collaborative [Tool] Modders Organized Development Network - M.O.D. Network

[GabrielJack]

Hello and good day to all that are reading this message.

This is a "project"/"group" I am trying to start in order to create a development network to try and provide Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together modders and players with a space to work together and keep our modding communities working with some simple objectives at hand.

As with any modding community, it is pretty normal for certain issues to appear with time, such as a few mods not being compatible with each other, modders abandoning their mods or simply not updating, incompatibilities with new updates of the game, not porting from DS to DST and so on.

At the bottom of the pinned message on the facebook group and the messages on each section of the forum for DS and DST there will be a list the steam name of each modder of the group, which games they have, which they work on and how many mods they have helped with actively.

It is not an obligation nor required to benefit from this network, but I would like to ask each and every user who benefits from this to consider providing a modder of the group with a copy of one of the game or DLC's he does not posses, to help him mod, know the games, have fun and also as a reward for helping out with this network.

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A facebook group will be used as a news feed to inform which mods are being worked on, its current state of development, its original creator and developers, who is working on it, information on the mod the link to the discussion here on the forums, and later the link to the files at both the Klei modding community and Steam workshop.

It is requested that users do not make posts at the feed over at facebook. Please make your mod requests through official mod request thread here on the forums or through the official facebook thread.

Facebook:<to be created and edited in>

Forums: <to be created and edited in>

A GitHub will be created for the mods being worked by the group. Administrators of the group will be responsible at keeping the account in order and controlling access (personally, I can't do this as I've never used GitHub before. Volunteers needed.)
 

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There are a few rules only in order to keep this efficient, clean and free of clutter and also ensure social order.
They are available at the group's description on facebook. Please do read the rules at least once whenever possible.
Link to the rules 
 

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Administrators will be required in order to keep social order and the group working effectively while taking everyone wishes and needs into consideration. 

I will keep on trying to fulfill this position as much as possible but soon I might not have all that much free time. At first, I would like to request only modders as administrators as they better understand the problems and needs of the modding community, so it would be extremely helpful if any of you could volunteer in order to help.

Currently looking for volunteers.

Job Description:

1- Access the group feed and control over it to make sure that the rules are being followed by all and keep the group updated on which mods are being worked on.

2- Run polls to select mods to be chosen and worked on.

-Some experience moderating is helpful but not required-
 

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List of mods being worked on

Name:
Links:
 

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List of mods up to date

Name:
Steam workshop link:
Klei community link:
 

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List of modders, games they own and how many mods they helped actively with.
<To be edited in>
 

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If possible, I would like to request Klei forum moderators for the creation of a subforum regarding this, later on, if the idea catches on and there is interest.

Facebook group

 

 

[Mobbstar]

I won't link my KEF nor Steam accounts with my FB account, sorry.

EDIT: Why exactly facebook, anyways? Why not Steam or Discord, for instance?

[GabrielJack]

It is not requested you link unless you would wish to .-. that is why I created it here as well according to the modder preference. People don't even need to know that that moderator is "you" exactly if you wish to participate through there.

I only used facebook as an option for its feed structure that makes it easy for people to make requests and to provide everyone with information. I'm guessing most modders would actually prefer to work through here on the forums, so facebook will end up being more towards the users and to provide said information.

[GabrielJack]

@Mobbstar
The idea is solely to start and create this collaborative network that allows modders to work together and pick abandoned, non-updated and non-compatible mods to get the game to its "ultimate" stage, bringing good old mods back to life through the medium they find best.

If you wish to work from steam, I guess that can be arranged. Through Discord? Same.
The thing is just to get this started and see if modders would be interested to be a part of this, as there are several good mods that lack update, are not compatible with a new game DLC, are not compatible with another great mod or just haven't been ported from DS to DST or vice-versa.

[whismerhill]

hi, I got here following your link on "Sort Inventory" mod for which I have contributed. I know I have updates in the waiting for this mod, been delaying them due to other stuff I'm doing and mainly because I hate how it makes the configuration menu cluttered. Not sure if that's the reason I was invited ?

