Banning Community Resource "Helpful" Link Posts

Removing “useful” links topics


Intro

Hello everyone, so recently I noticed some users making #resources:community-resources posts with helpful/useful links to other #resources:community-resources topics. At first sight these seem fine because they’re all located in one place where they’re easy to find. You don’t even have to search just look through the topic for something you’re looking for.

My issue with them

In my opinion they seem nice at first sight. But as someone who has been linked in one of these topics before I noticed how they get a lot of likes. Then when people go to your topic they’re less likely to like your own. I’m currently trying to get the 25 likes on a topic badge and I’m sure a lot of other people are trying to get these like badges while helping the community like me. With these topics it makes it harder for us to gain these likes.

Why they’re unhelpful

I believe these are unhelpful because it clogs the system. There are tags for a reason and key word searches for a reason. These topics also can create a monopoly of social exposure. When the creator of the topic might not receive as much even tho they’ve worked hard on their topic.

What Moderation does

I’ve only flagged the post for the time being (Also DMed to be removed) but nothing has been done yet. I figured if Moderation would do nothing with it after a week or so I might as well write a topic to directly address it.

2 Likes

Making “hub” topics is already against the rules. I have also seen users basically posting other people’s threads from #help-and-feedback with solutions, as a resource.

Hello there could you please link me these resources such as the solutions and where it says they’re not allowed.

  • John.

I saw @PeZsmistic closing one for being that type of topic, pinging her to get her input.

1 Like

If you see a resource post you don’t find to be good, flag it. We’re currently trying to figure out a solution to the drop in quality of resource posts and getting help with flagging the bad/mediocre ones is the best solution for now.

5 Likes

Yeah, tbh as much as I hate going through PA I think that’d be the best option. Also I’ve stated I’ve flagged it and due to the length they’re taking I’ve made this topic to directly address this issue.

We discourage link-cloud topics because they’re easier to generate than new resources and are likely to get out of control; we don’t want people to start posting dozens of link topics following the example other users are setting. You should be using the forum search to find resources on the forum, and Google otherwise. You should avoid posting these topics unless you have a truly enormous amount of well-organized content to put forward, and you aren’t duplicating any of it from another topic.

2 Likes

Community Resources is starting to go to shit, with many useful resources being horribly drowned out. The only real solutions here are PA, or locking posting in it to Regulars.

In the past few weeks, we’ve had resources that encourage Community Rule violations, have backdoors, sloppy code, and sub-par tutorials (community tutorials shouldn’t have topics that are covered on the DevHub).

I understand that Roblox wants to foster collaboration, but the current system is just not working and is causing many to start turning away from the DevForum.

5 Likes

Agreed that in the grand scheme of things, this move may be necessary - too many posts of this pattern risk clogging up the forums. But, from observation of other technical forums, there is some benefit in compiling resources - they serve as a swift means of accessing backed materials and tutorials, but the key thing about them is that they’re usually moderated. So, a proposal - what if we have a pinned compilation topic written and moderated by trusted entities? That could be a neat means of having a quality compilation.

1 Like

I actually think these types of posts can be useful in some circumstances. They serve as a collection of resources surrounding a specific topic, such as blender. However, I do agree that they could eventually get out of control. Perhaps we should only allow them if they are high quality and are actually helpful. However, this could require adding PA back to that category.

See I believe they’re already out of control as I stated players who make the links posts get credit and all the likes and badges while we’re just left behind even tho we were the one who created them. I also believe that these posts will never be tame due to their traction and influence on the platform.

Plus as I stated there also are tags and a search tab for a reason.