Welcome to Curators Toolkit! This is a hub built for curators, to support them in their long journey as much as possible with ready to use assets, guides and community events that bring creative people together such as yourself. This is an ever evolving project that is still a work in progress, and your feedback can help us improve it even more, so feel free to drop your feedback as a comment and we'll try to expand the project if possible.
In Curators Toolkit, we wanted to touch upon the topics that are not covered in the Creating Collections Wiki, which is now renewed with up to date information. Meaning, Curators toolkit will not focus on Vortex Collections Workshop section and will focus more on how you can improve your already built collection even more. The goal of this project is to increase the overall quality of collection pages on Nexus by providing curators all the resources they may need to do so.
While building curators toolkit, I have used both my own experience as a collection curator of 4+ years and I also interviewed many different key actors including other collection curators, mod authors, content creators and Nexus staff. In order to build this hub, we had to lay out the foundations and describe what makes a collection "better" than the others, so after reviewing hundreds of collections and seeing the data for them we came up with a objective checklist of sorts that can help new curators find some guidance on their journey. We built the rest of the curators toolkit assets using this list. This way, a curator can look through this list, see what they are missing and reach to all the missing assets and guides from one single place.
You built your collection through hours of hard work and testing. It feels like a marvel and your collection really feels different than the rest, but why are you not getting the visibility and recognition it deserves? Perhaps it is the visuals, or perhaps it is the lack of an already established audience of followers. You can not put your hand on what exactly is missing, but you certainly feel that something is missing. Well, you are at the correct place to start.
We want collection pages to look as best as possible while also accommodating as many different users as possible. Ideally, a collection page should not look like a wall of text and it should look more similar to how a successful game page looks. Also, a collection page should try to accommodate different needs of users who are using a vast variety of different setups all around the world. A collection that does not work on certain resolution settings may leave a bad taste in users mouth.
For these reasons, we conducted some in depth research and came up with an objective list that could help you enhance your collection page. The objective of this list is to make you find out what exactly may have been missing on your collection page, while also providing all the necessary resources you may need to fill these gaps.
We are planning to automate some parts of this list to scan all collection pages and show you what you may need to make your page even better. For now, it is a static list that acts more like a "contents" section for curators toolkit - so see it as a starting point than anything else at this point.
We summed it all up in 3 main areas: Design, Documentation and Support. We are going to be exploring each category in detail on Good Collection Page Practices.
Checklist you see below is just a guidance for new curators that may not know what to do next to get more visibility or improve their ratings. We also use some parts of this checklist for our new "Recommended Collections" program, and this will be explained more in depth later down this page.
How To Use
| Category | Description | Resources You Can Use | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design | Have at least 10+ images | • Collection Page Asset Templates • Good Collection Page Practices • Mod visuals from mod pages |
|
| Design | Image Headers | • Collection Page Asset Templates | |
| Design | Custom titles for page | • Collection Page Asset Templates | |
| Design | Gameplay Video | • How To Use OBS (WIP) | |
| Design | Define your edge | • Collection Page Asset Templates • Good Collection Page Practices |
|
| Documentation | How To Install Video | • Instruction Templates | |
| Documentation | How To Modify The Collection Section | • Good Collection Page Practices | |
| Documentation | System Requirements | • Instruction Templates | |
| Documentation | Features Section | • Good Collection Page Practices | |
| Documentation | Installation Instructions | • Instruction Templates | |
| Documentation | Uninstallation Instructions | • Instruction Templates | |
| Documentation | Hotkey layouts | • Hotkey Layouts | |
| Documentation | Accommodation for Different Setups (ultra-wide screen, controllers etc.) | • Hotkey Layouts | |
| Support | Active Curator | • Supporting Your Users • Discord Server Templates |
|
| Support | Higher Success Rating Than 50% | • Creating Collections Wiki • Nexus Discord Server • Nexus Forums |
|
| Support | Minimal User Interaction Needed for Installation | • Creating Collections Wiki | |
| Support | Up To Date Collection | • Supporting Your Users | |
| Support | Open communication lines for support | • Supporting Your Users • Collection Page Asset Templates |
|
| Others | Well Showcased Externally | • Getting More Visibility For Your Collection (WIP) • Nexus Level Up Program (WIP) |
|
| Others | Custom Made Mods & Author & Curator Relations | • Nexus Level Up Program (WIP) • Nexus Discord Server • Nexus Forums |
WIP: Work In Progress
Collection users usually commit a lot of time and resources to install collections. It is not a good experience if someone installs a collection from the very first page and things do not work as intended. Users will not always have the capacity to control the quality of these collections and can not know if a collection is still being maintained or not but they will expect at least the very first page of collections to include higher quality, active collections.
