What is wrong with nexus admins?

[zilav]

A small story that happened recently with one of my first "mods" on nexus.

People probably know that I'm not a mod maker, I prefer to do modding via programming of tools to help other mod makers and users. That's what I do in real life too - making other people life easier.

So Fallout 4 is out now, and surely I play it too an enjoy a lot. But one thing bugged me since Fallout 3 and unfortunately it remainded unchanged - hacking minigames. I just don't like them personally: you can't fail at them, they don't take a lot of skill, they just take time. The time I prefer to spend exploring and killing mutants. But instead I'm forced stay in one place, count and remember letters in my head, put eyestrain on my not so young eyes while looking at horrible terminal screen. And even if I fail 3 attempts, I just exit and start over, and over again. Why did Bethesda allow to reset attempts when exiting terminals is beyond my understanding, it just beats the purpose of that minigame and makes it impossible to fail at the expense of spent time.

I went on Fallout 4 nexus to check if something is already there to fix my problem. Unfortunately it was 12 Nov, too early for mods to pop up except for texture replacers. So I had to create such mod myself to display only single correct password. Finally my game became perfect and I'm enjoying it at 100%. Then a thought came into my mind - maybe I'm not the only one who doesn't like hacking? And those people are too checking nexus right now in desperate attempt to find a solution? Lets share it since the mod works as intended as I playtested it myself, be a good guy

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/266

 

I was right about not only me not liking hacking, but (un)fortunately the other peson happened to be Gopher. He decided to use this mod too and featured it his modding video on youtube. And it exploded... over 30k+ downloads in a week. xEdit usually takes few months to reach such numbers for comparison. I don't care for downloads, endorsements or any other similar statistics regarding modding. As I said - I'm not a mod maker. But it also attracted a lot of people who decided that this is a cheating and should be in that category, while I placed it under gameplay changes. Well, it changed gameplay for me in a better way, so why not. I tried to reply to several comments, but was quickly overwhelmed, so I just put a sticky post and left it as is.

 

But yesterday I opened nexus in browser and had a notice waiting... "21 Nov 2015 Attribute change: category changed to 'Cheats and God items' (Zaldiir)". Mmm... who is this guy? I don't know him, never spoke with him, never seen him posting anything in comments, no PMs from him, and he just came and editied my mod without any prior notification. Admins can manipulate mods for sure, it is their job in the end, but I always thought that should happen with mods that violate rules, like nudity mods not being tagged properly, copyright violations, etc.

 

My first thought was maybe I missed something in Nexus rules and I'm oblidged to put in the right category (though categorizing a mod is always subjective), and admins do that with other mods too. Maybe it is just a common practice on Nexus. Lets check similar mods for previous games:

Easy Unlocking -  Easy Hacking - indeed under cheats, but looking at changes log it was an author's decision

Quick Hacking New Vegas - nope, gameplay

Hacking Terminals is easier - gameplay too

No lockpicking - miscellaneous

Easy lockpicking - audio

And those mods for FO3, FNV and SKyrim been there for years under "wrong" category, no problem from Zaldiir.

 

What about Fallout 4 nexus?

Easier Hacking with Options - the same mod that changes the same gamesetting, under gameplay category. Still no sight of Zaldiir.

 

Okay, and what about mods that are more likely to be considered cheating (some user even listed them in comments for comparison)

More Armor Slots - "this mod well pretty much allow you to wear those 5 extra piece of armor on anything that usually takes all the slots", under gameplay. Wear 2x the amount of armor and get 2x benefits. It is not cheating obviously.

Configurable Power Armor Core Fusion Drain - want infinite power armor? It is gameplay.

etc.

 

So what just happened is some people either reported my mod to admins, or one of them read the comments, and they took action. Now who bitching about "cheating" in comments? I counted around 20 users more or less, considering 33k+ unique downloads as of now it is 0.06%. In other words the absolute but very vocal minority forced admins to submiss and do what they want.

 

What is wrong with nexus admins?

