You honestly thought I was also moving to mods, don't ya?
Reply to this one if you think I was about to say something like that at any point in the post.

I know that technically a datapack can stay at a given release too, but unlike mods, datapacks are more reliant on the tools that Mojang provides in each new release. So something I wanted to make back in 1.13 for example, can't really be made efficiently until way later on. It's kinda why I have a long list of old ideas. I just kept them all, even when I know it's not doable, so when it is, I can start messing with it.

My guess would be several years… [​that's using my definition of important bug which ignores all the "Misspelled name in credits" & "Fixed bad pixel in X model" padding…]

I don't really think another category would do in this case.

Categories are often used to split up the different branches of the same big tree.
But modded datapacks and vanilla datapacks are their own separate trees altogether - even though they are both trees (tree in this case being a datapack), they work on different environments which most of the time isn't compatible with eachother (a modded datapack might modify something vanilla itself doesn't have, for example), and hence can't be considered branches of the same tree.

From an user experience point of view: If you're someone who has no idea about the technical things that can be done by vanilla datapacks, you'd assume modded datapacks and vanilla datapacks as one and the same (since they're both categorized as "datapacks" at first based on the site's current design), only to then install a modded datapack in vanilla and be confused about why it doesn't work, or vice versa.

Splitting it into two categories would be a bit much, instead we could theoretically add a checkbox for something like “Requires a mod” and they could filter out those that do.

I'm none too clear on the lines between texture packs / data packs / resource packs / mods so some clarification wight be a good place to start…

Assuming I correctly understand what you mean, having at least a filter setting for those that require additional software (Optifine seems to be a commonly sited example) would make sense.
Whether an entirely seperate subfora is needed is more debatable as there may be those who prefer having only one place through which to search.
[​Which again brings up the issue of overlap between various sorts of game modifying 'things'.]


Bye the bye, this probably shoud be filled as a suggestion ticket if you find any reasonable level of support…

I 100% agree

Why? Because it's legal, unfortunately. Anyone who uses obsolescence to constantly wring money out of someone is a selfish crook at heart.