Mod Author Donation System

[megamanx503]

In response to post #56122566. #56123061, #56127651, #56134696 are all replies on the same post.

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.

Dark0ne wrote: 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.

Hilli1 wrote: Oh, Dark0ne himself. Thank you for clarification. I am relieved that I can turn DP off or give them away.

Let me say this closing: In the moment when money comes into play the page here will turn into something... different. People discussing here seriously how many percent from the DP they should get. This is the direction it goes. I don't like this trend.

ralfetas wrote: I don't think so, because for what i see, you can do a lot with this DP points, for example, i ask for donations on my mods, just because i spend money on making them (software), so the donations help me, if there is the store front that i can use the DP point to renew my substance subscription, without the need to use money, i would love it! If i could take any DP i earn and donate to a mod author that i like (caliente for example :) ) i would do this and don't need to spend "real" money.

Of course mods that have lots of people involve can get problems, but this happens even without money, they can just agreed to donate the points, or will just have one more subject to fight.

is this paid mods?, or is this just a "donation system", so, aka, either will we need to pony up money for mods. or just add a new way to donate and show a 100% voluntarily way to support modders?

[Niborino9409]

Did you read the initial post made by Dark0ne? It's a system that yields smaller rewards to mod authors, participation is optional. No mods are locked behind a pay-wall or the like. All mods are still available. Nexus doesn't do paid mods.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Niborino9409

[H3X1C]

In response to post #56136371.

megamanx503 wrote: please correct me if i'm wrong about this because i'm paranoid about "paid mods"

will this mean modders can make there mods "paid" like how the CC is all paid mods, or will this be "hey good modders get money from donations while the mods are still free for the users, aka, no paywall for mods"

Please read the post in it's entirety

[StickySock]

In response to post #56107121. #56107916, #56125786, #56126436, #56134501 are all replies on the same post.

StickySock wrote:

For authors who port other mods to SSE, couldn't there just be an option to split points with the original author? You could just tag the creator, and then the system could send every other point (or whatever has monetary value) to the original creator. Ports do take effort, but they are clearly benefiting from the work of another. Therefore, a split (whatever the community deems fair I guess), seems like the best way to go.

bchick3 wrote: A couple of issues. Yes a porter like me is using the work of another author and as such I agree something goes to the original author but a 50/50 split doesn’t seem fair to me. 99% of the ports I have done are 100% supported by me, not the original author. Second almost all of the ports would never have happened if not for porters like me. Most oldrim authors have moved on or didn’t have the time or knowledge to port them. So why shouldn’t I benefit from my work even if it’s based on an oldrim mod. I think 25% to the original author in this case is more fair. If you take away the sse porters incentive to port, things will stagnate again. At least until folks start making original mods in sse.

Firuu wrote: I totally get your point bchick3 but I also think you underestimate the work that goes into the initial mod making.
It's like letting someone build a house and then asking for 3/4 of the rent this person earns just because you do maintenance on it. Maybe a bit exaggerated but you get my point.

Also pretty sure the port would have never happened, if there was no mod to port in the first place :p

Hilli1 wrote: I'm sorry, but I totally disagree with you bchick3.

I ported a couple of mods too and I made some translations. It took time to make this, of course. Much time.

But: Nobody forced me to make those ports. Making them was my own decision and I wanted to share it with the community. I use a lot of mods and I wanted to give the community something back.

It should be free. Always. Personally I would be ashamed if I would take donations for mods which are based of other modders work.

So either I will turn DP off for my ported files or I give the DP for the ported file to 100% to the original-author.

Generally we should pay with endorsements here, not with money.

Syclone903 wrote: Imo bchick3, if porting the mod is such hard work, then just remake it from scratch and recieve 100% of the points. You are claiming that you more or less did 75 percent of the work if you want such a distribution after all. Hell, I also think it should be 25/75, except the porter gets the 25.

