[Decision] Alternate Modding Staff Proposal

[Commissar Caligula_]

Since Pike's proposal isn't going anywhere, I figured I'd just create my own modding staff proposal. Its a bit barebones, but I reckon once its actually up and running the Staff will iron everything out and expand their operations.

1: Everything in this FIRST POST is what we're voting on.
2: Everything in the SECOND POST are mere suggestions for the Modding Staff. We're not voting on whether or not to implement them, because they're either not 100% fleshed out yet or they might be controversial.

Introduction

Total War Center is all about mods (or at least it should be), and personally I feel like its been seriously let down in this regard. Out of the 60 or so staff members on TWCenter, only one of them deals with modding - Gigantus.
I feel the official modding side of TWC is in a massive slump (just look at the activity in the previous few Mod Awards) and if no-one bothers to take the first step, nothing will get done.

So here's my proposal for how the modding staff should be set up.

The Role of Modding Staff

Personally, PikeStances' proposal would have made Modding Staff an administrative paper-work body. My proposal is that they be more hands on.

The Modding Staff should be an active body of members who have modding experience that enables them to help modders with issues they may, eg what the rules about obtaining permission to use someone elses' work are and whether the LAA is allowed (its not), and be able to either answer, or direct a modder to the right resource, for specific modding questions such as how to create new units, how to create a campaign, how to change sprites, ect.
They should basically be modders who have an official platform to advance the interests of their fellow modders, rather than solely doing administrative work such as filing mods in the Registry/Vault.

● Answer modding related questions, or help modders find the correct resource
● Assist Frunk with his "Announcements from Mods & Hosted Mods" threads
● Connect modder's with the various additional resources detailed in the 2nd post (if they are made)
● Keep the Mod Register up to date
● (This would be dependant on Hex approval) Act as local moderators within the individual Hosted Modifications, Modifications and Mod Workshop areas of the forums for each game

○ They would only be allowed to perform local mod actions, such as moving threads to the correct section and would NOT perform actual moderator functions such as deleting posts or infracting people

● (This would be dependant on Hex approval) Act as local moderators of the Modding Discussion and Resources forum
● (This would be dependant on Hex approval) Run the yearly TWC Modding Awards

Requirements to Join

Modding Director:

● Must be a skilled modder (preferably Artifex and/or Opifex level) for at least 2 of the different "sets" of games from the Total War series as defined below
Even if you can mod Rome 2 and Attila, since they function nearly the exact same they only count as one "set"

○ Rome 1
○ Medieval 2
○ Empire or Napoleon
○ Shogun 2
○ Rome 2, Attila or Thrones of Britannia
○ Warhammer 1 or 2

Modding Staff:

● Must have general modding knowledge for the "set" of games they are assigned to
They do not need to be as skilled as an Artifex, but they MUST be able to mod to a certain degree as decided by the Director & Modding Hex

At the bare minimum, there should be at least 1 staff member per "set" of games. Ideally I would prefer 12 staff members in total, with 2 specialising in each "set" but that would probably take a while to build up to.
The reason for 2 per "set" is that if one of the pair is inactive or busy, the other person can still keep things running.

The reason for dividing the games up into "sets" is that even if a modder has never played Rome 2, if they have experience at modding Attila they will be able to roughly help someone. In addition, it means that we ensure all of the modding community is covered and there aren't a lack of, or too many, Modding Staff for a particular section.

[Commissar Caligula_]

These are just suggestions, we are not voting on them and they should not affect whether you vote Yes or No to the general idea of a Modding Staff as detailed in the first post.
This post is mainly me just listing all of my thoughts, since I'm leaving TWC soon so I may as well have everything in one place.

TWCenter and its relationship with Steam, Patreon and Discord

I don't think that TWC can compete with Steam in terms of hosting mods for the more recent games. Therefore, we should allow modders to host their mods on Steam (atm you aren't guaranteed Artifex/Opifex or a spot in the Mod Awards if you don't provide a non-Steam download link), and instead use TWC to its advantage by promoting it as a place to discuss a mod and interact with the modders in a forum, rather than something with a "15 minute news cycle" like Reddit or Discord.

