[WNxWakko]

I don't agree with allowing Commercial hacks to find their way into vb.org. I believe in the short-term everything would be reasonable. We would see a handful of commercial mods and for the most part we would all still continue to enjoy the free mods we have today. I think a large part of the good mods are already released and more than likely what you see now, probably wont convert to commercial. I think what will happen is when VB releases the next version 4.0 and all the mods have to be rebuilt. The Long-term effect I believe is we will see a huge boom in commercial mods and find many of our favorites that have been ported from v2 to 3 to 3.5 or even many of the newest and latest mods in 3.5 no longer free. A lot of them will see $$ in their eyes and think, hey why not port it and make a few bucks. The free mods will decrease and all the high quality mods will cost money.

Guess what will happen if most of the mods disappear? You will see alot not renewing and moving over to the next biggest board in line that has the most free mods and VB will lose in the end. Sure you will still retain alot of members who don’t mod, those that buy, install and go. They won’t be affected, but are you willing to give up a chunk of your valued and very loyal members in exchange if this turns out as I predicted? Do you like to gamble?

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Now, let’s assume no matter what I say, you go ahead with the support. In that case which I do not support, I would make some suggestions.

I think a commercial directory should be on its own domain selected by the vb.org team, something like vbservices.net or com if you wish. Keep it separated and the negative effects might not be as bad. I also agree that they should only be viewable by licensed members.

Now there is the argument that if you have commercial, then it should be open for newcomers to see. I agree and disagree. The solution would be to allow the viewing of the directory by anonymous visitors with some things hidden. Hide the mods home URL support link, hide the author name, hide any download links, and hide anything that remotely connects that user to the mod or website to obtain the mod without being licensed. This does two things. It allows those shopping for a board, looking at what’s offered with VB and the mod community. They get to view what the mod does in a summary. However, you not allowing the viewing of any contact info, author info or anything to keep out people running illegal version of the board searching for mods. I say the author name because they could just Google it and it would take them to anyone’s site that has the credits and connect the dots. I believe anyone that is so set on lettings anonymous users’ view this directory isn’t thinking about the illegal versions, the people who don’t pay, that use bit-torrent to get the latest board. They will benefit by a commercial site openly published. I stand behind the team here in their statement of making it member viewable only that would be the best security of all.

I also think charging them to publish on the directory is a good idea. It helps keep the directory from filling up with every single hack you could imagine just because people want to make some money. You’re not going to get support on vb.org forums for commercially listed mods, so use at your own risk. At least at VB if it goes wrong, the author can help, and even if they don’t, usually other members and staff give you a helping hand.

In the end, stay out of commercial, or at the bare minimum, let them list, but don’t