ACCEPTED Soft Shadows (by Doodlezoid)

[TechAngel85]

58 minutes ago, z929669 said:

It's part of the guide, and we've had no issues. The MA hasn't specified what the issue is, and for our purposes, there seem not to be any.

We are doing the same with a number of other mods as well after the MA hides the mod (for whatever reason).

EDIT: we've been doing this for years actually... in the SSE guides as well as the FO guides Otherwise, we'd need to update the guide whenever an MA hides their content.

We have not been manually linking to hidden mods. We might link to a file from a mod in the archive or link directly to a file due to NSFW content, but I can't recall ever purposely going past an author's hidden status. In the past, we simply told users to wait it out or skip for now.

Just because we haven't encountered any issues doesn't mean they aren't there. The fact that we don't know what the issues are makes doing this that much worse. We're just going in blindly at this point. Nexus has been down so I haven't had an opportunity to search for the forum topic to try to understand why the mod is hidden. They may not show up until later in the game (I know I haven't gotten much playtime in since adding this mos, have you?) or may not be that apparent to us. Seriously, this is a bad practice! ...and I'm only speaking towards a mod that is hidden. Other cases where we link to files directly are okay because those aren't to merely circumvent the author's wishes like you have done here.

[z929669]

6 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

We have not been manually linking to hidden mods. We might link to a file from a mod in the archive or link directly due to a file due to NSFW content, but I can't recall ever purposely going past an author's hidden status. In the past, we simply told users to wait it out or skip for now.

Just because we haven't encountered any issues doesn't mean they aren't there. The fact that we don't know what the issues are makes doing this that much worse. We're just going in blindly at this point. Nexus has been down so I haven't had an opportunity to search for the forum topic to try to understand why the mod is hidden. They may not show up until later in the game (I know I haven't gotten much playtime in since adding this mos, have you?) or may not be that apparent to us. Seriously, this is a bad practice! ...and I'm only speaking towards a mod that is hidden. Other cases where we link to files directly are okay because those aren't to merely circumvent the author's wishes like you have done here.

I had added another edit to my previous while you were posting. FYI, you can use the following SMW query to see how we have been linking to archived versions of files. Most cases are links to non-Nexus files or Nexus files for LE that work under SE. We are linking to a number of files that the MA has outright deleted, which is also presumably not in the MA's best interests (else they would not have deleted it).

{{#ask:[[Game::GameSpace]][[SourceName::Other]][[SourceURL::~*someString*]]|format=table}}

Nexus' ToS and non-deletion policy allows users to access hidden and deleted content, presumably (at least in part) so that it's users are not subject to the whims of content creators hiding/removing their files for spurious reasons.

If we get word of an issue, I agree that we should not link to the archive, but there's no specific reason not to do so ATM (other than assumption), and many people are and have been running the mod now with no known reports of issues that we're aware of to date, including myself.

[DoubleYou]

I am pretty sure he hid it because Community Shaders added HQ shadows in its 1.0 release. He hid the mod the same day of the update. All this mod really did was dynamically adjust the fPoissonRadiusScale:Display shadow filtering ini setting IIRC, so it really isn't a huge loss.

[z929669]

2 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

I am pretty sure he hid it because Community Shaders added HQ shadows in its 1.0 release. He hid the mod the same day of the update. All this mod really did was dynamically adjust the fPoissonRadiusScale:Display shadow filtering ini setting IIRC, so it really isn't a huge loss.

I was just about to post likewise. It's alluded to in the new articles for CS published Dec 6. He probably want's people using CS for superior treatment of shadows (and much more).

Agree it's not a huge loss to not run this mod, but it's a small improvement, which is why it was added. I'm even more confident now that this mod has no issues. The "hidden reason" boilerplate is a bit of a misnomer in this case.

[TechAngel85]

I've reached out and confirmed that Soft Shadows has been hidden due to conflicts with CS. Directly quoting:

Quote

SoftShadows will be replaced by skylighting/cloudshadows. Using softshadows with the latest CS version will likely create checkboarding artifacts on the floor because of our new shadow sampling method using TAA. It also has a performance impact due to the increased sampling radius.

Doodlum has also stated he's okay with the linking to the hidden file, directly, for any of his hidden mods. It was an ick and went again my morals to do this without seeking out the author first, regardless if Nexus ToS allows it or not. I have reached out to Nexus Staff regarding the matter, though, because the ToS is not clear in regards to hidden pages. They allow distribution of the files, forever; however, that distribution can't happen for mods that are hidden unless a direct link is used. Getting that direct link could be challenging when the page is hidden, and near impossible for the average user who is not familiar with how Nexus links files.

[z929669]

6 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

I've reached out and confirmed that Soft Shadows has been hidden due to conflicts with CS. Directly quoting:

Doodlum has also stated he's okay with the linking to the hidden file, directly, for any of his hidden mods. It was an ick and went again my morals to do this without seeking out the author first, regardless if Nexus ToS allows it or not. I have reached out to Nexus Staff regarding the matter, though, because the ToS is not clear in regards to hidden pages. They allow distribution of the files, forever; however, that distribution can't happen for mods that are hidden unless a direct link is used. Getting that direct link could be challenging when the page is hidden, and near impossible for the average user who is not familiar with how Nexus links files.

I'm glad you broached the subject and opened up a discussion on this though. We don't want to step on common-sense reasoning of an MA. In the future, I will commit to discussing linking to hidden files prior to doing so. We should probably treat deleted files in the same way. That one I linked previously for FNV is a good example. I know nothing about what it does or why it was hidden.

All I do know is that some MAs have deleted/hidden their mods in the past without any reason other than "sticking it to" Nexus or users for some silly reason ... not to say it's  something that happens often.

[CorneliusC]

The mod (and its files) is public again.