FYI for those who don't know or are a bit vague on the details, basically with Steam...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You upload the mod and give it a title, description, pictures, videos and other resources
Players browse the Steam Workshop to find mods that they are interested in, and click the Subscribe button
The mod starts downloading automatically, and they are able to play it as soon as it is finished
If the creator decides to update it in the future, they simply make the changes on their end and click "Update"
The next time that other players launch the game of choice, it will update their mods to the latest version

The advantages of this over non-automatically updating sources is that if you want to release a tiny patch that fixes a single value, you can at the click of a button.
You don't have to re-upload the entire mod, get a different link and make sure every single person knows they have to redownload everything for a tiny patch.

I do think Moderation and Hex need to cement their stance on Patreon and Discord links however. Nowadays, nearly every single mod on the Steam Mod Workshop for the new Total War games has a link to the modder's Patreon.
So we either allow modders/teams to post links to their Patreons (which I'm against) and Discords or we don't. There is a discussion about Patreon links here.

The TWC Modding Awards

If the Modding Staff (when/if they're established, and if they take over the Committee) want to get a handle on the Modding Awards and its problems, here is a thread and here are my suggestions.

The Modder's Hub & Forum Overhaul

The Modder's Hub:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Modder's Hub is a thread that Dingkuhn and I made, where modders for Total War: Attila could share open source resources for fellow modders to use. The stuff that was shared included Models & Textures, Animations & Skeletons, Tools & Tutorials plus some helpful information such as Modding Acronyms/Terms and what I called "Minor Unique Tweaks" which were "small mods that change things no-one else has ever done, so people can think of trying that type of modding themselves".

I think it was a really good idea, and the Modding Staff would be doing a really good service if they continued the idea, and spread it to all the other games as well.

Now for my forum overhaul suggestion, which incorporates the idea of the Modder's Hub:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Basically, the Modding Discussion and Resources forum is a dead wasteland. My suggestions all revolve around (hopefully) making this forum MUCH more active, and MUCH more accessible. The idea is to make it much easier for potential modders to be able to find information, for users to be able to find a huge list of mods, and for current modders to be able to find a huge list/community of fellow modders to communicate with generally + for their specific game and to centralise everything.

The Forum Itself
First of all, I'd propose renaming it to The Modder's Hub. I'd envision it looking like this.

The Modder's Hub

All-in-One Mod Registry
All-in-One Modder's Profiles
General Discussion
Useful Modding-related Programs (could be incorporated into the Resources, Tutorials & More thread for each game)
Modding Guidelines (probably outdated and needs to be remade)
The Beta Tester's Handbook (probably outdated and needs to be remade)
Official CA comment - Total War: The modding situation (probably outdated)
Upload Sites (probably outdated and needs to be remade. It could probably be incorporated into the Resources, Tutorials & More thread for each game as well)

Modder's Classified Ads and The H.E.L.P Project combined (for mod teams to advertise that they need modders)
Modder's Profiles (if modders want to create a thread talking about their skills and list their mods)
The Modder's Hub: Rome

Rome: Mod Registry
Rome: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Medieval 2

Medieval 2: Mod Registry
Medieval 2: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Empire

Empire: Mod Registry
Empire: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Napoleon

Napoleon: Mod Registry
Napoleon: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Shogun 2

Shogun 2: Mod Registry
Shogun 2: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Rome 2

Rome 2: Mod Registry
Rome 2: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Attila

Attila: Mod Registry
Attila: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Warhammer

Warhammer: Mod Registry
Warhammer: Resources, Tutorials & More

The Modder's Hub: Warhammer 2

Warhammer 2: Mod Registry
Warhammer 2: Resources, Tutorials & More

I still don't understand how the Modding Vault works, so I haven't included it in my plans.


I propose that we add sub-forum redirects at the top of every single Total War subforum. Look at the Total War: Attila General Discussion subforum. One of the stickied subforums at the top is actually a redirect to the After Action Reports Section. I propose we either...
Add a redirect like that either to every single subforum, eg Attila's

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

General Discussion
Hosted Modifications
Campaign Map Modifications
Battle Map Modifications
Overhauls, Compilations and Miscellaneous
WIPS, Ideas and Proposals
ESF Editing
DB Editing and Scripting
3D Animation, Modeling and Graphics
Sounds and Media
Miscellaneous
Tools, Tutorials and Resources

OR add a redirect like that to every game's main forum. Eg add in a redirect alongside the other four main sub-forums

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Total War: Attila General Discussion
Total War: Attila Hosted Modifications
Total War: Attila Modifications
Total War: Attila Mod Workshop

The reason for this is that finding the Mod Registers and other info should be as easy as possible.

