Based on my years of experience in around the forums I've put together a modding dictionary. A maybe "Community Bestiary" would be more accurate.

Warnings:
* The terms defined here are at the least, acerbic. They're definitely opionionated in places. While I've shot for semi-neutrality on terms like "Isolationist", for other terms I'm not so neutral (e.g. Tragic Chorus). (Honestly, if you're an adult and not thin-skinned I think that you'll find the terms useful.)
* This is first draftish. I've spell checked, but I may change some terms, shorten names, etc. And I may cool it down in some places (or heat it up in others).

Because the dictionary is a little "warm", I'll post the terms here, but if you want to see the definitions, you'll need to follow the link below.

Here are the terms with my current thoughts on them
* Ask-Firster - New. Aka "RTFM Candidate". Maybe something a little blunter than Ask-Firster would be better.
* Community Entanglement - New. Shorter would be better.
* Cathedralist - Established.
* Customist - New. Not as euphonious as I would like. "Customander"?
* Cheerleader - New. Good.
* De-Marbleize - New. Good.
* Fan Service - Good. Re-use of anime term. Don't think I've seen it here before.
* Immersionist - Established.
* Integrationist - Semi-New. (See Frustrated topic.)
* Islandist - Semi-New. (See Frustrated topic.)
* Isolationist- Semi-New. (See Frustrated topic.)
* Loreist - Established.
* Mod Collector - New. Good.
* Modders Exhaustion - New. Good.
* Parlorist - Established.
* Potato Chip Effect - New. Good.
* Rating Fairy - New. Good. Non-Neutral.
* Rating Troll - New. Good. Non-Neutral.
* RTFM - Established.
* Silent Modjority - New. Clumsy. Maybe "Silent Players/Users/Community" instead.
* Tragic Chorus - New. Good. Non-Neutral.
* Tragic Modder - New. Good. Non-Neutral.
* Troll - Established.

For the actual definitions, see Wrye's Modding Dictionary. (See below.)

I appreciate comments/suggestions. If the comment/suggestion is too warm to post publicly, then PM me.

Update: I've moved the page to Wrye:Somewhat Acerbic Modders Dictionary at UESP. Note that unlike most pages at UESP, this is a limited editing article. If you have suggestions, please add them on the talk page. I've also volunteered Princess Stomper to be co-editor (which she just found out about by reading this sentence -- Hi Princess! Whether princss accepts will depend on whether she's in evil bunny or saintly bunny mode.).

You need to add pictures of the beasts too lol

I hate to think of where I fall in that bestiary lol

Thanks, I have found a new definition for myself: Mod Collector, fits me to a tee. Comprehensive and concise and also correct.

Thanks my friend.

Buddah

Yeah, right!!!!

Not even.

Mod Smithsonian Institution or Mod Library of Congress, maybe.

Very useful... thanks for this. There should be a word for people who refuse to deactivate plugins, even after they're completely done with them 'Mod collector' just doesn't seem to fit me.

Thanks Buddha... I was tempted to add a special note to cover you. I would note that you don't just collect mods -- you also have generated that list and apply that knowledge very generously on the forums.

ishmael: That's just a mod player. I dislike remove mods too, since doing so means losing all of the mementos (notes, misc. gear, etc.) If they're a part of the world, they should stay there. Unfortunately, there's an overhead cost to that.

Very useful

I find myself to be a "Silent Modjority" breaking free to become a "cheerleader".

Is there a term for people with a compulsion to categorize?

I do still play the game, morrowind as well, but I do not have enough years ahead of me to play all 20,000 plus mods that have been released. My favorites are house mods, which make up 80% of the ones I use. But the best mod is the one that does what it is intended to do and does it well. A prime example is border removal, simply changes one thing and can't conflict with anything, if you have a second mod that does the same thing it does not matter as changing the value of 0 to 0 is redundant.

Just the way I see things.

Heh. I think for one person's view you do a fair job summing up things. You certainly have more experience with the community than I do for one.

Organists. (Hmm, no. Not funny enough.)

'Loreist' should have sub-category 'Lore-fearing citizen,' who doesn't actually know any, but uses it as a yardstick nonetheless.

I've always thought of Buddha as a Librarian of sorts. Lessee if I can find one I fit into now. Good stuff, Wrye.

Immersionist

thats my closest fit . Although I like to swagger from definition to definition.

I did like what you said about "Tragic Modder" . If your veiw is clear then so was mine , cause it was the same.
I wasn't aware of these terms. Interesting , but I think this article only serves as an elitest proponent . Dont take that akin to "Rating Troll" However please .

