Mod repository Nexus Mods has announced a policy change regarding the hundreds of thousands of mod files it hosts: starting in August, modders who upload mod files to the site will no longer be able to delete them. Instead, modders will only be able to archive the files and make them invisible to users.

If this sounds like a strange policy decision, you are not alone and some modders are upset about this. But there is a reason for this; Nexus Mods has been working on a feature called "Collections" since 2019. Collections will serve as a curated list of mods that any Nexus Mod user can create and share.

"The project our team is working on aims to make modding easier so that the average user can spend less time worrying about mod conflicts and more time playing games with mods," a long post on Nexus Mods writes, "Using Vortex (Nexus Mods' mod manager), mod users can create a curated list of mods and upload that list as a collection. When another Vortex user adds this collection, Vortex will download and install everything on that list.

This would be a useful feature. Mod lists, especially for games like Skyrim, can be in the hundreds, and it would be nice to be able to easily share lists among other users. However, Nexus Mods states that in order for the collection to function smoothly, it is necessary to prevent modders from permanently deleting files:

"For our collection system, this means that to curate a collection of dozens or hundreds of mods As soon as one or a few files in that collection are deleted by the mod author for whatever reason, no matter how much care and effort was put into the collection, the collection is essentially and immediately "dead in the water" until the curator can replace or delete the specific file. dead."

The solution Nexus Mods has come up with is to not allow deletion of uploaded mod files. Instead, modders who wish to delete files will only be able to archive them. Archived files can be accessed through the collections feature, but cannot be directly accessed, downloaded, or displayed on the site by the user.

I am a frequent mod user and not a mod author, but I think collections are a great feature (not yet available), and while it is certainly frustrating that the removal of a mod breaks a long chain of dependencies, if you are a mod author, for whatever reason you no longer want to use your mod in Nexus Mods, it seems to me that there should be an intuitive ability to remove it (as you can do with ModDB and Steam Workshop - the latter also has a mod collection feature).

For modders who want to back out of NexusMods, it is possible: modders can request that their mod files be removed by August 5. Nexus Mods will not be able to remove files that the mod author wants removed because they are broken or no longer compatible. Nexus Mods administrators may delete mod files themselves if they violate Nexus Mods rules (e.g., using another author's assets without permission). and continue to remove the mod file themselves.

Deletion is not the only concern that some modders have with the upcoming collection system; comments on the Nexus Mods Announcement, Reddit, and the Nexus Mods Discord indicate that some modders are concerned that collections will not allow users to use individual mod pages (where modders can collect donations for their work), and feel that they will simply prefer to use the collection (which may result in fewer donations). Nexus Mods, however, states that there is no opt-in system for the same reason that modders cannot delete files.

Some modders have already withdrawn their work from Nexus Mods altogether, like the modders of Skyrim and New Vegas who have uploaded their mods to ModDB and called Nexus Mods a "den of thieves." Others plan to remove their mods, but may re-upload them after seeing how things develop.

Other modders seem to be more or less in favor of this new policy. A "curated, quality mod list is the best thing that has happened to Skyrim mods and the best thing that has happened to me, the author," said Skyrim mod list installer Wabbajack, after being included in the mod list of Wabbajack, a new reader of his mods. says the Reddit modder who found it.

The full Nexus Mods announcement can be read here.