Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Of course, this is what is happening now:

My reasoning for suggesting a new forum has to do with probability, simplification, and organization. I doubt many coders have the time or inclination to surf through all the threads here. Even if the author of a particular hack announces that they are "moving on" on post #57 of their 30 page thread ... who in the heck (realistically) would spot it?

On the other hand, if they posted in the suggested forum, everyone would easily be informed.

This seems like a "win-win" suggestion to me (but then it would; wouldn't it?). :)

Why not just change the "Supported" tick box to a username instead. Then you can see the name of who is supporting a particular hack (which could be blank if no one is). The author could simply change this to someone else if they are no longer going to support it themselves.

I don't think many coders are around just looking to take over projects. If someone wants to take over, then it is because they re interested in the hack and probably using it themself. They would know if it is was posted in the hacks thread.

I or Xenon would be happy to implement any ideas that have the support of the majority of members here. :) As long as it is going to be used. Nothing worse than an empty forum. :)

yea, .. there should be another option available alongside "Supported" ... eg. "OPEN".

If the author doesn't mind if their code is used elsewhere (on another hack or extending the hack itself) they tick "OPEN" (or something similar).

This will enable others to extend/support the hack on a separate thread.

NOTE: Once "OPEN" is ticked it cannot be unticked.

something like that ... would help

just throwing ideas :)

We prefer having only one support thread for a modification. It prevents clutter :)

if someone takes over hack (modifies / extends it)
... they should get credit by allowing them their own thread

now, if the mods are just small additions -- yes, I agree

As a vB's hack user I think that the problem with the system now is that it gets frustrating browsing thru the thread to see if there is any patches/fixes released by coders other the the author of the hack.

What I would suggest and love to see here is maybe another box/table under the hack download file table where anyone(or just coders) can upload patches and fixes which can be easy to spot by the hack consumers and maybe just make it aware that the author is not responsible for patches released by any other coder other than himself. This would probably also get rid of the "Add-On Releases" forum aswell which can be a good thing for coders and consumers.

This would be very easy to do with a few hacking to hack release threads and would not require author permission or a separate forum.

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As far as getting the permission to take over a hack, I would think that maybe erwin can adapt the Un-register Yourself(not the actual name) hack that I seen released somewhere here to this board and maybe if the user is CODER have a checkbox option if he/she would'nt mind if other coders takeover thier hack project and depending on the coder choice mark thier hacks with a flag/image so other coders would know if they can take over or not. Cool thing about this is that this could all be hidden from regular board users and viewable by coders only :)

OR

If un-register yourself doesn't sound like a good idea, maybe have an option under the usercp of coders to allow such permission if going inactive/leaving forum.

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just my 0.02cents worth of thoughts!

I'm actually in this situation right now. I took over a hack (with permission) and released a new version. However, the old thread is still there and it can't be updated because no one seems to be able to get ahold of the original author.

What I'd do is create a vb.org license that applies to all submitted hacks and basically states that if you're inactive for a certain period of time, others can take over your hack as long as they include you in the credits.

Only problem with this is that then the risk is that there could be multiple people claiming ownership of hack so all of a sudden there are multiple versions of the same hack.

Personally I like the basic idea of this thread but if a system was put into place I'd prefer that's a clean break.... that hack XYZ by user John Doe is transferring the overseeing of it to user Jane Doe; that way there is still only one version of the hack and it's clear who has taken over development of it.