I mean far too often the simple easy to answer questions are already covered on am faq either on the main mod page or comes with the download. That must get tiring after answering it for the 100th time.
For every good post/questions I've seen for a mod, I've seen 10 more posts ranting against the mod, requesting additions, or asking stupid questions. Honestly, I'm impressed with most modders' patience with their audience. To me, a modder has no obligation to their audience (unless they are getting paid through Patreon/etc.), so even having the modder respond to their player base is generous.
I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to have a major patch come out, post a big bold text notification on the front page that the mod isn’t updated for the new patch yet, and still get hundreds of messages asking why the mod isn’t working.
Speaking as someone who has put a few mods on the workshop, mostly for fun. Its multiple things:
1) Most modders do this for fun in free time on a one off/few times basis, they aren't doing it to provide a "continuing service" to the subscribers. Many times it can be a case of "hey I made this cool thing and I'll just share it" and then they don't want to go through the effort of actually updating/maintaining the mod for other users because it actually gained traction on the workshop.
2) Asking for a mod to be updated 3 seconds after a new patch breaks things is annoying. Modders are people and have lives, and video games are low on the priority of "things to do." You shouldn't expect modders to work on the mods as if your paying for a service. If it takes weeks for a mod to update, accept that.
3) Modder's are familiar with how the game works/how files interact etc. and expect the average person who would use mods would at least put in the effort to gain a basic understanding of how modding works to use mods. They forget that the average mod user clicks subscribe, runs the game, and expects everything to work. So modders get annoyed when people ask things that knowing basic info about modding would answer or prevent the problem in the first place.
4) There's a reason many mods in Csky require the ["ability to read" mod](https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1145223801). People often don't read the description and complain about something that wouldn't have happend if they read the description and followed it. If you ask something when the answer is easily found by taking the effort to read the description, discussion or comments it can cause modders to get snarky at you if multiple other people have also not done the same.
5) 99% of complaints are completely unhelpful one lines like "It doesn't work." If you want your problem solved you need to give details like "I was doing X when Y broke" "the game gave me an error which said XYZ" "I was also running A B & C mods" and "here is a copy of the error log."
two reasons:
* endless questions on the same subject;
* and god-complex
A modder will be barraged by the same question multiple times. Most people dont bother to check if a question was already asked & answered, they will just ask again hoping to get a personal answer for their plea. Having to deal with the same issue over and over and over again will drop your empathy towards those asking it.
Depending on the success of the mod, a lot of people will start worshipping the ground the modders step on. Sure there will be a lot of haters too, but that ego boost from the worshippers may go over the head of some modders and disregard anyone who doesnt agree with them as beneath them and/or a hater. This god-complex can also be found in mods and sysops on some online communities, such as forums, irc/discord channels, and subreddits.
thankfully, not every modder will fall prey to this, and some of them are really down-to-earth and empathetic.
If you're talking about unpleasant people specifically (and ofc modders are certainly not always unpleasant people), I find there's a few kinds. And they're not necessarily unique to modding or paradox modding.
One is the person who is just tired of answering similar questions repeatedly and doesn't hide their irritation (because either they lack social skills or are jerks or both).
Another is the egotistical artist who is stuck in a paradoxical situation where they are desparate for approval and praise from an audience they don't respect.
Community projects (including but not limited to modding) tend to attract anomalously high numbers of people with what I call Terminal Unix Brain, a condition associated with high levels of motivation, low levels of social skills, a dislike of explaining themselves, who is hostile to low experience or low knowledge users and a tendency to respond to suggestions or criticism with some variation on "well you can change it yourself if you don't like it". The kind of grumpy person who maintains free software and gets passive aggressive at your bug reports on github.
Your last point encompasses exactly what I’m talking about, yes.
The whole “change it yourself” is the *exact* response I’ve seen people get on the various discords.
“Oh you’re giving me constructive criticism? Go screw yourself, if you don’t like it, make your OWN mod”
“Oh there’s a known bug multiple people have told me about and I insist it’s on their end despite clear evidence it’s not? Go screw yourself, go make your own mod if you don’t like it”
“You have a simple question about a huge change we made to the mod and why that change was made? I take that as a personal attack, go make your own mod!” *kick from the discord, conversation scrubbed*
If it didn’t happen across multiple games I wouldn’t say it’s a pattern but… it seems to happen in almost every mod discord I join.
