Something that a few mod authors have brought up recently is that a lot of the staff team here at the Nexus aren't as active within the modding community as we have been in the past. We've been moderating as per normal and dealing with all the reports that come our way but a few folks have felt saddened that some of us haven't been around doing other stuff within the community as much as in the past. It's true many of us have been swallowed up in various real-life and work issues recently. Hopefully we'll all be coming back gradually over time.

With this in my mind I have worked today on providing a better avenue for mod authors to talk to us, and with each other, without outside interruption from other users who are not mod authors. A private place for recognised mod authors to come and talk with each other, talk about their problems, help each other out and talk with the team here about how we can make your life easier.

A recognised mod author is a user who has 1,000 or more total unique downloads on their files across one, or more, Nexus sites. At the moment that total is at 6,250 members. These members have been put in to a secondary member group on the forums that allows them to view the private mod author forum on the forums. If you're in any special member group that has special features (like being a Supporter or Premium Member) then those features will be unaffected by this change. New members who meet the recognised mod author criteria are added automatically once a day.

It's my hope that mod authors will feel welcome to use the private mod author forums to collaborate, cooperate and get to know one another and provide feedback to us that will let us help you (cliché but true).

The private mod author forums should be visible at the top of the forums for all those mod authors who qualify.