Forum rules about monetized mods

[DeadJohn]

Hi moderators, can you clarify something for me? It's clear that the forum rules ban modders from discussing their own paid mods. What's unclear is whether the rest of us can discuss paid mods. I didn't find answers in Community Guidelines.

If a different user, not the paid mod owner, releases a free mod that has a paid mod as a dependency, can said user mention the dependency?

Can we ask technical questions about paid mods?

Can we discuss performance differences between a free and a paid version, or is *any* mention of the paid version by *any* user disallowed?

Edited August 28 by DeadJohn
Fixed typo "coomunity"

[Gargamel]

These are fair questions with very complicated answers on our end.   

4 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

. I didn't find answers in Coomunity Guidelines.

Because it’s not specifically covered.    Our current policy arises from direction issued to the moderation team a while ago, based on the no self promotion rule.   The issue is obviously way more complicated than a simple “don’t talk about it” approach.   
 

We’ll figure out something here and get back to you “shortly”.    

[Poodmund]

Forum rule 2.2.i, which I guess is the rule in question here, states:

Self promotional posts or that promote a 3rd party for profit, monetization other than optional donation (adf.ly etc) and advertising products or services without prior approval;

Its a fine line but I would expect that you should be able to post about a mod that is in development, where the mod developer provides access to their in-development work, prior to full free release (with complete open source at all times as per the forum rules), via supporting them on Patreon, as the option to get access before release is completely optional. Therefore if a user wants to make an optional donation of support to the mod developer, and as a by product gain access to the in-dev work that is not intended for public use, that should be okay.

This is all on the premise that the contents of any in-development distributions on a platform, such as Patreon, have the full, buildable source code easily referrable. This is the big dependency here as if this isn't met, then you could argue that General Add-on posting rule 5.1 is violated.

Edited August 28 by Poodmund

[aviin]

Honestly looking forward to this situation being "officially" sorted out.

Looking at how this has been handled in the past, donation links have been present on the forums for years without issue along with links to personal web spaces that include ads that potentially generate revenue for the poster.  Even links to popular KSP YouTube series generate revenue.  This went on without issue even during time when Squad/Take Two had a more direct hand in the moderation of the forums.  I don't think anyone begrudged those kinds of posts in the past.  Then again, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes.  I can say from my own standpoint as a casual poster here, that is how it always seemed.

Not that my opinion is an any way binding, but the so-called paid mods are not really any different than posting links to a YouTube video that generates revenue for somebody.  In both cases, the forum user is able to access a version of the content for free.  In the case of YouTube, that free version may come with ads.  In the case of a paid mod, that free version might not be the latest bleeding edge release (unless there are paid mods that don't have a free version available; if that is the case, I would love to hear about it because I am not aware of it).  I really don't see the difference.  At the same time, I don't begrudge anyone their own opinions nor do I begrudge someone who can help offset their own personal costs in license fees for development software and time spent creating content.

I come to these forums specifically to find out about mods.  I hate the idea that there might be mods I am not even able to learn about here.  That doesn't serve players at all.  That hinders players.  But again, just my opinion.

Edited August 28 by aviin
Spelling

[RileyHef]

36 minutes ago, aviin said:

I come to these forums specifically to find out about mods.  I hate the idea that there might be mods I am not even able to learn about here.  That doesn't serve players at all.  That hinders players.

Could not have said it better myself.

This community is split into a few corners of the internet (multiple Discord servers, Reddit, Spacedock, etc.), but the forums have always been the most comprehensive hub for KSP content and discussion. This is even more true for the modding community, specifically. Whatever is decided, I hope that it better centralizes communication between community members and mod contributors rather than create further barriers. 

[DeadJohn]

19 minutes ago, Poodmund said:

with complete open source at all times as per the forum rules

This requirement, which I agree with, leads to an odd dichotomy for paid mods. Code-based mods have to provide a free link to the source code which means anyone can get the mod for free; you're only paying for the convenience of a compiled DLL. Artwork-only mods wouldn't have to share anything for free.

