While working on a MW Mod Use Grid Map to be completed sometime this Fall, I couldn't help but notice an appalling number of Hall of Fame (HoF) mods that were unclean or dirty due to "evil GMSTs" or references to exterior cells which were not really changed by the mod. I tend to believe that these unclean/dirty mods are contributing to the instability we sometimes see with crash-to-disk (CTD) and lockups when playing the game with mods. Think about it. Depending on where they are in the load order, the dirty cell references could be overlaying some other mods real changes to a cell that was loaded prior to the "dirty" HoF mod. Also, the GMSTs could be causing all sorts of havoc. I believe that to be elected into the Hall of Fame should not only reflect outstanding content, but good underlying code techniques in the mod itself to prevent instability. I think that all of these unclean/dirty HoF mods should be placed on a probationary status and removed from the HoF list and given 90 days to get clean or end up being permanently removed from Hall of Fame status. Many users, especially "noobs", depend upon the HoF mods to give them an enjoyable play experience and they believe that if it is in the Hall of Fame, it must be good so they download it. Then they wonder why or get discouraged when MW becomes unstable. We could be perpetuating the MW instability by keeping these unclean/dirty mods in HoF. I don't believe this is the only reason for CTDs and lockups, but believe it could be a contributor. Answer the poll to let me know what you think.

- Rougetet

I think they've earned there place and should keep it, but it would be nice if these problemes where removed.

I agree with Ghost on this one. However, perhaps the administrators should clean them for us :evil laugh:

It's not that hard to open up mash and clean it yourself.

Yes, but what about the noobs that don't even know what a mash is?

I understand your and Ghost's point, but don't think anything will be done to fix them unless something like what I suggest in my first post (put on probation till fixed or removed after 90 days) is done. I too love the content in these mods but hate the instability more. I guess it depends on your point of view.

- Rougetet

They have to learn sometime.

It is my opinion that this is the modder's responsibility. I'm willing to give mods that were released shortly after Tribunal a pass as far as GMSTs go but there's no excuse for GMSTs now and there never was any excuse for dirty references. If a modder is sloppy about dirty refrences they may be sloppy in other areas of mod making as well.

Someone in this forum brought up an important point on the release thread of a notoriously dirty mod a couple days ago and what they said bears repeating here: a player cannot be 100% certain which references are dirty and which references were intended by the mod maker. Now I suppose it is possible for a knowledgeable player to spend a few hours tracking possible dirty references down in the CS and deleting them, it's true, but they shouldn't have to.

I don't think a mod should be excluded from the hall of fame on account of GMSTs but I might agree that a dirty mod should be excluded. I don't really feel strongly about it either way though, as PES (and, I think, Elricm?) notifies the player of these problems on the download page.

Wait question...I know what they are but this still remains....Do the letters GMST actually stand for something.

As a PES database admin, I need to chime in here.
PES has fairly strict guidelines that we keep to these days. Dirty and GMST-ridden mods are not approved. These rules weren't always in place however. I do not believe that a mod should be held to a standard that arose after the mod was released, they should be "grandfathered" in. I do believe that an effort contact these modders should be made to request they either clean them or allow them to be cleaned. I would be more than willing to spearhead this effort as long as I am not alone in the endeavor.
So if someone would get me a list of these dirty mods, and the authors, I will contact them and we can go from there.

I think they should be cleaned. But I don't think they should lose their HoF status. Someone should just clean them and reload them back up there.

Bloody heck, now I have to check my entire modlist again in EE...

Game settings I think...

I disagree with you about dirty refs in a mod causing being a cause CTDs (Crash to desktop). When you start running a large amount of mods, you will always get one mod overwriting another. The most I have ever seen in my game is that I lose a house as it is underground. I can see no reason why this would cause instability.

When loading the esm/esp/ess files, the most that would happen is if a piece of data already exists, it is just replaced with the newer piece. If that causes instability, then the game engine is worse than I thought.

