New wave of Nexus Endorsements

[DocClox]

Not really replying to any specific point, but I've been thinking about Nexus endorsements in general.

 

I like to think of endorsement as a recognition of a genuinely useful mod. These days though it seems as if we're being encouraged to think of it as a moral obligation.

 

Rightly or wrongly, that bothers me. If I'm ethically obliged to endorse everything I download, then I have no way to recognise the value of a mod like SkyUI or Live Another Life over something like Immersive Cheesy Game Show Hosts of Skyrim. (Because, you know, the title starts with  "immersive" and ends in "... of Skyrim". At 2am on a Saturday morning, sometimes that's all you need :))

 

I seem to recall Nexus allowing me to rate things from 0 to 10. I didn't mind that nearly so much. I tended to be a bit stingy with my approval, but I had finer grained control and so I rated more mods. These days everything is effectively 10 or 0, and stingy as I am, I don't find many mods worthy of a 10.

 

But (IIRC) the numeric ratings eventually proved controversial. Angry users maliciously would maliciously award zero points to a mod and then brag about it in the comments thread. That upset people and so Nexus tried to encourage a more positive approach. The end result of which is that now we can only approve and thus withholding approval starts itself to seem like malicious disapproval.

 

And so not only have we lost the ability to say anything "bad" about a mod, we're now losing the ability to say anything "good" in a way that actually counts for anything.

 

So that's why Nexus comes across as "nagging" in my mind. Because if my opinion isn't going to mean anything then I'll keep it to myself, thank you. Everyone views these things differently, but that's my take on it.

Edited June 18, 2014 by DocClox

[kryptopyr]

I don't really think a 0-10 rating system is needed (or even particularly helpful) in determining the relative value of mods like SkyUI and "Cheesy Game Show Hosts".  SkyUI has over 76,000 endorsements. Let's be generous and say Cheesy Hosts has 350 endorsements.  If you were looking at these mods and trying to decide between the two, would it really be more valuable if SkyUI had 80% 10 star ratings, and Cheesy Hosts had 100% 10 star ratings (because lets say that Cheesy Hosts is a well constructed mod, just aimed at a somewhat particular niche audience).

 

I guess I take a very different approach to endorsements on Nexus than ratings on a commercial website.  I tend to be very stingy with my ratings of commercial products.  A product really has to impress me with it's design and functionality or a business with it's efficiency and customer service before I'll give it a good rating.  But the difference is that I've paid money for the product and I feel that my obligation as far as ratings go is to either warn people away from a bad product/experience or else to tell them that I think their money will be well spent.

 

For mods, I see endorsements as directed toward both the mod author and the users.  I feel that endorsements are a way to thank a mod author for their work, while at the same time telling other people that you feel the mod is good enough to include in your load order.  It really is a black and white decision to me.  I don't need a scale from 0-10.  The formula is simple:  The mod is valuable to me if I use it in my game.  If the mod is valuable, it's appropriate to endorse it. 

 

What would a rating of "5" mean on a 0-10 scale?  That I like the mod but only use it for some characters?  That I think the mod is well done, but not to my taste?  That I like the idea of the mod, but think it's poorly executed?  It's not at all clear what middle ratings even mean, and every person would have a different system for rating mods.  This doesn't provide more clarity for users, it provides less.  And it ends up being disheartening for the mod authors.

 

There's already a lot of negativity on Nexus.  The last thing it needs is a way to give mods poor ratings.  This would only hurt the community.  The first mods that I made have never received many endorsements.  They fill a certain niche, and some people really like them.  However, if people who didn't care for those mods, instead of simply not using and not endorsing them, gave them bad ratings instead, then as a beginning mod author, I probably would have grown frustrated, wondered why I was even bothering to share my work and thereby expose myself to such criticism, and there's a pretty good chance that I wouldn't have thought it was worth the effort to release any more of my mods.

