CKAN Discussion Continutation

[blu3wolf]

Then I'll accept your gracious apology.

37 minutes ago, Greenfire32 said:

I feel like a lot of this outrage is stemming from user's trying to get tech support from Modders when in reality it's the CKAN mod that's breaking things and not the individual mods. In that case, many many many Modders are already denying any kind of tech support for their mods unless you follow their criteria (post your specs, post your log, etc etc). Is it really such a stretch to simply add that no tech support will be given if a user is using a known broken mod (CKAN)?

In fairness to the modders complaining here, mamy of them have tried this, only to discover that users dont read when complaining about bugs, and rarely post useful bug reports. Instead someone complains the mod doesnt work, someone else replies with its working fine, the author asks for clarifying details, someone else confirms the issue, and then it comes out that its only CKAN users with the issue. In short, its hard to enforce, short of a few actually nuclear options proposed by some of the smarter cookies among the modders.

Also, CKAN is not a mod.

Edited June 27, 2016 by blu3wolf

[blu3wolf]

47 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

On the user side you have the few people who somehow use this thing for anywhere from 10's to 100's of mods and many think numbers as low as 10 or 20 are utterly unmanageable without automated tools they don't want this threatened so they are very vocal in defending the former status quo.

On the subject of vocal minorities - CKAN users is not really a minority... for instance, about twenty thousand installs of RO are queued through CKAN every time KSP updates.

CKAN users actively having a say in this discussion  - very much a vocal minority. CKAN users affected by the outcome of this discussion - not a minority.

Edited June 27, 2016 by blu3wolf

[sarbian]

So after hogging the #CKAN channel on IRC you try to do te same here ? We told you again and again that your view is not one shared by modders, CKAN contributors and most users. Stop spewing your paranoid nonsense and start YOUR thread for YOUR repository.

[Hevak]

Lowly ole mod users here. Didn't bother readin past first page, cause yeah it was going how I expected. 

lets see. Insult some modders? Check

tell some modder you'd wish they would take a hike? Check

tell them if you don't like it do something about or shut up? Check

modders start to react with the more restrictive licenses? Check

modders start disappearing?????

good job ckan.

if ckan really cared about a damn thing as they so claim to, they wouldn't be acting like something I can't say here. Seriously this is just stupid. And please stop acting like ckan only causes a few problems to a few people. I see so many problems pop up on threads of mods I use. It goes something like this.

hey this mod doesn't work, can you fix it please. ( sometimes it's nice sometimes it's not at all). Then it goes on to something like, all these parts are missing, this isn't work right, your mod broke my game.

usual response from someone giving support.  it's likely an install problem because it's working fine here. Let me see your game data folder.

User repsonse, It's not an install issue I used ckan.

support response, please try installing manually and not through ckan.

User response, I can't be that I used ckan.

support repsonse, please show me your gamedata folder, and inside your mod folder.

user response, posts pics.

support response, yeah you're missing (this) please install manually

User response, ok thanks that worked, can you fix ckan please?

support repsonse, I have nothing to with ckan, I didn't upload my stuff to ckan.

just about every single mod I have used has had a exchange similar to this. Sometimes the modder already knows that's what happened, because ckan decided not to install a dependency, or links to an old version, or just plain screwed up the install some way or another. Yet all of us who don't use ckan don't have those problems.

save for maybe a handful of mods that tend to get updated quickly after a new ksp update, most take a few days or longer. I'm still waiting on some mods I use to update. Most modders tend  to extremely stretched for time. 

Yes if you want to be like that, all peoples time has the same value. But I give a little more value to the modders time, they are doing this for free, taking up their free time, as well as often taking up their ksp time. When a new ksp update drops I get to play it immediately, good modders  have to get the mods fixed usually and don't get to just play right away. If you can't grasp that then idk what to say.

but it appears ckan's only interest is doing what they want no matter the negative effect its going to have on this community.

 

Edited June 27, 2016 by Hevak

[blu3wolf]

1 hour ago, blu3wolf said:

Then I'll accept your gracious apology.

