[Umpyre Records]

First, a commenter didn't get the mod pulled. A commenter pointed them towards comments from Zenball himself where he admitted not having gotten permission. The comments from Zenball got the mod pulled.

Second, while you can easily say that fixes should not have permission requirements, the debate over what constitutes a simple fix and what includes new materials is too complex to make a rule about. So you make it simple: If you want to include others work, regardless of what that work is, get permission. If you don't want to get permission, or can't get it, recreate the fix yourself or ask someone to make one for you. That's the only way you can make a site like the Nexus function.

[Marnesia Steele]

To be honest I'd much rather see a more traditional unofficial patch as we've seen them for FO3, Oblivion and Morrowind. One person (or a very small team) working on the patch, while everyone else report bugs. That way the modder knows exactly what's in his mod, instead of integrating other people's mods which you don't know inside out completely into a compilation.

That way you can be sure(r ) that what you're releasing really does not cause any new issues. After all, you don't know anything about those other modders. They might be complete modding newbies who made dirty edits in the process of fixing a bug. It's much safer if a patch is made by someone who knows exactly what he's doing. And you can be sure that you're not stepping on anyone's toes.


I've always seen this compilation as more of a temporary fix compilation for some issues than a project comparable to the Unofficial Patches from the other games.

[Jodie Bardgett]

Keep in mind also that not asking permission is not what triggered this incident, but that someone who apparently contributed to a mod that was included complained that he was not credited along with the author of that mod, which caused Nexus operators to contact Zenball make inquiries about how closely he was observing the rules.

If someone who contribute to a contributed mod was not credited in the contributed mod- than I doubt it must be Zenball problem. Complains must be directed to author of contributed mod firstly, I think.

[lauraa]

The issue isn't 'can some random guy point at something and say 'he included mods without permission'. The issue is 'can some random guy who commented on a mod that was included with permission of the mod author then claim that he helped contribute to a mod merely by commenting on it and thus can control whether or not it can be included in other mods'.

In other words, this is what has been claimed to have occured:

Person A made Mod B.
Person C commented on Mod B.
Person A altered Mod B and included Person C's comments in that mod.
Person D comes along and asks Person A if he can include Mod B in his own compilation mod, Mod E.
Person A says 'Yes, you can do that.' to Person D.
Mod E is released, including Mod B in it.
Person C comes along and says 'I want to be credited as a contributor to Mod E even though I only commented on an included mod in Mod E and didn't actually make anything.'
Person D says 'No, that's silly.'
Person C gets Mod E pulled because he was not credited as a contributor to Mod E.

Ignoring everything else about the compilation patch, is this how the Nexus is going to run things? Require mod authors to get permission from mod commentators prior to allowing the mod those mod authors created be put into a compilation mod?

[Chloe Lou]

Ignoring everything else about the compilation patch, is this how the Nexus is going to run things?

That's not what got the mod pulled so I'd say it's a pretty moot point.

[Kate Schofield]

Second, while you can easily say that fixes should not have permission requirements, the debate over what constitutes a simple fix and what includes new materials is too complex to make a rule about. So you make it simple: If you want to include others work, regardless of what that work is, get permission. If you don't want to get permission, or can't get it, recreate the fix yourself or ask someone to make one for you. That's the only way you can make a site like the Nexus function.

Or you make it even simpler, as an author either you put it in the mods section and enjoy seeing a couple downloads, or you put it in the fix section to make sure it gets added to the compilation so thousands of people will make use of your fix. I agree with Povuholo, if theres a dedicated team that makes sure you get your name in the readme for whatever reasons you have, much more people will benefit from the fixes. Maybe youre afraid that noone will fix anything anymore? I think the pleasure you get from helping a dedicated team to fix one of your favorite games is payment enough and so this wont be a problem. Sometimes copyright issues like this are more of a burden for everyone and one should choose open source over freedom.

[Genevieve]

That's really not an answer. As a mod author, I'd like to know if I need to keep track of every person who makes a comment on one of my mods in case I want to allow someone else to use my mod in a compilation or something. If someone can be considered to have materially contributed to a mod enough to be required to be given credit to it just by saying, for example, 'that character over there doesn't have enough health. You should beef him up so he's a tougher opponent' I don't think I want to upload my files to FalloutNVNexus any more, since that gives way too much control of my mod away to people who are not the actual mod author.