 

There is not a lot of validation or reward for sharing mods.  It's a lot of time and work, and then you release it and have to deal with all of the complaints, both from people who like the mod but think that you should do something differently and from people who seem to find their own validation in life by telling you what a piece of crap your mod truly is.  As a mod author, the endorsements are nice, but I don't really pay much attention to their numbers.  I look at them occasionally (such as when this thread was started), and I tend to be pleasantly surprised to see that they've grown.  However, negative ratings (and pretty much anything that isn't a 10 is at least partially negative) have a disproportionate effect on most people relative to good reviews.  It's human nature that criticism tends to hurt more than praise will reward.  If you don't want to endorse a mod, that's perfectly fine, you have no obligation to do so.  But I don't see any reason to provide a system of negative feedback on a site where people are willing to share their work for free.

[DocClox]

I don't really think a 0-10 rating system is needed (or even particularly helpful) in determining the relative value of mods like SkyUI and "Cheesy Game Show Hosts".

Well no, nor am I advocating one. I do seem to remember Nexus having that system in place when I first visited the site (about a year after FO3 was released, I think). And while it had its good points, I don't miss it all. You're quite right about the amount of negativity on Nexus.But that's not my point... 

SkyUI has over 76,000 endorsements. Let's be generous and say Cheesy Hosts has 350 endorsements.  If you were looking at these mods and trying to decide between the two, would it really be more valuable if SkyUI had 80% 10 star ratings, and Cheesy Hosts had 100% 10 star ratings (because lets say that Cheesy Hosts is a well constructed mod, just aimed at a somewhat particular niche audience).

My point is that if the "U download it, U endorse it" mentality sets in, then in time both SkyUI and Cheesy will have 76k endorsements. Or, more realistically, each mod will have endorsements equal to the unique download count. In which case, why not use that instead? And then they can cease petering me to assist them in maintaining a redundant metric. 

But I don't see any reason to provide a system of negative feedback on a site where people are willing to share their work for free.

Like I say, that's not what I'm advocating here. I'm just saying that if my only options are either "Bravo!" or silence, then I'd like not to be pestered if I choose silence. And quite often, Nexus leaves me feeling pestered.

[crime_syndicate]

It was about time they added an endorsement reminder. I'm always shocked - even though I'm not even a mod author myself - every time I see great mods that probably took tens, if not hundreds of hours to make getting insanely low (100 to 1 etc) download-to-endorsement ratios, especially considering you can pretty much mass endorse mods by going in your "download history" section. They should advertise that page too, because it really makes the process more convenient instead of having to go back on the mod page to endorse (or keeping it open while the 15 minutes pass) and all that.

[kryptopyr]

I would love to have the option to trade endorsements for premium access.  I don't even care for full premium benefits (I honestly don't even know what they are), but I could really use more messaging space.  I don't want to delete the messages I have because many of them are communications with various other mod authors regarding permissions or compatibility.  I feel I need to keep those messages on record, but the limited messaging space has made it very difficult for me to continue contacting other authors to initiate and/or coordinate on any type of cooperative project.  I really wish Nexus would take some steps to encourage and make it easier for modders to work together on projects.  As it is, Nexus is set up to encourage only individual mod projects.  There really does need to be some way to publish mods as a team, where all team members can feel like they are still getting equal recognition for their effort.

 

 

@DocClox.

I think see what you're saying, but I don't think SkyUI and Cheesy Hosts would ever have equal endorsements, even if everyone who downloaded them endorsed them.  I certainly agree with you that downloading should not equal endorsing.  If I had to guess, I'd estimate that I actually use (and have hopefully endorsed) maybe 20% of the mods I've downloaded. 

 

There are mods that I try and decide I don't like; there are mods that I download and check out in TES5Edit or the CK and decide that the way they work or the number of records they're impacting is just not worth the benefit they might possibly provide; and there are mods that I download purely to examine them in response to questions about compatibility or to make patches or for other troubleshooting purposes (sadly this is probably 40-50% of the mods I download).  So, yes, I can agree with you that just because I download a mod doesn't mean I want to, or should, endorse it.

 

I guess then the only issue we're really in disagreement on is how intrusive or pestering the new Nexus message is.  I still feel that it's easy enough to ignore (and most people probably will...I would be utterly astonished if this feature led to something as high as even a 50:1 average download to endorsement ratio).  I don't think it's even a new message box.  They just added the message to the download box that has always appeared when you download a mod, so you don't even have to spare an extra click of the mouse to ignore it.  To me it's no more nagging than the little icons in MO, but in comparison, I really like having only a small selection of mods presented to me at once.  It's just easier to quickly glance at them to see if there are any that I want to endorse without having to take the time to go through my entire list of mods. 