GMST = Gamesetting. Causing havoc? No. Screwing up some of game settings like werewolf stats, yes. Some mods (Vampire Embrace) change GMSTs for good reasons.

While I agree with your description of the problem that unclean mods pose, I don't think that purging the Hall of Fame is a good solution to this problem. Which mods enter the Hall of Fame shoukd be decided by the users, each rating the mod according to his own criteria.

Making some criteria mandatory seems to me like opening Pandora's box. Yes, mods *should* be clean. But they *should* also be light on global scripts. And they *should not* use relatively common words as dialogue topics. But they *should* have a readme which explains the purpose of the mod, the installation process, and whether it can be added to a running game. And so on. If we start to make some criteria mandatory for entering the HoF, where do we stop?

I think there are two better solutions to the problem that you (correctly) describe.

One is making a special list of newbie-friendly mods. These mods should be compatible, clean, and easy to install. Newbies could follow the recommendations of this list if they just want a couple of good mods without having to worry about compatibility, GMSTs, dirty references etc.

The second possibility is to introduce some form of award for mods that are clean, clearly described, easy to use, and well coded. Call it "Azura's Star" or something like that and display a silver star in the description of mods that fulfill all these criteria of excellency. The problem with this method is that you'd need some gremium to decide whether a mod fulfills these criteria or not. However, this problem would also exist in the solution that you proposed (HoF purging).

Not to beg the point, but there is something I noticed in working on my MW mod use grid map that I have never seen commented on before in any Forums and that may be part of a continuing dirty reference problem...

If you open up the Tribunal .esm in the CS, you will only see 14 exterior cell references (all of Tribunal is really interiors, some used as exteriors), but Tribunal does not make any changes in those references (the Cell View window indicates there are 0 objects in those exterior cells). Those same exterior cells are also in the Bloodmoon .esm with no changes according to Cell View. Those exact same 14 exterior cell references can be found in many mods with no changes apparently done by the modder (still have 0 items in cell view and consequently appear in TESAME as "dirty" cell references). Not sure what combination of mod preparation actions cause these to become dirty cell references, just know I am finding quite a few of them like this as I go through each mod (first I thought it was a Tribunal caused bug but am also seeing a rare occasion of them appearing in mods that only have Morrowind as a dependancy). The 14 exterior cells (and the order they always appear together in Details) are:

West Gash Region -16, 7
West Gash Region -16, 8
Wilderness -15, -8
West Gash Region -15, 7
Bitter Coast Region -14, 2
Bitter Coast Region -14, 4
Bitter Coast Region -14, 5
Bitter Coast Region -13, 1
Bitter Coast Region -13, 2
Bitter Coast Region -13, 3
Bitter Coast Region -13, 4
Bitter Coast Region -12, 1
Bitter Coast Region -12, 2
Bitter Coast Region -12, 3

Other common dirty cell references I have noticed but not as often:

Ashlands Region 0,0

This is to be expected since this is the default location when you first load MW into the CS. Would be easy for a "noob" to load it in render and accidently make it dirty.

And finally the following seem to always appear together as "dirty" too but much less often than the first 14 above. Why I don't know and can't even guess - always appear in this order and most of the time together:

Wilderness -29, 23
Wilderness -28, 24
Wilderness -20, 15
Wilderness -19, 14
Wilderness -19, 15

If anyone can explain these to me as to why they occur, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

- Rougetet

I will be glad to provide such a list but it will not be forthcoming for about 3 months. I am in the process of creating a MW mod use grid map (determining all the mods that affect a particular exterior cell for all exterior cells in MW and Bloodmoon) and don't anticipate finishing that for release as a modders resource until the Fall. I will need to go back and change my Access DB to do what you ask, but I've only input about 225 mods so far so still early enough (averaging 25 a day but only need to input those affecting exteriors).

- Rougetet

Once you finish that perhaps we should think of a way to dole out land? To minimize land conflicts? Or do you think that would be impossible?