Some ideas of things that need terms

Modders who rehash ideas (ie releasing a playable palace armor at this point)
Modders who have 20+ versions of their mod to increase download count
Modders who abandon nearly all of their works, or start with a massive project as their first mod, likely not to be completed
Modders who add easter eggs in mods!

Attachment (maybe too strong)? Embraced by a community? Mobliv'pire?

A sign to add to that - posts an issue (may even be legitimate), waits 10 minutes, rates your mod a 1

Please continue, my good sir.! (<-- That's hilarious, that's not what I wrote, but that's how I meant it). That's an awesome term! Ah, ok - looking through the definitions I see your point. Maybe this should be a more general term - after all, many use the wiki without making a single edit, and there are always more guests on these forums than people signed in. Maybe the effect itself needs a name, but there are so many aspects to it. The 1:100*1:2 effect - you may get a vote for every 100 downloads, the "Silence is Golden" effect - if you don't hear anything, it's (relatively) working, the "Look at me!" effect - comments only seem to come when the thread is near the top of the forum, even for popular mods, the "Drool for President" effect - |<3\/\/L mods get a lot of votes/attention... ok, that's enough for now, but you get the point.

Some suggestions (still don't really like labels, but to go with the rest of the dictionary):

1. "Level 10ers" - those who have only made it to level 10 or so (over the last 2 years ), but are still active in the community.
2. "Teasers" - those that promise great things, may even show beautiful pictures and maps, but never quite release a final project. My most heart-breaking example of this would be tda's Silent Hill mod - I wuv's me some SH, and those pictures were incredible. This term might be a little warm, but OTOH people really look forward to these mods.
3. "Code Monkeys" - those who mod way more than they play, usually approaching infinite.

Don't think I understand that. Do you mean someone who berates your mod for not being up to lore, while not actually being familiar with lore? Or something else?


1) Hmm. I haven't seen that so much. I'm more aware of major mod projects that are semi-duplicative. E.g. Kvatch Rebuild vs. Kvatch Aftermath, but while unfortunate, that's understandable (to some degree). Different people have different visions. And to the degree that I wish they would work together that's more of an Integrationist/Islandist issue.
2) Well, don't think that I'll be able to throw any rocks at that glass house! I've argued elsewhere that "release often" is a much better policy than "big probject will be done in two years". And Cobl follows that policy. (Not mention Bash, currently on release 183 or so.) In other words, I doubt that most frequent releasing is there to drive up download count.
3) Haama's "Teasers" sounds good for first part of that. For second part, I was thinking "WannaTc" -- but it's not really accurate -- people who say "I want to build a TC" quickly get some sort of grip." And sometimes, huge projects actually do make progress. (E.g. although I've criticized it on other grounds, Sovvm is one mod that's fulfilling it's promise.
4) I think that I would just call those "modders".


Community Entanglement is actually pretty accurate and reasonably neutral. Hard to get something shorter that would get the same point across. E.g. "Attachment" is too general. And the prinicple applies outside of ES, so it shouldn't be a n ES specific term.





I was thinking "clumsy" because the "dj" is unnatural in English, but good point about it being more general.

Re topics being popular because they're popular (i.e. on the first page): "Forum Froth" (or "Froth Popularity").


Level10ers: Started 40 characters, but never finished the main quest, huh? How about "10 For Lifers?"
Teasers: Sounds good.
Code Monkeys: There's is only one Monkey God of Modding! Oh, you mean all those other non-monkey code-monkeys? I think that starts getting into:
1) Players, 2) those who mod to play (mostly Islandists), 3) Mod but don't play types. These kind of overlap the Islandists notion. But not totally. Hmm..

Hmm... The Wiki uses Lorists, rather than Loreists. Seems awkward to have the 'ei' in there, though neither is a real word and "Lorists" looks awkward as well. (Disclaimer: The Wiki uses "Lorist" because I wrote it )

Other than that, yes, I would agree that some of this is a bit strongly influenced by your own personal opinions on various issues, most notably "Cathedralism" and "Integrationism" - the "Tragic Modder/Chorus" entries, in particular, seem very condemnatory in their wording. Not saying these aren't real phenomena (they certainly are), just that the way you wrote the definitions seems to imply that every modder who leaves out of frustration to trolling is "thin skinned" and therefore weak and therefore inferior. I suspect you would not intend "Tragic Modder" to apply to one such as AlienSlof, who has undergone years of serious verbal abuse for her modding efforts.

There are, of course, others who have dramatized what has been done to them. I can think of cases where the term could be fairly applied. I also suspect that I have been a member of a "Tragic Chorus" from time to time, as well - but then, my ideas on what a modder is entitled to differ from yours.

