You should assume registered users are "using" a mod if they download it, unless they otherwise mark it "no longer used".

Hopefully people would maintain their lists.

That's actually a decent idea. Next to download count, it could display the number of people who have specifically set it to "no longer used," and even give a percentage of those who downloaded (counting registered only) and no longer use it...or the other way around to put a positive spin on it.


Downloads: 1000 75% of registered downloaders still use this mod.
Guest Downloads: 5000


Perhaps a user's personal profile page would even have a list of all mods they have downloaded, and allow them to set it to "use" or "don't use" there.

I was just thinking this, and then I saw your post. I think one comment area for praise, criticism, and such ("Really helps solve a problem!"/"Adds some nice things, but a little heavy for me.") and a second area for troubleshooting and suggestions ("Action X causes random crashes."/"You may want to adjust...") would aid both the users browsing and the mod author. Both areas could give a visible flag (like a star?) to comments who's authors checked the "I downloaded and tested this" button.

I also second the "I use/endorse this mod" without a negative voting option because I believe it would be as good a voting system as you can use without getting the "Dumb idea, won't even bother downloading" abuses of the system.

ignoring a bunch of the current discussion and answering the OP-

i am not as sensitive as i've heard tale that some folks are. i've heard of modders rushing to admins to get low ratings or negative comments removed.

i think this sort of thing is hogwash. any ratings or comments made should not be overmoderated to spare someone's feeling. granted genuine spam and hate sometimes get posted, but i feel that these sorts of things are a minority. constructive criticism is the best, but ANY criticism should be valued. even if it's a thumbs down/rating of 1 and a comment stating simply "i dont like it". if it hurts your feelings that someone dislikes your work, either ignore them or strive to change their mind with updates. disabling comments and rating is weak. if you are confident to release your work in a public venue, you should be able to take the bitter with the sweet.

i think the best ratings system is "thumbs up/down + comments" though any vote should require a comment. dividing comments based on "have not tried", "used older version", "currently use this mod" sounds like a good idea, as well as adding a "support corner", though it seems most of us include a way to contact us in our readme files. allowing "have not tried" comments is kind of important, unless you want questions about the mod all over a hypothetical support section.

it's really tough for me to say something other than "do it like nexus", because nexus currently has the system i like the most, it seems they have thought of almost every aspect i consider important.

I like the ideas so far, but what about users who had downloaded a mod from another site in the past and want to comment on it on the new one with your system? I wouldn't want to re-download a mod just to leave a "legitimate" review of it.


I think that would work best for the user. I know I wouldn't want to go back to the pages of every mod I downloaded but didn't use just to mark it as not used.

One thing I've always liked is how the census office (or at least it did when I used it) listed the mod lists of people using it and you could look at how many people were using a specific mod. I found quite a few mods by looking at that list and spotting ones I hadn't heard of in the past that seemed popular with other users.

Very yes.

^ This is what I would consider an excellent rating/feedback system. One thing though, I often download a mod on one site and vote for it later on another site. On TesNexus I find it annoying, having to re-download a mod just to leave a "Thank you, it's great!" comment.


I was gonna say something about the "no longer used" option, but I actually like this method of presentation.

I absolutely agree with the above. I am thinking that separating bug reports and support from the general comments entirely is best. Of course the number of open bugs will be displayed on the overview page so that they can speak for themselves.

As for the issue with downloading a mod from somewhere else, I've been mulling it over. I think that the best way to do that would be to first require a registered user to have downloaded and approved of a certain number of other mods; after which they will have the option to state they downloaded the mod from somewhere else and then add approval/comments.

Excellent solution. :thumbsup:

I think the best idea would be to merge Facebook's interface with Newegg's review system:

Users an "Like" (or "Endorse" or "Thumbs Up" or whatever you want to call it) a mod, or they can refrain from doing so. They can also post a review. The review has two text boxes which show up as one message. The first text box is "Pros" and the second text box is "Cons". Both are required, so if you have no Pros or no Cons to list, just type N/A.

I feel like more importance should be given to dividing the "good" comments vs the "bad" comments, but I'm not sure of a better way to do it, especially since many comments contain both likes and dislikes. The reason why I suggest including a "Like" feature in addition to the more detailed "review" option is because, well, lots of folks might just love the mod in general and want to display their general appreciation. A certain number of "Likes" can be a prerequisite for "Hall of Fame" or "Community Favorite" status.

Sorry - I think that gives an incorrect message - I have downloaded many GB's of mods and some have been for the purpose of just examining how the mod was put together - such as reading the scripts or looking at the meshes. Other mods really suited the caharacter i wanted at the time - I really enjoyed clothiers of Vvardenfell - but it is no longer in my load list - this does not mean it is still not valued by me




Again my comments on the incorrect perception of not having a mod loaded stands - however I do like the thought of teasing out the load list - whenever there is a thread on show us your load list I usually read through them for 2 reasons - 1 to see if there is anything that I haven't heard about and 2 in case i spot anything of mine - however load lists miss pluginless replacers - the majority of the mods I use are now pluginless texture or mesh replacers.




When buying something I normally check user reviews first - however even in user reviews there are those who spit on a product because they didn't understand how to use it or it just plain wasn't for them.