All mods and tutorials would still be posted in their individual threads, eg Attila Hosted Mods, Attila Campaign Map Modifications or Tools, Tutorials and Resources. The Modding Hub would just store lists of all of these individual threads.

The Mod Watch

This would be stepping on Content's toes a bit, but personally I don't think that is a good enough reason to completely write off this idea. Content should either collaborate with the Modding Staff on it, or just let the Modding Staff have their own publication.
The Mods Watch is an already existing thing in the Hotseat section, so this proposal might need a different name

I've got two ideas for how this could work. Either way, this publication would mostly be written by the mod teams themselves, whoever runs it would just put it together.

Option 1

Every month, a new article is published with progress reports on every Hosted Mod (that wanted to get involved) for each game. This would include a short passage on... What the mod team has been up to A change log Some screenshots, 2D art or content art Where the mod is heading to in the future January = Rome 1 and Medieval 2 February = Empire and Napoleon March = Shogun 2 April = Rome 2 May = Attila June = Warhammer 1 and 2 July = Rome 1 and Medieval 2 August = Empire and Napoleon September = Shogun 2 October = Rome 2 November = Attila December = Warhammer 1 and 2

Option 2

Or, every six months we release just one article which has progress reports for every single Hosted Mod (that wanted to get involved) for every single Total War game. This would include a short passage on... What the mod team has been up to A change log Some screenshots, 2D art or content art Where the mod is heading to in the future

First Draft of What It'd Look Like (a rip-off of The Illustrator, it'd probably have to create its own style)

[insert The Mod Watch banner] Introduction Either every month (or every six months) we get the mod teams behind Hosted Mods to provide info on their mods such as updates since last time, what they’re working on currently, their plans for the mod and like 2 screenshots and 1 Youtube video. This would allow people to go to a single source to get info on the mods they like, and to find info on heaps of other mods that they may be interested in. The Mod Watch Editors Editor 1 Editor 2 Editor 3 Editor 4 Table of Contents [template] 1. Ancient Empires 2. Medieval Kingdoms 3. Radious Total War 4. Rise of Mordor [template] Click Here to View What is ___ mod? ___ mod is... Updates Since the last update, we have done the following things... Current Work Currently ___ mod is working on... Plans for the Future Our roadmap for the future is to ... We hope to have ... completed by ... We are struggling with ... We could really use some more team members who are skilled in ... 1. Ancient Empires Click Here to View What is Ancient Empires? Ancient Empires is... Updates Since the last update, we have done the following things... Current Work Currently ___ mod is working on... Plans for the Future Our roadmap for the future is to ... We hope to have ... completed by ... We are struggling with ... We could really use some more team members who are skilled in ... 2. Medieval Kingdoms Click Here to View insert info 3. Radious Total War Click Here to View insert info 4. Rise of Mordor Click Here to View What is Rise of Mordor? Rise of Mordor is... Updates Since the last update, we have done the following things... Current Work Currently ___ mod is working on... Plans for the Future Our roadmap for the future is to ... We hope to have ... completed by ... We are struggling with ... We could really use some more team members who are skilled in ... That is all for this edition of The Mod Watch! We sincerely hope that you enjoyed the read and that you will be here next time... ~The Mod Watch

Modder Interviews

Same as above - This would be stepping on Content's toes a lot, but personally I don't think that is a good enough reason to completely write off this idea. Basically the Eagle Standard already does written interviews, and the Media Hub does videos. Since the Media Hub is being revitalised though, it would make sense for them to make the videos, whilst perhaps the Modding Staff could get the modders in contact with the Media Hub.

The basic idea is that you get a modder/mod team, download their mod and vs them in a multiplayer battle using their mod, whilst interviewing them about thier mod. You'd need:

- The Youtube channel
- Someone (or a team of people) with a good interviewing personality and bearable voice
- Interviewers who have most/all of the Total War games
- Access to recording equipment (NVIDIA Shadowplay, Discord/Skype/Teamspeak and a microphone are good enough)
- Access to basic editing software just to trim stuff. Advanced video editing skills probably wouldn't be required.

I reckon that Youtube videos are more exciting and accessible, and they allow you to get a feel for the mod by seeing gameplay.

[Commissar Caligula_]

Here's some thoughts that Demokritos sent me.

