Mod Author Donation System

[GRmp]

I hope this will work out

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #56122091. #56122171, #56122461 are all replies on the same post.

Xilandro wrote: This will turn ugly real fast. Operating on fact "people have been doing it for free, why'd they start caring that much for money" is also very wrong, authors that would love to get some money for their work didn't had a choice to charge\get something back. "Do it for free or get out" was their only option. Except CC, but that's the story for another day.

System will change the mindset of a lot of such authors, introducing unhealthy competition in modding community. And it will eventually lead to 2 major things:
1) Secrecy. Right now information and knowledge are being shared freely between almost all mod authors, just because it helps modding to grow and expand, ends up in better quality mods. Add money into the formula and you end up with lack of information, tools, tips&tricks, etc. Why share if you can keep it to yourself and have a monopoly on, let's say, animation mods for Fallout 4? Another example - if you're a programmer and don't want your code to be used for monetary gain, how do you prevent people from using it (code, after all, is easy to steal and get away with, like some popular "authors" do on F4 scene lol)? Answer - obfuscate\remove the source, and it all stays free.
2) Quantity over quality. System abuse. Why work harder on a complex mod if there's real possibility to get most downloads with lowest effort, and users still gonna love it? Important thing: popularity != quality. Endless armors and weapons nifskope mash-ups, rule-of-cool small mods that catch an eye, etc. I'm not saying these types of mods are bad. But increasing amount of them leads to decreasing number of, let's say, quest mods. Or general gameplay mods.

When you have these two forces in action on a constant basis, only result is decay.


p.s. Right now we have people that are abusing "HOT files" that works in a similar way: popularity. Imagine money involvement. Hot files abuse will be a joke in comparison.

Dark0ne wrote: What's "Hot file abuse" and how does it work?

Xilandro wrote: In short - there are some authors that are trying to get all their mods into hot files. Bulk release. It's not harmful, but as a matter of fact - it exists. I know a lot of fellow authors cringe and judge it when they see it, even if they smile in that author's face and say "Yay cool! Congrats on 4/5 hotfiles!". Know your community much?

Why not let RNG decide? Let's say, you have 1500 mod authors active last month (with some "entry" rules, that prevents new account releases abuse), and if you have 10K$ pool + whatever users put in the pool - RNG 200 authors and share money between them. 50$ each. Or run RNG to pick 400 authors and each will get 25$. It's also not a perfect system, but it eliminates major problems of the "downloads amount = money amount" system.

I think calling releasing mods all at the same time "abuse", whether that's to try and get them all in the hot files or not, is highly dramatic.

Mod authors can release their mods whenever they please. I'm not going to tell them when they can and cannot release their mods and what their "max mods per month/week" limit is. That seems very counter-intuitive for a site that is all about hosting mods. Edited December 20, 2017 by Dark0ne

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #56122566.

Hilli1 wrote: As someone who ported a couple of mods to SSE and made translations I would NEVER accept donations in any form.

I am porting mods because I love the game and I don't want to make money with it. Mainly I port over mods for my game and I want to share it with the community. It is a hobby and not a kind of making money.

I see rather the problem that it will be more difficult to get permissions from the original-authors to port-over mods. When someone would ask me - I would be distrustful from now on.
The first thing I would think after implementing the new donations-system would be "He want to make money with MY stuff".

When I would be foreced to get any donation-points here, the only possibility would be to transfer it to the original-authors. Should this not be possible I would quit to publish any mods and transfer all my ports to the care-taker.

My personal opinion is: I disagree with the complete new donation-system. We don't need this at all. This is a place for FREE mods. Any kind of donation-system would destroy this principle.

If mod authors whose work you are porting are bothered by this, then when you ask them for permission they would simply say "Yes, but ensure I receive all the DP from your port". You then agree or disagree with that, and port or don't port accordingly.

