Is it possible to have too many mods?
 

I find it very exciting to see the latest projects that our local coders come up with here (big thanks to all of them), but, while a lot of them look extremely appealing and seem very useful, I think too many mods may overwhelm users. So far, I don't think I have gone too overboard. I have a lot of little mods (which are mainly to make the board easier to use and manage), and then I have: Zoints, Groups, and an arcade installed. I am looking into a points/shop system as well. With my site being pretty small, much of it doesn't get used. I am thinking that once I get more members, this won't be as big of a problem.

Just wondering if any of you had any problems with overwhelming your users with too many mods.

When you start a board you usually do have a lot of mods (best way to advertise for people to be active) but with time you can remove many mods because I can gurantee you that not all of them will stick with you from start till the end.

To put it in perspective, my forum has 4,663 members, 3 administrators, and 4 moderators.

When I started out, 90% of the members had some staff rank ;)

Oh sorry, I meant mods as in modifications, not moderators. :)

Nahhh, my users love all the mods I have installed!:D

I have:
a cash system, bank, and shop
Mood Manager
Post Thank You hack
Image hosting
4 games...solitaire, crossword, tic-tac-toe, and Guess the word
Shoutbox
Colored postbits and posts
RSS feeds
Extended rep
Profile gallery
Favorite song and video in profile
Special online/offline status icons

...Among others. Plus, I created a custom page with educational and interesting trivia, called the Fun Page.

How long is a piece of string? :p

Hehe sorry I couldn't resist.

i think I have over 20 in my VB. Got to make some work, but I am constantly looking for new ones. I am a mod enthusiast is seems . can't live without 20 - 3o at least, no matter the script I use

so what kind of mod did you use for your cash and shop?

Yes; focus on your content and not the gimmicks.

There are also tons of side-effects of mods. With each additional installed mod, your board becomes a bit harder to maintain in the long run.

Although there is not a set limit on what is too many modifications, some members here (*cough*Bashy*cough*) had huge problems with hundreds of modifications causing server problems and the like. So you may want to watch out in that respect.

As for personal opinion, I have plenty of modifications on my own forum, and removing major ones would cause members to revolt (gallery, shop, money system, arcade, shoutbox, interactive profiles). Modifications I think can boost activity to a degree, but then can also kill it if too many are used at once.