I don't think a grand reorganization of the site around mods is necessary. All it takes to make TWC more user-friendly in this regard, I think, is to keep the mod registry updated in both titles and categories, and then perhaps give the Search option for the site added functionality. For example, make the Search option more visible by placing it centrally on the Home page with the text "Looking for a particular mod? Search TWC's complete Mod Registry here: ". If you happen to look for the alternatives in recoloured uniforms mods for R2TW and therefore enter the keywords r2tw released "recoloured uniforms mod", the Search engine must produce a list of such mods which have been released and nothing else. I tested the current Search engine of the site in like manner and got 345 hits, most of it irrelevant, some even from other games than r2tw. Other keywords may have produced better results, but you get the idea: TWC could do better in helping people who're looking for something in particular in mods.

Employing new staff with the duty to try helping people with their mod issues is a very good idea. Currently many people appear to be left stranded with their mod queries or projects, as no-one takes the time to help them, even if the knowledge is out there. TWC could honour the modders more and be more of service to mod users by simply keeping the mod registry up tp date. Better still would be to regularly publish a presentation of the alternatives in each category, including a resumé of the perceived pros and cons. A lot of people are asking about the "best" mod for whatever, so I'm sure such publications would be much appreciated. A suitable time for more neutral publications of this sort would be just before the voting stage of the annual awards. TWC help with promotion of mods on other sites (like wikis) would also be very nice. All of which requires staff dedicated to the thing.

When it comes to nominations of awards and badges related to mod contributions, TWC does not currently show their recognition of modders and their work by requesting the modders themselves to do the nominating. If the representatives of TWC nominated modders for their work to awards or badges, that would be a form of recognition (which many modders would appreciate, I think).

[SharpEyed]

I agree that it should be up and running as soon as it can. The rest will come in time.

Ok.. So 'the vote we must' part.
First of all, an easy Support from me.

*Work sharing can be decided by Modding Hex (which is the good old, one and only Gigantus) so I don't worry about that.
*Agree that Modding knowledge should be required, but let's not keep the bar so high for the time being ey?
Things will settle in time and hopefully the standards will rise a bit.
*Modding Staff/Director neither should interfere with the Modder/s, nor try to dictate anything.
Guide him/her, and help if asked.

I'm saying these because it's best to take precautions beforehand. And also because, to do this explicitly without causing any doubt/drawback among Modders. (or anyone else)


I'll try to comment about the rest later on,
Cheers

[Commissar Caligula_]

I agree that it should be up and running as soon as it can. The rest will come in time.

Ok.. So 'the vote we must' part.
First of all, an easy Support from me.

*Work sharing can be decided by Modding Hex (which is the good old, one and only Gigantus) so I don't worry about that.
*Agree that Modding knowledge should be required, but let's not keep the bar so high for the time being ey? Things will settle in time and hopefully the standards will rise a bit.
*Modding Staff/Director neither should interfere with the Modder/s, nor try to dictate anything.
Guide him/her, and help if asked.

I'm saying these because it's best to take precautions beforehand. And also because, to do this explicitly without causing any doubt/drawback among Modders. (or anyone else)


I'll try to comment about the rest later on,
Cheers

Something like "Modding staff cannot interfere with, or hinder, a modder's work, unless a clear rule has been broken such as using another modder's work without permission"?
That could prevent situations where a modding staff could abuse their power if they had a bad relationship with a particular modder, and wanted to hinder their mod. Its probably not going to be needed, but may as well include it?

Since Gig's the only one with experience with this stuff I'll try to get him in here.

[SharpEyed]

Something like "Modding staff cannot interfere with, or hinder, a modder's work, unless a clear rule has been broken such as using another modder's work without permission"?
That could prevent situations where a modding staff could abuse their power if they had a bad relationship with a particular modder, and wanted to hinder their mod. Its probably not going to be needed, but may as well include it?

Since Gig's the only one with experience with this stuff I'll try to get him in here.

Yea something like that.
Believe me, some Modders tend to get offended quite fast and leave the place once and for all.

It's like everyone is on a holiday these days

Edit:
Now I finally reading the 2nd post and There are some great ideas!
And Demokritos also has some good points.

Meanwhile I'll try to address 2 things for the time being:

*TWC's attitude towards Patreon linking: Here
*Automated stuff (and fixed link) isn't especial to Steam or others. Mediafire also has it (which I tried to explain back in the day: Here )
It has the Drag & Drop feature also. But unfortunately I don't think many knows about these.