It sounds like it's a win win, really. You don't want to receive DP but want to ensure mod authors don't feel like you're taking DP from them, so you simply tell them you will turn DP off for the files you port OR you're willing to give them your DP for that ported file.

If anything, those mod authors should be more willing to give you permission to port their work based on the fact they'll receive more DP from their original work without having to do the port themselves.

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #56107471.

matortheeternal wrote:

Has there been any consideration into a raffle system? The system sounds good - I recall talking with a mod author about such a system awhile back, but basing it on any metric is bound to lead to problems. With a raffle system you could put a ticket into the pot for each mod author based on the number of unique downloads they've achieved across all their mods over the last month (e.g. 100 unique downloads = 1 ticket), then you could pull as many "winners" as desired, perhaps excluding someone from winning more than once (or twice?). It doesn't completely avoid the issue with authors breaking work into multiple mod releases, but it at least makes it feasible for anyone to get large rewards.

 

I dunno, this may be a worse idea. Just a thought.

Not a bad idea to be honest, Mator. But personally, I'd rather not touch anything that could even slightly resemble gambling, or similar mechanics, at this current point in time!

[Xilandro]

In response to post #56122091. #56122171, #56122461, #56122981 are all replies on the same post.

Xilandro wrote: This will turn ugly real fast. Operating on fact "people have been doing it for free, why'd they start caring that much for money" is also very wrong, authors that would love to get some money for their work didn't had a choice to charge\get something back. "Do it for free or get out" was their only option. Except CC, but that's the story for another day.

System will change the mindset of a lot of such authors, introducing unhealthy competition in modding community. And it will eventually lead to 2 major things:
1) Secrecy. Right now information and knowledge are being shared freely between almost all mod authors, just because it helps modding to grow and expand, ends up in better quality mods. Add money into the formula and you end up with lack of information, tools, tips&tricks, etc. Why share if you can keep it to yourself and have a monopoly on, let's say, animation mods for Fallout 4? Another example - if you're a programmer and don't want your code to be used for monetary gain, how do you prevent people from using it (code, after all, is easy to steal and get away with, like some popular "authors" do on F4 scene lol)? Answer - obfuscate\remove the source, and it all stays free.
2) Quantity over quality. System abuse. Why work harder on a complex mod if there's real possibility to get most downloads with lowest effort, and users still gonna love it? Important thing: popularity != quality. Endless armors and weapons nifskope mash-ups, rule-of-cool small mods that catch an eye, etc. I'm not saying these types of mods are bad. But increasing amount of them leads to decreasing number of, let's say, quest mods. Or general gameplay mods.

When you have these two forces in action on a constant basis, only result is decay.


p.s. Right now we have people that are abusing "HOT files" that works in a similar way: popularity. Imagine money involvement. Hot files abuse will be a joke in comparison.

Dark0ne wrote: What's "Hot file abuse" and how does it work?

Xilandro wrote: In short - there are some authors that are trying to get all their mods into hot files. Bulk release. It's not harmful, but as a matter of fact - it exists. I know a lot of fellow authors cringe and judge it when they see it, even if they smile in that author's face and say "Yay cool! Congrats on 4/5 hotfiles!". Know your community much?

Why not let RNG decide? Let's say, you have 1500 mod authors active last month (with some "entry" rules, that prevents new account releases abuse), and if you have 10K$ pool + whatever users put in the pool - RNG 200 authors and share money between them. 50$ each. Or run RNG to pick 400 authors and each will get 25$. It's also not a perfect system, but it eliminates major problems of the "downloads amount = money amount" system.

Dark0ne wrote: I think calling releasing mods all at the same time "abuse", whether that's to try and get them all in the hot files or not, is highly dramatic.

Mod authors can release their mods whenever they please. I'm not going to tell them when they can and cannot release their mods and what their "max mods per month/week" limit is. That seems very counter-intuitive for a site that is all about hosting mods.

Wait what? I'm sorry, but where did you get the idea that I said releases should be limited or some sort of max mods introduced? My posts aren't about hot files in the first place . But you keep acting like they are. It was just small example of popularity contest that happens behind the curtains, not much, not less. And definitely not a request to limit it\make it an official "against the rules" or something.
My posts are about new donation system and problems it introduces (sure, maybe only in the long run) that I'm worried about. And I even gave an alternative based on random number generator, because one cannot criticize the system without some alternative, right? I'd love to get some info on those problems, how do you plan to avoid them, and keep community healthy. Focusing on what I said about hot files, completely ignoring everything else is not okay.

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #56122091. #56122171, #56122461, #56122981, #56123381 are all replies on the same post.

Xilandro wrote: This will turn ugly real fast. Operating on fact "people have been doing it for free, why'd they start caring that much for money" is also very wrong, authors that would love to get some money for their work didn't had a choice to charge\get something back. "Do it for free or get out" was their only option. Except CC, but that's the story for another day.

System will change the mindset of a lot of such authors, introducing unhealthy competition in modding community. And it will eventually lead to 2 major things:
1) Secrecy. Right now information and knowledge are being shared freely between almost all mod authors, just because it helps modding to grow and expand, ends up in better quality mods. Add money into the formula and you end up with lack of information, tools, tips&tricks, etc. Why share if you can keep it to yourself and have a monopoly on, let's say, animation mods for Fallout 4? Another example - if you're a programmer and don't want your code to be used for monetary gain, how do you prevent people from using it (code, after all, is easy to steal and get away with, like some popular "authors" do on F4 scene lol)? Answer - obfuscate\remove the source, and it all stays free.
2) Quantity over quality. System abuse. Why work harder on a complex mod if there's real possibility to get most downloads with lowest effort, and users still gonna love it? Important thing: popularity != quality. Endless armors and weapons nifskope mash-ups, rule-of-cool small mods that catch an eye, etc. I'm not saying these types of mods are bad. But increasing amount of them leads to decreasing number of, let's say, quest mods. Or general gameplay mods.

When you have these two forces in action on a constant basis, only result is decay.


p.s. Right now we have people that are abusing "HOT files" that works in a similar way: popularity. Imagine money involvement. Hot files abuse will be a joke in comparison.

Dark0ne wrote: What's "Hot file abuse" and how does it work?

Xilandro wrote: In short - there are some authors that are trying to get all their mods into hot files. Bulk release. It's not harmful, but as a matter of fact - it exists. I know a lot of fellow authors cringe and judge it when they see it, even if they smile in that author's face and say "Yay cool! Congrats on 4/5 hotfiles!". Know your community much?

Why not let RNG decide? Let's say, you have 1500 mod authors active last month (with some "entry" rules, that prevents new account releases abuse), and if you have 10K$ pool + whatever users put in the pool - RNG 200 authors and share money between them. 50$ each. Or run RNG to pick 400 authors and each will get 25$. It's also not a perfect system, but it eliminates major problems of the "downloads amount = money amount" system.

Dark0ne wrote: I think calling releasing mods all at the same time "abuse", whether that's to try and get them all in the hot files or not, is highly dramatic.

Mod authors can release their mods whenever they please. I'm not going to tell them when they can and cannot release their mods and what their "max mods per month/week" limit is. That seems very counter-intuitive for a site that is all about hosting mods.

Xilandro wrote: Wait what? I'm sorry, but where did you get the idea that I said releases should be limited or some sort of max mods introduced? My posts aren't about hot files in the first place . But you keep acting like they are. It was just small example of popularity contest that happens behind the curtains, not much, not less. And definitely not a request to limit it\make it an official "against the rules" or something.
My posts are about new donation system and problems it introduces (sure, maybe only in the long run) that I'm worried about. And I even gave an alternative based on random number generator, because one cannot criticize the system without some alternative, right? I'd love to get some info on those problems, how do you plan to avoid them, and keep community healthy. Focusing on what I said about hot files, completely ignoring everything else is not okay.