I'm just wondering if there is a way to prevent a map resource from going obsolete, or is it can be made so that modders may add the locations of their mods to it...

Well after release I was planning to periodically add new/updated mods that appear and willing, as long as there is interest and I am able, to accept those that I might have missed - first pass am going only through PES archives but would add in any mods not held by PES if I am informed they were not in original and am told where to find.

As for land, I pick up those changes too since they do affect the exterior cell.

One thing to understand - this is not a claim map I am building but a use map. You will not be able to tell what has changed in a particular cell from what I will provide but will know which mods affect that exterior cell in some way (or say they do - could just be a dirty cell ref). Only for exteriors.

- Rougetet

Near as I can tell the HoF is more a mark of popularity rather than quality, so I would suggest it's not at all appropriate to attempt to exclude unclean mods from the HoF. In my opinion it would be more sensible to merely flag the mods as clean/unclean, allowing the users to make an informed decision. We certainly did that at Elricm when I was actively involved in mod administration there.


That would constitute editing someone's mod without their permission. Fliggerty's suggestion of contacting modders for permission to fix their mods is a fine one, but if no such permission is granted then I don't think it would be appropriate to 'fix' their mods.


It's a known bug caused when merging mods with the Construction Set, it automatically adds a bunch of dirty cells from the ESMs to the merged esp. See this archived thread for example;
http://www.mwmythicmods.com/Archives/CS/Un...nged-edited.htm

In that case that's fine, but there should still be a warning that the mod contains GMSTs so we will know to clean it. Up until now I had thought that hosting sites provided us with enhancements to our games and not GMSTs/dirty references. Not badmouthing anything because I love mods, but just saying that a little effort to inform users to take action on their part (i.e. clean the mod before using it) would go a long way in promoting the game we all enjoy.

I believe that the newer released mods should be cleaned by the creator. It is part of their duty to the community to make sure that the mods is playable as soon as it is uploaded. Unexpected problems are going to happen when you start combining things, that is a given.

The HoF are those mods that have been voted on my the community saying that they are great or special mods. They should be cleaned but not removed fromed the list.


It should be further explained that you should try and contact the creator if you are not sure about the references in a mod. It might require the GSMT for the mod to work correctly. It is up to the disgression of the user, as to whether or not they want to try it straight or take the time assembling their mods for play.


When I decide to start a new game I take about three weeks in R/L to start looking at the mods and testing them to make sure that I don't have any surprises in my game.

I will now fall off my soapbox.



LiF

As I indicated Elricm already does this, or at least used to do that. All the old mods we uploaded from TESMods, GamersRoam, TheLys etc were checked for GMSTs, dirty references etc and their presence indicated, like so;
http://www.elricm.com/mods.php?safe=2175
It's possible we missed some, but an effort was certainly made to inform end users about potential problems in legacy mods we hosted.

Neither Elricm nor PES accept unclean mods these days afaik, they contact the author and ask them to fix it and reupload before acceptance. I don't know what quality control if any is conducted at TES Source & other sites.

Permission from modders would indeed be a necessity. I would have no part in any endeavor that modifies the work of other's without their consent.

PES does post on a particular mod if it's dirty or has excessive GMSTs. This of course only applies to older mods, since we don't approve a mod if it has them. When I am approving mods, I check in this order: make sure it's in a compressed file, check for readme, check for GMSTs, check for dirty refs, check for missing resources. If any of those are a problem, I immediately stop and notify the author, then I decline the mod. It's all pretty straightforward.



That's easy to tell. If a mod is made with only MW and Trib loaded it inserts 11 GMSTs. With only MW loaded, it inserts 72 GMSTs. Any other amount is generally done on purpose.

