Etiquette Question: Adopting Abandoned Addons?

[Doctornull]

What's the accepted protocol for this?

I'm looking at an addon which is like 95% perfect but has a couple of fixable bugs, and I'm thinking about fixing them, but I don't want to be rude to the original author... but I do want my games to validate.

[lukep]

I don't think that there is an established procedure for this. What I would do is contact the creator (either through PM or posting in the thread) and get permission if you want to post it publicly. If you don't get a response within a week, I'd consider it fair game. Be sure to credit the source (eg. DoctorNull's update to XXX's X addon) somewhere, but that would probably be too awkward for the name/title.

Another (worse) alternative if you can't contact the creator is to change the addon, upload it, but not tell other people about it. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with that and I don't think others would either.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

If you credit the original author, I see no issue with forks of any kind, even if it's actively developed. No reason someone couldn't come along with a different idea for draconians and make a different addon based off what AJFluffy already started, even if it was being actively developed.

In the hopes of someone stepping up to do some bug-squashing updates, I'd like to mention that Draconian and Monk both need some bugfixing (and in the case of the latter, updating to modern talent code in .5) done. This is far FAR beyond my existing level of skill, though I would DEARLY love to see them updated...

[jenx]

I don't think that there is an established procedure for this. What I would do is contact the creator (either through PM or posting in the thread) and get permission if you want to post it publicly. If you don't get a response within a week, I'd consider it fair game. Be sure to credit the source (eg. DoctorNull's update to XXX's X addon) somewhere, but that would probably be too awkward for the name/title.

Another (worse) alternative if you can't contact the creator is to change the addon, upload it, but not tell other people about it. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with that and I don't think others would either.

I did this precisely for lukep's tactical ai addon - I asked first for permission and he kindly gave it.

[Zonk]

That's something I thought of myself in the past(well, in reverse - letting someone else take care of my unfinished works), and why I asked to let more than one userhave edit/upload privileges for an addon. As things are now, you would need to create a new addon entry in the site, I think...
As for the non-technical part(the etiquette), well, just ask the creator

[Doctornull]

Thanks guys.

The PM route worked for me: I asked jayseesee if I could adopt his New Gems addon, and he said sure, so until he comes back I'll do what I can.

(His mod was basically already complete and had one bug + 2 minor things which needed tweaking, so it's not like I had a lot of work to do...)