Arthmoor

The point of your comment was to erect strawmen and then light them on fire for all to see. A bit like the Burning of King Olaf ritual in Solitude. A fantastic and entertaining display, but ultimately pointless and only serves to inflame things (pun intended). I think I've been pretty clear that for most of the folks who are angry that the issue is solely about the right to delete files, which a site's ToS cannot legally prevent you from doing. If Collections (aka modpacks) themselves were the issue, this exodus of users would have happened 3 years ago when they first told us of their intentions to impose such a system on everyone. Indeed, some mod authors who are very strongly opposed to the idea did leave at the time. Were they just being crybabies or did they see this coming at the time and got out quietly while they knew they could? I doubt I need to tell you that I personally do not support the implementation of Collections as Nexus has described them. They're not "lists" as the staff is trying to portray them. They're not "collections" as defined by how Steam Workshop does them. They are in essence actual modpacks, at least as far as BGS games are concerned. None of the arguments they've made about how the system is set up are compelling on a technical level. Actual DBAs I've worked with in the past have told me flat out that anyone who says an "arbitrary" file deletion will damaged the integrity of the database is a liar. The only exception being if the site in question is storing files as actual blob data in the database, but that practice fell out of favor in the late 90s. So Nexus trying to tie the issue of file deletions to the Collections system is a bogus issue. It's a red herring. It has no technical validity. THEY created this association, not me, not other authors, THEM. All I want and all I continue to want is the rightful ability to decide which versions of my work are available to the public. That's it. It's not a lot to ask, and the fact that they're legally obligated to retain the ability to delete files in certain cases means they do indeed have the technical means to accomplish this. Scale has no impact on that. If deletions damage the database, the scale of those deletions is irrelevant. But we all know this isn't about the integrity of the database. It's about control, and mod author rights. Quite literally, as others have pointed out, it's about who actually owns the files. Does Nexus? Or do the mod authors? When you can honestly answer this question then you know where the problem truly lies. In any case, you've made it abundantly clear you are not here to seek understanding. You're here to drown people in words the way Nexus did by defending their every move even though you have to know they're in the wrong here.

Brabbit, you realize this isn't about Collections at all, right? My sole gripe throughout all of this is blocking my right to delete files when and how I see fit to do so. That's all. Everything else is just a distraction from the issue, but I see you're good at trying to do exactly that. That doesn't mean I am happy they're offering an all or nothing nuclear option, or a form for more specific full mod page deletions either. I simply want to be able to continue to administer MY MODS, MY WAY, as I've been able to do for years. Which means when one gets updated, I want to throw the old copy out the airlock. But they've revoked our access codes to the airlock doors without a valid technical reason for it. And no, making the lives of curators less of a hassle isn't a valid technical reason. That's a convenient scapegoat and nothing more. There is no valid technical reason for why a file deletion on demand should cause any sort of integrity issues in their database AT ALL. If it were at all true, then the entire world of databases and software would have crumbled to dust decades ago.

To be perfectly honest, yes. That's exactly how I feel things are being run now. Spite for the mod authors who provide the content. Their behavior hasn't given me any reason to think otherwise either.

You mean like we had input on this part of the system? So we get voice our genuine concerns and then get completely ignored on them or dismissed. We are being asked to trust them, after they shattered our trust. No, I mean mod authors who stay and participate. You're naive at best if you think that those who stay could actually trust anything Nexus tells them about how they want things to work. Their "input" will be duly noted and ignored as it apparently always has been.

Whoever said this, is spreading misinformation. I had confirmed with a Wabbajack modpack author that can you use it without paying anything to anyone. Plus Wabbajack works fine with ModDB which by the way doesn't make it harder for users to download even huge files. Really a mod author does a great service to their users by switching to a user-friendly mod hosting service. Premium service isn't required, no, but as with Collections, Wabbajack users with premium accounts get to streamline things with one-click installs. So there IS a benefit for those people. Unfortunately for those of us providing the content for them to exploit, there's no benefit for us.