And of course, the "IIIs" - we've already had a very long discussion of what I think of that. I would say that I personally would rather you had kept them to yourself rather than publish a system of terminology, apparently designed to be used by everyone. It's one thing for you to personally judge modders almost entirely by their integrationist efforts or lack thereof, but I feel somewhat like this could be an underhanded way to sway community opinion by changing the words that they use. My entire complaint regarding those terms is that their definitions themselves pre-suppose an Integrationist viewpoint, and I still maintain that the terms are not properly neutral in their consideration of each of the three. For your own personal opinion, it's fine that you think Integrationists are better than Isolationists. I don't think it's fair to try to influence the community to think the same way - that is your opinion, and not an objective fact. Isolationists may frustrate you because they stand squarely in the way of a Cathedral and oppose your own efforts, but modders with that kind of attachment to their mods also tend to be very dedicated to their mods.

DragoonWraith: I think we're back in agree to disagree territory. (About most of that.) But...

Lorists: You're right.

Tragic Chorus, Tragic Modder: Yep, these are ones that I flagged as non-neutral in my first post. However, the Tragic Chorus is definitely much worse than the Tragic Modder. (I'll forgo discussing AS, as there's effectively a forum ban on the topic given the large number of posts.)

However, on a separate note regarding AS. I was thinking of her for the "Fan Service" category -- as the sole rep of the female side of it. While neither type (male or female) of Fan Service is to my taste, I appreciate that someone is representing the gal's side of it -- it's nice to see a little more balance in the world. BTW, in case it's not clear, "Fan Service" should be taken as neutral -- some love it, others don't. Again, interesting article on Wikipedia on it (linked to from my dictionary page).

Re usage: Some terms are useful, but are not meant to be used in public. E.g. of the terms listed, "Tragic Modder" should not be thrown around in public -- there's just no point. By the time you recognize that someone is one, there's no advantage in pointing it out to them -- it's not going to change their mind. It's more useful a private summary in personal conversation with friends.

Personally I still don't see what use could be made of the Isolationist, Islandist and Integrationist terms. Why qualify modders like that as their attitude can change with every mod they make depending on the circumstances and the type of mod...and if this is meant to apply to their mods, there's no guarantee that mods created by "integrationists" will not create conflict issues. It only serves to divide the community IMHO.

A mod made by a so-called "integrationist" can raise several incompatibility issues while a mod created by any kind of "non integrationist" might as well create conflicts in fewer circumstances or even no conflicts (per example, using FCOM or even OOO alone with my actual mod combination would create more conflicts in my game than simply using the "basic" Fran's mod which, according to what you posted in the other thread, has been created by an "Islandist"). Every mod combination differs. Not sure what effect those terms can have on people who are not too familiar with mod conflict management and the use of the CS...I believe it can only be negative, especially if mods are tagged as having been made by a non-integrationist.

I wonder if any modder would consider his or herself an isolationist. I can see them wanting to make the mod they want to make but I doubt they think to hell with compatibility or anything like that

Re the III terms (Integrationist, Islandist, Isolationist): These were discussed at length on the Frustrated topic, and in the end, enough people found those terms useful that I consider them stable (though they're new to people who did not vist that topic). Also, specifically,
* The question of whether they were divisive or not was raised and answered. In the end, there was an "agree to disagree" consensus, but as I said, a number of fairly experienced people found them to be useful distinctions.
* Also on that topic, quite a few people indicated that they didn't care at all about compatibility. (Though many of these were Islandists who were okay with someone else providing compatibility patches.) Other examples were given of people being more actively hostile towards compatibility.

So again, I find the III terms and definitions to be stable at this point. At this point, I'm more flexible on the other terms labeled "New" in my first post.

"Guru": Someone who has been established as being highly knowledgable in the art of TES modding and willingly shares their learnings with others. (Ex: DragoonWraith for scripting, ThrottleKitty for various NIF/texturing tricks, etc).

Guru: That's a general term, so no need to define it. (I wouldn't define "Troll" except that it's useful for comparison with some other terms.)

New Version: 02 (I guess)
* Big Plans Modder - New. Good.
* Froth Popularity - New. Good.
* Idle Posting - New. Good. No great! Damn, I'm funny!
* Hoax Modder - New. Good.
* Lorist - Changes from "Loreist"
* Silent Majority - Changed from "Silent Modjority"
* Tease Modder - New. Good.
* Ten for Lifer - New. Good. (Based on Haama's suggestion.)

(Idle posting is just tooo accurate. I'm going to de-idle and do something semi-useful now. I.e. drink a beer and watch some video.)

You should consider adding Patronizer - special category who a prone to great, lol! or Wow, you doin' real good the moment something is posted just out of habit.