In fairness to the modders complaining here, mamy of them have tried this, only to discover that users dont read when complaining about bugs, and rarely post useful bug reports. Instead someone complains the mod doesnt work, someone else replies with its working fine, the author asks for clarifying details, someone else confirms the issue, and then it comes out that its only CKAN users with the issue. In short, its hard to enforce, short of a few actually nuclear options proposed by some of the smarter cookies among the modders.

Also, CKAN is not a mod.

 

16 minutes ago, sarbian said:

So after hogging the #CKAN channel on IRC you try to do te same here ? We told you again and again that your view is not one shared by modders, CKAN contributors and most users. Stop spewing your paranoid nonsense and start YOUR thread for YOUR repository.

Yah, paranoid nonsense.

 

My posts in this thread predate my comments on the IRC. You are not a majority of modders, CKAN contributors or users. You dont have an excellent voice to speak collectively for them, unfortunately.

Ill start my thread when its ready. Be patient.

4 minutes ago, Hevak said:

Lowly ole mod users here. Didn't bother readin past first page, cause yeah it was going how I expected. 

lets see. Insult some modders? Check

tell some modder you'd wish they would take a hike? Check

tell them if you don't like it do something about or shut up? Check

modders start to react with the more restrictive licenses? Check

modders start disappearing?????

good job ckan.

if ckan really cared about a damn thing as they so claim to, they wouldn't be acting like something I can't say here. Seriously this is just stupid. And please stop acting like ckan only causes a few problems to a few people. I see so many problems pop up on threads of mods I use. It goes something like this.

hey this mod doesn't work, can you fix it please. ( sometimes it's nice sometimes it's not at all). Then it goes on to something like, all these parts are missing, this isn't work right, your mod broke my game.

usual response from someone giving support.  it's likely an install problem because it's working fine here. Let me see your game data folder.

User repsonse, It's not an install issue I used ckan.

support response, please try installing manually and not through ckan.

User response, ok thanks that worked, can you fix ckan please?

support repsonse, I have nothing to with ckan, I didn't upload my stuff to ckan.

just about every single mod I have used has had a exchange similar to this. because ckan decided not to install and dependency, or links to an old version, or just plain screwed up the install some way or another. Yet all of us who don't use ckan don't have those problems.

Thats simply not true. Its quite common to see folks with manual installs having those issues, and worse. Only have to look at one of roverdudes threads to see folks with issues from dropping the folder into the wrong location, or having the wrong module manager, or any of a variety of issues.

As a CKAN user, Ive not personally seen an issue with CKAN - although I have seen several from mod incompatibility, that had not been caught by CKAN. Fortunately that isnt difficult to fix for future users.

 

As far as restrictive licenses - if thats something that happens as a reaction, its something that should have happened in the first place.

[Hevak]

18 minutes ago, blu3wolf said:

 

Yah, paranoid nonsense.

 

My posts in this thread predate my comments on the IRC. You are not a majority of modders, CKAN contributors or users. You dont have an excellent voice to speak collectively for them, unfortunately.

Ill start my thread when its ready. Be patient.

Thats simply not true. Its quite common to see folks with manual installs having those issues, and worse. Only have to look at one of roverdudes threads to see folks with issues from dropping the folder into the wrong location, or having the wrong module manager, or any of a variety of issues.

As a CKAN user, Ive not personally seen an issue with CKAN - although I have seen several from mod incompatibility, that had not been caught by CKAN. Fortunately that isnt difficult to fix for future users.

 

As far as restrictive licenses - if thats something that happens as a reaction, its something that should have happened in the first place.

That's funny. Cause I was referring to some of  roverdudes thread. I used to help with support in that thread. I used to field many of those exact discussions in that thread, and I've seen it in many others even with 1.13. And in every case where ckan screws up the mod author never put it there, and many times they don't want their mod on ckan. But ckan doesn't give a crap at all. 

Yeah manual installs have that happen. But nowhere near as much as ckan. And it's usually new users to either ksp as a whole or to that mod that do that.

But still the overall attitude is tell modders to F off and deal with. Real good way to ingratiate yourself to the ksp community you care about. 

