Hi, so I'm too new at modding to do everything on my own (and it's no fun that way either). And when I was searching there the mods I noticed there was sort of a medieval themed group project with different mods and and different creators. What is it's official name for something like that? Because in that case, it was called "Medieval Creator Challenge". But I was browsing the Challenge Forum, and I think challenge might be too broad of a term to find what I'm looking for.

And yes, I see the Themes and Challenge section of searching. With such hits as The Ancients, Medieval and Old Hollywood? But a lot of them appear quite old (by make year), possibly not active and that doesn't answer my question of how to propose a new theme.

But is forum that each thread is like, for a new uniques project? Like 'hey, I'm making a steampunk stuff who wants to contribute' or 'hey, I'm making a post apocalyptic space stuff who wants to contribute'? How do I start/join one of those? Because I would love to be part of a group to create something wonderful. Whether it's a alien/creature world, full victorian town, full amish town, etc. And I don't even necessarily need be the creator of the theme, sometimes I do not know what I want to create until I read something and it sparks an idea. So it would be great there were a place where several ongoing projects were listed, and I can browse and pick which one calls to me. Everyone within that projects, works in their own niche of understanding within modding, whether it's script, clothes, accesories, buildings, etc. And everyone individually uploads their own work individually. But together it creates a full world/theme. And because everyone is thinking along the same theme lines we could use the thread as a soundboard to help each other individual projects.

Does the subsection of the Challenge forum exist and I'm just not seeing it? Or do I just plop down a theme and hope it doesn't get lost for other people amongst the multigenerational and other individual game challenges? (I'm not knocking those sort of challenges, but again the challenge is used kindof broadly and I'm looking for group projects only). Could a offshot of the the challenge forum be created that only contain group projects? Something like "Theme Group Projects"...or something. Or is what I'm thinking of not a challenge at all?

If any of this post seemed rude, judgy, pretentious, whiny or other, please know that I meant no such things. I was trying my hardest to word it completely and correctly, and did reread my own posting like several times before posting. Words are hard sometimes, you know.

I think the main roadblock here is simply the inactivity of the community, some 16 years after the game released.

You'll find that most of these themes and groups came about because of events that were hosted on MTS in the busy hey-days, around when the game was still getting content and patches.
Many were 'official' - if you go to your profile and click on the 'Achievements' section you can have a look at all the badges that used to be awarded for participating in contests and modding challenges.
There just isn't the huge volume of creators here anymore to provide the amount of volunteers and participants that used to go into those sorts of events. There were hundreds of active modders, the majority of which have retired from the community by now.

It's far quieter now, even if there are still great things being made the creators are spread more thinly over various sites. Some now work together via Discord, or Tumblr.
That's why the forum sections for these sorts of things are largely abandoned. You're still welcome to post there, but there's no guarantee that anyone is browsing those sections to see it anymore.

In my opinion, the best way to go about it these days is to simply be present in the community - make some of your creations for it first and post it in Creator Feedback with an offer to collaborate, or consider making a blog to post screenshots of progress and such. That way, the people who are still around will meet you, you'll gain friends and interest in your projects, and then you'll know who is available and interested in working together on more ambitious things. Because you can't rely as much on site traffic to get the idea to the right people, you may have to seek them out yourself.

A lot of us are used to working alone and might shy away from committing to a project with a user they don't know, a group project would be far more likely to succeed if a few familiar faces arrange it and post about it in various places to gain traction and accept volunteers from there. It needs to have some structure, so that creators know their effort wont be wasted to participate.

I was thinking the same thing regarding the age of the game and site traffic. Thank you for confirming. I see your point regarding group projects, I will follow your advice. Thank you. Have a good day.