Wait, so is there in-game testing for custom content or not? If mods simply look at pictures and the list of items to see if it matches site rules and that is all, then of course I can do that myself. I assumed the items were tested lightly in game as well, to check the basics. (Does it explode, does it show up, does it function as it says it does.)
Did I assume too much for cosmetic mods?

Well if that's all, I guess I could send them to someone for testing and just go with the auto-approve. It will make no difference.
(I'd rather avoid mass-testing by peers because if I can prevent some obvious things, I'd like to. Especially since recolors can be based on faulty stuff as well, faulty stuff can be included with sims, etc.)

No, there has never been in-game testing for anything except for featuring. Or, rather, we leave it up to moderator discretion - they CAN test in-game if they want, but usually do not and it's usually only the new and eager mods who try to do it before they realize that it takes ages to download an item, load your game, find it in-game, test it thoroughly, and then come back and moderate it, and then there's 15 more things in the queue after that, and 15 more tomorrow...

Sometimes we'll open things in SimPE or S3PE to check things (especially like for TS2 Body Shop stuff, which can have completely broken files if you upload straight from Projects instead of Savedsims - the filename's a clue but not 100% certain) but we can't require moderators have every EP/SP so they can test everything, or to download from a page-long shopping list of required content for a house, or whatever. Which is why the guidelines have been so stringent, to make sure we can see that the content is fine based on the pics and info presented.

Makes sense. For cosmetic mods and some objects you can usually fire up Anygamestarter for a quicker test, but that doesn't go for other downloads.

Oh, it does exist! Thanks!

Now I hope others are aware of it!

My suggestions (yes, I know, I upload here too occasionally!):

- An easier way of uploading and attaching pictures, using drag-drop, and previewing them.
- A better way of previewing the whole post
- A seperate section for a changelog, CC lists, etc, thats editable apart from the main text
- A better looking upload wizard
- Better analytics of how many uploads I get per-section, per-thread, and overall
- A notification if a download I make goes Trending
- A notification if a download I make gets picked
- A way of sorting which picture gets put first

On this subject there is one part of the upload process that confused me when I uploaded my first mod here, and it caused my mod to get a CR. In one of the steps, it asks you to list the patch level required for the mod. Well, I entered it and assumed," ok, now I have listed the patch level", so I didn't include it as part of the main text of the thread. However, patch level information is required to be part of the main text as well (which I totally understand), so I got a CR about that. Now, once I had learned that, I didn't really have trouble with my mods. I think I have had all of two CRs. But the process is tedious and a waste of moderator time. We all do this in our free time, creators and moderators alike. Waiting days through the MTS queue, just to be told that you forgot to add the patch level to the main text of the post and then having to wait again after adding one line to the post is very discouraging and a little insulting. Its like "I put all this effort into my stuff, and I have to continue waiting for it to be published because of 3 little numbers." I'm not saying patch level isn't important. I think it's very important, but when you get a CR because of the patch level, which you essentially have to enter twice, it feels like an utter waste of time. This is why a template of some sort would be really helpful.

I have to say that, even if everyone used the same template for mod posts just out of sheer laziness, I don't think it would be a bad thing for the site (as long as the template would remain optional). Personally, I'm pretty happy when people use the same general format for mod posts. It makes it easy to find all of the important details relating to a mod with just a quick glance at the post.

I agree with nonamena about the templates. It will make the mods' lives easier and get downloads through faster to the downloaders. Other than that and better support for new modders to help them grow (see my post in the downloaders' thread), everything about MTS is perfect. The mods do the best they can and it shows: during my whole time downloading stuff here, I only came across one broken download among a sea of functional and high quality downloads.

I had my first hotel come back due to something very similar. I had put all the room prices at the end of each room description and not where the price of the lot goes. So I put the price from lowest to highest room in there as well-which to me didn't make a whole lot of sense as that was not the lot price. I then had to wait again when really all the info was in the main text to begin with. So I wouldn't mind templates.

