Offer to moderate HL1 mods Thread

Hello all,

This post is aimed to the ModDB team. The HL1 mods section is awashed with messup mods. Those mods, besides using stolen content without any mention to the actual authors, are mostly offensive or vulgar, are not testament of talent or of any work, to say the least. It only makes browsing mods extremely unpleasant.

Never thought I was going to make some advertisement for it, but the last in line is A Retarted Life of Dick Faggoston.

There is also this mod which do not even bother using English, except to say that this mod is not intended for people but Brazilians.

I think there should be some peoples moderating HL1 mods. That is, removing mods promoting stolen and/or offensive content, vulgarity as the only end, or not bothering for people who do not speak their native language (when it's not English, that said) . I could that, but I would not mind other people moderating instead. Given they're interested to moderate, there are plenty of people who prove they are reliable and devoted to HL1 modding.

EDIT: Now I say that and the mod I was mentioning has apparently been deleted, I apologize if I sounded ungrateful to ModDB's moderation. I was only suggesting my help if it could have made things faster.

Edited by: Loulimi

The Half-Life modding section is perfectly fine. Nobody needs, wants or appreciates your censorship. You have no right to remove mods that offend you, and It's offensive that you're even suggesting this.

Edited by: ColorinMusic

Mods are self-authed now so pages like these will come up sometimes. Complete censorship is not good either. However, if you notice any mod or game that is blatantly using stolen content, you can let the team know here Moddb.com (including as much info as possible)

To remind you though, the site is international, so English is mandatory only and ONLY for featured content, not for any of the profile pages here. If someone makes a German translation mod and that mod page is completely in German, then yes, this is fine.

The Half-Life modding section is perfectly fine

That's your opinion, but if you were taking a look at it at least occasionally you would notice a lot of people complain about the problems I aforementioned.

Nobody needs, wants or appreciates your censorship.

Moderating is not censorship. Furthermore, if you were checking the HL 1 modding section occasionally you would notice that yes, a lot of people wants some mods be moderated.

You have no right to remove mods that offend you, and It's offensive that you're even suggesting this.

It's offensive that you say that I'm offensive because I said that some mods are offensive.

Complete censorship is not good either.

Why interpreting my suggestion as "complete censorship". I am asking for moderation.

However, if you notice any mod or game that is blatantly using stolen content, you can let the team know here Moddb.com (including as much info as possible)

Thanks, I'll do that.

To remind you though, the site is international, so English is mandatory only and ONLY for featured content, not for any of the profile pages here. If someone makes a German translation mod and that mod page is completely in German, then yes, this is fine.

I know that and I am myself not a native English speaker. What do you mean by profile page? Members' profile or you also include mods' profiles?

As I said, I am myself not a native English speaker and I am not asking at all for content to be available in English. I uploaded my mod on this website and at first it was only available in French (before I added an English translation). I wasn't speaking English at the time but provided a Google translation for the modDB page's description. I only think mods' profiles should have at least a basic English description which isn't "This mod is only intended for people from my country". This makes ModDB look like a personal web storage service.

Why interpreting my suggestion as "complete censorship". I am asking for moderation.

Because there is already some censorship (and full moderation albeit delayed) in place. What you asking for is a complete cleanse (not clean-up) of "mess-up mods", mods that (by themselves) are nothing bad. Only if stolen content is used, that would be really bad.

I only think mods' profiles should have at least a basic English description which isn't "This mod is only intended for people from my country". This makes ModDB look like a personal web storage service.

No, it is actually okay for them to post their mods without including any description in English, of any sort. With or without any reason. (Not to mention that Google-translated page may actually look worse than a profile described in a foreign language.) They are still supposed to understand Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, submission rules and etc, and communicate with admins in English, especially when they got a warning message after they broke the rules. Also, as mentioned earlier, there is no obligation whatsoever to feature their content, in headlines or on the front page. This is the trade-off. So, to repeat, it is completely legit for them to post mods/games without including even a basic English description (to their own detriment, most likely).

There is nothing wrong with modders using stolen content. Modders work for free; nobody is being harmed when their content gets reused in a mod. There are many great HL mods that do not use 100% original content, and they DON'T deserve to be removed.

Depending on your definition of "stolen content", many of the best mods could be under threat of removal. Should we remove mods that, say, have commercial music play somewhere? One of the most beloved mods in the history of HL modding uses an Aphex Twin song and there are many others similarly situated. Would you remove mods with textures from other games? Think of all the mods that use textures from just the Quake series. If someone wanted to, say, make a Star Wars themed mod, they can't use sound effects from Star Wars games?

Your suggestion has the potential to damn some of the best mods into obscurity and curtail future modding efforts by telling people they can't share their work with others because it doesn't meet some arbitrary standard of quality. It's especially damaging when "homophobia" is used as excuse for this to happen. Mods containing penises and offensive language are exponentially less harmful than silencing artistic expression.

Edited by: ColorinMusic

Sorry, but stolen = used without permission. In your own examples, it should be rather clear that you should get permission or compose soundtrack yourself instead of complaining about taking credit for someone else's hard work. Silencing artistic expression? Sometimes there is no artistic expression to begin with. You need to make content yourself instead of just come up with excuses. Making your own assets is one of the true kinds of artistic expression (another is using someone else's work with their permission, and another parodying it without stealing it which also would be an art in itself it seems).

When it comes to offensive language, there should be no problem with that as long as it is not on the page and there are some warnings about what is inside the given mod. Not everything is as offensive as it seems. Yet all other potentially "harmful" or "offensive" issues have to be taken and reviewed case by case. There are no content ratings or age gates for mod profiles sadly (which would lead to slightly less censorship ironically).

