Skyrim Mod talk:Verified Creator Program

Verified Creation Pages?

Are pages for the Verified Creations welcome? I purchased a few and may be interested in recording them.

--Ru5ty (talk) 05:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, they are definitely all fair game for documentation here as they are for sale. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 10:36, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

For clarity: "Here" being linked from the Verified Creations page and documented within Skyrim Mod namespace. --Enodoc (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Rename

To summarize the discussion on Discord, Bethesda's Cartogriffi today posted on the Bethesda Discord that they intentionally stopped using the term "Verified Creation" a few months ago: https://discord.com/channels/261544750044282883/261887896930353155/1296596825587060737 —Eve (talk) 02:35, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I still think the wiki needs some way to disambiguate these paid Creations from non-paid Creations (known in the real world as "mods") from Creation Club Creations. That said, if the term is no longer going to be used officially, we should reconsider the most appropriate article title for the topic. —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

"Mods" encompasses both paid and sold creations. "Creation Club Creations" seems pretty easy. "Verified Creator Program Creations" is probably the best we can do for the mods we've been calling Verified Creations. —Eve (talk) 09:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It's quite a mouthful, and I'm sure Bethesda's marketing would object even to that if their stance is "Creations are Creations". That's just not a helpful view for our documentation efforts, and seems designed to disguise the nature of these paid mods by confusing the terminology with free mods and official DLC. I've yet to see a single YouTuber grasp the nuance of these differences between Creations for instance. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Bethesda decided that mods for their games would be called "Creations". It's a marketing gimmick IMO. Anyways, if Skyrim SE paid mods are no longer called "Verified Creations" but just "Creations" like the unpaid mods, then the solution is obvious: call them "paid Creations" instead. It's what they are. And yes, they should still be distinct from the Creation Club stuff; the Creation Club is canonical part of the Anniversary Edition version, including on versions like the one from GOG.com or the one for the Nintendo Switch which don't have access to the Beth.net/Creations menu. --Gez (talk) 15:08, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

"Paid" at the least doesn't specify the platform and would theoretically encompass mods that require Patreon subscriptions and such. We're also conflating two issues here: what to call the page that has the list and then how to phrase mention of them in a sentence. —Eve (talk) 15:33, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

While we're at it, I think the old "paid mods" should be changed to something that conveys it's referring specifically to Steam Workshop mods that had an associated cost. —Eve (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a bit of a rewriting of history to call the Steam Workshop offerings anything else. A few extracts from Steam's 29 March 2015 announcement:

"The Steam Workshop has always been a great place for sharing mods, maps, and all kinds of items that you’ve created. Now it's also a great place for selling those creations."

"With a new, streamlined process for listing and selling your creations, the Steam Workshop now supports buying mods directly from the Workshop, to be immediately usable in game."

"With the launch of paid mods in Skyrim, you can now support mod authors that are creating top quality items and amazing new experiences for your game."

"How much do paid mods cost?"

Maybe no harm to have a Paid Mods disambig page for navigation, since readers are more likely going to be looking for this page and not the unavailable mods from a decade ago. The current terminology is correct though. —⁠Legoless (talk) 11:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it made sense at the time ... but is now vague and misleading. Maybe just call them "Steam Workshop Paid Mods (2015)". —Eve (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

We call them that because that's what they were. The blowback from them was so severe that Bethesda has tried to ignore that they ever call them that, but it does make sense that Paid Mods does de facto refer to Verified Creations too. I understand a disambig page, but an About template might do the job fine. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 18:30, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the about template you added probably suffices. —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:22, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

(←) I've removed the additional about template that was placed on this page for being inelegant and for getting the terms confused. To call Creation Club "paid mods" after the above discussion is to completely misunderstand the intricacies of this topic.

Per WP:HAT, the purpose of a hatnote (our "about template") is to help readers locate a different article if the one they are at is not the one they're looking for. Usually this is because the reader may be seeking an article that uses a more specific disambiguated title, or an article with a similar name. The above suggestion of a one-way hatnote from Paid Mods to here makes sense in that context. The addition of a hatnote on this page, pointing readers to the Steam Paid Mods (and subsequently the Creation Club page in gamespace) is not necessary, particularly when the See Also section at the bottom of the page served the same purpose. I have restored it and removed the note. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)