I like the high quality standards for uploading at MTS. There are not many sites with standards like that, it gives the downloaders a safe place to find quality content and us creators a great place to share our very best creations.
I have to agree though that some changes to moderation would be nice. Having the option to skip moderation for a certain category or make it optional for those with picked uploads/highest rated uploads in that cateogory would help. Having moderators that create the types of CC that they are reviewing themselves would help tremendously!
I think the current star rating is a good idea and is helpful, but only when used correctly.
I had moderators telling me my polycount for clothes was too high, though I used EA meshes as reference for it. And I was once helping a friend with her first clothing upload at MTS; a retexture of a basegame mesh. She was accused of not using an EA mesh and her download was rejected, although it definitely was an EA mesh. She was so upset that she didn't want to upload anymore. Where's the trust?
So, long story short, moderators should ideally have expert knowledge of what they are reviewing, otherwise uploaders really have a reason to be pissed off about it.

I get the impression most moderators don't even really enjoy doing the queue so anything that means they have less work might be welcome. Whether that be having fewer rules, more automated checking, or fewer people having to wait in that queue. And when it comes to having subject experts doing the moderating, that may be a little unrealistic because I imagine that many of the top creators would rather create than moderate. There are certainly subject experts on the MTS team but there is a turnover as people can get burnt out and inevitably some creators will end up having their work rated by someone far less experienced at their own area than themselves.

I don't upload to MTS, but I do download here and I learned how to create CC here and thus will forever be indebted to this site, so please keep that in mind when reading this feedback.

My idea of a great site:
- ability to change screen names
- links that work / removal of recolours linked to meshes from dead sites
- unmoderated uploads
- more personalization
- sort by downloads/votes
- no orwellian tracking (or at least the ability to disable it)
- minimal moderation in general
- gorgeous custom content
- eye-candy (but practical) frontend

I think this site is the best resource for modding and creation, but my ideal sims site would be a place that I want to play on rather than just learn from. I hope this feedback helps.

Well that's just plain... weird. If the upload wizard explicitly asks you for patch version and then it gets put on CR for not having a patch version then we need to change that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

You are absolutely right about all of that, Inge. Doing the queue is... not particularly fun, and it's day in and day out and anonymous and just... bleh. It's easy to burn out, and very hard to come back from that burnout. Changes that make less queue moderation are -excellent-... as long as they also serve the users.

Nothing to do with uploads but I would really like to have the character limit for the signature to be increased, for me, 300 or 500 or whatever it is is not enough.

Also, is it possible for creators (only) to be able to have more than 5 lines in the signature? I'd appreciate if we (or everyone, doesn't need to be for creators only) can more than five lines in our signatures, it can get a bit messy if we cram things in one line, example the first line of my signature.

I have not yet read the whole thread, but I do agree with Missy that having English spelling instead of American-English shouldn't be a reason to reject the upload.

I do not want how-ever moderating to be completely removed. But some common sense should be used.
I for one wish that if you make a no-someannoyinginteraction mod, you wouldn't be asked to make 5 different tuning files for it.

I had a mod of this type rejected, I'm not bitter but the reasoning behind it made no sense. It said something like doing tuning files is so easy to make anybody can do them and you can't upload just one but you have to have flavors. But if it's so easy then it should be ok to just upload that one file, tell in the instructions what value was modified, what was the original and what it is now and if somebody wants to tune it they can do it themselves.

Also multipart downlods. Is there a reason why a zip is limited to 10mb? I have to say I was a bit shocked how many do not know how to unzip a multipar rar.

The question on tuning mods really should be "Do end users really feel the site is no good them to download from if creators are allowed to upload single-flavor tuning mods?" I'd guess no. And I'd guess the same applied to modern boxy houses, to say nothing of eery haunted castles that were rejected over and over until they had bright lights and cheerful wallpaper in every room. It had been in danger of becoming a site where download choice for end users is limited due to moderator's preference for certain styles.

I can understand one wouldn't want ones's disks swamped with a hundred identical boxy houses, and I wonder if it would be acceptable to actually archive off those uploads that didn't achieve a threshold of downloads after a certain time. Let the users be the style judge.

The fact that doing tuning mods is "easy" is precisly why this rule exists. But the key thing is that it's not easy for everybody - that way, with a little extra effort on the part of the uploader, they can get a lot more from the downloader.

Zips are limited to 10mb because back in 2004 not everybody had super fast broadband.

