I am thinking about potential Forum Rules for Mechaenetia Mods

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#1

I definitely need Feedback on this, because while I saw a lot of bad things happen with Minecraft and Factorio Mods, I clearly dont know everything. I will run all of this with the Benevolent Dictator Philosophy, so there should be nothing to worry about. ^^

Keep in mind Mechaenetia is LGPL so its Mods should be counted as such too, at least here on the Forums. I know there is lots of legal Stuff that would make it possible to make proprietary Mods, but those Mods would not be allowed on here by Forum Rules, or would be dumped into some sort of “Corner of Shame” Category.

The Users are generally more important than the Authors, and the Server Hosts and Modpack Makers are somewhere inbetween.

So here a first List for Mod Authors:

  • Stuff @greg made, while always trying to abide by these Rules, is exempt from said Rules.
    Though if @greg notices a self-violation of these Rules, their wording will be adjusted to properly reflect what the intend behind those Rules is.
    @greg is also the one to decide what happens if a Rule got broken. Though typically talking about it is the very first thing that happens. There is no instant Banhammer for small mistakes.

  • Do not prevent or prohibit non-monetized redistribution of your Mods or their Source in any way, nor disallow their use in Modpacks or Servers, even after you abandon your Mod.
    There has been way too many bad things happening, because of Modders being too possessive of their Mod.
    Nobody has to ask to include a Mod in their Modpack for free. Demanding to ask for permission would be surveillance I don’t tolerate here.
    Mods are for everyone and only exist for fun.

  • Do not add Update-Checkers or Mod-Usage-Statistics into your Mod.
    Nothing is allowed to send/retrieve Internet Data without the Users explicit permission!
    Implicit is NOT enough!
    Installing a Mod in on itself NEVER counts as permission, even if the Online functionality is the ONLY thing the Mod contains!
    You always HAVE to prompt the User for permission, and your Mod HAS to work offline if the User denies the permission. (obviously without the online specific features)

  • Do not put Advertisement or Microtransactions into your Mod, and don’t put Ad Infested or Paywalled Links to your Mod or Modpack on the Forums. This is not about making Money, this is about Fun!
    The only people who are allowed to make Money off of this are the ones who actually host Multiplayer Servers, because Servers do cost Money to maintain.
    Modders and Modpack Makers can only work with Donations.

  • Do not treat people like shit or like their Issues “dont exist”, when they report Bugs, need Help or demand Fixes; even if they by accident accuse you of the results of someone else’s Bug; even if you just personally dont like the person who reported the Issue; even if you dislike one of the other Mods that was installed, or think that that other Mod “ruins” your Mod.
    Reported Problems exist regardless of the User who reports them, so even if you are not the one responsible, point them to the actual cause of the Problem, preferably with some sort of evidence or logical reasoning.
    So basically be a reasonable person, so people dont get afraid of asking for help.

  • Don’t just say “this is a duplicate Issue” without pointing to the actual original Issue. This is not only lazy, but also counts as ignoring the Issue report itself entirely, towards the previous Rule.

  • Your own Freetime or lack thereof should never be an argument against fixing Issues. Sure it might be an argument for a delay in the Bugfix, but not for fixing the Issue itself!

  • Do not force/redirect people to report Issues in a certain way, shape, form or place, especially if that requires making an Account at a Website (Including this Forum!).
    You are (supposedly) an Adult, you can manage to take a piece of Paper or a Text File and write down everything you need to know to fix the Issue on it, and then fix it once you are ready to do so. It is not that hard and even saves YOU time!
    If people reach out to you on the Internet (like in Chat), to report an Issue, then you can at least listen to them instead of wasting your own time and their time on stupid formalities that no one needs.
    Telling people they need to send you more Information or Logs is perfectly fine ofcourse.

  • If you fixed a Bug, but didn’t release a fixed Version yet after over a month, seriously consider releasing “just” the Fix, instead of letting people download the broken Version for ages. looks at Optifine Devs
    There is NEVER a reason to hold back on a Bugfix, so don’t hold it back!

  • Do not make your community become toxic, nor start irrelevant Drama.
    And people (blindly) “worshiping” you, starting arguments on your behalf, or thinking you are more important than the thing you created, are all at risk of counting as Toxic.

  • Do not add Default Keybinds of any sort.
    And do not hardcode Keybinds either! Especially not Shift, Ctrl or Alt!
    Let the User decide what key to bind your things to (you can prompt the User for your Keybinds if they are REALLY needed).
    It is insanely frustrating whenever you add a new Mod, that you have to disable most of its unused Keybinds, especially if they conflict with already existing Keybinds, or if they are exclusively made for WASD Users, and you happen to use ESDF, meaning there is a ton of overlap.

  • Try to make your Mods as tiny as Possible and split them into as many Segments as possible. I do not want something ginormous like GregTech to happen.
    Like put the Electric System into one Mod, each of the Generators into one Mod each, individual Machines into one Mod each, Ores into one Mod each, and so on.
    That way people can be dependent on specific tiny Mods if they need Stuff like Copper Ore they get the “Copper Ore Mod”.
    Obviously there is going to be ways to bundle those Mini Mods into a Maxi Mod that depends on all the tiny Mods, so people dont have to download a couple thousand Mods.

