Nexus permissions rules (Compilation Patch)

[gsmanners]

A lot of what we say is ridiculous, but what did you expect? It's still a young issue. There's still a lot of ego involved. Face it. Ego is the primary coin around here. Nothing gets done without that. You're not helping when you imply that we're all being stupid.

 

Bottom line: making a huge compilation is a lot of work. A lot. There's just no getting around that.

[Irx]

It's still a young issue.

What are you talking about? Community patches and compilations is a common thing for two decades or so now. And never before I've seen them discouraged and closed due to "problems" that arose here.

 

There's still a lot of ego involved. Face it. Ego is the primary coin around here. Nothing gets done without that.

Now that you say it, maybe its not the nexus which is a problem, but the modding community in general degraded over the years, as modding became too accessible, thus morals and common sense fell to those of your average commoner.

 

You're not helping when you imply that we're all being stupid.

He can't help if we are being stupid.

 

Bottom line: making a huge compilation is a lot of work. A lot. There's just no getting around that.

Yup, so for the sake of idiocracy let's triple the work required to do it!

[Zenball]

A lot of what we say is ridiculous, but what did you expect? It's still a young issue. There's still a lot of ego involved. Face it. Ego is the primary coin around here. Nothing gets done without that. You're not helping when you imply that we're all being stupid.

 

Bottom line: making a huge compilation is a lot of work. A lot. There's just no getting around that.

 

I didn't call anyone stupid. I said that much of what is being said is ridiculous. That is an important distinction.

 

Read my ideas. I posit a 'community point' system that will benefit mods integrated into other mods, even little fixes. Modders will get recognition and ego will be taken care of.

 

What do people think of the specific ideas I have come up with? If we talk concretely about these, and develop them we might get somewhere. If we keep the discussion mired in generalities, defending positions etc, we will go nowhere.

 

edit: missed out a word.

[Vorph]

What I don't get is why there isn't even a section here simply called Bug Fixes. I know I can't be the only person who doesn't care for having to wade through Latest Files to find actual bug fixes instead of the latest cheater mod that someone felt the need to share with the world. As a mod author I don't think it makes much sense to have my mods in the categories they are currently in either.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that bug fixes are the only good mods here. I use a fair number of mods that make other improvements without altering game balance, and there are plenty more well-made mods that just don't suit my particular tastes. It's just that I've checked Latest Files a couple times a day since the game's release and, well, there's definitely more noise than signal in there.

[Zenball]

What I don't get is why there isn't even a section here simply called Bug Fixes. I know I can't be the only person who doesn't care for having to wade through Latest Files to find actual bug fixes instead of the latest cheater mod that someone felt the need to share with the world. As a mod author I don't think it makes much sense to have my mods in the categories they are currently in either.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that bug fixes are the only good mods here. I use a fair number of mods that make other improvements without altering game balance, and there are plenty more well-made mods that just don't suit my particular tastes. It's just that I've checked Latest Files a couple times a day since the game's release and, well, there's definitely more noise than signal in there.

 

A bug fix section was one of the suggestions earlier on in the thread. I think this makes sense. If permissions were automatically set to their loosest possible when mods went in this section, and the section was autosuggested (with a note about impact on permissions) if the user used the word 'fix', for example, this would tidy up the site as well as providing a valuable community knowledge base and resource. I'm sure most fix uploaders would be fine about other people integrating their fixes. However, there is the issue of recognition and reward, which was covered earlier with the community points idea.

[KalChoedan]

Zen, for what it's worth, I think your ideas are solid. I do however think that ultimately the Nexus is completely wrong to be implementing this permissions system and that it will cause (as it has here) far, far more trouble than it is worth.

 

The ideal of protecting mod author's rights is a good one and I'm all for that. I completely disagree that bugfix mod authors should have those rights, lumping tiny bugfixes into exactly the same camp as much larger mods is a terrible precedent to set and I firmly believe will lead to the death of the technical modding community. I've made the case for exactly why in my earlier posts and as yet nobody has rebutted any of it.

 

The Nexus has now killed this mod with it's over-the-top implementation of the permissions policy, however well-intentioned it may be. How many others are being entirely discouraged from modding? How many mods are already up here that make some use of other people's work but have chosen simply not to give credit where it's due just to avoid this mess?

[KalChoedan]

I just want to try and underscore exactly why this policy makes no sense in as simple terms as possible so we can all get on the same page here.

 

Showler in the original discussion on Bethsoft's boards said the following:

 

If someone goes into the GECK and changes the two dialogue conditions for the McCarran grocery quest from "2" to "3" and releases it that is a fix.

 

If someone else merges that ESP into their own ESP without permission, that is against the rules.

 

If that same someone else goes into the GECK and changes the "2" to "3" in their own ESP, that is allowed.

 

Yes, it really is that simple.

 

Dark0ne said something similar in this thread:

 

There are three ways you can do this sort of compilation on the Nexus.

 

* Do all the fixes yourself, from scratch, and release it as your own work

 

Now I'm sure we can all understand the reasoning here and it is clearly well-intentioned. It makes perfect sense in the case of mods including longer scripts, external assets or anything else which would make it uniquely identifiable.