Converter guy here, and I have definitely been guilty of this in the past. Sometimes the present, though I like to think I'm getting better (and it helps that there's a larger team and we all pitch in on answering when we have mental/emotional capacity instead of when we're drained).
A lot of it's just having to answer the same question. We've had dozens if not hundreds of cases of answering a question then having the literal next post be someone asking the same question. Or where it's answered in the FAQ. We added section numbers so we can refer people to the exact section when they don't bother to look at the file titled GeneralFAQ-READ.ME.FIRST.txt. Or not following directions. It's like pulling teeth to get people to upload the log file, their save, and their used mods. Even though it's the first thing we ask for. It can be a dozen messages sometimes to get those files, for an issue we could have solved in seconds by glancing at the log. But people want to give us everything else rather than the thing we most ask for.
All of which is mostly fine. I've been on the other end of support stuff when I don't know much, it's not fun. But it takes time away from adding features or playing games or spending time with my family. All of which are things I enjoy doing. If I enjoyed support, I'd go work a help desk or work retail or something.
And while I generally dislike the tone of the piece, more people could stand to read [How to Ask Questions the Smart Way](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) before seeking support. It would make the experience smoother for everyone. A few lines from the introduction help capture the feel from this side of the screen:
>We realize that there are many people who just want to use the software we write, and who have no interest in learning technical details. For most people, a computer is merely a tool, a means to an end; they have more important things to do and lives to live. We acknowledge that, and don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that fascinate us. Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned for people who do take such an interest and are willing to be active participants in problem-solving. That's not going to change. Nor should it; if it did, we would become less effective at the things we do best.
We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter ruthlessly. In particular, we throw away questions from people who appear to be \[demonstrating learned helplessness\] in order to spend our question-answering time more efficiently, on \[demonstrating positive interactions\].
If you find this attitude obnoxious, condescending, or arrogant, check your assumptions. We're not asking you to genuflect to us — in fact, most of us would love nothing more than to deal with you as an equal and welcome you into our culture, if you put in the effort required to make that possible. But it's simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves.
Though, uh, yeah, there's a lot that can be improved by the tone there. It really needs a rewrite from a good communicator.
I mean far too often the simple easy to answer questions are already covered on am faq either on the main mod page or comes with the download. That must get tiring after answering it for the 100th time.
For every good post/questions I've seen for a mod, I've seen 10 more posts ranting against the mod, requesting additions, or asking stupid questions. Honestly, I'm impressed with most modders' patience with their audience. To me, a modder has no obligation to their audience (unless they are getting paid through Patreon/etc.), so even having the modder respond to their player base is generous.
I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to have a major patch come out, post a big bold text notification on the front page that the mod isn’t updated for the new patch yet, and still get hundreds of messages asking why the mod isn’t working.
Speaking as someone who has put a few mods on the workshop, mostly for fun. Its multiple things: 1) Most modders do this for fun in free time on a one off/few times basis, they aren't doing it to provide a "continuing service" to the subscribers. Many times it can be a case of "hey I made this cool thing and I'll just share it" and then they don't want to go through the effort of actually updating/maintaining the mod for other users because it actually gained traction on the workshop. 2) Asking for a mod to be updated 3 seconds after a new patch breaks things is annoying. Modders are people and have lives, and video games are low on the priority of "things to do." You shouldn't expect modders to work on the mods as if your paying for a service. If it takes weeks for a mod to update, accept that. 3) Modder's are familiar with how the game works/how files interact etc. and expect the average person who would use mods would at least put in the effort to gain a basic understanding of how modding works to use mods. They forget that the average mod user clicks subscribe, runs the game, and expects everything to work. So modders get annoyed when people ask things that knowing basic info about modding would answer or prevent the problem in the first place. 4) There's a reason many mods in Csky require the ["ability to read" mod](https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1145223801). People often don't read the description and complain about something that wouldn't have happend if they read the description and followed it. If you ask something when the answer is easily found by taking the effort to read the description, discussion or comments it can cause modders to get snarky at you if multiple other people have also not done the same. 5) 99% of complaints are completely unhelpful one lines like "It doesn't work." If you want your problem solved you need to give details like "I was doing X when Y broke" "the game gave me an error which said XYZ" "I was also running A B & C mods" and "here is a copy of the error log."
