New "Permission Grants" field for mod uploads

[Arthmoor]

Bethesda has initiated a public discussion on the subject of mod permissions for PC ports to XBox (and presumably Playstation as well). As part of this, the discussion covers a change in policy regarding how to provide proof of permission. Cartogriffi has posted the details here:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/12163193-bethesdanet-mods-is-revising-its-port-rules-we-would-like-your-feedback/

The tl;dr of it though is that they want proof of permissions to be available in a public way for easy validation in the event of a report made to the Bethesda.net site. This has in turn led to how to provide that notification. On Nexus, the matter is relatively straightforward and people can just use the additional permissions box on their mods to specify who has permission to do what.

From discussion on the BGS Discord, it's become apparent that several of the regular members in the XBox ports community in general have already adopted the proposed change and have been getting mod authors to include a publicly visible grant of permissions. So it seems like it's already more or less a thing even though it hasn't been made official yet.

To that end, I have added a field to the mod upload form (and the mod update form if all went right) for both Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4 - currently the only 2 games which have mod support at Bethesda.net. This field need not be entirely focused on using it only for this purpose, but that's what prompted it. So you can also feel free to use it to specify specific permission grants for other reasons too.

Even if Bethesda ultimately chooses to do nothing (which isn't likely) this field will remain for you to use if you so choose.

[Scythe Bearer]

That's as good a solution as any.  It moves the burden of proof from the one receiving permission (where the accusations of fakery lie) to the one giving permission.  Now the person doing the port needs to ensure their grant of permission is recorded before proceeding with the actual work.

[Arthmoor]

Rewrote the post to make it more clear as to why this came up, and added a link to the public Nexus forum topic on the subject. If you'd prefer instead to discuss it on Discord, Bethesda has set up a port-rules-chat channel on their official server.

Please feel free to let us know if you think this new field would be useful for other games to. It can be expanded with relative ease even though it's somewhat tedious to click through it all in the admin panel.