We are also aware that policing all the collections out there is just not possible and that’s not something we’d like to do anyway, but what we’d like to do is to ensure collections that meet a higher quality of standard stay on the very first page while some very old, unmaintained or irrelevant collections to be pushed back a bit or unlisted completely. This way collection users can be more trusting of trying new collections, unmaintained and not working collections can be swept away from the first page and these valuable spots can be better used by other collections that are staying under the radar and having a hard time to get the visibility they deserve.
Until now we basically did not have any resources, standards or a support system in place to check these collections. With the introduction of all the previous tools and assets, we are now able to do this with the “Recommended Collections” system.
Initially, we’ll try to take tiny steps in the right direction. Don’t expect a big purge of collections or don’t think that this is being done to punish anyone subjectively. We’ll use objective metrics to spot collections that could be improved on the first pages and then reach out to these curators & show them how they can do these changes and support them in this journey. If curators are unresponsive or unwilling, we’ll take necessary actions and either won’t give them the new “recommended tag” or unlist these collections if the situation is too dire.
Initial criterias are very relaxed, since we want to see how it goes first.
If you have a collection listed on the first few pages (sorted by endorsements) of collections, you'll receive a direct message from us soon with a report. There is no application as the system is built on going after already visible collections first to begin with.
IE: If you have a Skyrim Special Edition collection that has enough endorsements to be on the first or second page of collections, you’ll be receiving a message from us very shortly.
For transparency, initial criteria will include very easy checks as you can see below, inspired by the successful collection checklist but toned down a lot for practical purposes of this pilot program.
We’ll expect a collection on the first page to meet at least 5-6 (ideally more) of these marks. It should also be stated that no collection will be forced to meet all of these criterias, missing a few here and there is not always a big deal but if a collection misses all these marks at once it is clear that it has no place on the very first page of collections either.
| Check Description | Success |
|---|---|
| Was updated in the last 1 year | - Yes / No |
| Compatible with the latest version of the game | - Yes / No |
| Has lower than 10 unresolved bug reports | - Yes / No |
| Curator is active (commented / replied in last 3 months) | - Yes / No |
| Higher success rate than 50% | - Yes / No |
| Has more than 100 downloads in last 30 days | - Yes / No |
| Has more than 10 media content | - Yes / No |
| Minimal user interaction needed for installation | - Yes / No |
| Installation instructions are clear | - Yes / No |
| Collection page design is clear and attractive | - Yes / No |
There are 3 scenarios you can face with here depending on how many "Yes" a collection gets.
We are also aware that there are thousands of collections for some games that are honestly not always good and these cause some hidden gems to get lost in the torrent. We are regularly clearing some of these collections en masse, but the “Recommended Collections System” is a solution to another problem and focuses on the top section of collections, where more than 90% of collection users spend their time on. Hopefully we’ll also be announcing some news addressing that problem in future, but not now as we believe there are enough new changes to digest already.
Moving forward, we'll review how this program turns out, see if there are any improvements and either keep things as is or change things fundamentally. We can consider opening applications or tightening / loosening requirements.