Since nobody is happy with the change of opening discussion up to members, and forum staff are adamantly opposed to undoing the change I believe its time to look for more ideal solutions.
I would like to propose a 1000 character requirement for all posts In discussion, since today ive been seeing a lot of 1-4 line posts all of which are not just offtopci but spam, and it hurts to see.
Hopefully this change could help some people write actual discussions instead of one line, close answer questions, else you might as well call the category Q&A.
I would also like to propose a strike based punishment system for whoever decides to be a huge intellectual and do:
This should not apply for hidden text bypasses since as discussed before, users who know how to do this are most likely capable of writing a good discussion post which may be under 1000 characters
Yeah that is where an AI should be added to detect such repetition including 1000chars and the HTML trick that is hidden but counts towards word count.
I think the general format for a discussion topic is putting something forth, saying what you do/think about it, then asking for othersâ opinions. The middle part should be the most juicy one as it is a place to explain yourself.
Discussion topics with 1-3 lines are literal Tweets, not DevForum posts. Normally, Iâd say quality over quantity, but unless the OP has bad punctuation habits, your topic shouldnât be several sentences long. It should be paragraphs.
Your point about quality vs quantity is actually curious one, since I would believe a degree of quantity is necessary to contribute towards quality.
For example in England, in the English paper there is a question worth 25% of your GCSE and half that question is based of your SPAG (Quality of punctuation, vocabulary, grammar etc.) thats 12.5% of the grade. While if I were being pedantic I could write nothing and argue that I there made no mistakes and should still get the marks, however alas I obviously wouldnât, therefor forcing you to include a fair degree of writing to pick up marks in this area.
Therefor while quality is obviously important there is also a degree of quantity needed fro that quality to exist.
No. School is over with at the moment. Nobody should have to write 1,000 characters just to create a center of discussion for discussion topics. Discussion topics should have the title, the point of the topic, and the original posterâs thoughts on the topic, and most of the time, it doesnât come even close to 1,000 characters. Posts can easily spark an intimate discussion with less than 1,000 characters:
However, instead of imposing a hard limit for posts in general, we should instead have a guideline of what to post in your discussion article. If there is not clear point where fruitful discussion could be rooted from (i.e., most responses generated would only be a sentence long), then the post should be closed. Potentially to aid with this, we could utilize the flagging method to enforce a change like this one.
Speaking from experience, imposing a hard limit only makes people attempt to test the bounds of what they can do and would only lead to more annoying posts, as Iâd rather prefer to see the occasional 5-sentence discussion article that would eventually get purged for being too bare-bones than seeing a ton of â1000chars <html></html> <html></html><html></html>â spam at the bottom of a post.
tl;dr - length != quality, could be valid if changed up a bit
I agree. As a member, I have to say Iâm disappointed in the other members who are abusing the new open discussion topics. They ask really stupid questions that can be solved with common sense, If you add a character requirement, it should surely prevent some of the really short questions from being asked, therefore clearing up the discussion category.
I think a better solution would be changing the description with a better guideline for better discussions. It currently looks empty. I have no idea what the description should consist of, but I think it would help a lot of people create better quality topics.
This would work except for the fact, myself, and literally everyone else on any category which is not #platform-feedback do this when making a new post:
I hope not. I always use the guidelines to create the best topics I can. Usually I put enters to move the guideline to the bottom and create my topic. In the end I check the guideline to fix things up. To be honest, that should be the way to create good topics. I donât think 1000 character requirements necessarily makes better quality topics.
I actually agree with your statement, as sometimes they lack putting up a description for their topic in #discussion, I would seriously recommend they implement this, as most newer members or members that do not clearly understand the rules may be abusing it, one fact for this is that they sometimes use off-topic statements that are not even made to be a sentence for example some members say âYeah, i agreeâ though they just add 30charrs in front, which made it appear to be unprofessional.
I may be bias as a Member, but I think this is just unfair. Not every discussion requires 1000 characters to talk about or explain. A smaller character limit I wouldnât mind.
This topic doesnât even pass 1000 characters (excluding the 1000chars blurb)- its close, 857 characters.
You can make a meaningful argument with few words; and can make a terrible argument with many. I would honestly opt for a concise post rather than one repeating itself.
The issue is that discussion is a vague category where posts collect even if not supplying the discussion we are used to. Hereâs my opinion on various types of posts which are falling under discussion.
Polls/ Interview Questions
The topic post asks a question which is answered per user basis.
Example post: âHow does Roblox Development influence your studies?â.
Great question, but where can this go? A post answering this will most likely not have footholds to continue conversation. And whether the topic is answered, it doesnât benefit the topic poster for development purposes.
Broad Concept Advice/ Question
These genuinely seek development practices/ advice
Ex. post: âHow can I make my game user responsive?â.
The subject is usually vague and if more specific it would better suite the #help-and-feedback category. The poster benefits from the discussion and it can benefit anyone reading. You can get the perspectives of different types of developers as well. However, when such a topic is made it doesnât contribute much. It doesnât bring that turkey to the thanksgiving table and doesnât supply an argument.
Help and Feedback, but none of its subcategoies
These posts ask a specific question, but arenât asking for help on scripting, building, art design, or game design.
Ex post: âHow is performance affected when a player joins?â
This is different than above, because only replies are benefitting the poster and not all developers can provide insight on the topic. Forumâs fault, needs a misc category for #help-and-feedback.
True discussion topics
These topics donât need replies. The bring the turkey to the table, everyone else brings the stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc.
Ex. post: âGames with dynamic leveling systemsâ, âCloudService changing how servers interactâ.
These posts might have a question, might not. But they have a specific topic and bring discussion to the table. The topic introduces some background or addresses something (maybe controversial). Replies to these topics donât answer the topic, they add to it.
The discussion category although had quality posts, had few posts. Opening up the discussion category is definitely useful and meant for better inclusion among all developers (forum savvy and not). A real fix would be acknowledging new traffic and adding new subcategories for discussion and where discussion might overlap with #help-and-feedback.
My post doesnât have 1000 characters because this post is in #forum-feedback therefor I only need to type enough to summarise the issue in an effective way, discussion on the other hand is a lot more formal and in depth and therefor should be treated as such, 1000 characters isnât that much anyone with objections to writing it shouldnât be posting there in the first place, also the fact I believe html bypass should be excluded meaning anyone who knows enough about the forum to bypass wonât have to use 1000 characters since by that point I at least trust them to make an effective post
I am against most text requirements as they are simply annoying. Not all discussions NEED 1000 characters to be started. Sometimes a very interesting discussion can be started with three sentences.
Iâm not for this, Yes there should be a character requirement, no it shoudnât be 1000 characters. I feel that this will kill the discussion because no one is going to be able to post, not even the high ranks.
1000 characters isnât that long, most my topics easily exceed that, it may be a big number but on a average thats only 200 words in a topic which really isnât that much, if you canât be bothered to write that much then no one will really be bothered to discuss the few points you made in under 1000 characters.
I really think this is not needed. Developers donât need to type an 1000 word topic when theyâre being asked a question. Three sentence topics can still spark up the discussion topic.
