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Site redesign - 2016 Update #1


TheTokenGeek

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In response to post #34744535. #34895905 is also a reply to the same post.


digitaltrucker wrote: Also, please please PLEASE make it so that whatever drop-down menus there are only drop down when you actually click the button and not just mouse over them.
BlindJudge wrote: We've been trying a few things out in this regard recently. I am in the camp of mouse rollover will open a menu, a few others in the click camp. What I have seen that I thought was interesting is the mix of them both.

a/ A user can click on a menu item to have it expand.
b/ A user can hover over a menu item for 0.3ms to have it expand.
c/ A user moving his mouse around the screen will not activate a menu item.

Thoughts?


Well, see....there's these things called 'cookies' that some modern-ish websites use. One of the things these 'cookies' can do is allow for the ability to remember preferences.

:D (just having a chuckle)

Make it a configurable option and everyone's happy. It's just a huge PITA when a menu rolls out of nowhere obscuring the content you're actually trying to see.
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In response to post #34807265. #34809035, #34815305, #34840105, #34843550, #34891300 are all replies on the same post.


Xander9009 wrote: This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.
1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)
2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.
dspeare wrote: Xander9009, to create a queue for later viewing, have you considered the browser plugin "Pocket"? It does essentially what you described (except it works for ALL web pages, not just mod pages here). The queue is maintained between browser sessions and it will even synchronize your queue between multiple browsers or multiple machines. It's available (free) for most of the popular browsers. I have been using it since before they renamed it "Pocket" (it used to be Read It Later) and, so far, it seems to work as advertised.
whismerhill wrote: to my knowledge ads using a lot of computer resources is a general whole worldwideweb problem, & not an issue localized on nexusmods only.

@dspeare, another plugin which stores information from you on an online account yeah ! more tracking please ? ... (that is ironic)
Xander9009 wrote: I have TooManyTabs which partially already does the same thing. The problem with this approach is that it's using a third party tool to fix a resource hogging website. The website needs to deal with this, not me. The moment they do, they'll be whitelisted and will started getting ad revenue from my visits. They're not required to, but if I'm forced to do something to make the site usable, I'm just going to continue using AdBlock.
llihP wrote: As as ex-ad creator ( boooo! ) it's usually the lack of decent ad creation guidelines that lead to resource hogging ads. For example, some ad publishers have requirements such as "the ad must never use more than 5% of the CPU".

..what CPU? My watch CPU or my 5930k? It's arbitrary requirements such as this that lead to a lot of feral ads being let into the wild.

It's been pretty bad for over a decade now, but it's definitely getting better, especially in the past 12 months or so with the shift from Flash driven ads to CSS based ads.
BlindJudge wrote:
In response to post #34807265. #34809035, #34815305, #34840105, #34843550 are all replies on the same post.


Xander9009 wrote: This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.
1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)
2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.
dspeare wrote: Xander9009, to create a queue for later viewing, have you considered the browser plugin "Pocket"? It does essentially what you described (except it works for ALL web pages, not just mod pages here). The queue is maintained between browser sessions and it will even synchronize your queue between multiple browsers or multiple machines. It's available (free) for most of the popular browsers. I have been using it since before they renamed it "Pocket" (it used to be Read It Later) and, so far, it seems to work as advertised.
whismerhill wrote: to my knowledge ads using a lot of computer resources is a general whole worldwideweb problem, & not an issue localized on nexusmods only.

@dspeare, another plugin which stores information from you on an online account yeah ! more tracking please ? ... (that is ironic)
Xander9009 wrote: I have TooManyTabs which partially already does the same thing. The problem with this approach is that it's using a third party tool to fix a resource hogging website. The website needs to deal with this, not me. The moment they do, they'll be whitelisted and will started getting ad revenue from my visits. They're not required to, but if I'm forced to do something to make the site usable, I'm just going to continue using AdBlock.
llihP wrote: As as ex-ad creator ( boooo! ) it's usually the lack of decent ad creation guidelines that lead to resource hogging ads. For example, some ad publishers have requirements such as "the ad must never use more than 5% of the CPU".

..what CPU? My watch CPU or my 5930k? It's arbitrary requirements such as this that lead to a lot of feral ads being let into the wild.

It's been pretty bad for over a decade now, but it's definitely getting better, especially in the past 12 months or so with the shift from Flash driven ads to CSS based ads.

Hey Xander9009,

We don't have control over which ads are displayed to a user, but are working on ways in which a rogue ad can be flagged to us and we can take it to the provider.

Unfortunately, we *need* to have ads on the site as without them the Nexus simply could not survive. We don't require users to pay money, or even register with us to use the site so revenue from ads is our lifeline.

Going Supporter for $2 removes ads in their entirety for life and really helps support the site.


