BSN is shutting down; files there could be lost.

[moho25]

Yeah, definitely don't contact an author more than once -- that's the point of keeping track in the sheet.

 

I'd hesitate to contact them on more than one site, as well; we don't want to spam them. I'd go with the site they seem to frequent the most. If you get no reply in a week, then try another site.

 

I'll put something about that in the instructions.

[CreeperLava]

@Tarshana, the hello was me :tongue:.

@giftfish
"Projects without any downloads can be ignored and should not be placed in the inventory. Be careful, though. Some projects provide Mediafire downloads in the "Project Details", but no downloadable files."
This sentence is a bit confusing to me. Should we ignore projects without any downloadable files or projects that haven't been downloaded ? I suppose the latter is wrong ?

Why only English sites ? There are many russian modders, and while some of the russian websites do steal mods, others are legit. It certainly is hard to tell, though.

A remark on the sample message. I've used 2 variations of it, depending on whether the modder has already uploaded to Nexus (or elsewhere), or not. Basically, I contact all authors, even if they already uploaded elsewhere. Useful in case they forgot something, for example. It may not be necessary, but you never know. Sometimes mods on Nexus aren't up to date.

 

Hi there :).

This message is related to your mod(s) hosted on BSN Projects. I'm part of a group of people trying to ensure these mods stay available to the playerbase. We're contacting you to make sure you're aware of the forthcoming closure of the BSN Projects site on 25 October 2016.

From what we can tell, your mod doesn't seem to be hosted elsewhere and there's no permissions criteria stated along with your mod. We'd never upload it without your permission, so we want to encourage you to host it elsewhere. Nexusmods has the largest amount of DAO and Mass Effect mods out there, so hosting it there would be a great idea.
There's other options, too, and of course, if you prefer that your mod(s) are no longer available to players, that's entirely up to you. We just want to give you a heads up.

If you could give us a quick reply and let us know your intentions, we'd appreciate it. As you might suspect, contacting so many mod authors is quite a bit of work. You can see the list of BSN Project Inventory we're putting together on this Google Doc : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IUesp-Hk6qgiPpwHbyX6o_70ZkHhHLuJLqNG3qZFiRY/edit#gid=0
The project is coordinated from here :
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4716405-bsn-is-shutting-down;-files-there-could-be-lost
Here's a link to the website that summarizes our efforts: https://whereisbioware.wordpress.com/


Thanks!

////////////////////////////////////////

Hi there :).

This message is related to your mod(s) hosted on BSN Projects. I'm part of a group of people trying to ensure these mods stay available to the playerbase. We're contacting you to make sure you're aware of the forthcoming closure of the BSN Projects site on 25 October 2016.

If you want to backup anything that hasn't been saved yet, or update your mod descriptions to avoid dead links, now is the time.

If you could give us a quick reply and let us know your intentions, we'd appreciate it. As you might suspect, contacting so many mod authors is quite a bit of work. You can see the list of BSN Project Inventory we're putting together on this Google Doc : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IUesp-Hk6qgiPpwHbyX6o_70ZkHhHLuJLqNG3qZFiRY/edit#gid=0
The project is coordinated from here :
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4716405-bsn-is-shutting-down;-files-there-could-be-lost
Here's a link to the website that summarizes our efforts: https://whereisbioware.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

 

[CreeperLava]

@SirSalami or @Dark0ne, I suppose you haven't seen my first message asking for help, sorry for repeating myself if you did. I need help from an admin here. I've tried to contact a mod author named Dheuster on Nexus, but I get the error "The member Dheuster cannot receive any new messages". If this is because his inbox is full, is there any way to work around it ?

[moho25]

@Tarshana, the hello was me :tongue:.

Lol.

 

@giftfish

"Projects without any downloads can be ignored and should not be placed in the inventory. Be careful, though. Some projects provide Mediafire downloads in the "Project Details", but no downloadable files."

