1) downloading mods
2) establishing install order
3) resolution of conflicts
4) triggering Weidu install of everything
Right now, Zeitgeist encompasses #4. I think it's not too much to ask for players to handle #1, and my idea for a compatibility component flag would shift #3 to modders
1) is good not only to players but to modders because that way they can feel confortable in depending on another mod stable features. But it's really really good for players obviously. It's not even that hard, wget will get you 90% of the way there, github repositories the other 10%. If zeigeist wants to create a 'file format', something like a the zip download of a github page being accepted by it as long as everything else is correct (manifest, tp2 on the right dir etc) would be very very good for auto updated mods.
2) Pretty difficult to do 'in general'. Mlox tries to this 'flying with no breaks' that is, there isn't a single install order, but a emergent one from a collection of precedences. It gets pretty messy. My preference for IE, that has much less mods might be 'user defined' install orders with import and exports. The obvious 'depends on' dependencies would be handled by the mods (so if that changes the mod order acquires a error), but things like this first , then this one , then that by the absolute order. I think a community of curated mod orders could arise for 'thematics' with import/export.
3) pretty obvious that this should *not* be left to modders, or not only. No modder has the time to check that his mod has no conflicts with hundreds of other mods, or a modder can *easily* abandon a mod after a few years. A user finding a conflict, can report it fast or edit it right on the github page if it's good enough (it opens a pull request). Unlike learning WEIDU, this is actually possible for barbarian lusers. There is also the obvious point that modders like to delay things, and a conflict rule update download can be much faster than a new release.
4) This is good.