Restrictive license should have never happened. And they do nothing but hurt the community, if you can't understand that there is nothing more to say..

hey ckan thanks for screwing the ksp community over.  I appreciate it. It's clear ckan only cares about ckan and nothing else

Nothing more to say here. I'm done.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Hevak

[passinglurker]

@Hevak while I agree with you that before this weekend CKAN has been terrible and all you might have missed the part where they finally gave in and are now changing. >.>

Edited June 27, 2016 by passinglurker

[blu3wolf]

2 minutes ago, Hevak said:

 And in every case where ckan screws up the mod author never put it there, and many times they don't want their mod on ckan. But ckan doesn't give a crap at all. 

Yeah manual installs have that happen. But nowhere near as much as ckan. And it's usually new users to either ksp as a whole or to that mod that do that.

But still the overall attitude is tell modders to F off and deal with. Real good way to ingratiate yourself to the ksp community you care about. 

Restrictive license should have never happened. And they do nothing but hurt the community, if you can't understand that there is nothing more to say.

 

Paragraph one - Ive seen contrary examples of that, too.

P2 - the same corresponding factor is that new and inexperienced users of KSP with CKAN can mod their game successfully without making newb mistakes like dropping the mod folder inside AVC or similar.

P3 - nowhere has a CKAN Contributor told a modder to F off. They have spent significant amounts of time to resolve their concerns, when and where they are raised.

P4 - I agree. Still, if a modder does want to control the way their mod is distributed in original or modified form, restrictive licenses are the correct way to go about that. I doubt you will have much success in convincing modders away from that mentality though.

[politas]

2 hours ago, blu3wolf said:

Immaterial, in the case of how it relates to Napsters legal defense.

 

The scripting of the installation is a machine readable version of the same instructions given to humans on the mod release page.

Drawing dependencies from the original author of that mod is a key feature of CKAN, something widely advertised as well.

Indeed, but it means that the scripting of the installation is _not_ a machine readable version of the installation instructions on the mod release page, but a modified version. (Which sometimes fails).

[Hevak]

13 minutes ago, blu3wolf said:

Paragraph one - Ive seen contrary examples of that, too.

P2 - the same corresponding factor is that new and inexperienced users of KSP with CKAN can mod their game successfully without making newb mistakes like dropping the mod folder inside AVC or similar.

P3 - nowhere has a CKAN Contributor told a modder to F off. They have spent significant amounts of time to resolve their concerns, when and where they are raised.

P4 - I agree. Still, if a modder does want to control the way their mod is distributed in original or modified form, restrictive licenses are the correct way to go about that. I doubt you will have much success in convincing modders away from that mentality though.

I'm only going to respond to p4. As I'm not going to keep going around in circles.

im not trying to or going to try to convince modders of anything. And if you agree that restrictive licenses should have never happened, then ckan should have been a nice member of the community long before that happened. The only reason that happened is because of the attitude of ckan.  Just because you can rightly do something doesn't mean you should do it. If ckan really cared about the community at all they would have stopped listing mods of the authors that asked a long time ago, regardless of license. Because sometimes what you're "allowed" to do isn't the "right" thing to do. 

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, theimportantperson said:

Not that large userbase is the be all and end all for modders

I'll quietly point out that for many modders a userbase is not even a goal, just a side-effect - I think this is a point that does need reinforcing frequently, because people are used to thinking in terms of market share for software & DLC and pretty much anything 3rd party relating to games, as these sorts of threads tend to reveal - and this is not a market.

[blu3wolf]

Which frankly is reason alone that modders ought to license their works as they feel is correct.

Restrictive licenses existed before CKAN, but there are some modders realising they prefer strict control of their copyright.

I personally agree with the idea that they should have had a single policy for delisting, regardless of the license involved. I just think that policy should have been to not delist mods, rather than to allow the option.

I guess you found you did have more to say.

[Padishar]

10 minutes ago, blu3wolf said:

but there are some modders realising they prefer strict control of their copyright.

You really don't get it.  That is not what the modders want.  They simply want there not to be a tool in existence that causes them increased support headaches and their only recourse being to do more work that they don't want to do, or change to a restrictive license (where that is even possible).

I've not seen a single one of your posts that does anything to help resolve the issues.  Thankfully, despite your "interference", saner heads have prevailed and the issues are now being sorted.

