlight mods that have issues such as conflicts, crashes etc. Basically my theory is that after a while when a mod is having obvious problems, people stop endorsing. So even if the mod gets 1000 votes in the intitial perod, it will start to bleed supporters until eventually it gets almost no endorsements. I mean if you saw a mod with 1000+ endorsements, but only 9 endorsements in the last 2 months, you would get suspicious right?

It depends on what you consider 'punished'. I mean if you downrate a mod, and the response from the mod author is to block you, that is not really a punishment. You have already expressed disgust at this mod authors work and would be somewhat ill advised to go back for more. I cannot imagine a situation where I would find a certain mod so awful that I would downrate it, and be willing to install another of the same mod authors mods. But of course it all comes down to how seriously you take downrating. People seem to feel that downrating is 'equal but opposite' to up-rating and is therefore no big deal. I respectfully disagree. Down-rating has a hundred times the impact of an up-rating. If you do not believe me, go to work tomorrow and find a colleague, then insult one part of their appearance, and compliment another. Come back and tell me if they balanced each other out :) I submit the assertion that down-rating should be something done advisably, and with the understanding that offence may, and probably will, be taken.

Because they do, unfortunately some down loaders see mods as some kind of official entity, they seem not aware that it's just another user sharing what they have created, when someone leaves me negative feedback in the form "this does not work"; without giving an explanation then I ignore, if the feedback is abusive then I report them. Some down loaders do feel they have a right to support, they do not realize it's not a right but a privilege when a mod author gives their time to an individual, but it's the same the other way around, mod authors "choose" to give their time, it is not something forced upon them. Right, but without the ability to block such users, how do I know if I am chosing to give my time to such a person? In a way I am foced to spend time on them. I am given the stark choice between helping everyone or helping noone. If I could block them, then I would truly be able to chose who to give my time to :)

Automoderation by mod authors is a bad idea, I say that as a mod author myself, the time you put into a mod is your own choosing, no one forces mod authors to put in the time or share their mods. I am genuinely surprised at the comments I've seen from some mod authors, this is supposed to be a fun past time sharing your ideas and mods with the rest of the community. So why is it that 99% of people using the thumbs down function treat me like I owe then 24hour a day one on one customer support? :) Seriously some of them when challenged act like I had some moral obligation to fix every mod they ever installed. And yeah iam serious, I have recieved thumbs down because someone failed to install someone elses mod (darns UI) and I didn't help them fix it within an hour of them posting on my page. The idea of timeones never occuring to them, or the fact that the negative endorsement tells people my mod is hard to install, not the one they actually found hard to install. And yes noone forces me to do this I know, and so I could chose to not spend the time modding. But for some mods I will feel personally like I let a lot of people down if I do not do it. I think you underestimate how much pressure there is sometimes when changes are needed in a mod. Besides, I take all my hobbies seriously and wouldn't like total stragners walking up to me and insulting me on those issues either :P

For me I think a better option is not to try to police who gets to rate a file down, but to simultaneously give mod authors the feeling they can do something about it and making the down rating itself have some effect on the down rater. I realise it would not stop the odd idiot from down rating a mod because the idiot was incapable of reading a text file, but it would give me peace of mind that said idiot was not going to pop up on any of my other mods or worse: get support from me because I didnt check my 'People to ignore' list before responding. Let mod authors have a 'block user' feature. Not only does it make negative endorsements more reasonable, it would probably improve the level of discource from people requiring help from a mod author. We might have a little less 'OMFG your mod set fire to my whole house!!' type comments. It's just a thought :)

I understand the decision. But perhaps in discussing this a new idea will come out of it that achieves what negative endorsements were meant to, but that is less confrontations. Maybe it won't, but surely the discussion (as long as it is constructive) does not harm us. And I am one of the people who did not like the old systems, so this is not about my own bias in this discussion. I have actually found people really changing my mind with their points and so while I personally do not like the negative endorsements, I now appreciate other people finding them useful. Surely this is a good thing? As for people complaining at something being changed after it was debated to death, the problem there is that people who are happy with something are not on the forums defending it. People demanding change always seem greater than those wanting to keep the status quo because people happy with how things are doing it rather than talking about it :)

This is a 'Feedback and suggestions' forum. If a polite thread discussing the pro's and cons of a new or removed feature is locked because 'it's never going to happen' then what is the point of this forum? If that thread had been devolving into flames I might understand, but it was actually a good thread where people were actually changing each others minds. I have changed my stance on this feature precisely because of that thread and others like it. Surely that is the whole point of this forum? Please note this is not a 'whine', it is a request that threads be left open as long as they are polite and not breaking any rule.

One thing I do miss about the endorsements is the Green/Red numbers. Oddly enough the clash of those two really attracted your eyes. And as long as the red one was zero it looked great :)

For me the problem is the casual and one way nature of the 'negative' vote that is the problem. But if the second someone gives a negative vote, they can no longer download that mod (or comment on that mods page) and if the mod author can choose to block them from his other mods, the system is fine. Bad mods will get lots of negative votes and noone will care if the mod author blocks them, and mod authors of good mods get at least some satisfaction that people who gave them the thumb down are not going to display equal levels of stupidity on another of their mods :)

Well the thing is, I have been convinced by the arguments here that we need the negative endorsements (even though I hate them). I understand the benefit of them. I just want to make them something people do not do lightly. If you thumb down a mod, you really should mean that this mod is bad. Bad enough that you dont care if the mod author is upset with you.