Hmmm....well I can say as a sort of "noob" that when I go to download a mod marked as "Hall of Fame" I expect for it to be usable without adding unwanted contents to my game or small changes that cause the GMSTs. If the mod does things like this I usually uninstall it and don't use it, unless I decide I *MUST* have it, then I go through the painful(and time consuming) process of cleaning it, hoping I don't mess it up in the process. I think to be elected into the "Hall of Fame" the modder must have taken care to carefully prepare the mod so that it is *ready* for such a position. Many people download the HoF mods with the thought that it is going to be ready and fine to add right away, and any conflicts will be stated in the listing. If there are evil GMSTs though, that pretty much changes the overall expectations.

Thanks - I was looking for those numbers the other night actually (quite a few had 11, but I wasn't sure if they were intentional as most pertained to werewolves...)

Just another Judge me thread. People make Mods....use them, don't use them. But quit judging.
I don't believe we have a hall of fame here. Pes has a forum...use that if you wish. It's their system. just to guide people who follow them.

There is no better in art. Only different.

They got elected into the Hall Of Fame even though they had GMSTs, and that means people like the mod. GMSTs can be cleaned, and no great mod with some removable error using Wyre Mash or something should be treated unfairly.

Thank you for that 2004 Archived Thread OldeCow69. I had not run across it before and I am now enlightened. Thanks again.

FOLLOWING IS A REPLY TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS THREAD.

I originally started this poll thread because I am fairly "noob" to modding in general and I guess you could say my expectations as to what a HoF should be were influenced by my experience in the business coding world. I can emphasize with all the points brought up in this thread and did expect there to be controversy on this issue. I can go either way for a final decision without too much concern and originally just expressed my opinion. I also did have another motive for bringing it up. Since, as I put in another post on this thread, I am looking at all mods on PES that affect exteriors anyway, and have now run across this problem/situation, I thought maybe I could help by capturing data for those mods that have these characteristics if an effort would be made to clean them up. I was not originally capturing GMSTs/dirty exterior cell refs/author as part of my MW mod use grid map but will now change my MS Access DB and mod check procedures underway to capture that data, also going back for the 225 mods I have already done. I wanted to check with this forum on whether there was interest to do this before I got too far in my data collection because I do not intend to ever have to go back and do a complete check again but would be willing to update new, updated or missed if there is interest.

I am perfectly happy to accept Fligggerty's solution to request (not force) mod creators for already present mods to clean up their mods if they are unclean/dirty and will proceed along those lines in my data collection. Since the poll seems to be showing a pretty even split on its original question, that is probably the best solution.

The goal I have in all of this is to make it easier for "noobs" like I was two to three months ago, to gain a pleasurable experience with using mods and lessening their learning curve (and frustration) with mods that they can have a reasonable assurance are relatively "free from defects" - I guess that is from my Six-Sigma experience and business background.

One of the greatest strengths of the Morrowind game is that mods can easily be created by someone with little or no experience in modding; one of the greatest weaknesses of the Morrowind game is that mods can easily be created by someone with little or no experience in modding. It is a great outlet for an individual's creativity, and I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from trying their hand at it. I would greatly appreciate as a relative noob though doing so in an environment that has high standards as I would expect of something in the HoF. We should all try to remember our own noob days and how we learned modding. We didn't know everything we know today overnight. I think the chances are good that many of us used one of the HoF programs if slightly similar to what we wanted to build and put it into the Construction Set as a mask for our mod and then learned by OJT. Along the way we probably picked up some of the great documentation, tips and utilities that are there but in many cases we only found out about them through search discovery or word of mouth. Bet there are some of us that didn't even know what Wyre Mash or TESAME was when we released our very first mod on the MW community (provided those items were around then for you real old-time modders ). I would just like to see those programs be correct to begin with rather than finding out later in the learning curve that by using them as a mask, I perpetuated some errors on the users of my mod.

OK, now I am off my soapbox. I am extremely happy with the different, yet informative, posts communicated by posters of this thread.

- Rougetet

Anything that you id and help the modder to fix will be a wonderful help to everyone. As for the HoF, modders have no control on what makes that list. We just make things. Most of us are not coders, but instead just fans who enjoy what we do. I think you'd understand better as a coder if people set a guideline as to how to make textures or if you can't use the color purple in them.