[blu3wolf]

Well, you are right that I really dont get it.

Sorted - for some definitions.

[Malah]

2 hours ago, sarbian said:

So after hogging the #CKAN channel on IRC you try to do te same here ? We told you again and again that your view is not one shared by modders, CKAN contributors and most users. Stop spewing your paranoid nonsense and start YOUR thread for YOUR repository.

YOUR view is not one shared by ALL modders ...

[Padishar]

5 minutes ago, Malah said:

YOUR view is not one shared by ALL modders ...

That is obviously true, though you are the ONLY modder I have seen with a view significantly different to his.  In any case, even if there were only a single modder who was having problems with CKAN installs flooding his support channels, CKAN would still be in the wrong.  These issues have been going on for more than a year with CKAN making no significant effort to address them.  It is a shame that it required this much disruption (including a virtual defection by a member of the CKAN team) to convince CKAN to change, but that isn't the fault of the modders...

[Sigma88]

30 minutes ago, Malah said:

YOUR view is not one shared by ALL modders ...

this is true. and nobody is saying that those modders are not free to leave their mods on CKAN without any kind of control

what was argued was the right of a modder to opt-out of ckan. which was eventually granted.

it was obvious that this should have been the attitude the whole time. refusing to change that attitude would have just resulted in mods being written to not work when installed through ckan

thing that is pretty easy to do but that no-one wanted to do, no matter how heated the discussion became.

Everybody should remember this

[cantab]

@Greenfire32

"First off, let me preface this by stating I am in no way one of the heavy mod users and have zilch in knowledge about any of this. Secondly, am I correct in understanding that CKAN is basically a Mod Manager similar in function to that of, say, Minecraft's ATLauncher for various mod packs?"

Not exactly, in that KSP doesn't really have "mod packs", something I credit mainly to KSP not having multiplayer. So most KSP users are taking mods directly from the upstream developers. As I understand it in the Minecraft world a lot of testing for bugs and compatibility is done by the pack makers, and that doesn't exist in KSP. The only people who test if mods A, D, and Q work together are the players who want to run mods A, D, and Q.

"If that is the case, and CKAN is indeed "breaking" (for lack of a better term) installs for an overwhelming majority to the point where the community is basically discussing whether or not to burn it at the stake, why is the community acting like CKAN is the end-all be-all of Mod Managing? Why is this idea that mods can not be distributed without CKAN so prevalent? I mean, sure, I get the appeal of having an easy to use interface that tells me which mods are compatible with other mods, but if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Why is CKAN perceived as being the only option?"

Because nothing else has gained any traction. I can only speculate why, but it might be because of CKAN's list-everything approach, might be because so many mod developers are outright disinterested in mod managers and so don't work on and promote something better, might simply be inertia and CKAN having a forum sticky while competitors rapidly drop off the first page.

"Has the modding scene behaved not unlike a market of sorts where products that work succeed and products that don't...fail?"

That's an idealism that doesn't always work out in the real world.

"It shouldn't matter if CKAN ads list of mods to a "compatibility" checker with or without the modder's approval. The developer of any given mod is not responsible for anything CKAN does or does not. If CKAN wants to shoot itself in the foot, why do modders feel like they're being brought down with the ship? Why is threatening to remove a mod from CKAN even considered a back-to-the-wall option in the first place?

I guess I just don't understand why there's this perceived connection of success or failure. Like somehow CKAN's actions is causing Chatterer's (random mod that I selected) success or failure."

Because in the KSP world many mod developers are directly interacting with the end users for support. So unnecessary support requests wastes the developers' time.

Which brings up an idea for the mod developers reading: if CKAN makes such a nuisance of itself, have you considered just not being involved in end-user support much, if at all? Let the userbase help each other and get on with enjoying your life. As I user, personally I'd far, far rather have that than have the upstream developers outright sabotaging the tools I might use, or a wave of restrictive licensing and then a wave of mods dying as their developers leave.

[Malah]

Just now, Sigma88 said:

this is true. and nobody is saying that those modders are not free to leave their mods on CKAN without any kind of control

what was argued was the right of a modder to opt-out of ckan. which was eventually granted.

it was obvious that this should have been the attitude the whole time. refusing to change that attitude would have just resulted in mods being written to not work when installed through ckan

thing that is pretty easy to do but that no-one wanted to do, no matter how heated the discussion became.