[Iskar]

This sounds good. I don't have that much experience with modding, so I'll leave the discussion of the details to you guys, but I can already support it as it is and will likely support subsequent version as well.

[SharpEyed]

This sounds good. I don't have that much experience with modding, so I'll leave the discussion of the details to you guys, but I can already support it as it is and will likely support subsequent version as well.

In my opinion we should (somehow) advertise this thread as much as possible, because it is important for Modders and I believe it will affect the Future of this forum. (To what degree is yet to be seen thou.)

[Gigantus]

I'll have to go through it with a fine comb at some stage - but there are some first impressions:

1. There will be no additional LMs in the hosted mod forums - the last thing I want is to solve disagreements between a mod leader (who is the LM of his mod forum) and such a LM. Arising issues are to be discussed with a department head. Rule breaks are to be referred to moderation stuff via PM (hosted forum issues) or reports (other modding forums).
2. Patreon - it will eventually percolate through: there is no problem providing a link to one's patreon site as long as you post productively, see the off topic rule,and don't solicit (eg 'join\support my site to get early previews').
3. Discord - not sure what the exact problem is ('official' channel, individual channels?), it's basically a chat medium used for easy, real time communication. Would need some more details to know what the issue is.
4. Registry - not a smart idea from a maintenance point to physically move the individually summaries and individual posts all over the place. Rather link to the relevant summary from the forum via a redirect sticky.

Observation: speaking with view of the M2TW forum (my haunt) - there are always some members about that try to help other members (trawl the workshops and you will notice the regulars), those could be the first stop to approach for posts as envisioned here.

[Gaius Baltar]

In general this makes sense. As for the Modding Vault (mentioned in post #2), when originally proposed, it was to be a repository for all files related top a mod, including early versions. Not sure where they went off the rails or why it is still not operating. I think revitalizing it could be beneficial to the board and the modding environment in general.

Support.

[Veteraan]

First of all, thank you for the effort of putting this up here.

I would like to see such an initiative be successful, but it will be quite challenging to find (and keep) enough people to run this as things are now. For instance, I would not qualify for the job, although I spend a lot of time being active in a mod team and performing some other mod related activities and have been doing so for quite some time by now. I have done very little "hardcore modding" though and what I have done in that regard is all MTW2 stuff. But, even when I would qualify, I simply don't have the time to take this on.

This is a Curia proposal, does that mean only Citizens can be part of the modding staff?
Despite the problems that there currently may be with organizing the Modding awards, both members and Citizens can be part of the modding committee and that is a big help in getting enough people to pull it of. Also there is a Hex that manages it, which is definitely a bonus in my view. Well, perhaps things have changed since I was a member of it, as that was some years ago.

Gigantus has already stated that there will be no additional LMs in the hosted mod forums. I fully agree with this, being a Local Mod in the TATW forum. Although I am of course not the Mod leader of that impressive peace of modding.
It would be better to remove the Local Mod stuff from the proposal as it has no chance of being implemented. Perhaps it is also good to see if Gig has already found some time to deploy his fine comb, before putting this up for a vote.

[Commissar Caligula_]

4. Registry - not a smart idea from a maintenance point to physically move the individually summaries and individual posts all over the place. Rather link to the relevant summary from the forum via a redirect sticky.

I don't really see why not. It'd be a pain in the arse to reorganise I guess, but that's just a one-off thing. Anyways its just a secondary suggestion thats seperate from the proposal.

---

This is a Curia proposal, does that mean only Citizens can be part of the modding staff?

No. The Curia would just vote on it, and then Hex would take control and anyone who gets appointed by Hex would just be a normal staff member. It wouldn't have any ties to the Curia besides us having voted it into existence.

Gigantus has already stated that there will be no additional LMs in the hosted mod forums. I fully agree with this, being a Local Mod in the TATW forum. Although I am of course not the Mod leader of that impressive peace of modding. It would be better to remove the Local Mod stuff from the proposal as it has no chance of being implemented.

Yea may as well.

Perhaps it is also good to see if Gig has already found some time to deploy his fine comb, before putting this up for a vote.

Yep agreed.

---

As I said before:
"Agree that Modding knowledge should be required, but let's not keep the bar so high for the time being ey? Things will settle in time and hopefully the standards will rise a bit."