I was talking, very specifically, about the "hot file abuse" you mentioned in your original post and to which you responded on that topic. Frankly, I don't like that being called "abuse" at all, as it's not abuse in any way, shape or form. I'm definitely not going to let you get away with saying something like that without you explaining why you think there's some sort of abuse going on, especially when you left a snarky "Know your community much?" in there as well. It turns out there isn't, and your snark was utterly unwarranted.

In regards to your suggestion to a change to the system, it's something similar to what Mator mentioned below. To which I responded, "Not a bad idea to be honest, Mator. But personally, I'd rather not touch anything that could even slightly resemble gambling, or similar mechanics, at this current point in time!".
Edited December 20, 2017 by Dark0ne

[labratjacklin]

if you start doing mods for profit,then game manufactuers have a legall right to sue you for it.however this has not been the case so far,because mods are not intended to harm game mtg or profit from them.you are getting into a BIG gray area over paying authors.

 

[Deleted133263User]

Apologies if I missed this already being mentioned :

 

Should I be lucky enough to receive enough DPs can they be spent automatically (ie we set it somewhere) straight back into the Donations to support the site ?

 

So my Supporter status gets auto upgraded to Premium if enough goes through etc

[Xilandro]

In response to post #56122091. #56122171, #56122461, #56122981, #56123381, #56123541 are all replies on the same post.

Xilandro wrote: This will turn ugly real fast. Operating on fact "people have been doing it for free, why'd they start caring that much for money" is also very wrong, authors that would love to get some money for their work didn't had a choice to charge\get something back. "Do it for free or get out" was their only option. Except CC, but that's the story for another day.

System will change the mindset of a lot of such authors, introducing unhealthy competition in modding community. And it will eventually lead to 2 major things:
1) Secrecy. Right now information and knowledge are being shared freely between almost all mod authors, just because it helps modding to grow and expand, ends up in better quality mods. Add money into the formula and you end up with lack of information, tools, tips&tricks, etc. Why share if you can keep it to yourself and have a monopoly on, let's say, animation mods for Fallout 4? Another example - if you're a programmer and don't want your code to be used for monetary gain, how do you prevent people from using it (code, after all, is easy to steal and get away with, like some popular "authors" do on F4 scene lol)? Answer - obfuscate\remove the source, and it all stays free.
2) Quantity over quality. System abuse. Why work harder on a complex mod if there's real possibility to get most downloads with lowest effort, and users still gonna love it? Important thing: popularity != quality. Endless armors and weapons nifskope mash-ups, rule-of-cool small mods that catch an eye, etc. I'm not saying these types of mods are bad. But increasing amount of them leads to decreasing number of, let's say, quest mods. Or general gameplay mods.

When you have these two forces in action on a constant basis, only result is decay.


p.s. Right now we have people that are abusing "HOT files" that works in a similar way: popularity. Imagine money involvement. Hot files abuse will be a joke in comparison.

Dark0ne wrote: What's "Hot file abuse" and how does it work?

Xilandro wrote: In short - there are some authors that are trying to get all their mods into hot files. Bulk release. It's not harmful, but as a matter of fact - it exists. I know a lot of fellow authors cringe and judge it when they see it, even if they smile in that author's face and say "Yay cool! Congrats on 4/5 hotfiles!". Know your community much?

Why not let RNG decide? Let's say, you have 1500 mod authors active last month (with some "entry" rules, that prevents new account releases abuse), and if you have 10K$ pool + whatever users put in the pool - RNG 200 authors and share money between them. 50$ each. Or run RNG to pick 400 authors and each will get 25$. It's also not a perfect system, but it eliminates major problems of the "downloads amount = money amount" system.

Dark0ne wrote: I think calling releasing mods all at the same time "abuse", whether that's to try and get them all in the hot files or not, is highly dramatic.

