http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/previews/10388-Hands-On-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-svcked-Me-In-Instantly

"One thing I noticed poking around the menus was a menu that said "Mods". Opening it up didn't show any mods installed, but there were buttons that seem to let you enable or disable mods for specific characters. Hopefully this means ESO will have mod support as robust as the single-player franchise. Fingers crossed - I think that kind of functionality would increase the game's popularity with fans sevenfold.
Read more at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/previews/10388-Hands-On-The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-svcked-Me-In-Instantly#qrOowiMqegi7DF6l.99"

This is new to me. Not sure if it's common knowledge and I missed it, and it's probably just GUI, but this could be awesome

Yep, we've known about mods since PAX I believe. They will be LUA based and just UI type mods. The part about having an in game interface for them is new though I think.

Yep, just like Pang said, we have known since PAX that there will be UI mods in the game. Don't expect that you will be able to mod this game like you can the single player games. But the mod interface is something new, and that is a really nice feature for them to add and be able to control while in-game.

That author clearly isn't aware of modding an mmo if he thinks you can put nexus-esque mods on a multi player game..

No doubt you couldn't have all the types of mods that are on Nexus and just think them into TESO, but there are a good few which could be.

I'm hoping they've reconsidered it and are adding in a degree of modding outside of LUA but I'm not going to hype myself up for this.

They said at the moment they would only do LUA, UI modding, but might look into the future maybe opening it up some more. But I'm not sure if I truly believe that, because you really need to limit how far people will be allowed to mod an MMO.

Modding outside of UI mods and the like would allow for incredibly unfair advantages.

Modding as we see it in the single-player games just isn't viable. It's almost certainly going to be restricted to UI mods, as others have noted.

However, holding a few contests to design extra hairstyles, armour sets, weapons and (maybe) architecture/enemies would be interesting. It allows some degree of third party input while being sufficiently regulated by the staff.

wondering why these news writers can't do there homework and do some research.

Absolutely, not only in terms of what the mod is but also with what is included in the mod. For example you wouldn't be able to have a plugin that adds in a underground value loaded with money. It would be something closely monitored as well.