No, no, no. Please, gods, no. This idea has been brought up before and in each time it has caused far more strife and bitterness than it was worth. Mortis-Nai, one of our prominent modders of the time, tried to organize a project like this back in 2003 and it went up in a nuclear blast of flames and accusations. He left the forum. Some of the rest of us who are left are just now beginning to speak to each other again. Every so often people bring this idea up again and they are always warned to drop it and with good reason. No one wants to incite another shooting war around here.

I don't mean this as a criticism of you. I know that you might not have been around when this idea was brought up before and probably aren't familiar with what has happened in the past. But modding is a hobby. We do this for free and (most of us) do it out of love. We don't like to be bossed around. We don't want to be told what to do. We get enough of that in our jobs in real life. We do hobbies to relax. We do do hobbies to get away from coercive, workaday bureaucracy not to enter into more of it.

Which, actually, is probably a good reason, now that I've given the matter a second thought, to drop this whole Hall of Fame idea. I know it's well intentioned but I've just convinced myself that it will only lead to bitter feelings.

Not strict enough, apparently. http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View...ail&id=5057 This mod was first entered into your database on 01-20-2007. It was most recently updated on 07-01-2007 and, as you can see from the comments, it is still riddled with dirty refs.

I don't know how to use Wyre Mash bescuse I am am 30% idiot 30% inexperienced and not wanting to screw with my mods and 40% willing to throw a mod to the delete button if I discover any problems with it.

I would also point out that no matter the HoF status or rating score of a mod, positive user comments or the recommendation of half this forum to download it I refuse to download a mod on PES which contains any GMSTs or Dirty Ref's. Maybe I'm missing out, but I made that decision when I didn't even know what those things were, only that they were bad. I'm sure there are people like me who see these notes on PES and just close the window or hit back like me. I would agree with the first post, agreeing that it should be the modder's responsibility to release a quality product, it's been said that mods are elected into the hall of fame because of their quality, but surely quality should not just rate the game content of the mod but also it's stability and compatibility and weather or not it's gonna mess up any part of my game?

-Garren

What duty? I didn't sign anything, how I release mods is up to me and you don't have any right to say "This mod must be like this". You don't have to download it


Why do you have a say in what other people do in there free time? Modders shouldn't have to release a "quality" product if they don't want to.

I don't mod for the community, I mod for myself. No one has any right say I have to clean a mod before I release it.



I just get very annoyed when people think I, as a modder, have a duty to do something for the mod user.

Isn't the reason Tribunal causes issues with the cells listed, because of the Dark Brotherhood attacks? That is what I had always thought it was spawn points for them.

Will probably get flamed for this but I guess my dander got fired up.

I tend to believe that if you only mod for yourself, keep them to yourself and don't release them to an unsuspecting public if you are not willing to go "the extra mile" to clean the mod. Sorry, but I believe that what you said shows a very puerile attitude. I guess that I could accept it if you also put in your mod disclaimer ReadMe in big bold letters right at the top of that ReadMe "I DON’T CLEAN MY MODS AND THEY PROBABLY HAVE GMSTs AND DIRTY REFERENCES, BUT I DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO CLEAN THEM SO USE AT YOUR OWN RISK". Your right to do as you please with your free time, doesn't give you the right to impact my free time trying to clean up your mess. I guess you have me wondering why you would even publicly release a mod with that attitude.

Not everyone that downloads a mod is a modder. I tend to believe that the majority of people that do download mods just want an enjoyable game experience and have no intention or desire to touch the tools that are out there to clean mods, yet if attitudes such as yours prevail, they have no choice. Most of the time they probably wouldn't even know that they needed to do anything at all, expecting instead that the mods out there were "good to go". I don't believe that it is fair to them to create an environment that tries to turn them into a modder and thus now impact their free time. Sure, you can say they don't have to download the mod, but many might not have the experience to know what a quality mod should look like, much less be able to change it into a quality mod if they do download it. Any problems that occur from the mod for this segment of downloaders only tends to frustrate them and potentially blacken the eye of the modding community as a whole for them.