I find it more useful when I can see ratings given in bar graphs - I want to know standard things -

- is the mod clean
- does it do what it says it will
- does it change anything in the game - land, buildings, NPC's (if so where)
- is it original (if so what part of is) eg is it another delay Dark brotherhood and if so how does it differ or is it another land texture and therefore are there other textures i might be interested in comparing to this one
- what's its difficulty level (for quests or monsters)
- how many have downloaded it

- optional - this is only for those who have downloaded it and played it - is it a keeper? If so why. if not don't leave a comment

- if someone doesn't like the mod but it met all the first six criteria then I'm not interested in their opinion

seeing how many downloaded the mod and returned to tick it was a keeper would be more valuable info than if a mod was voted into the hall of fame - as a number of HOF mods do not meet the quality i would like to introduce into my game

I can't tell you how many mods I saw where the voting system had knocked down the mod becuz the users voted 0 out of 10 (PES) cuz they didn't install it properly (and they were all hostile about it, too; like shtoopid hostile with comments like "epic fail" cuz they didn't read a flippin' readme????.)
Perhaps have a quick button selection pop up when a low score is entered that allows for someone to click a one sentance answer a question of WHY the low score.
Then the mod maker can identify issues and do updates that fix the issues?

ST

You would need to set the effort required to set to use/don't use evenly, else it ends up very biased if you assume one or the other.

I would suggest you have the default as 'Unknown', and allow the user to toggle to 'Use' or 'Don't Use'

Just thought I would toss in my 2 pennies here as well...

Would be nice for the modder to also be able turn off the rating system and just leave commenting open. Perhaps also the option to turn commenting off, however I wouldn't ever turn off commenting personally.

10 numbers maybe wee bit much, but yes or no doesn't work for me, because where as a mod with perfect 10s means something truly quality, one with f loads of "likes" or "endorsemants" simply means it's viewed in a good light by the masses, with no indication of whether it's really great or just above average,. Of course it's not as quite as simple as that, as more people will "bother" rating something special(just the lazy buggers mainly), but the point still stands

So let's point this discussion for a moment towards the ability to disable comments and ratings. What do you think of that?

Personally, it kind of bugs me a little bit....but that's just me. I like reading comments and feedback from people about a mod; however I will clarify that as a former moderator I tended to have a bit of a knack for wading through the garbage and getting a proper idea of what people really think. When I see a mod that the author has disabled comments on, I tend to be skeptical and will usually shy away from it. I can't help but wonder what it is about the mod that they don't want people to state publicly?

On the other hand, I entirely understand the desire of some to avoid such trolling. Many of my friends here have turned off comments entirely after getting more or less hazed for nothing. So they want to still share their work with everyone without being roasted for it.

I think that I feel having the option to disable comments and ratings entirely means that the feedback system failed. The goal I have in creating a feedback system is to allow users to tell what they honestly think about a mod, without being able to casually destroy its reputation. And yet to be frank, some mods people release are utter crap and it needs to be brought to light.

I know the perfect system is impossible...but I really am trying to get every point of view possible here to get as close as I can.

I have seen many fantastic mods with disabled rating/comments. I even think it's very admirable that they're not doing it for the glory like most people seem to be. Although, it is a real shame that many people won't find out about the mod.

Who are you making the mod site for? The users or the makers?

IMHO, that answers the question.

Both.

Agreed - Julan comes to mind as well as COM 1 and 2 in fact I think all of emma's mods are unavailable to vote on, Westly turns off voting, my most often downloaded mod has no comments enabled and has 3 times as many downloads as the others with comments - yet i don't see it as my best work

So I doubt having comments or voting really does make a big difference in the end

I might as well add my opinion here.
I think I like the idea of having comments meant for bugs, or general, or support; basically different categories. If a rating system will be implemented, I think a rather structured one would be good, where you would have the ability to say this is good; or to put a negative comment and it would subtract a certain amount and then you could put another negative comment and it would subtract a bit more and then it would all go in one post, so essentially this would stop the sudden drive by low scores because they would have to go through this process and likely wouldnt bother to take time unless they actually felt that way.

i already answered most of your post in my first in this thread, but i wanted to address this in particular. it seems some people consider ANY negative feedback "trolling" and will complain of anything less than a perfect score.

for example, take this section of a blog post by dark0ne at the nexus -



i reiterate, if you have enough confidence in your work that you are willing to share it publicly on the internet, you must be prepared for the eventuality that not everyone is going to like it. this goes for everything, not just mods. if you release something that is of low quality, you will get slammed. those caught up in the lifestyle of instant gratification who do not read instructions will always bash things when they "dont work". disabling comments and ratings usually is a sign of low self confidence to me. if someone is not confident enough to allow discussion of their work, why should i bother to use it? only rarely is disabling comments a decent thing (the only example i can think of are a few VGM uploads to youtube where the uploader disabled comments in order to stop side discussion and fighting over x being better than y, rather than discussing the subject of the video)

comments and rating mean a lot to me, the author can not think of everything, and can not be expected to answer every possible question conceivable in their description. comments alleviate this and allow me to come to conclusions on my own, without having to contact the author.

But the feedback that an author gets from the player is a big difference between a real flop or total success imo.

My reaction to disabled comments and ratings depends on who's the author.

If it's an author I know from his previous work, I'll try it anyway because I know what to expect quality-wise.
But if it's a modder I don't know about, I'll just think "If he doesn't care about feedback, does he even care about quality?".

Overall I don't like it, but I can understand why some authors would want to disable them.