[Lawrence Armijo]

The answer is NO, you don't have to do that.

Whether the guy who reported the Compilation had anything to do with any mod that was included in the patch had absolutely nothing to do with the Compilation being pulled. Any random person could have reported that Zenball admitted not having permission for the Compilation and gotten exactly the same reaction from the Nexus.

It's a moot point because what you understand to have happened, didn't happen.

Also, implementing a "Fixes" section to the Nexus where permissions are not required might be an idea, but it would be just as useful for people who make fixes to choose the "no permissions needed" option when uploading the file.

[Nancy RIP]

That's really not an answer. As a mod author, I'd like to know if I need to keep track of every person who makes a comment on one of my mods in case I want to allow someone else to use my mod in a compilation or something. If someone can be considered to have materially contributed to a mod enough to be required to be given credit to it just by saying, for example, 'that character over there doesn't have enough health. You should beef him up so he's a tougher opponent' I don't think I want to upload my files to FalloutNVNexus any more, since that gives way too much control of my mod away to people who are not the actual mod author.

I think your over-reading the situation. In the case you mentioned I don't believe that 'commenter' would be considered a contributor. They gave no script, no mesh/textures just a thought. Lots of folks have them, very few bother to implement it.

Just a thought, but perhaps nexus should use an opt-in policy for future mods? Meaning that if you don't want others to be able to alter your mod, you have to click another button when uploading. Simply grand-fathering all already existing mods under the current scheme of notifying mod author getting permission etc etc. I kind of doubt anyone who spends enough effort making a mod they don't want others to alter, would neglect to hit that button

edit: I am just guessing that would solve some issues, and reduce future workload for moderators.

[e.Double]

I agree with Povuholo, if theres a dedicated team that makes sure you get your name in the readme for whatever reasons you have, much more people will benefit from the fixes.

I'm not sure if this is what I said?


I say that someone dedicated builds a patch from scratch, and treat other bugfixing mods as bug reports that you can refer to when you make your own fix to the problem they describe, rather than merging them. It's a lot more work but to me it feels like the best direction to take a patch project in.

Best of all however I think we should wait a few weeks until Obsidian releases the first big patch, before trying to fix much more ourselves.

Just a thought, but perhaps nexus should use an opt-in policy for future mods?

There's already a new feature where modders can state their wishes at the bottom of the file page. I don't think it should get any more complicated than that.

[Everardo Montano]

Whether the guy who reported the Compilation had anything to do with any mod that was included in the patch had absolutely nothing to do with the Compilation being pulled. Any random person could have reported that Zenball admitted not having permission for the Compilation and gotten exactly the same reaction from the Nexus.

It's a moot point because what you understand to have happened, didn't happen.

Also, implementing a "Fixes" section to the Nexus where permissions are not required might be an idea, but it would be just as useful for people who make fixes to choose the "no permissions needed" option when uploading the file.

I said to ignore what happened with the Compilation because I know that this is not why it was pulled. My question has nothing to do with that. It's just something that was brought up, and then the Nexus official declined to answer the actual question I asked.

I would prefer it if the permissions section defaulted to the most open permission possible rather than the most restrictive, as those authors who are most likely not to care if you use their mod without permission are also the ones most likely never to visit the website again and never to even think about changing the default settings, while those who would care are much more likely to actually mark their mod as such. Grandfathering people in under the restrictive settings/what they have currently set up is, of course, the way to go.

[celebrity]

Also, implementing a "Fixes" section to the Nexus where permissions are not required might be an idea, but it would be just as useful for people who make fixes to choose the "no permissions needed" option when uploading the file.

Not the same thing, as this fix section would no doubt have people working on a tremendously popular :ahhh: (this patch has almost 17.000 downloads, compare that to an individual fix) stickied unofficial patch that includes everything in the fix section. And because of this, many more people would choose the 'no permissions needed' option by posting their fixes in this open source fixes section. And you couldnt really post your fix in the mods section because its not supposed to be there.
Povuholo, i read quickly and i think i was just happy about the idea that people post bugs for someone to use these reports.

[Emily Jeffs]

If someone reports Midas Magic saying Xilver didn't get permission to use some assets in the file I'd laugh at them, and probably either warn them or ban them. If someone reports a file I don't know about, and I look at the file and see the author has specifically said they didn't seek permission from all the authors to use their work then of course I'm going to pull it. I really fail to see where the issue is here.