I understand that. However, claiming that it's free to use when that free usage comes with a 30-40 MB tab taking up 1.25 GB of ram is not really a fair trade. As I said, I'm more than willing to whitelist the nexus (and have before). Using it for free /should/ generate money to keep it going through ads; I totally agree. I'm not suggesting the ads should be removed entirely. My issue is that that's currently coming with an insanely high system resource cost that needs to be addressed somehow. I don't know how it can be addressed, and I'm sorry for that, but I haven't experienced the problem on other sites, so surely there's some way to handle it.

I considered paying the $2 at one point, but I also promptly lost interest in Skyrim modding, and moved on to modding Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers, whose community isn't on the Nexus. When the next TES game comes out, if I can manage to get it, I'll likely end up paying the $2. But that $2 is supposed to take the ads away and make the site a tad more pleasant to look at. Instead, that $2 is taking away the ads and making the site /usable/. That's a big barrier for those that don't pay. As I've seen on other sites (a friend of mine, who also uses the nexus for free, told me about the problems GaiaOnline had a few years back with ads and AdBlock as a good example), people use AdBlock more on a site when the ads damage site usability, which makes sense and shouldn't be at all surprising. A site that's unusable when used for free isn't really free. But if AdBlock can make the site usable, people will use it AdBlock to do so. I've always felt bad for using AdBlock on this site, because I love this site and would love to be able to whitelist it and be done with that.

Ironically, I got a new extension recently called The Great Suspender which suspends any tab that hasn't been active in more than a few minutes so it doesn't use system resources (similar to killing it in Chrome, but less drastic and more user friendly and convenient). It may actually solve my problem, but I haven't really browsed the Nexus much since I've gotten it to see how big the impact is. And the reason I call that ironic is because that means that whenever I go reload those tabs (as you must to view them), you'd be getting (theoretically) twice the ad revenue. This, of course, doesn't do anything about the underlying issue. It's just a third party extension that happens to solve what seems to me to be a major site usability issue.
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In response to post #34724800. #34896575 is also a reply to the same post.


Windscion wrote: UGHly, crowded and bandwidth hog is what those screens say to me. Oh! I forgot to say intrusive. Hate at first sight.
BlindJudge wrote: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, constructive criticism and feedback is welcome of course.


While "crowded" certainly is an opinion (and one I'm partially sympathetic to, but not necessarily entirely), I wouldn't call "bandwidth hog" an opinion so much as a concern. And if it does end up being a problem, there'll be a lot of people taking a long time to load the page. I've seen this on quite a few different websites that try to cram too much on the homepage.

However, there's a good combat for it. Steampowered.com and YouTube video pages use the method: only load certain sections at a time. Only load the others if the user scrolls down to them. If they're scrolling down, then they're wanting to see that extra stuff. If they're only loading the page as a portal to other sections of the site, then they're almost entirely unaffected by the rest of the page.
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In response to post #34807265. #34809035, #34815305, #34840105, #34843550, #34891300, #34904760 are all replies on the same post.


Xander9009 wrote: This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.
1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)
2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.
dspeare wrote: Xander9009, to create a queue for later viewing, have you considered the browser plugin "Pocket"? It does essentially what you described (except it works for ALL web pages, not just mod pages here). The queue is maintained between browser sessions and it will even synchronize your queue between multiple browsers or multiple machines. It's available (free) for most of the popular browsers. I have been using it since before they renamed it "Pocket" (it used to be Read It Later) and, so far, it seems to work as advertised.
whismerhill wrote: to my knowledge ads using a lot of computer resources is a general whole worldwideweb problem, & not an issue localized on nexusmods only.

@dspeare, another plugin which stores information from you on an online account yeah ! more tracking please ? ... (that is ironic)
Xander9009 wrote: I have TooManyTabs which partially already does the same thing. The problem with this approach is that it's using a third party tool to fix a resource hogging website. The website needs to deal with this, not me. The moment they do, they'll be whitelisted and will started getting ad revenue from my visits. They're not required to, but if I'm forced to do something to make the site usable, I'm just going to continue using AdBlock.
llihP wrote: As as ex-ad creator ( boooo! ) it's usually the lack of decent ad creation guidelines that lead to resource hogging ads. For example, some ad publishers have requirements such as "the ad must never use more than 5% of the CPU".

..what CPU? My watch CPU or my 5930k? It's arbitrary requirements such as this that lead to a lot of feral ads being let into the wild.

It's been pretty bad for over a decade now, but it's definitely getting better, especially in the past 12 months or so with the shift from Flash driven ads to CSS based ads.
BlindJudge wrote:
In response to post #34807265. #34809035, #34815305, #34840105, #34843550 are all replies on the same post.