Edited by: feillyne

There aren't very many mods that will meet your standard for originality. It was fairly common in the old days for modders to obtain the audio for their mods by downloading files via Kazaa, for example.

I hope you realize the absurdity of what you're suggesting. A mapper could have placed his favorite song in an easter egg room ten+ years ago, and the entire mod could vanish from the internet because someones precious intellectual property was "infringed" upon.

Using a model, texture or audio file that you didn't create in a free mod is no worse than using a game engine that you didn't code yourself. It's ridiculous to hold modders to this standard when everything they do is for free and for fun. That's what indie games are for, and that's why they cost money.

If the original authors come and request that, then yes, such a request must be honoured. Modders themselves knew the risks and they take full responsibility for what they include in their mods.

ColorinMusic wrote:

Using a model, texture or audio file that you didn't create in a free mod is no worse than using a game engine that you didn't code yourself.

Nope, that is a fallacy. What you actually mean is

"Using a model, texture or audio file that you didn't create, without permission and without paying, in a free mod is no worse than using a game engine that you didn't license for a free game."

Which would be correct, because you would still NOT be licensed to make a free game using a commercial engine, the very license you did not obtain or pay for. You are basically asking for slavery. Original IP authors provide you with commercial assets (or a commercial engine) you intentionally do not want to pay for so you can do whatever you want with their work just because you are using it for a free project? So you want to use authors as slaves just for your personal glory and credit (masked as "benefit of the community")?

If you are a real artist, you would create your own assets. Also on your member profile there seems to be no free works at all offered: Moddb.com so you want to take someone else's assets, disown them and make them free, pretend it is is for good of the community but actually take the credit for yourself, but you are completely unwilling to make your own content and offer it for free just because it is harder? What a tasteless excuse. Proper fair use is also a nice way to avoid stealing someone else's work just for your petty glory. There are many different ways to express your artistic passion, but stealing is the worst one possible.

ColorinMusic wrote:

There aren't very many mods that will meet your standard for originality. It was fairly common in the old days for modders to obtain the audio for their mods by downloading files via Kazaa, for example.

I hope you realize the absurdity of what you're suggesting. A mapper could have placed his favorite song in an easter egg room ten+ years ago, and the entire mod could vanish from the internet because someones precious intellectual property was "infringed" upon.

Using a model, texture or audio file that you didn't create in a free mod is no worse than using a game engine that you didn't code yourself. It's ridiculous to hold modders to this standard when everything they do is for free and for fun. That's what indie games are for, and that's why they cost money.

Using content you have not created yourself is not bad in itself. Using an engine you haven't coded from scratch for modding purposes is both moral and legal (and it's actually encouraged by some companies), using content created by other modders is all very well and good as long as you got their permission and quote them. It's only for moral reasons, there's no legal reason for this one. You most likely don't risk anything if you use Cry of Fear's textures or models for your personal project although they clearly say that you can only use them if you're developing a Cry of Fear campaign. Legally, you could use Poke646 textures, modify them and take all credit for them as well, although they ask you not to modify them nor (obviously) take credit for them. They made all this content by themselves, they can decide how other people shall use it. Gratuity does not grant you the right of using other people's content against their will nor take credit for it. Even if it's for fun, which is by the way not the only reason why we get free mods. There's indeed some people who like to take credit for content they did not make nor contribute at all. Check Life's End for an example. And yes, it can cause harms. Check Life's end (again), Trinity Engine, Firearms…

I'm not asking for a comprehensive and radical purge, but mods that almost only contain stolen content should be removed. You say great mods use stolen content? That might be true, but that does not mean they should be taken as models. Great mods that do not use stolen content like Cry of Fear (which, besides the engine, is 100% self-made) or Paranoia, are even greater. Again: I'm not asking for a comprehensive and radical purge, but mods that almost only contain stolen content should be removed. There is plenty of content you can get morally and legally. For the rest of the mods using stolen content, other kind action (different from removing and wasting good work) should be taken (like putting at least the correct credits and penalizing them). You're just forcing yourself to believe in your dogma "When it's for free, everything is allowed" because this is just useful for you.

Now I say that and the mod I was mentioning has apparently been deleted, I apologize if I sounded ungrateful to ModDB's moderation. I was only suggesting my help if it could have made things faster.

@feillyne You might be right, maybe it's ok for mods to have their description in the language they want (I'm not talking about the stand of the Terms of Use since they can be interpreted as you want). But then, there's a limit not to cross between making content available and using ModDB as a private hosting service.

Loulimi wrote:

Now I say that and the mod I was mentioning has apparently been deleted, I apologize if I sounded ungrateful to ModDB's moderation. I was only suggesting my help if it could have made things faster.

Well, then you can report (seemingly or not) infringing mods and mod pages via the contact page mentioned before.

Because the problem here is admins/moderators are primarily content blockers who subdue and regulate the influx of new content. What we need is more contributors, more active community and a better reporting function (preferably something similar to the one on DeviantArt, a full report function), not more moderators limiting the inflow that is already sufficiently curbed.

feillyne wrote:

Loulimi wrote:

Now I say that and the mod I was mentioning has apparently been deleted, I apologize if I sounded ungrateful to ModDB's moderation. I was only suggesting my help if it could have made things faster.

Well, then you can report (seemingly or not) infringing mods and mod pages via the contact page mentioned before.

I already told you I was going to do so, cher ami. I wasn't aware of this before you mentioned it and simply used the report link (for mods heavily based on stolen content).