This sentence is a bit confusing to me. Should we ignore projects without any downloadable files or projects that haven't been downloaded ? I suppose the latter is wrong ?

 

I meant this mostly in regards to projects that never actually get beyond the actual planning stage. As in never released. Some projects -- like ThaneMOD -- have been released and provide Nexus links due to the fact that the files were too big for BSN to host.

 

That clear things up? I can amend the column header instructions to be clearer.

 

 

Why only English sites ? There are many russian modders, and while some of the russian websites do steal mods, others are legit. It certainly is hard to tell, though.

 

English is the universal language. I realize not everyone speaks it, but it makes sense to stick to sites in English language, as most mods are available only in English.

 

Like you say, it can be hard to tell. I hate to stereotype (and realize that I am), but I suspect that Russian sites may also have a higher incidence of malware. Basically, if we're going to include links, we want to know those links are to sites that aren't going to distribute malware to folks. They need to be to sites that have a proven record of A/V scanning and policing their uploads. Many of the Russian sites I see are places that host pirated mods -- like copies of ThaneMOD that I haven't uploaded personally. These sites are almost certainly not scanning their uploads for malicious files. We don't want links to these sites on the spreadsheet. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

English language sites, only. Reputable sites, only.

 

 

A remark on the sample message. I've used 2 variations of it, depending on whether the modder has already uploaded to Nexus (or elsewhere), or not. Basically, I contact all authors, even if they already uploaded elsewhere. Useful in case they forgot something, for example. It may not be necessary, but you never know. Sometimes mods on Nexus aren't up to date.

 

If the author has *some* mods in other locations, but not all, then contacting them is fine. If they have all their projects already hosted -- just not on Nexus -- then I'd say not to contact them. We have too many other mods to work on, and if that author isn't hosting on Nexus, there is likely a reason. If so, then contacting them is only going to irritate them.

[moho25]

@Tarshana/@Creeper -- And I see the new page for a master list of contacted mod authors.

 

I was trying to avoid repeating data that's already on the sheets, but I guess it's unavoidable. I'll add yet another step to the instructions and then adjust the sheet formatting a bit.

 

I may end up removing some of the data in the game-specific sheets if we're now going to have this sheet.

Edited August 12, 2016 by moho25

[CreeperLava]

Got it, thanks.

 

I didn't mean to contact them if their mod isn't on Nexus, that's fine by me. Will follow your advice though.

 

Yeah, I added the masterlist, and I agree with removing redundant data from the other sheets. I'll let you handle that, I'll just port the existing data to the new sheet.

Edited August 12, 2016 by CreeperLava

[Tarshana]

Ah so I put my own note on "Inventory Status" about contacted mod authors. It is in cap letters because I am an idiot. I deleted it and clicked Resolved :)

 

Creeper.. Oh hi ~blush~ I was not sure what to do and thought it was a troll so I deleted it! My bad.

I speak most of the languages listed on BSN, I will go through the language files and make sure they are contacted in their native tongue. There are some files that are both English and their own language, so that should not be an issue.

[CreeperLava]

I ported all the mod authors I contacted to the list. I'll do some more pages now :).

[moho25]

@Inventoriers --

 

I've updated the Utilities page to the new format. The others will follow shortly.

 

A few comments:

 

1. We're going to keep the Project Owner listed here, as well, as not all owners will be contacted.

2. Permissions information stays mod-specific, since it's possible for authors to have different permissions for different mods.

3. Author Contacted fields stay listed, for the same reason as Project Owner. Also, "yes" is now a valid field. The specifics have been moved to the Contacted Mod Authors sheet.

 

Let me know if there are other questions, and the Contacted Mod Author sheet is still a WIP.

[CreeperLava]

Question : for mods with open permissions and no way to contact the author, do we reupload immediately, as we come across these, or do we wait for everything to be sorted out ?

Edited August 12, 2016 by CreeperLava