Modders don't need to be patronizer and in my opinion when it comes to weighing mod's quality they are better prepared than mere mod-users as I.

Do they need that kind of lukewarm encouragement?

Maybe something like "Timid Modder" too... These are the kinds of modders who, regardless of quality of work, are scared to release it to the public. They might have a small testing group or release only on obscure sites, but they are scared to death of getting negative comments so they never make a thread about it or upload their mods to popular sites. Sort of like the Modding equivalent of a Lurker. It's kind of like a Tease Modder but they actually do release things...

Which could be the opposite of your Community Entanglement - different from a lurker. A lurker still reads the forums. But the opposite of an entangled member is someone who rarely if ever visits forums or interacts with the community on an extremely limited basis, often through a third person... Like Shy Modder syndrome.

I always thought the established silly-word for lore obsessives was "Lorehounds". ;D

And I would add: Ninja Modders! They hide in the shadows for years at a time, release something amazing with no warning, then vanish mysteriously for years... until the next time! An example might be Ren, but there are others.

Also, a key feature of the Ask-Firsts is that they spend hours bumping their posts and writing "any1???" repeatedly when during this time they could have found their answer 100 times over with a fraction of the effort, had they any personal initiative.

Ninja modders, that's a good one...

Oh, and perhaps also OCD/Worriers/Detail-oriented... Their games run perfectly except for one iddy biddy thing that most people overlook, like CTD upon exit, or a tiny bush in the Jerrall Mountains is hovering a foot above the ground. I'm not saying their notations are worthless or invalid, this is not a critique on those kinds of people; I think they are either trying to be helpful or they are just worried they will destroy their game with a slightly incorrect load order.

This reminds me of my grandma who was so scared to push the ON button on the computer because she thought she would break it somehow! ( Gotta love 'em. )

I've come across these guys a few times on this forum:

Notaku - Someone who is diametrically opposed to any anime/manga based mods for no discernible logical reason.

Oh and another I thought of while I was checking that I spelt diametrically right.

Diamante modder - someone who creates beauty mods to make the game all pretty and sparkly.

Oh and there's the back seat modder - someone who takes over a WIP thread and insists that the original author implements all of their ideas.

Maybe change the Big Plans Modder to the Macrocosm modder.

How about the people who continually ignore the existing relevant threads and start one of their own? You know, the ones who start a "where can I find XXXXX" or "why doesn't YYYYY work" thread despite the existence of threads like "Mod Detectives/Psychics" and the various RELz threads.

I know it can sometimes be difficult to go through hundreds of posts about a mod to see if someone has previously asked the same thing, but surely it's not rocket-science to hunt down an appropriate thread and post in it?

Maybe they are a sub-set of the Ask-Firster. Or maybe the Ask-Firster is a sub-set of the Searchaphobic.

I've always thought of Buddha as the anthropomorphic personification of the Wayfarers Guide to Mundus and he has Don't Panic tattooed on his chest in the Daedric alphabet.

No, Kivan, dev_akm and a few others are The Guide. Buddah is definitely the Librarian. When I picture him in front of his PC he always has orange fur and is surrounded by banana skins.

There are plenty of reasons for not releasing a mod to the public besides being scared.

(A zookeeper wanders by and urges the patrons not to encourage the monkey to bite people. The zoo's legal bills are already mounting.)
Patronizer: Better not. Zookeerps might cut off my access to the All Lara All the Time Hotline.

I know that some of my terms are negative, but I do try to keep the terms neutral, esp. if the motive is good, but I just disagree with the philosophy. I.e., I'm being a little bit critical of cheerleaders, but they are positive and getting that extra bump will definitely help some folks -- especially Timid Modders. I.e. I may be a cranky monkey, but I do try to not be too cranky.

Timid Modders: Are there such modders? Also I'd like to not end up with a list of (random adjective) modders. Hmm... Perhaps I've already done that a little bit? Might have to trim a few.

Kateri:
* Lorehounds: I think that "Lorists" is the one I've seen the most.
* Ninja Modders: I don't know of that many. Maybe the Lost Spires guy?
* I was thinking of "Bumpers", but given the forum rules, they're usually warned out of the behavior before too long -- thus it's only a temporary condition.

Finniska: (Wrye looks at the zookeeper. Zookeeper shakes his head and mouths the words, "Lara". Wrye turns back to Finniska and shrugs a "what can you do?" shrug.)
Okay, aside from the monkey humor... Half the people on the forums and half of the modders are obsessive to one degree or another. I'm somewhat obsessive (else I wouldn't spend time try to organize stuff.) Still, I sort of get what you mean. But I think that falls into the "it takes all kinds" category. E.g. the whole UOP effort is a massive effort of obsessiveness. I'm definitely not going to complain about that.

