Because the goal of this community is to enlarge, and the current system will not work with any larger-scale community. A strictly page-based chronological sort order will work only as long as the first fifteen mods are the only ones worth downloading. How often do we get people asking "where is X mod" or worse, necroing an ancient topic for an inane reason? If no one's sorting on chronological order of comments (though a sort newest mods button would be critical), no one is going to even NOTICE, let alone be annoyed and kick off a flame war. Again, garrysmod.org; it's a self-regulating system. Shitty mods get buried automatically, and good ones automatically show up. That happens to some extent here, but it's a much less precise science. Lafe's mods regularly get more than one page, while some genuinely good mods suffer from inattention.

Also, it's a user interaction issue. How many times have newbies been told to "search" for a particular mod? How easy is it to find something when your only options are a specific word/phrase or the author's name? With a tag cloud, for example, you can just select a general term and probably get started with a much smaller pool of possibilities. With a concatenated mod display (no more than a single screen on a typical monitor) it's easy to browse through multiple mods rapidly and verify what they are/aren't.

I'd just add in a rating function and add in sorting, so you can sort mods by highest ranking, or most comments, etc.

We already have a search function for finding old mods, how/why would this fix anything?

Because the current search system ONLY WORKS given specific key words, or the author's name. What if you know neither? Searching for "Grenade Launcher" is never going to net you my M79, and searching for "bombs" is not going to get you the OKM pack. If you've got a tag cloud, common search suggestions, more specific guidelines to mod descriptions, and a more efficient display system, searching is going to be MASSIVELY easier.

Again, just because you can find something now doesn't mean you'd necessarily be able to with a community of five hundred active posters, not fifty.

I would add to the examples springfiles.com.

Each mod in the topview has a short blurb, an icon, filesize, downloads, etc, sortable by each. Inside is not as pretty as Grif's example, but same basic principles.

I was neutral with a positive slant with the first mockup, but this second one convinced me that this is something we need, here or in the current moddb and linked from here.

I would gladly restart work on some sort of content management system for third-party mods, I just need to know that it is wanted. This is something I would like weasel to take up with Data. Would be be interested in a system like this? Does he care?

I'm not about to spend a week or so of my life working on a prototype only to have the administration not be interested in the idea at all. That having been said, if weasel or someone else approaches me (or any other DBA, for that matter) with an interest in this concept, I would be more than happy to take up the charge.

eh grif, dont be using me as an example. my last mod was as good as anything ive seen you churn out recently.
but yeah, i do agree with what your saying, a rating system based thread order system would be better, with new mods starting with a 5 star rating (so as to get veiwed) then get downgraded by members from then on respecitve to their value.

must resist urge to write scathing reply to everything lafe contributes

good man.
also, i dont think categories need implementing. tags that could be applied by anyone and removed by the author or a moderator would do fine.

main page layout idea. the browse page would just be a big tag cloud likely, with a list of popular modders down the side or some shiz, and random stuff as well as highlights (a line of random mod images as well as a line of top rated mods). a mod's highlight-ness would be determined by the amount of positive votes it had received divided by a logarithm of the time in days between ratings. random would be a random number for the mod's ID, and a random image. a login system would be very nice (especially if tied in with the forum logins to avoid hassle) also.

Categorization is still critical, even with a tag cloud. If there isn't some kind of hierarchical system, people will be wasting tags with things less descriptive items. Also, categorization allows people to browse based on less specific parameters.

I can't overstate how glad I am people are taking this idea seriously

How about standardised-ish tags? Tags can be selected from a list which can be added to at the discretion of someone...
Would help with the problem of ridiculously specific tags.

"A modification that includes a blue clone resprite with red hair as the second buy menu entry"

Possibly standardized categories with additional user-created tags?
Ex:
Mod->Faction->Complete
Tags: Pelian Army Giant Robots Green Helmets Crazy Ass Mega Shotgun

your mods are good, im just saying, ive gotten to the point my mods can be high qualty too now. i have some finished stuff on my comp (electrospear, forcefeild powerd sword that cuts/sends ♥♥♥♥ FLYING, and superpowerfull electrical life forms that control robot bodys and lose power (hp) by moving/shooting/flying, but regain it when left alone)
see, i have some stuff acualy matches up to what you have in the qualty aspect. the seekers are the first released mod of a wave of awsome that will soon hit the forum.

lafe, do your self a favor and stop talking. That mod is really bad

On topic: this would be a great idea if it can be implemented. Not only would it be easier to sort out the trash, but it would be much easier to download mods.

I want what grif described at the top of page two. It sounds good. And please, let's not turn this into a "lafe sucks" thread. Try to keep it on track, for the forum's sake.