 

[Arthmoor]

Zaldiir is a reasonable guy. If you contact him and explain the situation, and point out your other examples, I'm sure he'll understand. I wouldn't move it back to the other category without contact him though, just in case.

 

Your mod, IMO, does not qualify as a cheat mod. Hell, I'm tempted to use it myself for many of the same reasons. Fail 3 attempts, exit terminal. Reopen. Get 3 more free bites. If what you did is cheating, then Bethesda allowed it to begin with. You just cut out the unnecessary middle steps.

 

I'm probably dumb or something too, cause I never really got the "game" you're supposed to be playing to hack anyway. So you'd be making things that much less of a hassle for people like me who simply don't get it.

 

Also, lol, Someone uploaded a fancier incarnation of the same thing I just put up here tonight for fusion cores I see I'm not the only one after all who thinks they drain way too fast, but yes, I would probably not object if someone called it out as a cheat either cause it basically is.

[Deathbydestiny]

I have always found the nexus admins to be a bit heavy handed (To put it nicely ). So don't take it personally, it's just how the ship is run.

 

I find that if you raise a stink about something you are likely to get banned for it. This is why you wont ever see me comment on things on nexus.

[Hana]

My assumption would be that someone reported it. And yes, the vocal minority over there always seems to win.

 

Sometimes, as admins, we don't always get the big picture or the reasoning from both sides, it's more of an "act first" situation. I would think the number of complaints / reports they get over there just compounds this unfortunate situation.

 

I agree with Arthmoor. Contact Zaldiir and ask him - in a calm tone (and I can't stress this enough) - why. Explain your thinking like you did here. Be prepared though, the outcome could still end up not in your favour, with no change for you and those other mods changed too. Is it so bad to be in that category?

 

Also, congrats on the popular mod.

[zilav]

Thanks for replies, but I won't contact him and won't be changing anything. As I said, I don't care about the mod itself. But an admin listening to a couple of trolls who didn't even download mod... this is definitely not right. Now I uderstand why Nexus has drama bombs from time to time, always thought that it has something to do with particular mod authors, but now not so sure.

[Arthmoor]

Unfortunately it's an ingrained culture for the most part there. Drama seems to be the big thing on Nexus. Mostly from the userbase, but some mod authors revel in it too, and yes, occasionally a moderator or admin will as well. The hope is their new community manager guy will start setting a proper tone for the others to follow and maybe - just maybe - it will work its way down through the drama-prone authors and into the userbase in general. Will likely take a long time to undo years of habit though, if it ever works.

[Mator]

Pretty sucky.  :/

[Roy Batty]

Abusive... best to just avoid the mods.

[Zaldir]

Sorry about that. After some consideration, I've set it back to Gameplay Effects and Changes. Basically, this was before I had played the game much, and I didn't know that you could never be completely locked out of a terminal. If you could be completely locked out, I would still consider this a cheat mod, since it removes a fail state from the game, but since there is no fail state in that minigame, this is no cheat.

 

And Hana sums up moderation work pretty well.

If I ever go bald, it will most likely be due to all the hairpulling caused by in(s)ane reports...

 

 

 

EDIT:

Oh, and don't worry about contacting me about anything moderation related (or.. anything really). I've had pages long PM "conversations" with Nazi sympathizers trying to explain their situation, with no repercussions for them, so I doubt any PM you'd send my way would land you in any trouble.

[skylu]

A small story that happened recently with one of my first "mods" on nexus.

People probably know that I'm not a mod maker, I prefer to do modding via programming of tools to help other mod makers and users. That's what I do in real life too - making other people life easier.

So Fallout 4 is out now, and surely I play it too an enjoy a lot. But one thing bugged me since Fallout 3 and unfortunately it remainded unchanged - hacking minigames. I just don't like them personally: you can't fail at them, they don't take a lot of skill, they just take time. The time I prefer to spend exploring and killing mutants. But instead I'm forced stay in one place, count and remember letters in my head, put eyestrain on my not so young eyes while looking at horrible terminal screen. And even if I fail 3 attempts, I just exit and start over, and over again. Why did Bethesda allow to reset attempts when exiting terminals is beyond my understanding, it just beats the purpose of that minigame and makes it impossible to fail at the expense of spent time.