Mod authors could then bundle unnecessary art file bloat into code-only mods, and add obfuscated extra code to check for those files, to prevent people from compiling the code on their own. KSP DRM. I don't have a solution just pointing out this edge-case issue.

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

These are fair questions with very complicated answers on our end.  

Agreed it's extremely complicated and I appreciate your donated time (without asking us to join Patreon to talk here, lol). I'm glad that you saw this thread because I created it partly based on your recent moderation of a mod that recently went paid. You deleted some posts will leaving others.

[Vanamonde]

The issues are that we do not want this forum to become an avenue for advertising goods and services, whether by businesses or well-meaning amateurs, and that we cannot be responsible for monetary transactions between forum members. We are not in a position to resolve disputes and it never should seem as if the forum's owners are responsible for any fraud or losses which might arise that way. Our response has been that nothing posted here can serve to direct traffic toward something that is attempting to make money. We have uneasily allowed Patreon links to mod posts, but only because donations are entirely voluntary. But if something can only be accessed after paying for it, we can't have that here. It's not the purpose of this forum and we are not equipped to manage it. 

[Poodmund]

8 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

We have uneasily allowed Patreon links to mod posts, but only because donations are entirely voluntary. But if something can only be accessed after paying for it, we can't have that here.

Would having the full, buildable/compileable source code available, outside of a platform like Patreon, up to date with the code in distributions being shared, satisfy the requirement of being accessible? Would this then be fine?

Edited August 28 by Poodmund

[dave1904]

I've only been scammed once with KSP and it wasn't a modder. 

[Errol]

On 8/28/2024 at 10:31 AM, aviin said:

Honestly looking forward to this situation being "officially" sorted out.

Looking at how this has been handled in the past, donation links have been present on the forums for years without issue along with links to personal web spaces that include ads that potentially generate revenue for the poster.  Even links to popular KSP YouTube series generate revenue.  This went on without issue even during time when Squad/Take Two had a more direct hand in the moderation of the forums.  I don't think anyone begrudged those kinds of posts in the past.  Then again, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes.  I can say from my own standpoint as a casual poster here, that is how it always seemed.

Not that my opinion is an any way binding, but the so-called paid mods are not really any different than posting links to a YouTube video that generates revenue for somebody.  In both cases, the forum user is able to access a version of the content for free.  In the case of YouTube, that free version may come with ads.  In the case of a paid mod, that free version might not be the latest bleeding edge release (unless there are paid mods that don't have a free version available; if that is the case, I would love to hear about it because I am not aware of it).  I really don't see the difference.  At the same time, I don't begrudge anyone their own opinions nor do I begrudge someone who can help offset their own personal costs in license fees for development software and time spent creating content.

I come to these forums specifically to find out about mods.  I hate the idea that there might be mods I am not even able to learn about here.  That doesn't serve players at all.  That hinders players.  But again, just my opinion.

 

On 8/28/2024 at 11:20 AM, RileyHef said:

Could not have said it better myself.

This community is split into a few corners of the internet (multiple Discord servers, Reddit, Spacedock, etc.), but the forums have always been the most comprehensive hub for KSP content and discussion. This is even more true for the modding community, specifically. Whatever is decided, I hope that it better centralizes communication between community members and mod contributors rather than create further barriers. 

I would also really like to see the question of discussing paid versions of mods for reasons other than advertising or ethics of paid mods (troubleshooting, bug reporting, feature requests etc) here on the forums answered. While it is all fine and dandy that there are comment threads on patreon, discord servers and reddits to do these discussions, having discussions centralized and accessible from one location makes the most sense, I think. The KSP forums have always been the go to place for modding information, having to go to other platforms is likely to lead to a lot of user frustration when relevant information cannot be easily found in the expected location, here on the official forums.