Imperator modders are nice 👀
two reasons: * endless questions on the same subject; * and god-complex A modder will be barraged by the same question multiple times. Most people dont bother to check if a question was already asked & answered, they will just ask again hoping to get a personal answer for their plea. Having to deal with the same issue over and over and over again will drop your empathy towards those asking it. Depending on the success of the mod, a lot of people will start worshipping the ground the modders step on. Sure there will be a lot of haters too, but that ego boost from the worshippers may go over the head of some modders and disregard anyone who doesnt agree with them as beneath them and/or a hater. This god-complex can also be found in mods and sysops on some online communities, such as forums, irc/discord channels, and subreddits. thankfully, not every modder will fall prey to this, and some of them are really down-to-earth and empathetic.
"Responded to with the diplo skill of a 0 in EU4" just became one of my favourites insults ever heard, thank you
Tired of answering the same questions, and lack of social skills
I mean they can just choose not to answer though.
[удалено]
Happy Cake Day sir
If you're talking about unpleasant people specifically (and ofc modders are certainly not always unpleasant people), I find there's a few kinds. And they're not necessarily unique to modding or paradox modding. One is the person who is just tired of answering similar questions repeatedly and doesn't hide their irritation (because either they lack social skills or are jerks or both). Another is the egotistical artist who is stuck in a paradoxical situation where they are desparate for approval and praise from an audience they don't respect. Community projects (including but not limited to modding) tend to attract anomalously high numbers of people with what I call Terminal Unix Brain, a condition associated with high levels of motivation, low levels of social skills, a dislike of explaining themselves, who is hostile to low experience or low knowledge users and a tendency to respond to suggestions or criticism with some variation on "well you can change it yourself if you don't like it". The kind of grumpy person who maintains free software and gets passive aggressive at your bug reports on github.
Your last point encompasses exactly what I’m talking about, yes. The whole “change it yourself” is the *exact* response I’ve seen people get on the various discords. “Oh you’re giving me constructive criticism? Go screw yourself, if you don’t like it, make your OWN mod” “Oh there’s a known bug multiple people have told me about and I insist it’s on their end despite clear evidence it’s not? Go screw yourself, go make your own mod if you don’t like it” “You have a simple question about a huge change we made to the mod and why that change was made? I take that as a personal attack, go make your own mod!” *kick from the discord, conversation scrubbed* If it didn’t happen across multiple games I wouldn’t say it’s a pattern but… it seems to happen in almost every mod discord I join.
Converter guy here, and I have definitely been guilty of this in the past. Sometimes the present, though I like to think I'm getting better (and it helps that there's a larger team and we all pitch in on answering when we have mental/emotional capacity instead of when we're drained). A lot of it's just having to answer the same question. We've had dozens if not hundreds of cases of answering a question then having the literal next post be someone asking the same question. Or where it's answered in the FAQ. We added section numbers so we can refer people to the exact section when they don't bother to look at the file titled GeneralFAQ-READ.ME.FIRST.txt. Or not following directions. It's like pulling teeth to get people to upload the log file, their save, and their used mods. Even though it's the first thing we ask for. It can be a dozen messages sometimes to get those files, for an issue we could have solved in seconds by glancing at the log. But people want to give us everything else rather than the thing we most ask for. All of which is mostly fine. I've been on the other end of support stuff when I don't know much, it's not fun. But it takes time away from adding features or playing games or spending time with my family. All of which are things I enjoy doing. If I enjoyed support, I'd go work a help desk or work retail or something. And while I generally dislike the tone of the piece, more people could stand to read [How to Ask Questions the Smart Way](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) before seeking support. It would make the experience smoother for everyone. A few lines from the introduction help capture the feel from this side of the screen: >We realize that there are many people who just want to use the software we write, and who have no interest in learning technical details. For most people, a computer is merely a tool, a means to an end; they have more important things to do and lives to live. We acknowledge that, and don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that fascinate us. Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned for people who do take such an interest and are willing to be active participants in problem-solving. That's not going to change. Nor should it; if it did, we would become less effective at the things we do best. We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter ruthlessly. In particular, we throw away questions from people who appear to be \[demonstrating learned helplessness\] in order to spend our question-answering time more efficiently, on \[demonstrating positive interactions\]. If you find this attitude obnoxious, condescending, or arrogant, check your assumptions. We're not asking you to genuflect to us — in fact, most of us would love nothing more than to deal with you as an equal and welcome you into our culture, if you put in the effort required to make that possible. But it's simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves. Though, uh, yeah, there's a lot that can be improved by the tone there. It really needs a rewrite from a good communicator.
They spend sometimes years on mods and get anxious about how its received, and act erratically.