I don't expect to change your attitude on this by this post so we should probably just leave it as we agree to disagree. You have your opinion and I have mine and suspect that never the two shall meet.

- Rougetet

The problems as stated earlier comes from running allot of mods together. Not from a GMST. The first person to invent a mod that will work with all mods both before it and after it's release Is a better man then I am.

Keep in mind that we are a staff comprised entirely of volunteers. Most of us hardly have enough time to deal with our own mods, let alone those made by others. As such, it's no surprise that a few slip through once in a while. It's bound to happen....especially with volunteers such as myself doing this with no compensation.

Yacoby is right. There is nothing saying we have a duty to clean up our mods.

This thread should be closed. It can only cause ill feels here. If you guys want to post a thread about dirty mods go ahead. Just leave PES out of this or start a thread at there forum.

I do agree with this. The HoF is a PES-run entity. It has nothing to do with ESF. Discussions such as this have a strong tendency to lead to flame-wars. Perhaps we ought to get a mod here to determine if this thread should be finished off.

I think spawn points are objects and would be listed for the cell. There are zero objects in these cells -- at least as displayed by the CS. But something must be attached to them because they are treated as changed for the merge.
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You can't reasonably back-date standards. Grandfathering in mods is fine, and the warnings are great. In my view the warnings are more than sufficient. Caveat Emptor. If you don't want the hassle, don't get the mod. If you're curious, it's a good way to learn what not to do.

It is the modder who is responsible for the mod they made. Some modders might consider cleaning by someone other than the user to be redoing their mod. A bit fussy, but it's their work.

I'm not suggesting that the hosts be responsible for quality. That would be unfair. That they give warnings is a very nice gift of their time. Really, why are others supposed to be responsible for making things easy for the rest of us?

One thing that people who have a complete set of modding tools and a lot of experience often forget is that many (most?) people opened the CS out of curiosity and found a happy toy. A second game even. They made their mod, and were proud of it, uploaded it ... and got yelled at. There are good reasons for the complaints, but don't forget that hours were spent putting the thing together and a lot was learned along the way. Complaining that someone didn't learn everything right away is also unreasonable. And while the information may be out there, how much time can one give to a game? Some truly unique ideas are in poorly constructed mods, I don't want to miss out on those ideas.

I found that by cleaning mods, my loadtime is reduced, and my fps is improved. I do think the more information that has to be correlated at load the more opportunity for errors. (Why doesn't the game engine save that correlated-at-load-raw-data-uber-mod so it won't have to go through all that next time, unless changes were made? That is what is happening isn't it?) I have fewer CTDs since I've learned to clean mods. Everyone's mods. Even the 'greats' will sometimes do things like change ALL the hlaalu load doors.

I found the dirty cells myself, and actually it IS covered in the forums. Out of curiosity I even tried cleaning the BIG THREE just to see what happened with combining mods -- it's in combining stuff that it shows up. And they were still added in. Go figure.

As for ending a topic because someone gets upset ... how delicate are people? Why shouldn't one be able to express upset without being insulting in turn? IMO neither bluntness nor harshness are necessarily rude. They can be, very rude even, but it isn't necessary. I guess it's in the construction of the reply.

OK, I don't clean them, but find a "evil" GMST or dirty ref in any of my 30ish mods, and I will be surprised. And I will also fix it

I was just getting annoyed at the fact that people thought modders had a duty to do something, which to me sounds like telling me what to do with my free time.


Your probably right, but it still doesn't mean I have a duty to do anything.



I myself don't see any reason to close the thread. I feel that everyone so far has been civil.

I'm right there with you Pseron ....


modders being bossed or disrepected will = ZERO mods



Nothing good can come from this type of thread .....