Also, I'm not exactly sure I understand the reason of this group, I mean in theory you wanna keep alive & keep updated great mods which is a great idea.

A few issues I immediately foresee :

-what defines a great mod ?

-Authorizations ? I know though on the steam workshop most people don't bother.

-Projects always have a single owner on the workshop, any contributor is just a contributor in name, and a moderator by rights: meaning a contributor can moderate workshop item's forum & posts, but not update files nor description. You can't pass a project from one author to another either.

In essence the workshop is a bad place for mod collaborations, unfortunately it's the only real way to make a mod available to the masses, if you get the same mod on nexusmods.com or even just klei, it won't be available for most users. Also don't starve works really well with the autoupdating feature of the workshop (unlike some other games like say skyrim for instance...).

 

I think discord would be a good idea though. tmodloader for terraria did a discord server and it works well for them, so I think if this project picks up speed it might make sense to do one.

[GabrielJack]

@whismerhill
"Great Mods" is just an expression I used to mean worth while mods, mods with a really good concept behind its original idea, mods which used to be really useful or add something to the game that looks like it should have been a part of it since the beginning. Mods that marvel you, mods that several people can indeed agree the mod in itself or the idea of the mod is indeed great and/or should be a part of the game or something they'd wish to experience in the game even if only a little.

I invited you from the Sort Inventory as that mods seems not only useful, something that helps the users keep their inventory organized and could have even been one of the ideas of Klei itself during development, as inventory management is also a pretty important part of the game.

For authorizations, as you said, most users won't bother and those that abandoned their development such as @Heavenfall, creator of Dawnbreak are even less likely to bother with it and anything that could be considered abandoned also most definitely does not require an authorization, as just with any software, it would be considered an "abandonware", in this case an abandonmod. That is the main focus, but this group could also accept request and authorization from modders who wish to take a break from modding for a while or will have to abandon it presently or members of the network who wish for help with their mods as well. Imagine your wife goes into labor and you will have to spend the next few months taking care of her, your newborn baby, you have now a bigger load at work but a new DLC for DS and update for DST comes out tomorrow? We would be able to help with that and keep your mod alive until you come back, and you would be received with open arms by this group.

Each project would have an assigned project leader to keep track of the project and control the updates on the official document, this project leader would be chosen by the member of the very project between the most experienced modders within them. A project leader has the last say, but he also has responsibilities towards the project members such as listening to what they say and keeping the project updated and the members working harmoniously, such as a leader should. Each person can and should only be a project leader for one group at a time, I believe, but it does not mean a modder will have to work at only a single project at a time, so you could be leader at a project but participate in several others.

Either the project leader will post the mod to the community, assigning credit to all that participated within the team and the network itself OR an account should be created, which its login will be given only to the administrators responsible for keeping the group organized and behaving, harmonizing.
To be decided after more members gather as this is a really important decision to this group.

[GabrielJack]

PS: I do have Discord installed but never really used it .-. and none of my friends use it, so it has been stopped since installation, but if enough people wish for it, it is not a problem to create a Discord server for the whole group and maybe smaller servers for each project crew to communicate.
If people can communicate in a way they are comfortable with and work together efficiently, be it through here, facebook, Discord or morse code, as long as they are happy and are able to keep each other up to date and keep their own project going, that is a real win for everyone.

[Mobbstar]

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Discord lets admins and moderators pin messages, and the server admins can create and close channels as needed. Roles can be used to restrict non-collaborators from entering other collaboration channels if you'd like that. Besides, you could automate some things with bots.

[GabrielJack]

@Mobbstar

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Discord seems to be pretty interesting for it, really. I will definitely take a look at it as soon as I wake up to see how can I get it ready.
It looks like this will be mostly centered around GitHub and Discord then. Still, I feel like a temp Google Docs file could maybe be used during development while it is being worked before saving the actual files on GitHub, thanks to its collaborative platform only one file would be needed for that which would either be blank or being worked on. Members can also directly edit the file and there is an "Edit History", so if someone makes a bad permanent edit, it is also possible to edit back. Both Git and G-Docs together seem to make one hell of a collaborative platform, at least to me.
It will all depend on if you guys would find it interesting though.