And no I don't think this Modding staff thing should be Citizen (or Artifex) thing only. No other staff is, why would be this now?
He of course didn't say it should be though. (There is an 'or' )

Whoever becomes Hex/Director will ultimately have control over who gets into the team, so honestly they can just completely disregard the requirements I've suggested since we've got 0 control over them. The requirements for a normal Modding Staff aren't meant to be restricted to only ultra-modders, but they are meant to ensure that only people who can actually mod become Modding Staff. So long as they've got a basic/working understanding of the games they're assigned to and can answer questions/direct people to the right location.

For the Director, I've just said they should be "Artifex or Opifex level" to indicate the level of skill they should have. They don't need to have those ranks, but should be at the same level of skill/knowledge with regards to modding. It all boils down to my idea that the Modding Staff should be modders who have an official platform to advance the interests of their fellow modders, rather than solely doing administrative work such as filing mods in the Registry/Vault.

[SharpEyed]

Good points.

As I said before:
"Agree that Modding knowledge should be required, but let's not keep the bar so high for the time being ey?
Things will settle in time and hopefully the standards will rise a bit."

No it doesn't mean that and I don't think this Modding staff thing should be Citizen (or Artifex) thing only.
He of course didn't say it should be though. (There is an 'or' )

Btw, I'd also love to see more input from the Sir Gigantus!

[SharpEyed]

True. More clear to me now, I repeat my full support.

[Gigantus]

LMs dedicated to modding - fundamentally a sound idea as there are always bits and piece to be moved into the right places plus the rather tiresome issue of spam in the download section (for which an MO has to be found to address this effectively). This however should simply be regarded as maintenance ability (given the actual need), the priority here should be to collate information for publications, primarily mod updates, but also including registry and vault updates.
Vault - I have never been directly involved in the running of it, but I am assuming it requires some kind of technical ability, at least for someone to be in charge. Aikanaar and Pike might have better info on this.
Publications - I don't see a problem liaising with content to have a regular publication as I am not sure if you will get someone with the required knowledge of both issues. Never mind possible conflicts, especially regarding front page exposure.
Qualifications - while a certain 'technical' expertise should be expected for the director I would think team leader of a mod would more then suffice given what it takes to keep a gaggle of prima donnas in line Given that this is already time consuming I would be surprised if there would be many willing candidates, hence I would think the primary consideration should be long term commitment to modding, be it via workshop participation or an active mod contribution.
Forum Restructure - you are preaching to the converted. In one of Pike's recent proposals that involved it I fully supported the notion to move the TW Games forums one level down, eg into a summary forum. It reduces the forum index by nearly 50% I believe, which otherwise will increase by multiple entries each time a new game comes out - which apparently is happening at an accelerated rate. The forum structure for the individual games I think should remain for the time being as I think they are fairly logical and will not require permanent redirects. There is always a possibility for the need of a redirect but one has to keep in mind that technically they are sub forums and if you have ever had to get involved with the adminCP's forum manager or simply tried to move a thread then you know why I am against really unnecessary forums.
Registry - looking at the issue in whole it makes sense to split and move the registry as modding staff will not have global permissions, eg they will have to 'their' registry in 'their' forum. I would however need some more info why a 'all-in-one-registry' is required as well, seemingly additional to the individual registries.
Naming - I think the root forum should make clear that the games are in there in all their aspects, not just modding related. 'Modding Hub' is fine for the individual modding related sub forums but not for the root forum which will contain general discussions\tips & tricks.
Hosting on Steam and Patreon - I have addressed this issue partially earlier and will not get into the 'exposure\advertising' angle again. There are several (hosted mods) here that link directly to Steam and Patreon and there is no issue with it. I am fairly sure at least the Steam side profits from the permanency of discussions here. Related:
No presence, no award - we have never given modding awards for off site mods. Which means the argument is rather misrepresented, the question is simply how do you get those 'Steam\Patreon only' modders to participate here as well. Put that on the priority list for the modding staff.

