I imagine this must have been suggested before, but: The ability to update a file in place, rather than have to delete and reupload it, losing the upload count in the process. It's a huge time saver.

agreed

The overall download count remains static no matter what files you delete, so it's not really an issue. As for a "huge" time saver...it's an extra 2-clicks to delete a file :/

It's not just the deleting of the file. It's the fact that once you've deleted it, replaced the description, reselected your upload, and then uploaded it all back to where it was, the file ID changes. So if you have links to the download they become invalid.

With updating, you don't always need a new description, so that can usually be kept. You wouldn't lose the file ID. And you wouldn't lose the download counts on the individual files, which does give modders useful data about who is getting which files and patches and such.

You shouldn't be linking directly to files anyway...that leads to file leeching. Always link to the main mod page.

Well then, simply do not delete the files in that case. But if you no longer wish to support the files uploaded, then note the data that is important to you (such as download counts, votes, etc.) and then delete the file(s).

For my mods in BETA, I only keep the latest copy available. Once they are released as full versions, I usually keep the older versions around for archival purposes only and the new file descriptions allow me to clearly label these files as obsolete to avoid confusion.

Example: Apophis: Armory of the Silver Dragon - This is a BETA and only one version exists at a time. The current 0.9.3 version has been downloaded 18,395 times. But overall, the 0.9.0, 0.9.1, 0.9.2 and 0.9.3 versions collectively have been downloaded 52,642 times (minus a few thousand for the translation files)

Example: Ghogiels Armor - This page still has versions 1.5, 1.4 and 1.3 available and are clearly labeled to let the person downloading know exactly what they need...the description contains the history that specifies the differences in each version.

Also keep in mind that it would be unfair and somewhat underhanded to keep a download count for a file that has been updated / replaced. Part of how people judge a mod prior to download is by the number of times a file has been downloaded and the amount of comments on that file. If you had version 1.0 released for 2 years with 20,000 downloads and very few comments with reported bugs, it would deceive people if you uploaded version 1.1 and retained the amount of downloads for that file which might be a complete re-vamp of the original and thus introduce many bugs or problems that the original did not have and the average downloader would be surprised and somewhat angry to see a file downloaded so many times with no complaints about savegame bloat only to find their savegames are now corrupt.

Well, that's my 2 septims.

LHammonds

I guess I just don't see it as inherently deceptive, but I can understand the viewpoint and that there would be people who would abuse the system in that manner. A shame really that a convenience feature like that has to be sacrificed because some people lack the responsibility to deal with it properly.