There are essentially two ways that modders view the place of their creations in the modding community: The Cathedral view, and the Parlor view.
In the Cathedral view, modding is viewed as being like a joint effort to build a cathedral. Individually, our contributions may be small – and may not be worth doing for themselves. But by each person contributing something, we construct something larger and more worthwhile than any of us could do on our own. Under this view, creations are contributions – and may not be taken back. (Just as in building a Cathedral, it would not be allowed for a person to contribute a stained glass window and then later take it back.)
The Parlor view in contrast, is the view that mods are more like privately owned works of art displayed in the modder's parlor. The modder invites others into the parlor to appreciate and enjoy the work of art – but may at any time close the parlor door and ask their guests to leave. And of course, the modder may be very selective about who they invite into their parlor. Under this view, our creations are never contributions; rather we continue to own and control them – takebacks are normal and accepted.
The Parlor view allows the creator to retain complete control of their work. But the Cathedral view creates a much larger, more enduring and more perfected body of work – and for that reason, I prefer it.
LGNPC Seyda Neen Redraft and Amulet of Scrye
To give an example... A year or two ago, Joe Stevens wrote a mod called "Less Generic NPC Seyda Neen", which fleshed out many of the characters in Seyda Neen by giving them non-generic responses to standard dialog topics. Joe eventually left the community, but another team took up the idea after him – creating LGNPC mods for a number of towns. But, after doing several towns, the LGNPC team had raised the bar considerably, and Joe's original work was looking pretty first draftish. At that point, I volunteered to redraft LGNPC Seyda Neen – fixing grammar, paragraph structure, logical inconsistencies and generally bringing it up to the current LGNPC bar.
By the Cathedral view, my redraft was a good thing – I took something that was good and made it even better. And as a result, Joe's original work is seen and appreciated more then before.
But by the Parlor view, my redraft was a bad thing, since I changed Joe's original work. According to the parlor view, I should have created a new LGNPC Seyda Neen from scratch. The result of this would have been two competing LGNPC Seyda Neen's. Not only would this have been a lot more work, but if mine were substantially better, it would have crowded out Joe's original – thus ensuring that even fewer people saw it.
Fortunately for all of us, Joe himself was more of a Cathedral sort of guy and had already given the LGNPC team permission to edit and redistribute his work. Hence, my edit had been pre-blessed.
However, not everything turned out perfectly. In my revision of Seyda Neen, I have the bard tell a ghost story related to one of my favorite mods: Ivza's Amulet of Scrye. If the player doesn't have Amulet of Scrye, then the ghost story is just an extra bit of non-generic dialog. But if the player does have AoS, then ghost story compliments it nicely, emphasizing the spookiness of that mod. However, a few weeks after I released the LGNPC Seyda Neen, Ivza decided to pull Amulet of Scrye from public distribution. To me, that felt like the glazier coming into the Cathedral, pulling out the stained glass window that he had put in earlier, and taking it home with him. But for Ivza, I think that it was just a closing of his parlor door.
It was this, combined with very vocal support for the parlor view on the forum, that led me to retire. I had several ongoing projects and there were several items that I would have liked to continue working on, but it seems like the Parlor view is predominant – and personally I don't find it that inspiring.
Contrasts and Consequences
Modding is a Joint Effort
Almost all of Morrowind modding is a group effort to one degree or another. There are very few mods that do not owe huge debts to earlier produced mods and/or to the expertise and tools provided by earlier modders.
New Work vs. Duplication
The Cathedral view vastly reduces duplication of effort – instead promoting either improvements in, or extensions of the original, or the creation of entirely new, complementary works. One doesn't have go far in reviewing one's mod library to see quite a few of these examples of mods that extend or fix earlier mods. E.g.: LGNPC, Adventure, Join All Houses, CharGen, Inferno's Island, Kivan's patches, alchemy sorters, etc.
Perfection vs. Stagnation
The Cathedral view tends towards perfection, while the Parlor view tends towards repetition and stagnation. Repetition, because earlier useful works that have been closed off have to be recreated. Stagnation, because this fails to lead to improvements, and more importantly because few modders are interested in replicating something that has already been done before. (Especially since, if they knew of the original, they probably have a copy of the original mod, and hence have no personal need to recreate it.
Integration vs. Isolation
The Cathedral view tends towards rich integration between mods. But under the Parlor view, there's not much point of integrating with another mod – since that mod can be removed at any time. Certainly, I would not have added the Amulet of Scrye references to LGNPC Seyda Neen, if I had thought Ivza might remove it.
Authorial Longetivity
Improved works are much more likely to give everyone credit. OTOH, if two works are independently created to do the same job, then it's likely that only one of them will "win" (i.e. be widely known/used) – and thus the effort and name of the loser will be lost. In competitions, there's little desire to mention your competitor in your readme; but in extensions and improvements, the norm is for the original author to get top billing.
Cathedral Effect
Many modders (such as myself) aren't interested in working in a non-Cathedral community. It's belonging to a community, creating something that outlasts our own efforts, that integrates and grows even when we're away that makes the community so interesting. But under the Parlor view, much of what has been built in the past just disappears.
Morrowind players and modders are already paying the price for the lack of prior action to support the Cathedral view. The loss of previous modding sites (Morrowind Files, Euro-Morrowind, Gamer's Roam, etc.) has meant the loss of many of the mods originally on those sites. Many of these mods are still available on people's hard disks, but without a clear re-uploading agreement, these have not been added onto new download sites. (Much of the recent dispute on the forum was on the topic of when and if these could ever be re-uploaded to new sites.)
Aside from just these lost files, other creations would likely have not been withdrawn if there were clear community standards and processes in support of the Cathedral view. I.e., if all upload and link sites had "no takebacks" policies, more of the old mods would be under no takeback licenses, and so could not have been removed.
Motherfucker, there weren't enough balls of yarn in the whole loot list to weave one of those.