Mod authors can release their mods whenever they please. I'm not going to tell them when they can and cannot release their mods and what their "max mods per month/week" limit is. That seems very counter-intuitive for a site that is all about hosting mods.

Xilandro wrote: Wait what? I'm sorry, but where did you get the idea that I said releases should be limited or some sort of max mods introduced? My posts aren't about hot files in the first place . But you keep acting like they are. It was just small example of popularity contest that happens behind the curtains, not much, not less. And definitely not a request to limit it\make it an official "against the rules" or something.
My posts are about new donation system and problems it introduces (sure, maybe only in the long run) that I'm worried about. And I even gave an alternative based on random number generator, because one cannot criticize the system without some alternative, right? I'd love to get some info on those problems, how do you plan to avoid them, and keep community healthy. Focusing on what I said about hot files, completely ignoring everything else is not okay.

Dark0ne wrote: I was talking, very specifically, about the "hot file abuse" you mentioned in your original post and to which you responded on that topic. Frankly, I don't like that being called "abuse" at all, as it's not abuse in any way, shape or form. I'm definitely not going to let you get away with saying something like that without you explaining why you think there's some sort of abuse going on, especially when you left a snarky "Know your community much?" in there as well. It turns out there isn't, and your snark was utterly unwarranted.

In regards to your suggestion to a change to the system, it's something similar to what Mator mentioned below. To which I responded, "Not a bad idea to be honest, Mator. But personally, I'd rather not touch anything that could even slightly resemble gambling, or similar mechanics, at this current point in time!".

Yeah, "know your community" was a bit too heavy. Sorry for that.
"I'm definitely not going to let you get away with saying something like that without you explaining why you think there's some sort of abuse going on". I just thought you knew about it, so I called it the way I see other people call it. The term you didn't want me to get away for, first appeared when EWI was flooding the hot files with texture mods, just before he got banned for stealing assets. At least to my knowledge. Haven't seen it called "hot files abuse" before. Just in case if you need more insight into "what and when". But I'm going to refer to it as "HOT files flooding" from now on. And nobody freaks out.
Personally I don't care about it, but it's a nice example of what happens every now and then. People split mods into "independent" parts or bulk-release to get into HOT files and push away all other mods out of there. Technically there's nothing wrong with that. Is it a bad move? For some, very bad, for some other - just bunch of cool mods in hot files. But no matter the name and reaction, it's done with one thing in mind - get all your stuff into HOT. Only you and nobody else. You [username], the great modmaker, owner of the HOT files for x amount of time, king of modding, god of nexus.

Which leads me back to my original post - if that happens with HOT files, imagine what's going to happen with a popularity contest with money involved. I'm sure now it's more clear and you get the idea of what I failed to explain in original post with my "hot files" example.


Yeah, I just saw your reply about it being gambling. From my perspective it's just NexusMods randomly giving away money to authors. Afaik it's not against the law, it's called "giveaway". Giveaways happen all the time. YTbers give away stuff, sites give away stuff, even NexusMods together with other sites (gog) and brands had a giveaway recently. If you can have giveaways here like that, why can't you have a giveaway for active mod authors?

Lately we have lootboxes in games that cost tons of money, and it's not considered gambling, why would a simple giveaway become gambling is unclear to me. But I'm not a lawyer, so, I won't speculate on that matter. Edited December 20, 2017 by Xilandro

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #56124651.

alt3rn1ty wrote:

Apologies if I missed this already being mentioned :

 

Should I be lucky enough to receive enough DPs can they be spent automatically (ie we set it somewhere) straight back into the Donations to support the site ?

 

So my Supporter status gets auto upgraded to Premium if enough goes through etc

While we can't support buying Supporter/Premium right now with the DP due to some backend issues, we certainly intend to make it something you can buy with your DP. And by extension, we'll probably let you buy other users (like your favourite mod authors, or useful users in your file comments section) Supporter or Premium with it as well.