Well, this is a hot topic for me.
I am perfectly aware, like everyone else, that
nothing is due to us. What we get to download is for free and thanks are never enough for modders that decide to share their mods with us. I, being no modder, try returning their kindness the way I can (feedback, suggestions, ideas) to just express my gratitude, on top of publically giving my support and thanks on the forums and most of all showing the due respect. Many don't even do this minimum.
Said that, I still think that it's not so nice (I don't say
professional just because this word wouldn't apply for software not created by people making money on it) to just disappear for months or years without even bothering saying "goodbye, I don't know when and if I will be back here to even give the least support".
Real life takes precedence and I would never even dream of holding a grudge after reading a line similar to the one above, but here I think it's more a matter of politeness. Because writing "I am taking a break of indeterminate lenght" or "I am leaving this community and I don't think I will return" doesn't really take so long.
Of course I am not speaking of those border cases when there is the impossibility of doing that. I have been working with a modder that left the scene, without saying a word, in June 2008. I am still praying practically every day that she is feeling well!
I hope I am not showing any disrespect here to any modder. I didn't mean to imply any specific modder. This is meant to be a very generic opinion which has perhaps not much to do with modding itself but rather with ethics.
I cannot but close this post with another big thanks to all modders out there!