OTOH, I get your your point about grandma... I'll think about it.

Ps: Of course a guy who Omod's everything and maintains a list of lists, is probably not Captain Sloppy, eh?

Scanti:
Notaku: That's cute -- and I may qualify as one.
Diamante: Okay "diamante" means "diamond" right? Or is there some other etymology that I'm missing?
Back Seat Modder: I get what you mean. Hmm...
Macrocosm: Sounds too much like a mega TC. I want to avoid implying TCs since most such "Big Plans" aren't that big.

TLS: Yeah, that's a variety of ask first. I like "Searchaphobic" though. Ideally it would cover both people who won't read the manual and those who won't do a search.

In General:
I guess that I'm largely going by my experience, if someone names a category, and I think "oh yeah, those folks", then it's probably pretty common. I'm also trying to pick somewhat neutral terms except for groups that really deserve it (e.g. Rating Trolls). Of course, what I think of as being fairly neutral may be swayed by my impression of how clever I think I'm being. E.g. "Rating Fairy" may be going to far. While I'm critical of the method (rating high w/o trying), the intention is good. "Gift Rating" would be more neutral, yet support my criticism.

Pseron Wyrd: Some mods are just private, and as I point out. And I think that Brash has talked before about difficulties that she has with releasing mods. I've noted such limitations under one of the entries, but it probably needs to be better written. As I've mentioned this is still pretty first draftish. There was a topic about a year(?) ago on the obligations associated with starting a WIPZ topic. Opinions differed somewhat, but I feel (and from what I saw, most modders) agreed that starting a WIPZ mod implies and effort and intention to release. I understand the limitations on that -- some mods are too difficult to finish, and a perfectionist is often not happy with releasing an imperfect solution.

Diamante are those fake diamonds that cover tacky pieces of jewelry that shopping channels try to sell.

Fluffers - Post "Any updates? Please don't let this be dead!" in WIP threads left unattended for more than 8 hours.

I think "Fluffers" may evolve to Necromancers when start bumping in very old thread

This is really getting out of hand. Can you just keep your labels on your site and not post it here?

So long as everyone takes this as a bit of fun, there's no harm done. It's not like coming up with amusing words is actually going to change anything, for good or ill.

I'm definitely a 10-for-Lifer.

How about:

Goldfish Modder: Someone with 150 projects on the go, who manages to rarely finish anything because they keep getting distracted by new ideas every time they're close to completion.

I'd love to know who it was who taught me how to use the Search button. I was an ask-firster, but only because I just didn't notice the search button, and still less knew how to use it.

Next time you're tempted to yell at an ask-firster, it's best to ... ask first whether they've actually noticed the button on the top right.

Wanna-TC sounds good for wanna-be total conversion project founders who have no skills and never get to alpha.

Good job mate

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was me. I remember yelling at you for something in one of those numerous threads you made when you first showed up. And at the top of my list of pet peeves back then was people not using the search button. But soon I realized that the search feature on this forum was not as robust as the search on the old forum and I (mostly) stopped giving people grief about it.

If I'd known that you were someday going to become a moderator I would have been more sycophantic back then. It just goes to show - you never know who's going to be wielding the banhammer in the future. So it's best to be scrupulously polite to everyone, even to the illiterate retards people who don't search.

Wrye, yes, I think it was probably best to let most of that post slide. I had intended more to summarize where I was coming from and less to actually get into a discussion about them - but I didn't do a great job of that.

Re: reference to AlienSlof - I wonder how she would feel about being labeled fan-service? I don't know her well enough to say. I could see her both annoyed and amused by it. I think it's accurate enough and I think it's great that she does what she does, tipping the balance somewhat (she may be alone, but she makes up for the lack of quantity by sheer quality!)


Or we could use Bethesda's none-too-flattering "lore-mongers" No, I will never let them live that one down.


I seem to recall that Ren was fairly active back when he was updating his Beauty Pack. Could be wrong however.


True, but personally (since I have two very often long-dormant threads on projects that I actually am working on when I get time) I really appreciate it when someone expresses interest in one of my threads. I hate keeping people waiting as long as I have, but that's the nature of the beast for me, unfortunately.


Eh... as little in-jokes, no. As actual terms that people use, they could very easily damage one side or another. But I digress.


Hehe, I actually did beat the Main Quest once... I think I got to like 17.


