Updated Mod Portal Frontpage

[vinzenz]

Hey there! We just launched a reworked mod portal front page.

After introducing the Explore page, the existing Recently Updated, Most Downloaded, and Trending pages felt somewhat outdated. Additionally, it wasn't clear why we should keep these pages when similar sorting options were available on the Explore page. However, after some testing, removing these tabs felt a bit like losing the visual identity of the mod portal. Additionally, the Explore page does not provide a full view of the mod portal database, as it is powered by Meilisearch, which recommends a limit of 1000 documents per query.

To address this, we adapted the Explore page UI to work directly with our database. This change allows us to keep the existing three pages and still have a way for users to browse the full mod catalogue.

In the process, we also changed the default search order to "Relevance", implemented minor mobile layout fixes, and improved the front page performance. Additionally, we added front page tabs to the mod detail pages to enhance overall site navigation.

[Koub]

Nice !
Would you mind changing the default tab to "Search" instead of "recently updated ?
I'm sure that if you run some stats, the chances someone coming on the mod portal happens to be interested by one of the 20 most recently updated mods must be infinitesimal.
Or alternatively, if you want mods displayed on the default tab, maybe change the default tab to "most downloaded" ?

The rationale is "give the more people possible the less things to do in order to get to what they want".

[Galista]

Nice !
Would you mind changing the default tab to "Search" instead of "recently updated ?
I'm sure that if you run some stats, the chances someone coming on the mod portal happens to be interested by one of the 20 most recently updated mods must be infinitesimal.
Or alternatively, if you want mods displayed on the default tab, maybe change the default tab to "most downloaded" ?

The rationale is "give the more people possible the less things to do in order to get to what they want".

I'll probably speak for a minority, but the current default tab ("recently updated") is useful to me.
Maybe a preference setting per account could solve this issue?

I really like the changes to the front page otherwise!

But there's one thing I found weird:
Why do we have the ability to "Include deprecated mods" when we (as modders) are unable to delete our canned/no longer supported mods we had to mark as deprecated for users to not use them?

[vinzenz]

Nice !
Would you mind changing the default tab to "Search" instead of "recently updated ?

Thanks! I'm hesitant to changing the default tab, because it has been like this since forever. Eventually I'd like to have a front page that shows a nice mix of high profile mods like Most downloaded but also have new and interesting mods. Something that changes regularly and is not as static like Most downloaded. I think most people that open https://mods.factorio.com do this as a regular habit to checkout new mods. it also shows new users that we have an active modding community which regularly pushes new releases.

It automatically switches to Search when you start typing in to the box btw.

But there's one thing I found weird:
Why do we have the ability to "Include deprecated mods" when we (as modders) are unable to delete our canned/no longer supported mods we had to mark as deprecated for users to not use them?

I think there's still some value to browse the "deprecated" part of the mod portal. Sometimes people search for mods they played years ago and this helps them find them. If you want your mod to be truly gone from the mod portal you can send an e-mail to support@factorio.com, but we prefer this non-destructive hiding of mods with the "deprecated" flag.

[Pi-C]

I'm sure that if you run some stats, the chances someone coming on the mod portal happens to be interested by one of the 20 most recently updated mods must be infinitesimal.
Or alternatively, if you want mods displayed on the default tab, maybe change the default tab to "most downloaded" ?

Personally, I'm more interested in "recently updated" than in "most downloaded" mods. Chances are I'm already familiar with the most downloaded (at least by name), and you'll probably find "most downloaded" mods rather towards the top of "trending". But "recently updated" includes newly released mods! What are the chances a search may come up with a mod that has been released just an hour ago? New mods get more exposure when "recently updated" mods are shown by default.

As somebody who spends more time on modding than on playing, I think "recently updated" mods are more interesting than "trending" or "most downloaded" mods because I can check whether one of the recent updates would affect any of the mods I'm working on. This way, I can try to add compatibility early on, before bug reports are coming in.

[Koub]

It automatically switches to Search when you start typing in to the box btw.

Fair enough, it's a good compromise

[mmmPI]

I like the update, it makes it more obvious that you can "advanced search" with the category visible.

I think "new player" or "unfamiliar with mods player" would find more value in "most downloaded" than me, because i know them all now x).

About the search page vs recently updated, i think the search page is less attractive than the recently updated. Considering the categories AND the search bar are also visible from the "recently updated" i think this page has more value, because the search page itself doesn't offer "more" as a front page.

Although i share the reasonning that the 20 mods on the first pages are not very likely to be super interesting either, i'm saying this because i publish mods that are not super interesting in regards to the mods i downloaded from other players. There are many "personnal mods" and those do not adress as much the players on the mod portals than others mods aimed for diffusion.

Problem (imo) is it also is the case with the highlighted mods. Not sure how those works but I have one of my mods that is "highlighted" because it needed a lot of improvement, and i have lots of free time and updated it a lot. But i also have another mod, published around the same time ,much better,( one gets barely any new download like 3 to 4 when i update the other 10-15 , not much more but consistantly making me think it's "more interesting"). The one that gets 3-4 download on average is the one highlighted. My mods are not very good already, and it's "not the right one" that was highlighted.

I don't think there is perfect system for such things, to me that means they can always be improved, but it's tough to do.

I think it's really good that you can sort by "bookmarked only". Maybe something by author could help too ? or a filter by "number of dowloads" to select "niche" or "popular" according to one's opinion. If the search system is getting some attention i'm sure people are going to question why "this" came first in relevancy compared to "that" and it's a never-ending thing. I remember jokingly saying some years ago that you need an AI to make recommadation to players after spying on them to see which mods they enjoyed playing by watching them play. I still think about it as an example of where it would lead to try too hard on having perfect front page.

[Galista]

I think there's still some value to browse the "deprecated" part of the mod portal. Sometimes people search for mods they played years ago and this helps them find them. If you want your mod to be truly gone from the mod portal you can send an e-mail to support@factorio.com, but we prefer this non-destructive hiding of mods with the "deprecated" flag.

I understand that there is some value to the deprecated tag. It is more of an open question than anything.
This whole time I knew I could contact you (as the team) to ask you for a mod deletion, but honestly I didn't want to bother any of you with that.

So I'll give you as example of what I did instead and what I found some other modders did too to their aborted/canned mods:
I simply erased as much information as possible of the mod (description, faq, etc), deleted all uploaded versions but the last one I couldn't, uploaded a dummy version, and then deleted the remaining non-dummy version.

So, I understand the "non-destructive" approach, but in the end we have a way to "destroy" them. The only thing remaining we don't have is the ability to remove the mod altogether.
I don't think you would either want to remove the ability to delete mod releases because mistakes on our part can happen (wrong files included, etc), so I don't know...
Is this restriction really doing what it is supposed to do?
I feel like the only way to truly make use of the deprecated tag would be to get rid of the ability to remove releases... But as we saw, this is not really desirable either...

[Koub]

I'd like to add some feedback on the search feature on the mod portal : I think the search results should prioritise finding the words that were actually searched over similar words, even when not sorting by relevance.
Here is an example :
https://mods.factorio.com/search?query= ... arks=False

I wanted the list of mods about black market, sorted by decreasing number of downloads. Optionally, add search hits for "close enough" search results (in case I misspelled something), but rank them lower than the mods with the keywords I have explicitly searched, don't assume I made a typo from the go.

What I got : a list of mods with words similar to black and/or market sorted by decreasing number of downloads. Somewhere in the middle, some mods with what I have actually searched.

[Edit] I am aware of the fact "black" "market" will only return me exact hits, but what I request is more flexible : I'm OK with "close enough" search hits, as long as they are ranked lower than my exact hits.