If the contributing author isn't the one complaining, then in what crazy-[censored] world do you live in where pulling the mod seems like a reasonable response?

Let's look at how this works in the real world, shall we?

Person A creates thing 1.
Person B buys thing 1, illegally copies it, and sells it as his own.
Person A sues person B.

Alternate scenario:

Person A creates thing 1.
Person B buys thing 1, illegally copies it, and uses it for their own personal enjoyment.
Person A doesn't care. Nothing happens.

You see how in the real world there are circumstances where the creators - the people who should be making these decisions, i.e. not you - make decisions based on circumstances and logic rather than ad-hoc policy?

[Princess Johnson]

I said to ignore what happened with the Compilation because I know that this is not why it was pulled. My question has nothing to do with that. It's just something that was brought up, and then the Nexus official declined to answer the actual question I asked.

I would prefer it if the permissions section defaulted to the most open permission possible rather than the most restrictive, as those authors who are most likely not to care if you use their mod without permission are also the ones most likely never to visit the website again and never to even think about changing the default settings, while those who would care are much more likely to actually mark their mod as such. Grandfathering people in under the restrictive settings/what they have currently set up is, of course, the way to go.

It's a lot harder to take away permissions than it is to grant them. It makes sense to me to default to the most restrictive option and allow authors to ease the restriction when and if they desire to. I could see situations where an author neglected to deny permissions, then came back later to find it too late to lock things down.

[ZANEY82]

I wish I had the money and backing/time/effort to make my own nexus.

Things I'd implement:
-anyone is allowed to repackage any mod as long as each and every mod links the original mod and names the original name+author (in case the link goes down they can still find it via google)
-ban all dike/furry/six mods
-allow people to give critical feedback to mod authors, not just deviantart levels of "well it's good! but you really should do it like this..." instead of what you should say "This mod svcks terribly, let me list the reasons why and what I thought up that you could do to fix it". Of course, if you're gonna blast a mod you can't just post "this svcks" and expect that to fly. Any level of long or short dissertation should be accepted as long as it's concise.
-allow model ports from other games (notably a grey area, but a welcome one imo)

Really though, I do like the nexus as it stands, and applaud the efforts of the admins to sustain it. I just disagree with how harshly they moderate most of the time, and the inability to "dislike" terrible mods that should disappear along with the authors of said mods into the aether. This recent pulling just frustrates me more for the first reason I listed.

edit: ugh then there was that one guy asking to make a nvde version of the shoujou mod (play as a little anime girl) made me sick to my stomach. At least a bunch of people downvoted his post effectively hiding it, but man that upset me.

[HARDHEAD]

While that's true, Kobu, I'd say to that author 'too bad, you were too lazy to read the bits, if you wanted that stuff to stay with you you should have said so'. I'd prefer it if the default state of content was free-for-all rather than you-touch-this-you-die.

[Charles Mckinna]

If the contributing author isn't the one complaining, then in what crazy-[censored] world do you live in where pulling the mod seems like a reasonable response?

One where the complaint isn't "Person A used Person B's work and it upsets me even though Person B is okay with it", but instead is "Person A admitted to using Person B's work without permission, which is in direct violation of the rules of your site" and where Person A's admission of having violated the rules is publicly viewable.

That makes it a reasonable response.

Edit: Gvaz and Langy wouldn't have very popular mod sites.

[Dina Boudreau]

Yes, open-source should be defaulted and an open fix section would be great because we need to stimulate the sharing behavior.

[Vivien]

One where the complaint isn't "Person A used Person B's work and it upsets me even though Person B is okay with it", but instead is "Person A admitted to using Person B's work without permission, which is in direct violation of the rules of your site" and where Person A's admission of having violated the rules is publicly viewable.

That makes it a reasonable response.

That's a problem with the rules, not a problem with the mod or the person(s).

[ZzZz]

That's a problem with the rules, not a problem with the mod or the person(s).

Those rules have made the Nexus incredibly successful and useful to the community. Using other people's work requires permission. Period. That's the way it works.

If you want to argue about the Nexus rules it should be in the Nexus forums.

[Liii BLATES]

I wish I had the money and backing/time/effort to make my own nexus.