I've already posted the links on myths about copyright, they include some about why Fair Use doesn't apply in this situation. Not specific to archive.org, but in general. Last I checked there is no loophole that allows them to violate copyright at will. I don't mean to direct this specifically at you, Arthmoor, though you do seem to be one of the few folks in this thread with some actual knowledge of copyright law. I do find myself wondering if these collections may qualify as derivative works - which would violate the author's rights unless permission were obtained. And Nexus isn't providing an opt-in feature that would provide an easy way to prove permission is granted. It isn't quite the basic list of favorite mods that Nexus claims it to be, but more like an anthology. The act of creating a load order, configuration, conflict resolution tools, etc. would require curators to at the very least use mod and/or filenames - which are also the IP of the author. Assuming what we've been told is actually true, then no, a list of links to mods is just that, a list. It has nothing to do with one's copyright. But therein lies the problem. Needing to trust that what we've been told so far is accurate and won't change later. For instance, if that "list" turns out to come with a conflict resolution patch associated with it, that patch requires permission from the various mod authors because THAT is a derivative work. Distribution of such a thing would violate the mod author's copyright without their express permission. It's another matter entirely if instead the Collection has a list of instructions to pass to Vortex on how to generate that patch on the fly on the user's PC. While this is also technically a copyright violation (the right to modify is exclusive to the holder) it's for all practical purposes not something you could enforce. For BGS games, most of us do this part already in the form of Bashed Patches and/or following The Method. But I don't really expect the Vortex devs would be able to figure that out when they can't even make the system tolerant of a file deletion. :P

My point was that you can't safely backport from SE to LE. It'll at the very minimum corrupt the mod file in subtle ways. It would have to be made over from scratch in LE.

That's a good way to break your game or corrupt your saves, or both.

I've already posted the links on myths about copyright, they include some about why Fair Use doesn't apply in this situation. Not specific to archive.org, but in general. Last I checked there is no loophole that allows them to violate copyright at will.

Yes, and much of it is illegal. Posting something to the internet does not relinquish one's rights in the IP of that material. They get by with it because most people don't have the time, money, or bandwidth to chase it down and assert their rights in said material. I sometimes see entire articles taken from publishers with paywalls replicated in forums. That some people will copy such material does not make it legal. ETA: And frankly, even where no paywall is involved, copying rather than linking to the original deprives the original host site of the traffic. Yep, just because someone does a thing doesn't make it a legal thing to do. That archive.org does this doesn't make it legal. It's not even morally justifiable. Wholesale republication of someone's work without their permission is a copyright violation, pure and simple. It's frankly sickening to me that such a company is allowed to get away with this, and that they feel entitled to do it over the objections of the rights holders. But I'd wager it's why Nexus thinks they're above the law too. "Look, they're doing it, I guess we can too." Even more sickening that you have to pursue a DMCA takedown to get the unauthorized republications taken down from archive.org.

If Microsoft actually wants to offer up a truly serious solution to mods (especially for BGS games) Nexus can flail in the wind all they want. The captive audience on the console side will dwarf anything that can be done in PC space. So if they decide to steer BGS toward doing this in a much more serious manner than they are now, it creates a much more compelling reason to use 1st party hosting instead of 3rd party. Even as crappy as the current BGS hosting solution is, that console audience is huge. Easily 5-10x the size of PC, and they're hungry for good mods - AND are generous crowd with donations on top of that. Now imagine Microsoft gives BGS their blessing to leverage the platform for actual payments to mod authors instead of a rewards based system, and you end up with a scenario that makes the current Nexodus look like a walk in the park.

It's not even so much that people get bent out of shape that "everything should be free". It's people who push the "it's not on Nexus, so you're against modding" attitude that's crept in in the last few pages. There are numerous thriving modding communities out there who either don't have a presence here on Nexus, or whose presence is so minor it makes no difference. Yet it seems to be a widespread assumption that if you don't publish here, you hate users and the modding community in general. Which is absolutely false. At least one such alternative site was here before Nexus existed, and with the way things are going, that site may well outlast Nexus. One thing I've always told people who upload mods they should be doing is to have mirrors of their work. The more the better. You reach a wider audience that way. Yes, Nexus was included in that as one of those destinations. It's something I'm no longer recommending people do in light of decisions that have been made here which reveal Nexus to be an anti-author hosting site. I've had private discussions with several other sites, who are all fully aware of what's going on here thanks to the press blitz, who have categorically stated that their polices don't align with what Nexus is doing, and that they never would, because it would actively harm the interests of the mod authors who provide the content in the first place.

For anyone inclined to think that deleting mods from Nexus is the equivalent of taking them away from the entire community, that's monopolistic thinking. There are other places to host mods. There always has been. If those mods are still available on other hosts, nobody is taking anything away from anyone. You can clearly still download the mods, you just can't do it here, and this endless need to paint people who want to leave Nexus as the bad guy needs to stop. You do not support the community when you do this. You only support the antagonistic anti-author mentality that harms the community.