This List is ofcourse not fully finished yet, but considering I somehow got stuck doing GT6 again, there is no hurry. I will put this List into an Announcement once Mechaenetia is in a moddable State, and always announce changes to these Rules right afterwards.

So any Feedback on these Rules? And yes some of them are very specific like the Keybinds one. I wanted to make Rules against anything hostile to the End Users that I know about. ^^

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#2

All very valid points, I especially like the one about default key-binds.
Having the game ask what key-bind you would like is infinitely better in my opinion as it not only allows the player to place it in a position that works for them, but notifies them the key-bind actually exists in the first place. Many times I’ve installed mods I’ve have to go through the key list to see what’s changed/available.

I also like the idea of modular mods and the ability to pick and choose parts of a mod. That way you can swap out say mod A ‘energy system’ for Mod B’s ‘redefine Mod A’s energy system’ Mod. so using Mod A’s machines with Mod B’s way of powering them kind of thing.

You will need to make sure you document the way mod modules work and have good templates to work off of so that dev’s can build to a standard design that doesn’t need you to go in an perform cross compatibility surgery. I know you will as you have some good documented sample files for Gregtech, but you might want to dedicate a whole part of the site to it too with really simple how to’s for foundation coding that people can use as a jumping board. More for those who are new to coding or shall we say, can’t quite grasp how things work.

2 Likes
#3

When you say that you don’t want any kind of monetization, does this include server-side monetizing? Not wanting people to profit from withholding features in mods in a fully FOSS game is definitely good, but i think servers should be able to implement features that allow server operators to recuperate the cost of running and moderating servers, perhaps via cosmetic assets, or sponsors at spawn. (The code, but not necessarily the assets, should be FOSS).

Also, I agree that individual mods not having default keybinds is a good way to solve things-but I think modpacks that are intended to be used as standalone games (i.e. not intended to be customized, dont really add “features” just a combination of mods and maybe a questbook or adventure map) should be allowed to use default keybinds. The reason is that new players who are not used to the game, which are also the type of user who would use a modpack rather than adding each mod individually, having to go through tons of configuration menus is wildly overwhelming and usually frustrating. Almost everyone who plays mods goes through a process like this (starts off with vanilla game, later does a modpack, and once is used to it installs mods manually) and I think allowing default settings for modpacks but not mods is a good compromise between 1. having to unbind the keybinds that just don’t work when installing mods and 2. making sure the people who don’t want to sit through menu hell have a simpler way out

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#4

Servers can monetize shit however they want, I am specifically talking about Rules for Modders, not Server Owners. And yes a Mod that allows Server Owners to customize monetization without resulting in the Modder getting a cut from said monetization (unless they literally host the Server themselves), would be allowed on the Forums.

As for the Keybinds Part, unlike Minecraft, the Keybinds are stored per profile, so using a different Modpack that has some Mods in common would still have the Keybinds stored for each Item.

And remember that the case of “prompting for keybinds” is also discouraged for the mostly useless bindings. There isa reason a generic “Action Menu” exists that contains all the things you can do to a Block or with an Item, so you can bind it yourself there if you need to use it often.

The only things people should ever get prompted to make a Binding for are Jetpacks and other Movement related Keys. “Mode Switch” Keys and “Open Custom Inventory” Keys are NOT supposed to ever have Defaults, since the Action Menu can be used to switch Modes if needed.

Everything in the Action Menu can have a Keybind if you want it to have one. But you dont have to have a Keybind to trigger any Actions. (apart from some way to open the Action Menu in the first place ofcourse, but that is set with the initial Setup of the Game itself and not Mod related)

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#5

I did change a tiny bit about the whole Monetization part. And also a bit of the Redistribution Part, to only prohibit disallowing sharing for free, you can still tell people to not use your Mod for making Money off of it.

In fact I will likely add some boolean Flag for Modders to determine the permission of monetized usage of their Mod in a Modpack easily. (Server Owners are a different thing, access to a Server can always be monetized regardless of this)

Most Core Engine things I do, will permit paid redistribution, though I have just a few less important things in mind where I would not permit it. (mainly Story Stuff, when I do add it later on)

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#6

I did change the thing again, especially to cover some of the horrible responses I saw for Issue Reports in the past.

Things like the:
“Adds unexplained ‘duplicate’ Tag to Issue Report”, which I frequently get from the youtube-dl Devs, despite me going through multiple pages of recent open and closed Issues beforehand.

Or the:
“Please open an Issue on GitHub, so I dont forget”, instead of just quickly taking a Text file or piece of paper to write/copy it down, you instead took the time to type THAT response in chat. Clearly you are a Pro at Time Management with this waste of everyones time, including your own. looks at Speiger

Or the always famous Response by some random Community Member:
“Hey, ‘insert Dev here’ has no time for these Issues, they are working on more important Features”, followed by a bunch of other Members Yes-And-ing that Response toxicly. Yeah that kinda thing happened to me on the Factorio Forums of all places…

I have had a bunch of different bad experiences which I would like to prevent happening to other Users, so these Rules have to cover them all.

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