Haha, I'm kinda like that except not nearly so many projects. But the last ten-ish esps in my data files list are all mine, various things I did at random. I have a nearly completely-functional MessageBox Enchantment Menu. This is from before OBSE's MessageBoxEX (actually it's the thing that got me pushing for expanded MessageBox capabilities), so it's a monster of a script. Wouldn't ever serve any purpose that I can think of, but it was kinda fun to code, at first.

that's classic.
only... a goldfish has no long term memory, it doesn't get distracted, it simply forgets. a more accurate term would be the Kitten Modder .

hehe, really entertaining great job naming all these people we all know and 'love'

kinda sad how many of them apply to me...

Very nice list !

My suggestions - feel free to change name, I'm not the best at inventing labels. The first two are not types, but "scales" which go from one extreme to another.

1. While this is something which can change drastically from one mod to the next, I've observed that some modders mostly release very modular mods (mods with many .esp options for users to adjust them), while others tend to release "singular" files (no configuration options, but easier to install. Please, before all of you are throwing tomatoes at me - I think both approaches are equally valid, the first a bit more targeted at experienced users, the second much more newbie friendly). Maybe modularists / singularists?

2. Another scale is how focussed a modder usually works. Some do more specialized mods, while others usually make more broader mods (which are in the middle of this "slider"). Then there are modders who put together whatever they like, thus working quite defocussed. Example given: The unofficial patch is very focussed, only fixing bugs and keeping the game like Bethesda had wanted it to be. Now compare to a very popular German "unofficial patch": In time it defocussed and now also includes a new UI, house improvements, few selected features of Fran's, it's changing birthsigns, calculation of Magicka and it's regeneration, and many, many more stuff. In my experience this tend to correlate a bit with "III", though, because defocussed modders tend to create a lot of compatibility problems. I fear discussions will follow, so I'm just throwing in an example: While you may think OOO is defocussed, it's not including stuff like a character leveling system, forces you to use a certain body mod, makes it impossible to use armors and weapons from other mods. As you may have guessed, there's a non English alternative to OOO which does include these things.

3. "Gem Hider". Sounds funny, but I don't know of a more fitting term. Some modders do really marvellous mods - but don't get much (if any) attention, because they suck at presenting their mods. Which is a pity. Example given: I'm newswriter for a large non English Elder Scrolls page, we still don't have a user upload system (sigh, where have all the coders gone?), so often I'm uploading other people's mods, too (when requested, of course - we're no "wild uploader"). Now some of them have great modding skills, create beautiful new armor / weapons, put together an interesting quest, or something other - and then their ReadMe / download text consists of two lines, which doesn't do their mods any justice. The "underdog mod list" thread in this forum listed many "hidden gems".

4. "R&D" (Research and Development): Some modders do not primary mod to create mods which are played, but to explore the possibilities of modding, expand them even by inventing or discovering new techniques and tools, or putting together proof of concepts.

5. "Messies": Some modders are quite experienced, know what they're doing with quests or location design or features or textures / meshes, but nevertheless everything they release is full of unnecessary "dirty" changes, identical to master records, unintented stuff and all that. Mods by those people may be very good, but definitely needs the tes4edit treatment.

Morrowhiner - Someone who constantly requests Mods to be made "Just like in Morrowind"

Haha, that sounds like me. I spend the vast majority of my modding time just tinkering with random script ideas that I have.

Tinkerer, in fact, is how I would generally label myself.


Now, to me, that's not a good modder. It's not even a compatibility - that's just poor modding. I know a lot of modders will mod messily, and have lots of unnecessary edits as they try different things and the like - but if they're any good, they clean it up with tes4edit. Anyone who releases a mod like that is not, in my opinion, a very good modder. They may be a good writer, landscape/interior designers, modeler, or texturer, but they are not a good modder.

there should be a term for people that post "check my load order," or at least for the threads they create. they are surely frequent enough to warrant a nifty name.

How about a term for someone that posts a really old idea as a new idea on the forums like the person that posted they thought it would be cool to make mods that were Morrowind based. Nobody thought of that idea before

Hehe. Good stuff, Wrye. It's a great read, and there are some real gems of wisdom hidden in there.

I think you're missing a subtype of Cheerleader, though. Not sure what term you would use, but I actively and encourage a lot of mods that I'll never actually get a chance to play. But that doesn't mean my appreciation is insincere. It just means I have limited time by proportion to all the great mods being made. I do wish I had time to try them all. If I do actually use a mod then I generally try to follow up with more specific suggestions and feedback.




Too true! Buddah rocks!



Too suggestive, rather.


LOL.

Maybe better would be adding a subcat for Lore Fundamentalists, who insist on the inerrancy of previous, "better" Elder Scrolls games. This type of person is very distinct from the more liberal (and probably more numerous) Lore Lovers, who don't so much care about literal adherence to prior Elder Scrolls lore, but rather appreciate any reasonably good attempt to expand the game lore or explain things that otherwise don't fit into the Elder Scrolls universe.