I went on Fallout 4 nexus to check if something is already there to fix my problem. Unfortunately it was 12 Nov, too early for mods to pop up except for texture replacers. So I had to create such mod myself to display only single correct password. Finally my game became perfect and I'm enjoying it at 100%. Then a thought came into my mind - maybe I'm not the only one who doesn't like hacking? And those people are too checking nexus right now in desperate attempt to find a solution? Lets share it since the mod works as intended as I playtested it myself, be a good guy

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/266

 

I was right about not only me not liking hacking, but (un)fortunately the other peson happened to be Gopher. He decided to use this mod too and featured it his modding video on youtube. And it exploded... over 30k+ downloads in a week. xEdit usually takes few months to reach such numbers for comparison. I don't care for downloads, endorsements or any other similar statistics regarding modding. As I said - I'm not a mod maker. But it also attracted a lot of people who decided that this is a cheating and should be in that category, while I placed it under gameplay changes. Well, it changed gameplay for me in a better way, so why not. I tried to reply to several comments, but was quickly overwhelmed, so I just put a sticky post and left it as is.

 

But yesterday I opened nexus in browser and had a notice waiting... "21 Nov 2015 Attribute change: category changed to 'Cheats and God items' (Zaldiir)". Mmm... who is this guy? I don't know him, never spoke with him, never seen him posting anything in comments, no PMs from him, and he just came and editied my mod without any prior notification. Admins can manipulate mods for sure, it is their job in the end, but I always thought that should happen with mods that violate rules, like nudity mods not being tagged properly, copyright violations, etc.

 

My first thought was maybe I missed something in Nexus rules and I'm oblidged to put in the right category (though categorizing a mod is always subjective), and admins do that with other mods too. Maybe it is just a common practice on Nexus. Lets check similar mods for previous games:

Easy Unlocking -  Easy Hacking - indeed under cheats, but looking at changes log it was an author's decision

Quick Hacking New Vegas - nope, gameplay

Hacking Terminals is easier - gameplay too

No lockpicking - miscellaneous

Easy lockpicking - audio

And those mods for FO3, FNV and SKyrim been there for years under "wrong" category, no problem from Zaldiir.

 

What about Fallout 4 nexus?

Easier Hacking with Options - the same mod that changes the same gamesetting, under gameplay category. Still no sight of Zaldiir.

 

Okay, and what about mods that are more likely to be considered cheating (some user even listed them in comments for comparison)

More Armor Slots - "this mod well pretty much allow you to wear those 5 extra piece of armor on anything that usually takes all the slots", under gameplay. Wear 2x the amount of armor and get 2x benefits. It is not cheating obviously.

Configurable Power Armor Core Fusion Drain - want infinite power armor? It is gameplay.

etc.

 

So what just happened is some people either reported my mod to admins, or one of them read the comments, and they took action. Now who bitching about "cheating" in comments? I counted around 20 users more or less, considering 33k+ unique downloads as of now it is 0.06%. In other words the absolute but very vocal minority forced admins to submiss and do what they want.

 

What is wrong with nexus admins?

Hi everyone, first post here.

 

 

You are right zilav, they don't seem to measure it all by the same pattern.

 

I published Fallout 4 -Tweaks, it has the same hacking system as yours (I didn't know you were going to publish yours), plus other tweaks that could or not be classified as cheats.

 

It's still there under Gameplay Effects and Changes.

 

Also 2 of my mods have just been deleted when what I was doing was sharing a logo to try to unify the Settlement System and other for the Crafting System, I had no notice and when asked (Mikalov) didn't even answered me.

This has been done before, people created logos like Jokerine with the Free campaign.

 

I should have been told if there was something wrong with these mods and why they're breaching something. After they should give me the opportunity to change it and republish it after correction. I got no answer, don't know if I can publish it anymore after alterations and my time of creating the pages was just wasted.

 

It looks as sometimes depends who's on duty there, depends on their mood and their personal preferences.

 

Best

 

Keep up the good work everyone!