 

However in the case of a bugfix mod there is simply no way for an external party to tell the difference between the nominally "merged" .esp and the manually edited .esp - the result would in fact be identical. All you are really asserting any control over is which tools the modder uses - a merge tool or a pen and paper and their memory - but there's still no way for you to know which was in fact used.

 

This means that you are reliant on the individual releasing the new mod to be honest about his sources - if they decided to lie, there would be absolutely no way for you to know. You are therefore still exactly as reliant on the "honour system" as you were before the permissions system was implemented. The only difference now is that any honest modder who would previously have simply given due credit is now forced to invest a significant amount of extra time obtaining and tracking individual permissions to incorporate each fix - and remember in the case of a bugfix mod this may amount to several hundred individual requests for permission, each of which will require contact with an individual who may or may not be readily available online. As more and more fixes are discovered by the community and incorporated this load will only increase. Basically, you are significantly penalising anyone who wants to be honest while doing absolutely nothing to deter anyone who wishes to be dishonest.

 

I hope that makes it clear why, despite the best intentions, the permissions system is counterproductive, at least the way it is implemented currently as regards "bug fix" type mods.

[XTR3M368]

If the people doing the "compilation" type patches just posted the patches without posting the original author's content, it wouldn't be a problem. That would fall in line with the Nexus TOS. It is like a mod I have changing the Knights of the Nine armor to use LHammond's Lost Paladins of the Divines armor. The reason I couldn't release it, even though I had LHammond's blessing, was I had yet to figure out how to make it work without having to include a modified Knights.esp. There were some placement issues and the armor stand had the armor placed wrong and untouchable that I couldn't resolve without modifying the Knights.esp given my level of skill at the time. If I could have done it as a replacer without having to include part of the DLC of the Knights.esp, it would have been fine. I don't think it is an acceptable excuse that people just don't have the skill to do it without including the original author's work....or that it can't be done without using the original author's work.

 

I do however sympathize with authors that have tried to get the permission from modders that go MIA and have not left specific "legals" on their mods. If those modders really were worried about how their stuff was used, they could have taken 2 minutes and typed something in their description. The precedents for that are EVERYWHERE in other files posted. On the other hand, MIA modders who HAVE left specific instructions in their "legals", should be followed regardless of whether or not they respond to permissions request. If they have "no use without permission" and don't respond to you...there is your answer....no permission=no posting of their content.

 

I don't understand why this is such a problem....and I doubt the Nexus is going to change policy to appease a few "squeaky wheels".

 

*edit*

I do understand the points of the post above me about the honor system. Sometimes it does feel like it is just something added that only affects and sometimes penalizes "honest modders" while "dishonest modders" get away with things sometimes....but then again...since when is doing the right thing always suppose to be as easy as cheating or stealing? If doing the right thing was as easy, there would be no reason to cheat or steal.... :confused:

[Zenball]

I hope that makes it clear why, despite the best intentions, the permissions system is counterproductive, at least the way it is implemented currently as regards "bug fix" type mods.

 

I think this is the crux of the matter. It's a corner case, but a significant one. Absent of some bug fix uber-modder like Quarn (who we were very, very lucky to have), it makes sense that the resources of the community can be easily pooled with regards to an unofficial patch, and also unofficial patch patches, such as with the the once-existing FWE Unofficial Patch Patch and with FOOK. FOOK for NV has actually merged many of the fixes from the Compilation Patch into the latest version - lucky for them I got most of the permissions - xporc mentioned to me he intended to do this so there's no problem there as far as I'm concerned. The current policy is directly in the way of such patches being easily produced, maybe because we have been spoilt by Quarn's patches and therefore have never had to have a tailored policy regarding this before.

[KalChoedan]

I do understand the points of the post above me about the honor system. Sometimes it does feel like it is just something added that only affects and sometimes penalizes "honest modders" while "dishonest modders" get away with things sometimes....but then again...since when is doing the right thing always suppose to be as easy as cheating or stealing? If doing the right thing was as easy, there would be no reason to cheat or steal.... :confused:

 

Again, it's not really about modder's rights, per se - I think everyone here is in agreement that supporting modder's rights is a good thing. The point, really, is that the permissions system isn't actually doing that - it doesn't deter the dishonest from being dishonest and it may even lead those who would otherwise be honest to either be dishonest or simply not submit their work at all. Nobody gains from this system; honest modders and community lose out. What is the benefit?

 

Really I think it's about the nature of bug fix mods and how the technical part of the community operates. It makes no sense to talk about "stealing other's work" when we are talking about single-bit bugfixes; that someone else fixed it first does not take away any other individual's right to fix that bug themselves (and release their fix publically). Given that not only is there no way to tell but there isn't actually any difference between a file produced completely from scratch without reference to anyone else's work, a file that was produced manually after examining someone else's code or a file that was simply merged in via a tool like FNVEdit, the resulting file would necessarily and by the nature of bugfixes, be exactly the same. Are we really trying to exert control over what tools mod authors can use to produce their files? Are we just trying to insure the purity of our mod's intangible "souls"?

 

If they had had to operate under this system, Quarn and Kivan would never have been able to produce either of their Unofficial Patches, which had a list of fixes contributed by others that was into the high hundreds, in addition to work done exclusively by Quarn and Kivan. Can you imagine if they had to painstakingly contact (and retain documentation of that contact) every single contributor and obtain their explicit permission to include "their work" - and all this just to satisfy one hosting site's rules?