For example, I don't know that much lore myself, but I greatly appreciate the small amounts of lore I do absorb. I also like plenty of mods that bend and twist or even just break the lore, if they do it well.



I think maybe you're taking WMD (lol) a bit too seriously. I definitely agree with Princess Stomper on this. It doesn't read at all like an actual dictionary of terms (OED, etc.) , so I don't see how it could be seen as "underhanded" in any way. Still, a better title might be Wrye's Acerbic Modding Dictionary. At least then people could moan about how they got "wamed" when these terms are used to criticize them -- which most certainly will happen sooner or later.



Sadly, I think it's unlikely that trolls will heed such usage guidelines. The cat's out of the bag, so to speak, and I'm afraid many of these terms will stick -- and yes they will be hurtful when used the wrong way.

But, I don't think you should worry about this too much. WMD provides a valuable perspective on our modding community and manages to do so with a lot of wit, which is a rare commodity at the best of times.

So what if it's biting at times? That's exactly what makes it worth reading! Kinda like the tabloid headlines, not that I know anything about that ... ahem!

Besides, anyone who knows Wrye should expect no less from the Mad Monkey God of finger biting!

Of course releasing messy mods is a highly problematic behaviour and doesn't let a modder's skill shine in a very good light. I've thrown in this kind of modders because of that lovely "utterly frustrated" thread. Artmoor had a very great example of bad modding behaviour - although in my eyes messy behaviour, not necessarily an isolationist (the modder in question may have been, I don't know, just as an example it looked more like "messy work").

That guy would probably fit both categories. A "messy isolationist" since he not only made a huge mess, but actively refuses to clean it up at the same time even knowing the compatibility issues it caused. This despite the work on the actual mod itself being fairly good. The collateral damage done was just too high though.

I think it was you, actually! Didn't you know the button was invisible? Control buttons are like pinned threads, which in turn are like those Magic Eye drawings. You can't see them until someone points them out to you, but then when they do, you can't believe that everyone else doesn't see that sailboat too!



Pah! And I wouldn't love you half as much if you were an insincere tail-kisser!



Not kitten ... bunneh ...

(\W/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")



Ha! Love it!



Yeah, I know what you mean. I can think of someone whose mods would be excellent if they weren't absolutely impossible to use - and there are so many dirty refs you could probably make the mod yourself from scratch quicker than it would take you to clean it.

I was introduced to a great term last night:
Fanon. This is what happens when modders can't find the lore they're after, so they just make up the missing bits in a manner that they hope approximates what's already out there - e.g. filling in missing years in biographies, or "what happened between 3E 429 and 3E 433".

I made up a term a while back that I've just been reminded of it: Antiweasling.
This is "fanon" that is introduced when you know full well the devs' explanation for something but you consider it "weasling" so you make up something you think is more plausible.
e.g. Weasling: "Horses don't live on Morrowind because the Elves eat them and they're allergic to the weeds."
Anti-Weasling: "Of course, that's what they tell you! The real explanation is that the Imperials levied extortionate import taxes on horses and nobody wants to pay it."

I'm starting to mod a bit more than R&D To be honest, though, my PoCs were laziness - I made the scripts and hoped someone else would do the animation/item placement work.


For the most part yes. This has a much different feel than the frustrated thread - the meat of it is on another page, and the warning is very clear. The middle of this thread may have slipped from the fun a bit, but it's been light (here) so far.

BTW, love Goldfish modder - might need a correlate for OBSE fanatics. SkyMall modders? Oblivophiles? OBSExtendophiles (almost as bad as Organist )? Gadget modder?

If it's all for good fun then...let's play along. It reminds me this funny list I came across a while ago: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous...t/2006/11/72119. I am sure most them can somewhat be adapted to the TES modding community (in fact it looks like a few of those have already made it to your list in a certain way)... I'm not good enough in English to create some good names and descriptions.

lol. That list is quite funny.

Sigh. I'm sure I left my 96% retirement around here somewhere. So much for my plans for a some minor cleanup after readinga few cursory comments... Instead I'm going to be editor for a lot of good ideas. (And it's very good to see that this has been pretty pleasant!)

Shifting to editor mode. This may take a while...

Other than the Magical Realist, and maybe the One-Issue Poster and Power Craver, I'd say a lot of those MMO complainers are not really present here. Those types of complaints don't make sense in a game where you can simply go in and change it yourself. Magical Realist, though, is pretty good - sort of a combination of Immersionist and Lorist, gone horribly wrong.

