An Alternate Solution to the Collection Deletion Problem

[SithisAurelius]

To start. This may have been suggested/discussed already but i couldnt find an example of it so im making my own.
So with the Arthmoor announcement I've been thinking again about the collections feature and the revolt against it but its all because of the inability to delete their mods. My questions is....Why are we needing to not delete mods to keep collections working? We already have the required files and dependent files system on Nexus Mods. So any mod in a collection could have its requirements and dependencies traced. With this we could do one of two alternate solutions to the collections problem that allows creators to maintain control of their mods.

1) When a mod in a collection gets deleted, put a notice on the collection page that X mod is missing from the collection and that it may cause issues with the collection. Then, the dependents that list the deleted mod as a requirement get flagged much in the way mod managers/Loot already does and they say "This mod may not function properly because of a missing requirement" This leaves the collection in tact for the collection creator to update/modify and lets people still have access to and download the collection and potentially just disable the flagged mods. Ive not seen many triple dependencies but if needed we can chain this down to where if a mod gets flagged as missing its requirement, any mods that require the flagged mod also get flagged. This gives people who want to download the collection the info they need to either ignore or fix the issues with a collection they like.

2) When a mod in a collection gets deleted, the relevant dependencies get removed as well. If they list the deleted mod as a requirement to function, then when the mod is removed from the collection because of deletion, automatically remove the dependent mods. This one is a little more rough and definitely the worse of the two options, but if Nexus REALLY wants to maintain a 1 click download pack system like it seems they really want with collections, this is a much cleaner change than just not allowing mod deletion. And like in suggestion one. If the removal of a dependent mod now causes another requirement to break, remove the new offending mod too. Could even potentially have a system set up to where if a deleted mod would cause lets say 10+ mods to be removed from a list because of dependencies, unlist the collection until the creator of it updates and saves the new version. While this version is worse than the flag system in my opinion. It lets collections be maintained automatically even if the Nexus User who created the collection no longer logs in or tries to maintain the collection. By just removing the mods and their dependents automatically. Whenever a mod gets deleted for some reason, all collections containing the deleted mod just get updated automatically to not include it or its dependents so as to not break the collection and allow it to continue being downloaded with no issues or edits needed. Yes it changes the collection and maybe some of the look or content that the collection was trying to hold. But that should really be on the person who made the collection and not be removing power from the person who devoted the time and effort into making the mod in the first place.

Anyway this is just my two solutions that i thought of that maintains mod deletion power for creators while still allowing collections to be implemented and not be randomly broken. There might also be better solutions but this is just what i came up with. Feel free to discuss or challenge. I'd love to hear other opinions.

Edited August 12, 2021 by SithisAurelius

[Zeoinx]

I honestly dont understand the need to have "forced" collections in the manner they are presented, where they force the creators to participate. Maybe if these "collections" were nothing more then a page stating "These mods generally work well together and or use mods that depend on each other to form a unique experience, but then just link to the mods themselves personal page, giving the user the OPTION to download them or not, Im sure it wouldnt be a problem. But What i see is some random person (site admin or whatever) , who might happen to like using X Y Z Mods together, from a personal perspective, will decide this is a collection, but the mod creator Y might personally not want their mod associated with Mod X for personal reasons. This is quite a valid thing, and shouldnt be forced on a mod creator. This all personally seems kinda pointless thing to add imo, especially when like you mentioned, we already have the "dependent" system in place, mods are not exactly hard to understand especially when we have the dependent system, AND Vortex working.

 

All they need to do is just rename and reset the "collection" system to "Suggestive Mod Collections" that are a list of mods stating that "I am a user, who just happens to LIKE using these mods together, this is my mod list I am suggesting to others that are currently available, and at the time of writing this "mod collection blog" they work without negative interaction, then proceeed to give a nice review on what is involved in the mods, why they like using them together, and then have the mods linked, in order they should be installed, to the modders actual mod page. If at a later date, the mod gets deleted, no big deal.... especially with the "at the time of writing this" message, and maybe add the Version of mods being in the collection near the links will go a long way. Let creators have the power,period. This place would not exist without the CREATORS of the mods, otherwise you would have nothing to host. nothing to make ad revenue on,

[odhrain]

To 1: Currently in private "collections" you keep a downloaded mod, even if it is deleted. This is important, because it may break your save to remove it. This would mean for public collections the curator would have to make a fork each time a mod from a collection is removed. This gets unsoportable.

To 2: Forcibly deleting a collection if a single mod in it is removed? The collection belongs to someone else and may have days of work and 100 mods in it. No one would make a collection with mods from other users. The risk is to high.

 

The only common rule one could savely implement is a deletion restriction for mods that are inside a collection, and an opt out for modders, that their mod can not be added in a collection, or only with a specific permission for each collection.

[showler]

This is covered in the announcement and has been discussed dozens of times since. Neither of these are a solution that actually keeps the functions of Collections that Nexus wants those Collections to have. BigBizKit posted more details about it in a thread in this forum, so you can go look it up if you want.

[odhrain]

@Zeoinx: I get where the problem is. But if it is something reasonable like "I do not want my 'Childs are a playable race' mod combined with 'Playable races can do adult things'", nexus will surely delete it for you. An other thing may be "I do not like the nose of a collection curator anymore".

You would need a more complex contract and permission system to handle this.

 

Writing down a List of mods with links and explanations can already be done, and is not what the collection feature is supposed to do.

The new collection is a full automation script for users that downloads all mods in it with one click and then configures it for them, so that they work good together. And for skyrim with its 254 major mods limit and collections with 400 mods that can be a lot of work, a normal user can not do without automatisation. Plus, if the curator finds a new good mod, he may update the collection to 401 mods for all users. Also the curator will even have to check if new mod versions are still compatible with each other or need a patch, or depended updates of other mods, and configuration rules. This automatisation service of the curator for "simple" players will break if mods in a collection are removed.

[Pickysaurus]

These questions have already been answered fully in the original news post (and pinned comments). I will close this thread before it derails.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/news/14538