Yacoby, I'm sorry if I sounded rude in my earlier post, I just feel, that by uploading a mod you are effectively putting your product on the shelves for sale. I'm not telling you that you should put any more or less effort into something you make entirely for your own benifit and satisfaction, but once you turn that something into a product if you want it to sell then you should go that extra mile to ensure that it is of the highest standard. On the plus side it means that you won't get pm's from idiots like me saying "Zounds your mod hath ruined my game I shall smite ye mightily with my +9 katana of mighty vanquisment" Seriously.



-Garren

Edit : I think I aught to point out that I have nothing but appreciation for modders and everything you have all done to make my game far more enjoyable. The main thing for me is that disapointment I feel when I see a mod which from the description, screenshots and comments seems amazing and something which I very much want to play, but which I don't download because of the note stating that it has GMST's and Dirty Refs and I don't want to risk screwing anything up with my games (Being far too stupid lazy to learn how to work wyre mash).

Just thought that needed saying; it isn't that I feel that you are obligated to me - quite the oppisite, just that when I see an otherwise good mod which contains these things I cry inside.

When you download anything off the internet, be it mods or whatever, you assume a risk. You could get a virus, you might get a mod that doesn't work properly; everyone assumes this same risk whether they are a modder or have never even heard of Morrowind.

So I don't think it is fair to expect modders to clean their mods. They are free to put whatever they want out there, the same as you are. And you can't rightfully expect hosting sites to clean all their hosted mods either, even if they claim on the front page that "All Mods On This Site Are Clean". Mistakes and malice can and do happen, and always will. Would it be better if all mods were clean to begin with? Of course! But there's no way you can make others clean mods for you, so why waste the effort. Unfortunately there will always be that risk when you download something, fortunately there's something you can do about GMSTs in the mods you download.

Not even hearing other points of view?

I'm just impressed that the main download sites let you know that these exist in a particular mod, then it's up to me/us to decide if I/we want to download it. They don't have to do that for us, so we should probably be grateful that they do.
Like someone said earlier, downloading from the internet has all kinds of risks, this is minor in comparison.

The whole point of this thread is to ask the question: should certain mods be "removed" from hall of fame statis or not.

as a modder I find this whole thread asinine & insulting!

few people would release a dirty mod on purpose & most dirty mods get fixed.

If gamers want to see alot of quality mods made & released .... this sure isn't the way to encourage that.

Well. That's a point of view.

To get the Hall of Fame tag, you have to have received 25 votes of 8.0 or above, and have 5000 downloads.

The top three mods each month that fulfil that criteria get the award, so that usually means an average score of closer to 10/10, and 5000 or more downloads.

That's it. That's all it means.

Therefore, inevitably the quality of mods that receive a Hall of Fame tag will differ considerably. For example, more mods that were released early on in Morrowind's life will receive a Hall of Fame tag because there were more players back then, so it was quite likely that even a small house-shack would have received 5000 downloads.

Then there's the issue of like-for-like comparison. Can a simple one-bedroom house be considered "better" than a quest mod? In some cases (thinking of Japanese House) I'd actually say "yes", but it's the player's dilemma.

The moral of the story is to take ratings with a pinch of salt. If everyone's raving about a mod, then, sure - it's likely to be good - but the majority can be wrong in your opinion. The only way to be sure is to try it yourself.

As for flaws in the mod itself, there are two "legitimate excuses" - firstly on the very oldest mods where tools like TESTool etc weren't around; and secondly on very, very large mods where the law of averages dictates that the modder will make a mistake sooner or later due to the sheer number of items in the mod. For example (not that I've checked but) if Wizards' Islands had any dirty refs, it wouldn't surprise me at all, and I wouldn't be cross about it. It would be quite dizzying to look at the TESAME report for that mod, and very easy for the mod-makers to overlook something.

Not removed. But FLAGGED! SO everyone can be aware of the issue and decide if they want to use it still or not (its got to be good for its int he hall of fame NO?)