And according to a concern by Rezecib, it seems the best course of action for publishing the projects onto steam would be to create an account to represent the group as a whole and have the administrators use that to publish, providing credits to the members which participated on development and original creators in the description of the mod. Group administrators would be in charge of the login and for safety the password would have to be changed from time to time besides other safety measures, but that might indeed work better than having a group leader be in charge of publishing and risking him quitting modding or disappearing and then having to publish it again through another account just to have it happen a second time.

Anyway, it is currently 4:50 am where I live and I actually have no f-ing idea on why I am up (probably has something to do with caffeine high thanks to the over 2 liters of toasted mate iced tea I drank, but hey, who knows :v)

I'm just really happy people are getting so interested and into this ^-^ seriously. Modders of some of my favorite mods found this idea interesting and amazing doesn't even start to describe it!

[whismerhill]

hummm, I fail to see what google docs brings to the table, on github any dev that wanna add something can fork the code / make a pull request, which allows quick & easy side by side comparison.That said if anyone wanna use google docs I'm not gonna prevent them xD

 

[GabrielJack]

@whismerhill I will not force anyone to use docs, you should all just use whichever you are most comfortable with. I only suggested at because I imagine, after a while, there will also be a good amount of modders with less experience but wish to help. Instead of just directly making a change to the file, they would be able to suggest an edit on the file without actually editing it permanently. If the project leader would find it good, it would be easy for him to turn it into a permanent change, else, I think Docs also allows you to comment on a suggested edit, so the more experienced project leader would be able to provide some feedback on why that would not be a very good edit.
So this project not only would do all that is intended to do, even newer modders would be able to help, possibly have one really good insight or another and help notice wrong sentences and spellcheck the documents while they'd also be able to learn a little and everyone would be able to teach everyone something new, or at least I believe so >.>
But just as you said, if anyone does not wanna use google docs, I am not gonna force them xD

[Mobbstar]

I don't see why the Google Doc would be needed. The todo-list of an individual project can be kept in the github repository, can it not? Discussions can be done on Discord or the KEF (this website) (though on Discord one can delete messages without a trace).

[GabrielJack]

As I said, I never used GitHub myself, so I don't know much of its capabilities ^^' That about messages being deleted without a trace on Discord might be an issue, though... something to worry about? Maybe through KEF would be the best, but then I'll have to find out how to contact the moderators in order to set a Subforum for the group, to keep it and its projects inside, but for that I believe it might be needed to have more people supporting the idea, maybe? ^^'' I don't know, but I'll try. If so, KEF and GitHub might end up being the best options ^^'

[whismerhill]

7 hours ago, GabrielJack said:

@whismerhill Instead of just directly making a change to the file, they would be able to suggest an edit on the file without actually editing it permanently. If the project leader would find it good, it would be easy for him to turn it into a permanent change, else, I think Docs also allows you to comment on a suggested edit, so the more experienced project leader would be able to provide some feedback on why that would not be a very good edit.

Well basically, all those features are on github ^^ in a form or another.

EDIT:

7 hours ago, GabrielJack said:

As I said, I never used GitHub myself, so I don't know much of its capabilities ^^' That about messages being deleted without a trace on Discord might be an issue, though... something to worry about? Maybe through KEF would be the best, but then I'll have to find out how to contact the moderators in order to set a Subforum for the group, to keep it and its projects inside, but for that I believe it might be needed to have more people supporting the idea, maybe? ^^'' I don't know, but I'll try. If so, KEF and GitHub might end up being the best options ^^'

I don't think we should worry about someone deleting his own chat history, it's pretty much the same on forums, you can edit your own messages too. Most forums also allow you to delete your whole account.

Discord is meant to be a discussion platform, good stuff should be  pinned/copied to readonly channel or even put on github soonish. Discord is not a forum. Discord is best for live discussions