Or, as I have said before, mods could just as easily be hidden until all parties credited (with an easy tagging system) with the creation of the mod (whether it be for a group project, or a port of an original mod), agree to a split-point ratio that suits them. Then mod authors who create can choose which ratios seem fair to them, whether it be 1:99, 99:1, or any number in between. Then all work done by all parties will always be fair and no mod can be published without agreement between all parties. Edited December 21, 2017 by StickySock

[skepticck]

Seems to me like a very good and well thought out idea, i hope it works out.

[H3X1C]

In response to post #56122091. #56122171, #56122461, #56122981, #56123381, #56123541, #56124741 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!".

Xilandro wrote: 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.

I think the threat of moderation will keep this at bay to a good enough degree, sure mod authors will be tempted to split a mod that they would have previously released as a single mod into multiple smaller mods but the threat of moderation and the time involved in doing so will help prevent mod authors from doing this and prevent gaming the system sort of speak as mentioned in the post:
"We will be enforcing strict rules in this regard and bringing our moderation practices up to speed to combat instances where we think people are deliberately going out of their way to try and game the system at the expense of the site and user experience."

[Finaldeath1689]

This is a great idea to reward mod authors and seems pretty well thought out. My main concern is for youtubers like Gopher and how this will affect them since when they make videos showing off mods those mods always get a nice jump in downloads. Since this is based on unique downloads it could lead to mod authors harassing said youtubers to feature their mods even more than they may already be doing since with this they would have a monetary incentive to do so. Edited December 21, 2017 by Finaldeath1689

[megamanx503]

In response to post #56136371. #56138101 is also a reply to the same post.

megamanx503 wrote: please correct me if i'm wrong about this because i'm paranoid about "paid mods"

will this mean modders can make there mods "paid" like how the CC is all paid mods, or will this be "hey good modders get money from donations while the mods are still free for the users, aka, no paywall for mods"

H3X1C wrote: Please read the post in it's entirety

i have read it, and i can't find the spot where they say clearly that "it's not paid mods"

[Finaldeath1689]

In response to post #56136371. #56138101, #56140096 are all replies on the same post.

megamanx503 wrote: please correct me if i'm wrong about this because i'm paranoid about "paid mods"

will this mean modders can make there mods "paid" like how the CC is all paid mods, or will this be "hey good modders get money from donations while the mods are still free for the users, aka, no paywall for mods"

H3X1C wrote: Please read the post in it's entirety

megamanx503 wrote: i have read it, and i can't find the spot where they say clearly that "it's not paid mods"

The whole thing clearly states that it's not paid mods. For users nothing will change, you can still download and use any mod on the site completely free. For mod makers there will be a pool of money each month made up from money from Nexus itself and people who decide to donate towards that pool, that pool of money will be distributed in the form of points based on the number of mods and number of unique downloads each of those mods has in that time frame, those points can then be used towards a variety of things.

[Totalstupidity]

In response to post #56136371. #56138101, #56140096, #56141861 are all replies on the same post.

megamanx503 wrote: please correct me if i'm wrong about this because i'm paranoid about "paid mods"

will this mean modders can make there mods "paid" like how the CC is all paid mods, or will this be "hey good modders get money from donations while the mods are still free for the users, aka, no paywall for mods"

H3X1C wrote: Please read the post in it's entirety

megamanx503 wrote: i have read it, and i can't find the spot where they say clearly that "it's not paid mods"

Finaldeath1689 wrote: The whole thing clearly states that it's not paid mods. For users nothing will change, you can still download and use any mod on the site completely free. For mod makers there will be a pool of money each month made up from money from Nexus itself and people who decide to donate towards that pool, that pool of money will be distributed in the form of points based on the number of mods and number of unique downloads each of those mods has in that time frame, those points can then be used towards a variety of things.

It will be paid mods later, but for now they plan to draw the line a little closer in the sand as they slowly inch towards that while making people comfortable with the changes. Corporations do that all the time. Saw it done with DLC, microtransactions, and B2P/B2P games, you know, the stuff that ruined gaming. Like right now Valve is working to make Workshop the must have modding system and it has mostly killed Nexus, and so Valve will be bringing back paid mods again in the next few years, but this time for many games.