User Profile and Direct Messaging Improvements Beta

[NoraLee]

The primary element I'd like to offer feedback on is the new profile's "Total Unique Download counter".

I understand and appreciate its utility; it's useful for a mod author to easily be able to see how close they are to reaching the threshold for Free Premium for Mod Authors. However, I don't see the value in this information being displayed publicly and so prominently.

Nexus is a site designed for coming together to share our expressions of creativity, ingenuity, and passion - whether that's on the forums, through sharing images, or in the format of authoring and downloading mods. It is, in many ways, a fan community, and when it comes to the modding portion of the site specifically, people do use it as a place to learn from folks who are more experienced. But I don't see the benefit to introducing an element of author scoring or ranking to the site.

It feels inevitable that the addition of a prominent Total Unique Download counter to every mod author's profile is going to encourage the kind of author-to-author comparison and competition that can be so discouraging to newer members of the community. The fan community that we all share is ever-changing and improving, but it is also so tenuously balanced at times. It is a delicate ecosystem which, from my experience, would benefit from more cohesion, cooperation, and author-to-author encouragement, and the addition of this very visible and convenient means of ranking and comparing authors feels like the antithesis of that.

And yes, to be clear, I am aware that someone particularly bent on doing this kind of comparison is already able to do so. But I think we can all agree that there is a difference between unique downloads being visible on a per-mod basis, as they currently are, and this proposed change of pre-tallying that number and displaying it as the second-most-prominent piece of information on the user profile, preceded only by the username.

In short, while I can see the value of providing a Total Unique Download counter to mod authors, it feels like perhaps it would be better placed in an area where it's not publicly viewable. If I were to offer a suggestion for a preferable location, I'd say it would logically fit on the mod author's My Content page.

[Exoclyps]

In general I like what I see with the new Profile. There is two things that really pops to mind.

First. I agree with the others who have said that it's too big. I feel a bit too zoomed in. Especially the "Mods" tab. Feel like possibly that making it all a bit smaller (left side included) and add a 4th mod on the same row would feel better.
(Using the browser feature to zoom to 80% does indeed fix the feeling that I'm just a tad bit too close.) Could possibly keep the height of the cards and just make them a bit slimmer on the side to maintain space for the descriptions.

Second. This is a small one really, but in Collection tab the "success rate" is cut off and doesn't show up fully. Suppose in general reducing size by a bit as mentioned above would fix that issue with no extra work needed.

Edit to add: I now see that a lot of the sorting options are gone. I really hope that they get back in as I really enjoyed tracking by "Trending" amongst other. I see no reason to remove any of them really.

[Midnight19]

Not a Fan of the new profile, hopefully the old version will still be accessible as an Option.

[Basil44]

It's a rare case when the new is at least as good as the old, if not better. I hope the final version will be even better.
I have one request - can't you add 2-3 grayscale colors to the theme design? To have light gray and dark gray in addition to black background?

[SilverEzredes]

The new design significantly improves on the classic style. Excellent work!
As mentioned by others above, the three mods per row is a bit limiting.  A banner option for the profile (like on the forums), would be appreciated by more than a handful of mod authors.

Bug report:
The comment count under the 'My Mods' section now displays zero for all of my mods.

[Khaeops]

The media page displays images too large. 2 per row isn't enough for users with large media pools. A configurable grid view would be nice to have.

[superliuk]

Why does the drop-down menu only contain these games? In the old version the choice was based on the games linked to the uploaded mods.

[Arkadaemus]

Dig the new style. Would like the edit option to change the background color (or add image). That brown isn't working for me. If it's just sampling the avatar, I'll have to look at a different image.

[Cheerybelle]

Feedback:
- Please keep "Last updated" as a sort option for mods.
- I hope an option or automatic-website-resolution-scaling-feature-thing will be present to have more items per row. Classic has up to 5 per row, but the Beta only has up to 3. I would really like to keep the 5 per row... or even have more, potentially.
Other than that, it's fine. I'm personally fine with the other changes (and I do like the added unique DLs counter). It's different but not bad-different. I actually quite like it.

[LenaWolfBravil]

3 hours ago, NoraLee said:

It feels inevitable that the addition of a prominent Total Unique Download counter to every mod author's profile is going to encourage the kind of author-to-author comparison and competition that can be so discouraging to newer members of the community.

I agree. While this is a very useful counter, I feel it should be private, such as on "My Content" page. It pits mod authors against each other and makes other users feel worthless. It also implies that media or collections are of no importance since there are no similar counters for them.

I also would like to know who "verified" me since I am apparently a "verified" mod author. I know this phrase is not new, but it never featured prominently anywhere. Would it not be better to call us "established" rather than "verified"?