Category talk:Dead Mods

I really don't want the mod lists (hl1, hl2, sp, mp, alpha, beta, released) to be filled with dead mods, so how about at least delinking the dead mods from these categories, perhaps even delete after a while? --Pizzahut 05:39, 5 Oct 2006 (PDT)

Dead mods that haven't had a public release should be removed from their other categories so that they are only in Category:Dead Mods. Mods that have had a public release should be left in their other categories, since users might still want to learn about them, download them and play them. Arguably, mods that have had public releases shouldn't be put in Dead Mods at all, whatever their ongoing development status. --Giles 06:16, 5 Oct 2006 (PDT)

My question is what about moving project entries that haven't officially been declared "dead", but have no public releases or updates? There are quite a few entries on the Mods page that are nothing more then a few basic ideas and some of theses pages haven't been updated in a good while, many since there creation. I doubt most of these will ever be updated and it's also not likely there will be any official declaration from a member of the mod team that the project was canceled. What would be a good timetable for moving them from the mods category to the dead mods category? I'm thinking a year with no updates at a maximum for removal should be standard, but 6 months might be better as it would encourage mod teams to keep there project pages up-to date. Also, possibly add a "See also" section to the mods category page somewhere that linked to the dead mods page, for those wondering why a mod was removed and where it went. --brandished 09:33, 23 Jul 2008 (PDT)

I've gone ahead and moved all the mods with no public releases that have been inactive for a year or more to the Dead Mods category and removed them from all active mod categories. I tried to do a thorough check on each mod before moving them there through the mod's official site, the Internet Archive, Moddb, and sometimes Google. If there was a recent news release or update on a mod that I missed, or if a mod team reactivates a project again, just remove the comment tags (<!-- and -->) I added to a mods project page and re-add it to the appropriate categories.--brandished 14:26, 11 Aug 2008 (PDT)

Good job :D needed doing, as all the mod teams dead mods are too lazy to :p --Craziestdan 15:43, 11 Aug 2008 (PDT)

Expired / Canceled Mods

I feel these mods should go here as well, as there would be no way for anyone to download them. The stuff I'm thinking of is:

• 1. Copyright/Trademark infringement: there have been some mods that were released to the public, but all of the hosting sites were shut down due to legal reasons
• 2. Test Releases: For when mod teams have a temporary release of a test build (usually during early development) over a few days/weeks and then cancel the download link as they continue working on the mod and iron out bugs, but the next build is never completed, with the mod team breaking up and/or giving up on the mod due to various reasons.
• 3. Expired/Unmaintained Projects: this ties in with 2, except these are usually fairly complete, tested builds. The mod team has done a large scale release, but broke up and/or didn't maintain a reliable host for the project and all download/information sites for the mod expired. While Archive.org does have back-ups of many websites, it doesn't cache everything and large binaries are almost never archived.

Mods falling into category 1 would most likely never see another public release, but for categories 2 or 3, all it would take is someone providing a working download link. I'm not talking about dead-modding projects that have been down for a few days, but stuff that's been out of the public reach for 6 months or more with no signs of ongoing development.--brandished 11:59, 10 Oct 2008 (PDT)