This change was needed for many reasons, all explained above, and it was a partial change. Even after introducing the requirement to unlock a mod before being able to post (in order to allow only constructive posts which are made by users who really tried the mod), all the community was still used to type "thanks" basically.. everywhere! So, it wasn't such a big deal yet, that's why I introduced another change which removed the *requirement* to leave a reply in order to unlock the download link.
So, let's evaluate the previous situation and the actual one, to make it clearer.
/*PREVIOUS SITUATION*/
- Everyone can reply, and everyone must reply (in order to unlock the download link).
PROS:
•
Spam gate open to everyone (oh wait, this shouldn't be in the PROS list)
• Ability to ask additional info before unlocking
CONS:
• Spam gate open to everyone
• Everyone will complain without even trying the mod
• High chance of misleading people (it's enough for a user to write "it doesn't work" even if he didn't download it in order to make people leave from that page)
• Unfair level progression
• Unfair SB Points farming (they could vote in a poll without even downloading the mod)
• Huge list of "thank you" (or similar) posts
• Huge list of "how to download" posts
• SEO penalization due to repeated/spam/unrelated content posted
• Database filled of spam content
• Difficulty to find useful posts
• Better to stop here or I'll not make a single mod today :lol:
/*ACTUAL SITUATION*/
- Only those who unlocked a mod can reply and they're not forced to
PROS:
• Only honest feedbacks from users
• No more 100 pages of *thank you* posts
• Simplified structure
• Immediate access to user feedbacks (as you no longer need to dig around 100 posts in order to find a content-related post)
• Grateful database and server
(the server will no longer have to store thousand pages of "thank you" posts, allowing more space for important stuff)
• Faster access to the content (no more replies required, so you can play first, and then give a feedback)
• No more users complaining about not being able to afford it
• Grateful search engines (it'll be easier now to index our content as it'll be clearer and spiders will find out what a page is about more easily, helping our rankings etc..)
• Fair level progression
• Fair SB Points farming (as they'll now be required to unlock a mod before being able to cast a vote in the poll)
• No more "how to download?" posts (or mostly), as users will have to spend a bit more time to read before posting, allowing them to find the video tutorial link about how to download from our community
CONS:
• Users can't ask about issues with a mod before deciding if it's worth to unlock/download or not (altough reading feedbacks or poll votes should give a general idea already)
I probably missed something, but this should give a wider idea of the situation
Thank you to everone else in this thread which helped with their contributions! You guys rock