Count me among those in the Cathedralist camp and one that takes a dim view of the Parlorists, and one who is now suffering from Modders Exhaustion [really more of an addiction to Lord of the Rings Online]. See, Wyre, you can use your dictionary in everyday conversation.

Heh, DeathMongers - finally bringing together the need for more Crafting and Necromancy mods!

True. I think most characteristics are different aspects. There are some which are exclusive (e.g. the IIIs, you can't be both an Integrationist and an Isolationist), but most of them aren't. Like different option sliders in game - how you set your difficulty doesn't affect how you set your music volume. So there can be messy islandist immersionists who are liking modules, lore and fanservice .

PS: Sorry for spelling your name wrong!



Another idea which came to my mind, but (truth be told) isn't that present in this modding community: Direct approachers vs cheaters (again a scale). Now don't get upset about cheaters - I'm refering to an old saying from the very beginning of user made content for games - "mapping means cheating". In the old days you had to trick the engines to create what you want (if any of you remember breaking glass in Unreal (Tournament), it was just a particle spawn and a door moving out of visibility). Today many follow more direct approaches in modding. Example given for Oblivion modding: To create a shape change into animal mod the direct approachers choose a route by changing the player directly. Xilverbullet on the other hand "cheated" and instead just put the player as an invisible dwarf onto a rideable animal. Sneaky, but effective. A more neutral term would be "out of the box thinkers" or something.


PS: About trolls and tragic chorus, they sound a bit familiar...

Now I'm sure I've seen this somewhere before...

Oh, I know, it's Talaran's avatar!

Cipscis

EDIT:

I was right!

Cipscis

I've moved the page to Wrye:Somewhat Acerbic Modders Dictionary at UESP. Note that unlike most pages at UESP, this is a limited editing article. If you have suggestions, please add them on the talk page. I've also volunteered Princess Stomper to be co-editor (which she just found out about by reading this sentence -- Hi Princess!).

Update: I've done a first pass on copying comments to the article talk page. Still need to tackle the longer posts.

I never said there weren't other reasons. I was talking about the ones who are scared specifically. I thought that was fairly clear, sorry for the confusion.

I know several people who are absolutely terrified of releasing mods to the public. They sometimes even release through third person or via sock accounts. It's a bit unusual, but I think it's a fear of rejection and it provides an easy escape if they feel like their mod was rejected which may or may not lead to the de-marbelizers.

I'm not trying to cause issues with anyone, in fact, I'm sympathetic to this kind of modder. My sister is like that, actually.

Thanks for the humorous read This is a nice change from the recurring dramatic side-topic on the state of affairs in modding.
"Lorenuke" and "Rating Fairy" are my favorites.

PS
There are some double "the" under Cheerleader, Froth Popularity and Tragic Modder on the UESP Wiki page.

glypha: Thanks. And fixed the the's.

There are a lot of good ideas on the talk page now. I'll review and move some to the article -- manana.

Link: Wrye:Somewhat Acerbic Modders Dictionary

Here's the current set of terms. I've processed a lot of the earlier suggestions. Still need to think about some others. (Which may take a couple of days -- this has been pretty time consuming.)
* Aggregation Mod
* Ask-Firster
* Back Seat Modder
* Big Plans Modder
* Cathedralist
* Cheerleader
* Community Entanglement
* Consolitis
* Customander
* De-Marbleize
* Fan Service
* Fluffer
* Froth Popularity
* Gaudjit
* Gift Rating
* Goldfish Modder
* Hoax Modder
* Idle Posting
* Immersionist
* Integrationist
* Islandist
* Isolationist
* Lore Breach
* Lore Patching
* Lorecadian
* Lorist
* MacGuyver
* Meta-Modder
* Mod Collector
* Modders Exhaustion
* Old Hatters
* Overlord Mod
* Parlorist
* Potato Chip Effect
* Rating Fairy
* Rating Troll
* RTFM
* Silent Majority
* Tease Modder
* Ten for Lifer
* Thread Necromancy
* Tin Gaudjit
* Tragic Chorus
* Tragic Modder
* Troll
* Weasel Lore
* Xeno-Lore

Excellent and very entertaining read. There is a category of posters that seems distinctive enough to warrant a name, but I'm not sure which. They post in WIP/REL threads, saying that they are postponing playing the game entirely until the release/next update. If only the mod/update was released they could finally start playing. As a rule this is followed by a request for a possible release date. Which suddenly seems of utmost importance, as the entire game is depending on it. Sometimes this can go on for weeks. I've always found this to be a bit odd.

I was thinking about :GrammerTrolls" These people who attack Modders Writing skills especially if English is not the modders Native language.

Thrax

I have been wondering about the searc