Xander9009 wrote: This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.
1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)
2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.
dspeare wrote: Xander9009, to create a queue for later viewing, have you considered the browser plugin "Pocket"? It does essentially what you described (except it works for ALL web pages, not just mod pages here). The queue is maintained between browser sessions and it will even synchronize your queue between multiple browsers or multiple machines. It's available (free) for most of the popular browsers. I have been using it since before they renamed it "Pocket" (it used to be Read It Later) and, so far, it seems to work as advertised.
whismerhill wrote: to my knowledge ads using a lot of computer resources is a general whole worldwideweb problem, & not an issue localized on nexusmods only.

@dspeare, another plugin which stores information from you on an online account yeah ! more tracking please ? ... (that is ironic)
Xander9009 wrote: I have TooManyTabs which partially already does the same thing. The problem with this approach is that it's using a third party tool to fix a resource hogging website. The website needs to deal with this, not me. The moment they do, they'll be whitelisted and will started getting ad revenue from my visits. They're not required to, but if I'm forced to do something to make the site usable, I'm just going to continue using AdBlock.
llihP wrote: As as ex-ad creator ( boooo! ) it's usually the lack of decent ad creation guidelines that lead to resource hogging ads. For example, some ad publishers have requirements such as "the ad must never use more than 5% of the CPU".

..what CPU? My watch CPU or my 5930k? It's arbitrary requirements such as this that lead to a lot of feral ads being let into the wild.

It's been pretty bad for over a decade now, but it's definitely getting better, especially in the past 12 months or so with the shift from Flash driven ads to CSS based ads.

Hey Xander9009,

We don't have control over which ads are displayed to a user, but are working on ways in which a rogue ad can be flagged to us and we can take it to the provider.

Unfortunately, we *need* to have ads on the site as without them the Nexus simply could not survive. We don't require users to pay money, or even register with us to use the site so revenue from ads is our lifeline.

Going Supporter for $2 removes ads in their entirety for life and really helps support the site.

Xander9009 wrote: I understand that. However, claiming that it's free to use when that free usage comes with a 30-40 MB tab taking up 1.25 GB of ram is not really a fair trade. As I said, I'm more than willing to whitelist the nexus (and have before). Using it for free /should/ generate money to keep it going through ads; I totally agree. I'm not suggesting the ads should be removed entirely. My issue is that that's currently coming with an insanely high system resource cost that needs to be addressed somehow. I don't know how it can be addressed, and I'm sorry for that, but I haven't experienced the problem on other sites, so surely there's some way to handle it.

I considered paying the $2 at one point, but I also promptly lost interest in Skyrim modding, and moved on to modding Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers, whose community isn't on the Nexus. When the next TES game comes out, if I can manage to get it, I'll likely end up paying the $2. But that $2 is supposed to take the ads away and make the site a tad more pleasant to look at. Instead, that $2 is taking away the ads and making the site /usable/. That's a big barrier for those that don't pay. As I've seen on other sites (a friend of mine, who also uses the nexus for free, told me about the problems GaiaOnline had a few years back with ads and AdBlock as a good example), people use AdBlock more on a site when the ads damage site usability, which makes sense and shouldn't be at all surprising. A site that's unusable when used for free isn't really free. But if AdBlock can make the site usable, people will use it AdBlock to do so. I've always felt bad for using AdBlock on this site, because I love this site and would love to be able to whitelist it and be done with that.

Ironically, I got a new extension recently called The Great Suspender which suspends any tab that hasn't been active in more than a few minutes so it doesn't use system resources (similar to killing it in Chrome, but less drastic and more user friendly and convenient). It may actually solve my problem, but I haven't really browsed the Nexus much since I've gotten it to see how big the impact is. And the reason I call that ironic is because that means that whenever I go reload those tabs (as you must to view them), you'd be getting (theoretically) twice the ad revenue. This, of course, doesn't do anything about the underlying issue. It's just a third party extension that happens to solve what seems to me to be a major site usability issue.


I wanted to point out that I'm not trying to be hostile. In fact, I really like (overall) the pictures above and the direction it all seems to be headed. I'm a bit worried about how certain things will be handled, but by and large, the site's team has always done a good job at improving the site, so I trust that'll continue. I'm not just trying to be stubborn or anything because I'm unhappy things are changing. I'm happy to see the site getting a facelift. I just figured this was probably the best chance I'd get to point out what I feel is my biggest issue with the site. And considering I use AdBlock to not even see that problem very often and yet I still haven't come up with any other major problems, that says quite a bit, I think, about how happy I am with it overall. So please don't think I'm trying to be hostile. I just wanted to explain why some of your users might be using AdBlock. Something tells me the site's team probably doesn't browse it very often with ads enabled in the same way and for the same duration that a normal user would, so I figured it was very likely something you guys might not even have been aware of as an issue here.
(Also, Phill, I wasn't ignoring you. I just, well, didn't really have a response that was anything other than "I'm responding for the sake of responding.")
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