STEP:Mod Stewardship Service

From Step Mods | Change The Game
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Mod Stewardship Service

Mod maintenance for mod authors

by: Step Modifications

Step's Mod Stewardship Service is very similar to Nexus Mod's "The Care Taker" service, with some differences. The main difference being around licensing. Since Step operates under "cathedral modding" principles, mods provided for stewardship are converted to a cathedral-friendly license.CC BY-NC-SA By contrast, "The Care Taker" will retain the mod's license "as is," which could lock these mods into the "parlor modding" paradigm forevermore. Which service to choose is for individual Mod Authors to decide; however, Step encourages Authors to "open up" their mod licenses when retiring to allow others in the community to continue using these mods and to service/support them as necessary.

Step Modifications is a legally registered nonprofit, which relies on donations and other voluntary forms of community support. By using Step's Mod Stewardship Service over the Nexus Care Taker program, Mod Authors allow Step (and the larger modding community by proxy) to benefit from Nexus Mod's rewards system.

All Step staff and board members are unpaid volunteers, and Step never collects any membership or advertising revenues.

Current Mods Under Stewardship[edit | edit source]

SkyrimLE[edit | edit source]

Retired

SkyrimSE[edit | edit source]

Other[edit | edit source]

Terms & Conditions[edit | edit source]

Transfer of Ownership[edit | edit source]

An Author(s) who elects to place their Creation into Step's Mod Stewardship Service agrees to the Transfer of Ownership of the original distribution sourceSource mod ownership to Step Modifications, herein referred to as "Step".

Transferring the distribution source to Step allows Step to service the Creation and information pertaining to the Creation at the original source. Step does not service a CDN, therefore it's preferable that Step have authority to service all aspects of the mod at the distribution source or even to change that source if/when necessary.
  1. By transferring ownership to Step, Author(s) confirm they have sufficient permissions to enact such Transfer of Ownership for all of the Creation(s) included assets.
  2. Creations hosted by Nexus Mods, the Transfer of Ownership is complete when Nexus-specific "ownership" of the Creation's page is transferred from Author's Nexus Mods user account to the "StepModifications" Nexus Mods user account; thus, allowing Step to govern Donations and other owner-specific administration on Nexus Mods.
    • Nexus Mods will not complete such transfers without written permission from the Author.
  3. Creations hosted on other distribution services will complete Transfer of Ownership to Step on a case-by-case basis, and documented in writing via email and/or any relevant private messaging system that can be used to verify correspondence sources.
  4. Step gains the right to transfer the Creation to a distribution service other than that of the original service, if:
    1. original distribution service does not allow the Transfer of Ownership, or
    2. original distribution service is no longer available
  5. The Author will be added as an administrator, if possible, to distribution page once Transfer of Ownership is complete.

Transfer of License[edit | edit source]

Mods placed into Step's Mod Stewardship Service shall immediately adopt Creative Commons (CC) "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike"CC BY-NC-SA.

Transferring to this license effectively facilitates "cathedral-friendly" mod governance. This is performed to secure all parties from any legal harm that could otherwise potentially be invoked by the Author, Step or a third party (because of the capacity for any human to behave emotionally and irrationally).
  1. Any existing licensing will become null and void.
  2. The Creation(s) is irrevocably tied to the CC license, granting Step's (and everyone's) right to irrevocably "... remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms."
  3. All Step-mediated derivations of said Creation(s) will retain the CC licensing and will follow Step's Versioning Scheme
  4. All derivations by third parties of said Creation(s) must retain the CC licensing

Donations[edit | edit source]

Donations to Creation(s) distribution page will be directed to the Step Modifications account, if applicable.

  1. Author(s) authorize Step to receive 100% of Donations from Creation(s); unless other arrangements are made prior to Transfer of Ownership
  2. Step agrees to refund Donations only to cover business costs including, but not limited to: marketing, promotional events, server expenses, software expenses and upgrades
  3. Authors who do not wish for Step to earn Donations from their Creations must state so, in writing, before the Transfer of Ownership. Step will honor all such requests.

Nexus Mods[edit | edit source]

If the distribution service is Nexus Mods, the Creation(s) will be opted into Nexus Mods Donation Points system.

  1. Author(s) authorize Step to receive 100% of Donation Points from Creation(s); unless other arrangements are made prior to Transfer of Ownership
  2. Step agrees to refund Donation Points only to cover business costs including, but not limited to: marketing, promotional events, server expenses, software expenses and upgrades
  3. Authors who do not wish for Step to earn Donation Points from their Creations must state so, in writing, before the Transfer of Ownership. Step will honor all such requests.

Signup for Mod Stewardship Service[edit | edit source]

  1. Contact Step via email with your desire to provide mod(s) for curation
  2. For mods hosted on Nexus Mods, private message the, Nexus Community Manager, who is aware of the StepModifications Nexus Account.
    Inform Nexus Community Manager of your intent to transfer your mod(s) to StepModifications

Mods not accepted for stewardship include, but are not limited to:

  • mods containing nudity or sexually explicit content
  • mods containing content not relevant to the game subject (e.g., political mods)

{{#scite:Source mod ownership |type=ref |citation text=If a mod is hosted on a CDN like Nexus Mods or some other source for distribution or sharing, then Step will need irrevocable authority to govern that source in place of (or in addition to) the Mod Author. Since source policies may differ, transfer of control methods and outcomes may vary and must be avaluated on a case-by-case basis. }} {{#scite:CC BY-NC-SA |type=web |citation text=See Creative Commons licenses: "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Thus, upon the licensed authority of proprietary content allowing --in a written statement-- Step to host said content, said content automatically adopt(s) the CC BY-NC-SA license to override any previous license that may pertain. Thus, there will be no restrictions placed on use of said content outside of this license. }}