Yes. Me. I had a couple of projects I abandoned because of demotivation from some particularly stupid negative endorsements. I know I should ignore them. I know I should not care. But at 5am in the morning when desperately trying to overcome some odd problem in a new project getting your first negative endorsement for a mod and its 'because the mod does not do what it says it does in the description' can literally have me deleting esp files and swearing to never mod again. Yeah I know. Way too tempremental :) But when you spend thousands of hours doing something like this, your mods become more than just causal hobbies to you. I would not compare them to my kids (although they keep me awake at night and often make no sense in much the same manner), but often a mod author will be very parental to his creations. Some people dont care about the thumbs down. I envy them :) I love doing this, and I know I get way too involved. But then some people seem to like the fact that I keep so passionately engaged.

Let me ask you a question then: Can you name one mod you gave a thumbs down to, where you gave a thumbs up to the author of it on a different mod?

For the same reason telling someone their kid is adorable is a minor compliment that is quickly forgotten and telling someone their kid is ugly is a major insult that may end with bloodshed. Or the same reason telling your girlfriend she looks great will get you a quick smile and maybe some attention for a few hours, but telling her she is ugly will end it forever. There is a double standard because the two are not equal. And telling your uncle his cooking is bad before he spends twenty grand to open a chain restaurant? Baseless praise is JUST as a bad unwarranted criticism. Complacency breeds mediocrity. You just destroyed your own argument extremely well :) If you tell you uncle his cooking is bad to stop him opening a restaurant, why would you immediately book him to cater at your wedding? If my mods are so bad that you think I should not be modding, why do you care if you can or cannot download any more? If his uncle knew that his cooking is not that good, he'd surely start reading books about cooking and improving. Then I'd book him to cater at my wedding. Then you would essentially be removing your thumbs down, and I am sure his uncle would once again agree to cater at your wedding :)

For the same reason telling someone their kid is adorable is a minor compliment that is quickly forgotten and telling someone their kid is ugly is a major insult that may end with bloodshed. Or the same reason telling your girlfriend she looks great will get you a quick smile and maybe some attention for a few hours, but telling her she is ugly will end it forever. There is a double standard because the two are not equal. And telling your uncle his cooking is bad before he spends twenty grand to open a chain restaurant? Baseless praise is JUST as a bad unwarranted criticism. Complacency breeds mediocrity. You just destroyed your own argument extremely well :) If you tell you uncle his cooking is bad to stop him opening a restaurant, why would you immediately book him to cater at your wedding? If my mods are so bad that you think I should not be modding, why do you care if you can or cannot download any more?

Probably, but it would depend on the reason given and if an honest attempt to find a solution had been made. There is one negative endorsement I have where I actually still help the guy out when he asks for help. He thumbed down my mod because he really knows nothing about mod installation, but he seems polite and nice enough so I helped him get things working even though he still has not removed the negative endorsement. But I would not ban him. But the guy that thumbed Unified HUD because he failed to install darnified ui correctly? Him I would ban :)

For the same reason telling someone their kid is adorable is a minor compliment that is quickly forgotten and telling someone their kid is ugly is a major insult that may end with bloodshed. Or the same reason telling your girlfriend she looks great will get you a quick smile and maybe some attention for a few hours, but telling her she is ugly will end it forever. There is a double standard because the two are not equal.

Allowing people to critisize a mod is ok as long as you allow that mod author to refuse to supply that person with any further content. If the mod was that bad to start with , then the person doing the thumbs down should consider this a blessing of sorts. And I am sorry but to date not one single thumb down on any of my mods has been even slightly helpful. Not one. And I follow every single one of them up with a private message to find out what the problem is. So fine, let people thumb down a mod of mine. But then let me blacklist them from my pages. Then everyone is happy :)

I am torn on the negative endorsement issue. I freely admit to hating it and people who use it on my mods :) But several people have made compelling cases for why it is useful and I find it impossible to argue with their logic. The problem for me is that even after giving a thumb down, the person in question is free to keep downloading my mods, visiting my pages, getting my advice etc. And I am sorry but some of the thumbs down are for the single dumbest reasons possible. eg Unified HUD Project gets a thumbs down because the guy could not get Darnified UI working because he didnt install the fonts correctly!? And why is that my mods fault? *pulls out hair*. Things like that drive me nuts. I know I should ignore it, but its hard to be the better man :P I say put the negative endorsement back, but give mod authors the option to block that user from any and all their pages for both comments and downloads. I mean if they thing an authors mods are that bad, they should not object too much not having to suffer them any more? :)

Don't think of it as being forced to change from IE8 as more like being rescued from it :) But I would not worry too much. My guess is Dark0ne is going to make sure IE is supported.

Agreed. Whatever happens after this, we still got years of mod hosting out of Nexus. And for year Nexus has set the standard and been a community to us. I realise many of us are disappointed and feel the new format is not us. Thats ok. Be critical if that is how you feel, but dont be personal and if the owner says this is it, roll with it or make other arrangements. Like EvilDeadAsh34, I know for a fact I would not be a modder has Nexus not been here. So likewise, to Dark0ne and all the Nexus staff, thanks for EVERYTHING.

Me. Twice a day (at least) I would go to the comments tracking and open all new ones in a new tab and go through them one at a time. Now I cannot do that, so I probably wont be answering the comments sections from now on.

Firstly this is not an argument, it's feedback discussion, secondly, do you know of any other mod sites as comprehensive as this one?, there's not going to be any loss. I disagree. You are right that this site was different and more comprehensive. Most importantly it was a site that seemed to promote mod users and mod authors mixing together. But we have yet to see if that is still true. This is the first night in a long long time I have not checked to see if I had questions on my mod pages. Right now I can imagine just hosting files here and moving the discussion and feedback somewhere else.

Looking at those pictures the first thing I notice is how in the old one I immediately saw the green number for endorsements, and got a warm fuzzy feeling.