Greetings to you all,
As many of you already know, the Developer Hub is extremely useful because it documents pretty much everything supported in the Roblox engine (from Lua to UI). Now, my suggestion is that, similar to the UGC where the community can create and sell their very own hats, trusted developers should be allowed to create new pages in the Hub and edit existing ones (for mistakes and typos).
Here are the reasons:
Reason 1: Some Things in Libraries Are Not Very Well Explained
For libraries like string, math, and table, most things are self-explanatory and simple to understand. However, there are some things in those libraries that need explaining (not just in words, but with code samples and outputs).
For example, many would agree that table.getn(array) is relatively easy (it just returns the number of elements in a table), and I would too. But, things like table.foreach(array, function) are quite hard to understand in just words (and I still don’t understand it). The explanation on the Hub for this particular documentation is this:
Iterates over the provided table, passing the key and value of each iteration over to the provided function.
No offense Roblox, but this does not help me fully understand what foreach does. How should the function be coded? What are the parameters? It’s like you’re defining what the word “of” is. The word is very simple, but the definition may over complicate things (even though it may be accurate). To really show what the word “of” means, you need to give examples. Applying this to the Hub, I believe we need some more sample code in libraries with brief explanations of that code.
Thus, pages like libraries (and potentially some API references) need more … meat to them. Allowing trusted developers to write in the Hub means that things like libraries can have more explanations that can significantly help with understanding them.
Reason 2: Developers May Have Created Something Very Specific, Nonetheless, It’s Useful
For instance, I created a tutorial explaining how to create a rounded corner hover effect. Not to brag, but that’s something unique that isn’t explained on the Hub at all. Plus, many people found it useful. If I can write an article in the Hub about this with a step-by-step process, then it would reach a bigger audience (because the Hub doesn’t have requirements for entry, whereas, the Forum does). Plus, many people turn to the Developer Hub as a resource, not the Forum.
Therefore, allowing the community to write in the Developer Hub means that developers can create their own tutorials in the Hub.
Reason 3: Fixing Minor Errors, Typos, or Bugs
As I implied before, the Hub is an extremely huge resource, and it’s put together by only a handful of people (Roblox Staff, I believe). This means that many API references and even articles may have typos or errors, and they will be overlooked until someone points them out in the Forum. But, if trusted developers are allowed to edit certain pages, then the mistakes can be fixed more easily. No one would ever need to report it in the first place. After all, maintaining a large website like the Hub requires more people, which is where the community comes in.
Reason 4: World Languages
I checked the footer of the Hub, and it only supports three languages. By allowing a trusted, hand-picked portion of the developer community to write for the Hub, there can be more languages introduced. New articles and existing documentation can have many language variants (i.e. one in English, one in Spanish, one in French, etc.). Also, we know that human translations are often more accurate than AI ones (if the Hub does it that way), therefore, in this case, the community is actually more reliable.
Security
Now, I know what you may be thinking: giving editing and writing permissions to the community can be a threat to the information already there (there are other security risks involved, too). But, as I said before, I only request that trusted developers should be given these rights because they’re reliable. This “trust-system” can be found in this Forum. The higher-ups (Community Sages, Post Approval, ect.) do have the power to edit, lock, and split any post. They can do this because they’re hand-picked by Roblox and are trusted with these rights. Therefore, the Hub should also have this system. Perhaps, maybe allow Community Sages from the Forum to write and edit pages?
Conclusion
If any of you made a connection, this is similar to Wikipedia where there is an editing option (and I think also a create-a-new-article option), though less strict requirements of trust than what I’m talking about with the Hub. Wikipedia is a massive website with millions of articles and supports many different languages. And, it wasn’t pieced together just by their founders (which is absurdly impossible), but a majority of it was done by the community.
TL, DR
I believe that trusted developers should be able to create new articles in the Developer Hub and edit existing material if it has errors or if it’s deprecated. This yields a better understanding of pages like libraries, new tutorials that focus on specific things, and potentially new languages with accurate translations.
Poll
Please consider submitting your opinion on what you think of this feature right now:
Hopefully, you also find this system useful,
and have a great time!
EDIT: Just to be clear: When I say “editing access for API references”, I’m talking about the page that talks about or documents the API (hence the term “API reference”). Thus, just the information has the potential to change, not the actual API and Roblox’s engine.