Installed Mod Listing on User Profile

[XLjedi]

Would it be possible to add an editable textbox or two to the User Profile section so I can paste a list of installed mods?

Seems that this is a VERY COMMON question that people like to immediately ask before responding to various issues...  and it would be nice to just have this on the User Profile page so it doesn't have to be asked and reposted every single time the issue comes up.

 

 

[Snark]

Basically, no.  Details below, but the TL;DR as to "why" boils down to:

1. Because it would be hard.
2. Because it would be a bad idea.
3. Because it wouldn't actually solve the problem you're having.
4. Because there's a better way to solve that problem.

Aside from the limitations of the forum software, this would be problematic for a lot of folks who have different lists of mods installed on different KSP installs.  It would also be a chore to keep up to date, since you'd have to change it around every time any mod updates-- you need the correct version of the mod listed.  Basically, it would end up being useless, because 1. most folks wouldn't use it anyway, and 2. it would end up rapidly obsolete and too awkward to maintain. 

Even if you had this, people would still ask anyway.

Besides, posts stick around a long time.  If you only had one list, and it's on your profile, it might be up to date at the moment you ask the question, but it won't be weeks or months later-- so if someone comes along much later with a similar issue and reads a post from you, and follows a link to your profile, they wouldn't be getting the same list that was present at the time you asked your question, which would make things very confusing.

The important thing to ask yourself is... why do they have to keep asking you?  Answer:  because you didn't include that information to start with.    Best thing to do when asking for a tech-support type of question is to include your mod list right there in the post where you ask the question.  That way it's accurate and up-to-date at the moment you ask it, and it's right next to the question you're asking, and it's a valid snapshot even long after you've moved on to other things and have a different mod list.

If you really wanted to post a mod list on your profile, just use the "status update" feature-- you could do that.  But seriously, the best place to provide this information is in the post where you ask a question. 

[SyiMyuZya]

There is already an easy way: just provide KSP.log when asking for support.

A list of installed mods (as well as other essential information) can be found in the beginning part of this file.

[XLjedi]

@Snark um thanks...  I'll think twice before posting other "bad ideas"  

On a side note; would it be a violation of item 1 & 2, in your opinion, to add a textbox to the User Profile page for other uses?  A place to hold mission badges and trophies for instance?

@SyiMyuZya I'll take a look at that, thanks! 

I don't really find myself being asked the mod question a lot, but I do see it asked often.  I think I've been asked twice maybe?

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by XLjedi

[Snark]

2 hours ago, XLjedi said:

@Snark um thanks...  I'll think twice before posting other "bad ideas" 

Well, crap.  Sorry, when I go back and read what I wrote, I belatedly realize that it came out sounding harsher than I intended.  My apologies-- the last thing I'd ever want to do is to discourage someone from posting ideas.  That's the exact opposite of what I want.  Certainly no personal criticism was intended-- what I was trying to get across wasn't "you're bad for proposing this", just "it turns out that there are reasons why this may be impractical or inadvisable, even if those may not be apparent at first glance."  So anyway, I'm really sorry I expressed myself poorly, and please feel totally free to express your ideas-- it's what the forum is for.

2 hours ago, XLjedi said:

On a side note; would it be a violation of item 1 & 2, in your opinion, to add a textbox to the User Profile page for other uses?  A place to hold mission badges and trophies for instance?

It's a reasonable suggestion, but seems highly unlikely to happen.  Explanation below, with my usual caveat that I'm not speaking on Squad's behalf (since I don't work for Squad; we moderators are just volunteers who help out with the content in the forums):

The first thing to bear in mind is that Squad didn't write the forum software, and doesn't own the source code.  It's a third-party product, produced by another company entirely.  So it's not as if Squad can just add whatever feature they want, the way they can with KSP itself.  They're a customer of the forum software, the same way that you're a customer of KSP.

Which means that a lot of the same semantics apply:  it doesn't necessarily have all the features they might want.  If there's a missing feature or a thing they wish it did differently, they can always ask the producer about it (just like you can ask Squad for new KSP features)... but that's just feedback from one customer among many, and there are no guarantees.

The forum is somewhat customizable, up to a point-- in KSP parlance, it's "moddable".  There are various add-ons (some free, some not) that can be used to enhance the forum.  The problem is that now we're talking about fourth-party software:  the add-ons are made by some other entity (often just "some guy"), not the actual authors of the forum software, so you don't necessarily get the same sort of guarantees of quality and reliability that you'd get from a commercial software producer.  And that matters, a lot, because if Squad installs an add-on for the forum software, it affects all users in the forum, which means if they ever installed a lemon, it could be a Very Bad Thing.

The tolerance for risk is therefore a lot lower than when, for example, you're deciding whether or not to install a mod for your KSP.  This means that adding a new add-on to the forum is something not to be done lightly-- it has to be done very cautiously, and generally only when there's a really strong need for something.

The other thing to bear in mind is that this is especially true if the add-on in question is one that allows users to store information in some way.  Because then, once you've installed it, it becomes a really huge deal if you ever need or want to uninstall it, because the moment it becomes available, thousands of users start putting their personal content in it, and if you ever remove it (or if you ever need to install a version update that may be incompatible, or if the add-on author just abandons it and it breaks with a forum update), you'd be nuking thousands of users' personal content, which would cause mountains of grief for the users and a lot of ill will.

Not to mention the fact that any source of user content is also a source of abuse.  Sad to say, there are toxic trolls out there.  Add a new way for someone to tinker with what's in the forum, and you add a new way for somebody to abuse it, which means we moderators need to moderate it.  And if it's some fourth-party add-on, there may not be good ways for us to moderate the content unless the add-on author took the trouble (and had the design skill) to make it nicely moderatable.

And in any case, all of the above "is it wise to install the add-on" discussion is predicated on the assumption that there's actually an add-on that does exactly what you want, which isn't a given.  There are a fair number of add-ons out there, but not an infinite number.

So... that's why this suggestion seems likely to be a non-starter.  To summarize:

1. Forum feature suggestions are less likely to be acted on than KSP feature suggestions, because (unlike KSP) Squad doesn't write the forum software.
2. New forum features are (in a limited fashion) available via add-ons, but have to be treated very very cautiously.
3. The particular feature you suggest would involve adding user content, which would make it an especially risky class of add-on, even if it exists.
4. And in any case, it's less of a "must-have" feature, because the forum already has something like that-- it's called a "signature" and I can see that you're already using it. 

So... seems kind of unlikely to happen.