Everybody should remember this

As I've said before I really don't care about CKAN's policy, CKAN's control ...

But now some of my mods have been de-indexed without my accord. You have used my mods for your "strike". The author of this bad attitude haven't write something to say a only civilized "sorry to all modders which used ModuleManager, we will de-indexed it for ...". I come and I see my mods de-indexed. You can't understand why I'm angry as you are angry?

Always you will have some grief with CKAN, you will de-indexed ModuleManager? All what you have done is only uncivilized and not mature. It's the same thing we see on all other game community, bashing before speaking. Sad KSP modding community.

 

[politas]

3 minutes ago, Malah said:

Always you will have some grief with CKAN, you will de-indexed ModuleManager? All what you have done is only uncivilized and not mature. It's the same thing we see on all other game community, bashing before speaking. Sad KSP modding community.

ModuleManager is back on CKAN, so all the mods that depend on it should be available again, subject only to their own compatibility. 

[linuxgurugamer]

3 minutes ago, Malah said:

As I've said before I really don't care about CKAN's policy, CKAN's control ...

But now some of my mods have been de-indexed without my accord. You have used my mods for your "strike". The author of this bad attitude haven't write something to say a only civilized "sorry to all modders which used ModuleManager, we will de-indexed it for ...". I come and I see my mods de-indexed. You can't understand why I'm angry as you are angry?

Always you will have some grief with CKAN, you will de-indexed ModuleManager? All what you have done is only uncivilized and not mature. It's the same thing we see on all other game community, bashing before speaking. Sad KSP modding community.

 

Actually Malah, I would suspect that what happened to your mods is what happened to mine;  KWRocketryRedux had Modulemanager listed as a dependency, and when MM was delisted, KW was unavailable.

FYI, looks like MM has been relisted, and I see 11 mods of yours listed

[Sigma88]

3 minutes ago, Malah said:

As I've said before I really don't care about CKAN's policy, CKAN's control ...

But now some of my mods have been de-indexed without my accord. You have used my mods for your "strike". The author of this bad attitude haven't write something to say a only civilized "sorry to all modders which used ModuleManager, we will de-indexed it for ...". I come and I see my mods de-indexed. You can't understand why I'm angry as you are angry?

Always you will have some grief with CKAN, you will de-indexed ModuleManager? All what you have done is only uncivilized and not mature. It's the same thing we see on all other game community, bashing before speaking. Sad KSP modding community.

 

again, it's Sarbian's right to delist MM if he pleases

the fact that your mods depend on something that do not fall under your control is no reason to force your opinion on anybody.

Sarbian can choose about his mods, I can choose about my mods, and you can choose about yours.

if you are not ok with that make your own mod dll to edit those values you need changed

 

and just for the records, sarbian has been pushed to do what he did. so if you want to blame someone blame who pushed him

[Malah]

14 minutes ago, Malah said:

Always you will have some grief with CKAN, you will de-indexed ModuleManager?

 

And for the future?

Edited June 27, 2016 by Malah

[blu3wolf]

In Sarbians defense, and with an eye to precise language, your mods will not have been delisted without your interaction, Malah. However, CKAN displays mods based on them being compatible with your install of KSP. If CKAN cannot install a dependency of your mod, it will not display your mod (by default). If you mod depends on Module Manager, it will not show up, if Module Manager is removed (as has happened).

While your mods may not have been delisted, it is the same basic effect, in that your mods cannot be installed via CKAN - even though they are still there, with (I assume) valid metadata present.

[Malah]

5 minutes ago, Sigma88 said:

again, it's Sarbian's right to delist MM if he pleases

the fact that your mods depend on something that do not fall under your control is no reason to force your opinion on anybody.

Sarbian can choose about his mods, I can choose about my mods, and you can choose about yours.

if you are not ok with that make your own mod dll to edit those values you need changed

 

and just for the records, sarbian has been pushed to do what he did. so if you want to blame someone blame who pushed him

And he hasn't de-indexed his other mod ...

Edited June 27, 2016 by Malah