Wedge

Honestly, we haven't thought too much about that just yet.

Building a mod community is quite a way down the list - and you can bet that we'll (or certainly I will) be building mods too.

I should note that I was able to keep on top of the mod queue by myself when in the Cust. team on SMF (back in autumn 2009, mod authors were getting feedback the same day as submission!) so it's not like that's too much of a problem.

Honestly, though, I think we're veering away from doing that to a degree because it causes more problems than it solves; it places a burden on us to babysit the community, and while it does encourage a degree of quality, it sort of makes us responsible.

As I said recently (not sure if it was in the public boards or not), our responsibility lies somewhere between creating the base platform and fostering a modding community; we're not responsible for building mods, nor are we responsible for policing them - but that doesn't mean we can't make it our responsibility.

I would note, actually, that with the right environment it can be done for the benefit of users - note the difference between the Apple store and the Android Marketplace; Apple stuff tends to be better vetted - Android stuff not so much.

tl:dr; We're not planning on it but the whole modding thing is a long way off really.

"I should note that I was able to keep on top of the mod queue by myself when in the Cust. team on SMF (back in autumn 2009, mod authors were getting feedback the same day as submission!) so it's not like that's too much of a problem."

Maybe that answers the question. I had assumed it was some huge burden, based on reading things like "Right now we have about 40+ mods in the queue. It's taking us a while to catch up on the queue so bare with us." from their lead customiser, but maybe that's not the process's fault but just part of SMF's inertia.

On your second point, I'd be in favour of better vetting. If I were a mod writer it would be better to know all obvious bugs have been fixed before releasing it to the public. And as a mod user I would certainly prefer mods to be of good quality. But as you say that's a conversation for later :)

Don't get me wrong, it is a burden. But it's manageable if you can be bothered to put the time into it.

At the time I was on the Cust. team, there were I think 8 members of the team, and I remember telling them repeatedly that if each person looked at one per week, there would never be a problem!

I used to only take half an hour or so to review most of the mods - only big ones ever took longer, to be honest.

This maybe comes under "we haven't thought too much about that just yet" - will you have a team? I've noticed there are other modérateurs here, will they (and maybe others) be marshalled to provide support, mod+theme approval, bug documentation, general documentation, etc, leaving you two to get on with the development?

ps feel free to say we haven't thought too much about that just yet - I'd prefer you to work on Wedge than answer my stupid questions  :)

Really -- it'll be both.

1/ Mods will be uploadable through the Wedge download system. (Which, basically, is Aeva Media.)
2/ People will be able to vote on them, so they can praise the best mods.
3/ We will have a 'seal of approval' of some sorts -- basically, if we take some time and look into a mod, if we like it we'll give it our seal. Given that we're very demanding creators, though, I doubt we'll give that seal to many mods. Heck, to me a deal-breaker would be simply have unneeded tabs and spaces everywhere in the source code. (So, basically, you won't see me give that seal often, if ever...)

There is a Wedge team. Just not a 'customizer' team yet (or ever, I don't know.)

For what it's worth - 2 cents, maybe less with the exchange - What I have observed is that the use of mods have been the reasons for many problems with the core, base program. And then you get the prolific mod infested forum that suddenly and inevitably elicits an urgent cry for help.
I'm not a coder, I'm a user, too old to learn more than cut and paste or click on install but from what I've read any mod that makes changes to the main code runs the risk of changing or conflicting with other mods. I've run 25 forums for years that have themes and one portal, and have never had a system crash, blank pages, or what ever. But then I have had crashes with a test site where I over loaded it with mods. And I've read of many cries for help from others who butchered their site with mods.
So on the question of mods and the base code I would prefer it all be part of the base code to assure its integrity and unity with the rest of the code. And in the case of a must have mod, I hope it's like Nao said, it will be scrutinized heavily before it's approved.

You can guarantee of the 50 members to date......
......there will be 50 required mods -  few similar in function.

 :hmm: But on the other hand, we do have Nao and Arantor tapping away on either side of the Channel  :cool: