Tagging System Suggestions

[Tantalus010]

Hi,

 

I have a suggestion for the tagging system. Please do not allow mod authors to "lock-in" a tag. I ask this because tags are often a matter of opinion, and when a system relies on opinions, elevating one person's opinion's over others usually leads to trouble. Take the lore-friendly/not lore-friendly tags, for example. Everybody has their own definition on what is considered lore-friendly (my personal definition for an Elder Scrolls game is that anything that does not come from TES lore is not lore-friendly), yet when a mod author locks in the lore-friendly tag on their mod, people like me are no longer allowed to disagree with them. It takes away my voice and (from my point of view) pollutes the lore-friendly search results with a bunch of mods that aren't really lore-friendly. This makes tag searches less useful. It also happens fast. You basically have to perch yourself on the Nexus and vote as the files come in, because if you wait more than a day, it's too late and the author has usually already locked the tags they want.

 

Instead, leave the tag voting open indefinitely. Let the Nexus community decide collectively what is lore-friendly or not. Sure, it still won't be perfect, but at least everyone who cares to will get to provide their input.

[Thandal]

In our experience, it has not been the authors who abuse the tagging system. Moreover, in any situation where we have to weigh the interests of authors and players, we lean very heavily on the side of the authors and giving them control over their works. If you disagree with an author's assessment, you are under no obligation to use the mod.

 

Lastly, the author's tag outweighs any number of player tags, and authors can already lock the tags they want at the time they publish their mods. (Or later, with the same result.) So no need to "perch", it won't do you any good anyway. :laugh:

[JimboUK]

As Thandal says it's not the authors who usually abuse it, there's actually a thread on the modders board about tag trolling where the OP complains that someone has gone to every mod by him/her and tagged them as not lore friendly, cheats, NSFW ect and that modder isn't the only one to have had it happen.

 

"Lore Friendly" is one of the more problematic ones, there'll be a lot of users who think they know the lore when they actually don't, ones who have not played the previous titles or bothered to read any in game books. Fallout is one of the worst for people like that, they've played FO3 and think they know it all, some of the drivel I've read from self proclaimed experts beggars belief, you can guarantee these people will tag things wrongly.

[Tantalus010]

Well, either way, this just makes my suggestion even more valid. If the tagging system is left open, eventually, people who mistag things will be in the minority and the problem should correct itself. That's the beauty of the up/down arrows. When one joker goes through and labels a mod incorrectly on purpose just to harrass the modder, eventually someone else will come by and remove their tag by voting it down. By letting the mod author have final say over what tags go on their mod and/or allowing tags to be locked, you're assuming that those who contributed to locking it know any better what's lore-friendly (or skimpy, or sexy, or whatever) than everybody else. It takes, what, three votes for a tag to be locked in (or confirmed, as the tag pages say)? That's a very small number of opinions that you're allowing to drive the results for everybody else, which winds up making the tagging system less useful.

[JimboUK]

No, if it's left open then tags get confirmed by more clowns who use the tagging system to attack authors whose work they don't like, you know the type, the self entitled, loremongers and nerds in general. It's not one person doing this, it's an ongoing problem, one that will get a lot worse if the site takes away the authors means of correcting it, sensible authors would have course just block users from tagging completely, something I've done on one of mine before some numpty comes along and shoves an Anime tag on it because it contains a woman who is familiar with soap.

[BlackRampage]

It takes, what, three votes for a tag to be locked in (or confirmed, as the tag pages say)? That's a very small number of opinions that you're allowing to drive the results for everybody else, which winds up making the tagging system less useful.

 

Actually, the mod author can still easily disagree with an already confirmed tag, which sets it's score back to 0 or agree with it, which set it's score to +99. And even those +99 scores can be removed instantly with a single mouse-click on the part of the mod author.

 

Personally wouldn't what to have it any other way either. As was said before, there's quite a lot "tag trolling" going on. Besides, it's the mod author him or herself that should have the final say over how one of his/her mods should be tagged. That's including the more controversial tags like "lore-friendly" (if only because there's probably as many opinions on what's considered lore-friendly as there are members on this site).

 

And, like Jim, I too have disabled user tagging on a mod I've uploaded here. Not because I've had trouble with tag trolls, but because I'd like to reserve the right to decide for myself what tags my mod should have. I don't want a bunch of self entitled know-it-alls deciding for me what tags my mod should have.

[bben46]

Unfortunately there are jerks who use sock puppet accounts and teams of like minded friends to search out and intentionally mis tag mods for their own reasons. If they have just 2 sock puppet accounts or two friends they can activate a tag. We ban them when we catch them but often the damage is already done.

 

As for your example of lore - who's interpretation of lore do we go with? the author who made what he believes to be a lore friendly mod? or some loremonger who believes his interpretation is the only possible lore? And anyone who makes a mod that doesn't follow his interpretation should have his mod removed for sacrilege. Or how about yours? Is your understanding of lore so perfect that it has no room for someone elses interpretation.

[JimboUK]

Unfortunately there are jerks who use sock puppet accounts and teams of like minded friends to search out and intentionally mis tag mods for their own reasons. If they have just 2 sock puppet accounts or two friends they can activate a tag. We ban them when we catch them but often the damage is already done.

 

As for your example of lore - who's interpretation of lore do we go with? the author who made what he believes to be a lore friendly mod? or some loremonger who believes his interpretation is the only possible lore? And anyone who makes a mod that doesn't follow his interpretation should have his mod removed for sacrilege. Or how about yours? Is your understanding of lore so perfect that it has no room for someone elses interpretation.

 

TES lore changes with every game, half the time Bethesda don't even know what it is, then there's Fallout 3 where the developers didn't seem to have any understanding of the lore whatsoever. These games are so inconsistent that lore is generally left wide open to personal interpretation.

[bben46]

@Jim: Agreed. Often the lore mongers are trying to find something that isn't there. Consistency between games. Beth never intended for each game to follow the previous lore. They are making a game that they hope will sell and lore is a fairly low priority.

[vguir1ruty]

Indeedhttp://weber.ninecomputer.com/9.jpg