non-issue Open the Mod Authors forum to anyone who is logged in

[Guest]

Basically the title. Yes it is a mod authors' forum, but it would be more useful if anyone logged into this site can come and have a look at projects and give feedback. At the moment it's pretty dead, and the reason why is it is too restricted honestly. If it was just forum members only, it would give enough privacy, allow others in to test files, give glaringly honest opinions, and increase the sarcasm ratio. At the moment only Ess pretty much does the latter, we need some new blood in to give the old dog a rest. 

 

I have said this somewhere to Aiyen, but I thought I would do it properly on the proper forum.

 

Peace

Edited June 25, 2014 by Guest

[DoubleYou]

This has been discussed in Staff talks and the feelings have been that if the mod author wishes the public to see it, they would put it in one of the open forums. The Mod Author forum is for projects where the mod author only wishes to collaborate with other mod authors.

[Guest]

Okay, but it would still be a place for the modding community regardless. It would also have members only privacy that open forums don't have, and it would allow for greater collaboration. I can't see any downsides here.   I'm sure you have been in there, there are a handful of authors and the rest are staff. It might as well not exist at the moment. Also... No peasants allowed is what it feels like.   Oh, and it seems to reside in the basement of the forum - I had to be linked to it or I wouldn't have known it even existed. 

Edited June 22, 2014 by Guest

[DoubleYou]

We simply don't have many active mod authors

[Guest]

_{Which is my point,  and why it should be opened up more. There is not enough discussion at the moment.}   

[stoppingby4now]

Public discussion was not the purpose of that forum, but rather a place for Mod Authors to discuss behind closed doors. Such setups will always have less traffic.

 

The Mods and Packs forums are for public discussion.

[TechAngel85]

It would help if the authors that do work inside that forum would promote it to other authors as a good place to collaborate and get author only feedback. (perhaps put a blub about it on their mod pages) No other place really exists for mod authors to do this. It was one of the incentives we wanted to give the authors for signing up on the forums because having authors involved in the STEP process can produce some pretty amazing results! SkyFalls & SkyMills comes to mind as one of the fasted mods to have it's issues fixed that were found during testing and as a result be added into STEP; all because the author was involved in the whole process.

[Guest]

The best thing though is getting opinions like you are saying Tech. More of that is only a good thing. Maybe having it locked off and pretty much hidden is why there are not many in there. I'm sure it isn't helping. There can't be too much traffic if anonymous Google people can't see it. I would not mind someone coming in and wanting to learn about modding, maybe we could get some people interested? It could be a hybrid tutorial forum? We need more of those.  

[phazer11]

Well if you want to get it out there about the forum mention it on the STEP Nexus page and maybe make a sticky/announcement. Hybrid Tutorial forum sounds nice if Z has the time but it wouldn't replace the current MA forum.

[Octopuss]

The trouble is that vast majority of authors prefer the atrocious and half bugged Nexus where you can't even keep track of your own posts and perform basic search. Not much you can do about masochistic people.

[Guest]

I have mentioned this place quite a few times, even going to lengths to base and link my desription on it with my Stalhrim mod. Quite a few authors passed through and saw it I know that. I can't force them to come over. Even if they did I would have to wait for them to get a author badge, which they would have no idea about if I forgot to mention it. Anyway I will leave it there, as it was just a suggestion and nothing more. 

[DocClox]

I'd have thought the best development hub was still on the Beth forums. 

 

I'll grant the signal-to-noise ratio is probably better on this site. Still, I rather suspect that relative noise level of Beth's CK forum is a function of that site's success. And that if we attracted a similar crowd we'd get similar noise levels.

[TheDane]

An open Mod Authors forum would be more consistent with the philosophy of Wrye's "Open Modding", wouldn't it?

[z929669]

Our entire site is open for discussing things. Mod and Pack forums exist as well as many others for these purposes.

 

the MA forum (invisible to all but MAs, MT,s and site staff) is for behind-the-scenes discussions amongst MAs, who are the only ones that can start topics. There are plenty of good reasons to keep it private and restrictive and no really good reasons to open it up, given the real estate that already exists on these forums

 

This does not contrast with the idea of open modding ... it is simply a perk for MAs prior to going public with an ideology.

[EssArrBee]

Just move your thread from the MA forum to a different forum when it's ready for more sets of eyes.