Look @ my profile. I think that should explain it :wink: You mean... I'd say that you might wish to check if there are explicit permissions granted by the original authors instead of those Nexus checkboxes. Explicit permissions always take precedence. You might also consider asking mod authors for a permission to host your derivative work outside of Nexusmods. In my experience, 99% of mod authors will grant you permission. For some of the mods I have received the right to do with them whatever I want. But not for all. Many of the mod authors are gone and i can't contact them. Apart from that, I do not necessarily want to move to moddb or one of the other known pages, I don't like most of them. Most likely i would create my own webpage and host them there. But it feels like that' it's not worth the effort. Setting up your own website is not overly difficult if you're willing to deal with doing it on a shared host. It gets a bit more complicated to go the route I did with a self administered linux setup on Linode because then you have to know how to keep the underlying webserver and database server happy along with the software package you're using to handle the site itself. Fortunately I have enough experience in the area to keep my own site up so I guess I'm a step ahead of a lot of other people here. Are you really so naive as to expect this is actually what will happen and NOT that curators will pass those requests on to the people who did the actual work?

In my case, this is unfortunately not so easy I'd be curious why it's not so easy.

I don't know about most other authors, but in my personal experience the people who I used to send thank-yous to would often react as though I'd broken into their homes or something. They honestly had no idea their information was made available. This happened often enough that I figure most people just don't get how the whole setup works so I stopped responding to any of the emails Paypal sends me. The reality is, direct donations reveal an awful lot about your donors they may not realize is being revealed. At the same time, it reveals an awful lot about us as mod authors too that in some cases we may not want being known to some random person on the internet. Funneling it through either Patreon or the DP system preserves a measure of privacy for both sides. Fear of giving offense is no excuse for rudeness. As the only person giving an on-topic response, I commend you :P It's not fear of giving offense. It's personal experience that "being nice" isn't met with the expected silence or return response. It's genuinely been the case for me that every single person I used to do that with had no idea we even had the capability to respond. They believe it's an anonymous system. It's far from that, and I think a lot of people would balk at knowing just how much we all know about people who do that. You personally may see it as rude that only 1 out of 20 mod authors responded at all to you, but we do tend to talk, and we share our experiences, and this is one most of us have in common. People have no idea how much information Paypal is passing along.

There are dozens of other sites one can post mods to. Nexus is not the only one of them out there. We as mod authors can exist without Nexus, but Nexus cannot exist without us.

I don't know about most other authors, but in my personal experience the people who I used to send thank-yous to would often react as though I'd broken into their homes or something. They honestly had no idea their information was made available. This happened often enough that I figure most people just don't get how the whole setup works so I stopped responding to any of the emails Paypal sends me. The reality is, direct donations reveal an awful lot about your donors they may not realize is being revealed. At the same time, it reveals an awful lot about us as mod authors too that in some cases we may not want being known to some random person on the internet. Funneling it through either Patreon or the DP system preserves a measure of privacy for both sides.

I don't think Firefox settings have anything to do with it. I see 90 Oblivion mods with Firefox 89, and super aggressive cookie preferences and uBlock Origin running. I don't use anything like NoScript though, which is known to break a lot of sites, not just Nexus.

The problem with this explanation is that it's not actually what a "collection" ends up being. If it's JUST a list, as you're trying to say here, then an item disappearing from said list can't break it. So the entire argument you guys have been shoving down everyone's throats for a week falls apart. Especially since you're still trying to make it out like this is the equivalent to Steam Workshop collections. Which DO NOT BREAK when an item is removed from them due to a deleted mod. If your system cannot handle a deletion, your system is bugged and needs to be fixed so that it can. It's that simple. Then once the ability to truly delete a file is restored, most of the people leaving now won't have the incentive to do so because you longer have to hold a Sword of Damocles over them to get them to stay.

Maybe because it's our content that the reason this site was started and still exists to this day in the first place? Your content, the employees work, the members payments. One leg doesn't hold up a chair. Except in this case that first leg actually does hold up the chair. Without mod authors to upload content, there are no employees or members.

Nexus doesn't take any of that information. Paypal is the one who needs it because they're a financial institution. I don't know whether or not they need your passport number but it wouldn't be overly surprising for international users.

Not much to say other than Reneer hit all the nails on the head.

The way I see it is it's the mod author's page. They aren't obligated to have comments at all. They aren't obligated to enable the bugs tab (I don't on any of mine). If they choose not to enable these features, you should just learn to live with it instead of demanding that a site feature be removed for everyone because YOU don't like the end result. Some people prefer to offer support elsewhere so that they can have even more control over things than what Nexus allows, and there's nothing wrong with that either.

We don't all have the luxury of being able to just switch banks on a whim.