I have been uploading here since 2006 and for the most part I have enjoyed the site and have appreciated what this site has done for the community in general. I have found as of late that moderation of an upload takes days and is subject to whomever is doing it and this is not always consistent. I feel the guidelines are tedious and somewhat off-putting. I wish we could have a short / to the point list (the guidelines are a bit verbose)of what is required for the item we are uploading. If there are changes to the guidelines it would be nice to have a notice of this when we are uploading an item so we can check out the new guidelines (I don't check the guidelines every time I upload).

Hmmm. Maybe because I've been a professional writer and am used to the editorial process, a process that can takes MONTHS, and even YEARS to even get a rejection slip with no feedback at all, I don't mind the moderation process on MTS. In fact, while I would prefer a turnaround of tomorrow on my creations, I find even 4 days to be positively speedy compared to what I am accustomed to.

I agree that it does take some effort to take the screenshots and edit them for size, but it really isn't that hard. I do create a bit less because the screenshots eat into my creation time, but I often have fun playing Sim photographer, too. So it's all good.

I enjoy downloading from MTS and trust the quality of the content I find here, in part because of the moderation. I would really hate to see moderation go away, both from a consumer and a creator's perspective. I've gotten some great feedback from the moderators that made me work a bit harder and improve my creations (along with the occasional non-helpful opinion).

Of course, professional means *paid*. While many people will feel as you do, there are others who might reason that they're being asked to turn something they do for leisure into an onorous task. 8 hours exciting object meshing then 4 hours tedious form filling, or whichever way round. And that's before they commit the minor slip up that saw them get stamped PHAIL! I think Delphy and HP are looking for a solution that doesn't alienate either faction of the site's potential contributors, or their users.

I also agree on this. I know things I download on mts holds a certain standard, but I may not always agree on the moderation. Since I'm mostly building modern I do feel like there is too little knowledge on modern architecture on mts sometimes. Despite the sometimes lack of knowledge I do prefer having a moderation for new creators because I think it's needed. What standard people expect, and expecting feedback is a learning process. Not everyone knows how to deal with feedback, they sometimes takes it too personal. When that's been said I have had my share of rude comments from moderators who in my opinion have a too strong opinion on what's good and bad. People are different and when some people in the feedback forum likes what you do it isn't always understandable how a moderator suddenly rejects the house because it's not what they expect. In the end it's an opinion thing, and people do not always agree.

I have a little side thing here about links. When I download from mts I don't expect to be redirected to an external site, and I don't like it. I trust mts, but I may not trust an external site. It may just be a matter of this new organization or the site though, perhaps I clicked the wrong link or something.

We don't redirect to an external site for downloads. Downloads are served from chii.modthesims.info - chii is our downloads server (for the moment, every few years Delphy reorganizes things and sometimes we get a new server name, usually named after anime characters).

Perhaps there was a link below the download link for an off-site mesh and you clicked that instead?

100% agree with this. I would not like to see upload moderation go away. It's been the unique thing about MTS that sets it apart from other sites, in that you know you're much more likely to get a decent quality download that works and that looks the way it's been depicted in the screenshots. I've had a considerable amount of disappointment when downloading elsewhere and finding that the items are poor quality, badly made, don't look the way they look in the screenshots,etc.

On the other hand:

This scenario can be off-putting too. I've had my share of 'Changes Requireds' and usually they've been reasonable and no problem, often even quite helpful as kithri described above. But my last two uploads (which were for TS2 rather than TS3 as all of my previous creations had been, and maybe the requirements for TS2 are more stringent) were indeed an onerous task, as they were returned several times with very time-consuming changes required to both mesh and texture, until with my last upload I had to say 'If it doesn't pass muster this time, please just delete it', because the hours and hours involved in making yet another set of major changes, checking them again in-game to make sure they still looked and worked right, taking another new set of screenshots, etc was keeping me from real-life stuff I needed to do, and it became very stressful. So I can understand Inge's (and others') point of view about that type of frustration.

All things considered, though, I think the upload moderation situation here has been just about right, and I'd rather it erred on the side of being too picky than not picky enough. I would be saddened to see it become too much more lenient if it means a notable drop in quality.

It's from the homepage, I click on the pink boots and end up here: http://modthesims.info/finds/find/648, then I click on the blue text expecting to get to the download here and end up on his own site instead. A bit confusing.

Volvenom that is the Finds Database. It is a listing of content from around the community, it is not just MTS content.