 

As far as pestering, I guess I'm so use to all the ads and junk and everything that we encounter on a regular basis that choosing to ignore the stuff that doesn't interest me is almost second nature.  I'll continue to support this feature, but I also wouldn't object if there were a way for users to opt out of it.

[redirishlord]

I like the reminder pop up its not overly intrusive and sometimes I forget (by forget I mean Nexus is being Nexus, glitching, and I can't endorse when I'm thinking about it and forget after I close my browser) to endorse.

I think the endorsements serve as encouragement for much appreciated modding efforts, any avenue to offer that encouragement is a good thing IMHO.

The "trade endorsements for premium access" is a great idea and worthy of being pitched to Nexus staff. I didn't know about the "gift mod author with premium access", that's a great feature.

[CJ2311]

Trading endorsements for actual stuff could however open the door for a lot of abuse in the system. I mean some modders are already using fake accounts to endorse their mods or asking people for endorsements if they want the mod to be updated even though endorsements don't have any use. I can only imagine how it'd turn out if there was something to be gained from endorsements.

[Octopuss]

What, the fake accounts? I don't even... Really? It's worth less than 10 (I can't imagine how you'd realistically manage to have more than that and not get lost) lousy endoresments to risk their main accounts? Jesus.

[EssArrBee]

Trading endorsements for actual stuff could however open the door for a lot of abuse in the system. I mean some modders are already using fake accounts to endorse their mods or asking people for endorsements if they want the mod to be updated even though endorsements don't have any use. I can only imagine how it'd turn out if there was something to be gained from endorsements.

It's just like Reddit karma. People think it is worth something. Now on reddit many of gw posters think karma is worth something, so far be it that I will tell them otherwise...

[CJ2311]

It's just like Reddit karma. People think it is worth something. Now on reddit many of gw posters think karma is worth something, so far be it that I will tell them otherwise...

[Offtopic]Some of them actually post on gonewild because they get money from guys who send them requests, video chat with them and/or buy their worn clothes, so it's actually just regular whoring.[/offtopic]

[Inyuasha147]

This change to "push for endorsments" is a backwards step. There has been a lot of research into this topic especially from the perspective of management and employee engagement surveys. These indicate that the only surveys with any real meaning are a) unsolicited feedback or b) a selection of 5 on a scale of 1-5 or 10 on a scale of 1-10. Everything else is just noise. Consequently all we are seeing here is a degradation of the endorsement system and its value to pick good mods.

[Teabag86]

I disagree. This isn't a push for endorsement it is a reminder to endorse. I've been reminded of a couple of mods I thought I had endorsed but must have slipped through the cracks. It is just as easy to hit ignore as it is too endorse so I don't see the problem.

[redirishlord]

I found that the reminders seem to be a "toggle" and that they persist/recur. I've inadvertently unendorsed a few mods after getting in the habit of hitting the reminder without thinking. Might be worth checking the mod page if you think you've seen the same reminder more than once.

Anything that lets mod authors feel the love, I support.

[kryptopyr]

Endorsements aren't a very reliable way to pick good mods to begin with.  There are a number of older mods that are incredibly outdated and likely to be unstable if they were to be used now that have thousands of endorsements because they were popular when they were released.  There are also some really excellent mods that I consider essential and that I've recently gone back to update and/or endorse, and I was astonished that they didn't have more than a few hundred endorsements.  Endorsements are, and always have been, highly variable on Nexus.  Though I believe that you can make one relatively consistent generalization, which is that larger breast size and/or skimpier armor tends to equal more endorsements.

[ElminsterAU]

I'm not quite sure what all the angst about being "forced to endorse" is all about. It's just a reminder, you can just as easily click the "I don't intent to endorse that mod" button if you don't want to.

 

It's useful to get a lot of potential endorsements out of limbo and get people to make a definite yes/no decision. But I don't see the reminder notice giving a preference for either yes or no.