Things I'd implement:
-anyone is allowed to repackage any mod as long as each and every mod links the original mod and names the original name+author (in case the link goes down they can still find it via google)

I uploaded an Oblivion quest mod of mine to Planet Elder Scrolls and Nexus. However I've seen several old versions around the internet, despite my wishes that it would not be repackaged or redistributed. The result was that I've gotten all sorts of e-mails from people about bugs they were experiencing, only for it to turn out that they were running an incredibly outdated version of the mod that someone uploaded somewhere a long time ago, or because someone thought it would be handy to throw a whole bunch of mods into a compilation without having any idea of what he was doing.

I don't want to have to worry about other versions circulating, separate or in buggy compilation packs.

[Nicole Elocin]

People taking words widely out of context ITT.

I'd like to know if I need to keep track of every person who makes a comment on one of my mods in case I want to allow someone else to use my mod in a compilation or something. If someone can be considered to have materially contributed to a mod enough to be required to be given credit to it just by saying, for example, 'that character over there doesn't have enough health. You should beef him up so he's a tougher opponent'

Of course not, that's just daft. If that person donates meshes, animations, textures, models etc. (e.g. more tangible assets) then yes, you probably should credit them.

If the contributing author isn't the one complaining, then in what crazy-[censored] world do you live in where pulling the mod seems like a reasonable response?

That crazy world called the Nexus; where we're still going strong after all these years.

[BEl J]

[quote name='Dark0ne' date='08 November 2010 - 06:44 PM' timestamp='1289256261' post='16651825'

That crazy world called the Nexus; where we're still going strong after all these years.
[/quote]
And as we all know, success = infallibility.

I agree that using people's work should require permission if they ask for it. However, such a rule shouldn't be enforced with this kind of knee-jerk ridiculousness. In this case, it's clear that Zenball went out of his way to get permission and whenever he asked for it he received it, but since this particular mod is more of a duct-tape hotfix than a permanent solution, he didn't feel it was necessary to track down every mod author and check with them to see if they wanted more people to be able to use their bugfixes. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, doesn't it seem pretty reasonable to you?

Forget about the rule, it's not important if it's getting in the way of the community well-being - which I'm guessing it is. This is at least MY most important mod for New Vegas; DarkOne, you'd be in a better position to tell us about its popularity since we can't access the page right now. For all my snark, I'm really just trying to point out how silly it is to get hung up on the rule when the problem is that tons of people are going to be without the best patch we've got for this game (well, after the d3d9 thing anyway).

[Jack Bryan]

I uploaded an Oblivion quest mod of mine to Planet Elder Scrolls and Nexus. However I've seen several old versions around the internet, despite my wishes that it would not be repackaged or redistributed. The result was that I've gotten all sorts of e-mails from people about bugs they were experiencing, only for it to turn out that they were running an incredibly outdated version of the mod that someone uploaded somewhere a long time ago, or because someone thought it would be handy to throw a whole bunch of mods into a compilation without having any idea of what he was doing.

I don't want to have to worry about other versions circulating, separate or in buggy compilation packs.

Well, yes. That situation I can agree with though I believe you can list the version of the mod in the .esp description right? I suppose you could make available (the website or the author of the repackage) to state if you're having a bug, to make sure you're using the latest version. The original mod author can have a banner that says "double check your mod version before posting". Kind of a hard thing to fix in terms of repackaging, with or without consent.

[Oyuki Manson Lavey]

I uploaded an Oblivion quest mod of mine to Planet Elder Scrolls and Nexus. However I've seen several old versions around the internet, despite my wishes that it would not be repackaged or redistributed. The result was that I've gotten all sorts of e-mails from people about bugs they were experiencing, only for it to turn out that they were running an incredibly outdated version of the mod that someone uploaded somewhere a long time ago, or because someone thought it would be handy to throw a whole bunch of mods into a compilation without having any idea of what he was doing.

I don't want to have to worry about other versions circulating, separate or in buggy compilation packs.

This is one reason why I do not give out my e-mail address with mods I release. If people encounter a problem, they can PM me either on the Nexus or on these forums, the only two places where I've linked my mods (though if you PM me on the Nexus I might not respond for a while, since I don't always stay logged-in there or notice when it logs me out for some unknown reason).