Disclaimer: I know that this would be a pretty major change, but it seems useful to me.
Lately, a massive amount of people have been posting builds, art, and scripts in the #help-and-feedback:cool-creations category asking for feedback. The purpose of this category (per the About Cool Creations topic), is as follows:
According to that, what these users are doing is perfectly fine - and it is. However, in this overflow of cool creations topics, the other development support categories (#help-and-feedback:art-design-support and #help-and-feedback:building-support) are being used significantly less - in fact, looking through the new posts, there is a 6:1 ratio of cool creations posts to building support posts.
The reason that we have support categories for different forms of development is in part to avoid a massive amount of new posts in one category (I understand that that may not be the main reason).
My Suggestion
I suggest that the Cool Creations category be reserved specifically for showcases and complete works. This will help organize development support posts (building/modelling and art go to their respective categories) and reduce the massive amount of new posts in this category.
Furthermore, I suggest that the About the Cool Creations topic be revised to read:
Tl;DR
The forum has sufficient categories for development support posts, thus #help-and-feedback:cool-creations should only be for displaying and discussing showcases to improve organization and reduce excessive posts in said category.
I agree to disagree. I get why some of the categories aren’t being used as much, but considering that everything that the users are perfectly normal, I wouldn’t worry about it to much. But this is a good idea.
I don’t see how it’s an issue that the support categories are being used less now. Ideally they should be reserved for technical support, not getting feedback on your creations.
The quality of the categories has to be taken into consideration. It is discouraging for developers who are looking for genuine support to have their topics drowned out by numerous feedback topics. Separating feedback from technical support eliminates this issue.
I see the point you’re making, and I just read the About topic for #help-and-feedback:building-support which really supports what you’re saying.
On the same token, however, developers looking to have a detailed discussion on their showcase will be drowned out by numerous feedback topics. Furthermore, the separation between feedback and technical support topics wasn’t some deliberate action - people seem to be posting in cool creations only because others are.
Again, I see the importance in what you’re saying, but I feel like the displaying work (especially completed work) for discussion should have a place. Perhaps creating a new sub-category for discussion on completed work would be apropos.
We’re working on better separating cool creations and support categories. Removing post approval restrictions on cool creations is just an intermediary phase.
Eventually, all feedback topics of low discussion value should go in cool creations, and all in-depth (technical) help requests should go in the support categories.
I think a reason there is an increase in the cool creations category is due to this:
“I want to rank up to “Regular”!
The next rank above “Member” is “Regular”. This rank has viewing access to all categories of the forum, and can reply and post topics in many more categories. To qualify to be promoted to “Regular”, you should make high quality posts and overall be active and helpful around the forum.
Both “Member” and “Regular” are automatically awarded based on forum participation. Just participate here and contribute to the forum, and you should eventually be ranked up to “Regular”!”
Sorry, I couldn’t format it correctly.
I could see members reading this and saying “if I post in cool creations then I’m making a high quality post. Then I might be able to make it to Regular”.
Great! My purpose in writing this topic was to advocate for better organization of the support categories, which your solution brings - just in a different way than I thought of.
That being said, I’d still like to know your general thoughts on this proposition:
I feel like this could easily be misconstrued by less adequate posters to be a place where they can advertise their games. Can you give more information on how you would see that split work and what the categories would be named / look like / posting permissions?
That’s my best idea of a description for a showcase subcategory. I’m honestly terrible at coming up with names, but something like #showcase-discussion might be fitting - especially because it would make it clear that the subcategory is for discussion, not advertisement.
To combat the fact that people might be inclined to advertise there, I would probably suggest naming it something like I mentioned above - a name that promotes discussion. You might want to revise my suggested ‘About’ section for that subcategory, too, to really emphasize the fact that discussion is the subcategory’s purpose.
I would probably suggest that non-regulars should use Post Approval to post in a showcase category, to reduce advertising, but anybody of any member+ rank can reply.
To Be Clear
My suggestion is that the specific support categories be used for in-depth technical support, as you put it, cool-creations be used for general feedback on development, and a showcase category only for displaying and discussing completed projects.