If I have missed a point or been unclear do let me know. Underneath my suggestion for the basic forum structure, keeping in mind that the first (sub) level will be displayed in the forum index:

Root Forum
    Non modding forum - displayed in index
        forums as per proposal (modder's info, GD etc)
    Game forum (one for each game) - displayed in index
        existing sub forum structure subject to individual (internal) review

[Commissar Caligula_]

LMs dedicated to modding - fundamentally a sound idea as there are always bits and piece to be moved into the right places plus the rather tiresome issue of spam in the download section (for which an MO has to be found to address this effectively). This however should simply be regarded as maintenance ability (given the actual need), the priority here should be to collate information for publications, primarily mod updates, but also including registry and vault updates.

Is this basically "we'll see how it turns out once its up and running"? I'm fine with that.

Qualifications - while a certain 'technical' expertise should be expected for the director I would think team leader of a mod would more then suffice given what it takes to keep a gaggle of prima donnas in line Given that this is already time consuming I would be surprised if there would be many willing candidates, hence I would think the primary consideration should be long term commitment to modding, be it via workshop participation or an active mod contribution.

Just something like "be an experienced modder" then? "Qualified modder" would be a bit vague.

No presence, no award - we have never given modding awards for off site mods. Which means the argument is rather misrepresented, the question is simply how do you get those 'Steam\Patreon only' modders to participate here as well. Put that on the priority list for the modding staff.

I might've worded that badly. I don't mean that mods which are ONLY on Steam, and whose creators have never visited TWC should be eligible.
I mean that a mod like this one should be eligible for the awards.

The modder has put effort into his mod page, and he is reasonably active (he's answered a few questions) but the ONLY download link is a link to Steam. I reckon those kinda mods should be able to win awards, so long as there's effort in the mod page, and the creator is as active as anyone else. Unless they already would be eligible?


I'll look back over the forum restructure to see how I meant it to be, and edit this post.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If I have missed a point or been unclear do let me know. Underneath my suggestion for the basic forum structure, keeping in mind that the first (sub) level will be displayed in the forum index:

Root Forum
    Non modding forum - displayed in index
        forums as per proposal (modder's info, GD etc)
    Game forum (one for each game) - displayed in index
        existing sub forum structure subject to individual (internal) review

Forum Restructure - you are preaching to the converted. In one of Pike's recent proposals that involved it I fully supported the notion to move the TW Games forums one level down, eg into a summary forum. It reduces the forum index by nearly 50% I believe, which otherwise will increase by multiple entries each time a new game comes out - which apparently is happening at an accelerated rate. The forum structure for the individual games I think should remain for the time being as I think they are fairly logical and will not require permanent redirects. There is always a possibility for the need of a redirect but one has to keep in mind that technically they are sub forums and if you have ever had to get involved with the adminCP's forum manager or simply tried to move a thread then you know why I am against really unnecessary forums.

Registry - looking at the issue in whole it makes sense to split and move the registry as modding staff will not have global permissions, eg they will have to 'their' registry in 'their' forum. I would however need some more info why a 'all-in-one-registry' is required as well, seemingly additional to the individual registries.

Naming - I think the root forum should make clear that the games are in there in all their aspects, not just modding related. 'Modding Hub' is fine for the individual modding related sub forums but not for the root forum which will contain general discussions\tips & tricks.

I didn't comment on the Vault, Publications or Steam/Patreon bit, cos I've got nothing to add.

[Lifthrasir]

About the Director and its "qualifications", I think that "with good modding knowledge and experience" woud be better. From my understanding, his main duty will be more the management of the team than the modding side itself. Of course, it doesn't prevent him to be active as a team member as well if you get my meaning.

Regarding the mod you have linked as example, it would be perfectly eligible with the current rules of the Awards Committee Even if hosted on Steam, the creator has a dedicated thread here that he keeps alive so far.

[Gigantus]

Just something like "be an experienced modder" then? "Qualified modder" would be a bit vague.

That's more defined, agreed. Don't need a script wizard who can't get a message across to fellow members.

I mean that a mod like this one should be eligible for the awards.

It has representation here, why would it not be eligible? Frunk can chime in on this, but from my point of view it is immaterial where the download is - mine are all torrents or at mediafire. In fact other then small downloads there is nothing hosted here on TWC. The vault is no hosting as such but back up in case a hosting link of the large mods goes dead.

Is this basically "we'll see how it turns out once its up and running"? I'm fine with that.

It's simply me saying that moderation permissions are merely an add on for modding staff to do house keeping without having to revert to moderation staff. Their focus should be on PR. 'Hands on' will show how best to approach that.

[Sir Adrian]

I support this

[♔atthias♔]

support