Changes to Developer Forum trust level names

Updates Community & Events
#1

Hey developers,

We’re back with some more changes to the Developer Forum: renaming our trust levels (forum ranks).

This is going to be a bit of a complicated change, so you’ll want to read this announcement pretty closely to understand what’s going on.

We’ve had the “New Member” and “Member” ranks for a while. The “New Member” rank came about when we started giving forum applicants partial access to the forum before receiving the full “Member” rank, so that they could learn to use the forum before being allowed to post everywhere without restrictions. Over time, the number of people in the “New Member” rank increased significantly because we have since automated access to the forum. However, many of the people in this rank are not actually “new” developers, and they may have been around on the forum for a long time already, so “New Member” tends to misrepresent these users.

Together with the Community Sages, we’ve come up with some names that we feel better suit the purpose of these two forum ranks.

The new names for these two ranks are “Member” and “Regular”:

  • Member: This is now the default rank on the forum (after Visitor). Members can view (almost) all forum categories and can also participate in them, but some categories (such as Platform Feedback) require the user to go through Post Approval first.
  • Regular: This is the rank that is given to active users who frequently make use of the Post-Approval-restricted categories of the forum and have a clean forum moderation record. Regulars are trusted enough to post in the restricted categories without needing approval first.
  • Forum ranks are not related to development skills or any other qualities outside of forum posting permissions.

The “How to rank up” guide has already been updated to reflect these changes. If you see any outdated information, please post about it below or in the Forum Feedback category and we’ll update it.

FAQ:

Does this change anything about forum permissions or post approval?

  • No, this change only affects how the two ranks are named.

Why are you making this change now?

  • The goal of this change is to have the trust levels be named more accurately. The old “New Member” rank doesn’t properly reflect the trust level, as ranking up to the old “Member” rank didn’t entail just being around for a long time, and “New Members” were not necessarily new Roblox developers or new forum users.
    We are making the change now because we think it is important that the trust level names accurately describe the users who are in the ranks, to avoid confusion and misrepresentation of users going forward.

It’s confusing that you’re reusing “Member” for the new name of the New Member rank; isn’t there a different term to use that doesn’t overlap?

  • We want to avoid needing to change the trust level names again in the future. The trust level names should be generic, simple phrases that are easy to understand.

    We’ve looked at alternative names that do not use the “Member” terminology to avoid overlap with the previous trust level names, but we feel like this is the best, most impactful combination that will make sense for a long time.

We’re excited to see how this change impacts the forum and our community!

Thanks,
Developer Relations

336 Likes
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#2
#3

This topic was automatically opened after 15 minutes.

Allow members to view off-topic
#4

Saw my “member” role and thought after the long process of post grinding I’ve made it! Unfortunately I have been trolled by the community sages!!

Glad to see the more descriptive name of how to get “Regular”/“Full Member” now. I did not know you needed to post on Post-Approval restricted categories at all. Now I know where to make even better contributions!!

Honestly though, the new naming scheme makes more sense (aside from the naming of “Full Member” to "Regular) and probably should have been done when the forum was “publicized” (What I mean is that the forum was essentially opened to a lot more people due to the automatic ranking).

When I think “Regular” I think anyone who posts regularly in any section, not specifically Post-Approval restricted sections. Perhaps rename the rank to “Trusted” hence the clause in the description of what a “Regular” rank is now?

Cool update, can’t wait to meet all of you Regulars when I get there!

60 Likes
#5

This is a pretty cool and honestly needed change, but when can we expect to be able to know how far we are into progression? It’s always been somewhat confusing to me.

33 Likes
#6

To all of you, who wanted to become a member on the DevForum, Roblox just granted your wish. Use it wisely :eyes:

With full honestly tho, I believe that the names should be flipped. It’d be less confusing for everyone.

37 Likes
#7

If you’re interested in how close you are to promotion, please DM the @Community_Sage group.

34 Likes
#8

I don’t like how the title of Member is being reused. Lots of New Members have been confused and thought they’ve been promoted, even in the few seconds between roles being changed and the announcement. I know there aren’t a lot of great alternatives, but I feel like there has to be something better than this.

25 Likes
#9

I really don’t agree with the new naming. In my opinion, “New Member” should have became “Regular” and “Member” should have stayed the same. “Regular” just sounds like it’s lower than “Member”.

24 Likes
#10

Member seems like it would be higher than Regular. This is just useless confusion IMO

14 Likes
#11

? Regular makes you sound like you are regular. In my opinion “Member” sounds lower than Regular because you’re just member, not someone who could be actively posting regularly

I think the “Regular” should actually be changed to “Trusted” though, as you can be very active in other categories but still not get promoted to Regular. And so it should be “Trusted” because you’re “Trusted” to post appropriate things in the Post-Approval restricted categories.

21 Likes
#12

Sounds good to me. Will there be a way to track progression?

10 Likes
#13

Honestly, new member and member were better than member and regular, just my opinion though.

12 Likes
#14

You DM the Community_Sage group.

10 Likes
#15

Not all Regulars - old Members are that active anymore. You see a lot more New Members than Members on the forum itself so I don’t think that calling a Member regular is super accurate.

19 Likes
#16

Does that offer stand for all rankings, such as Regular>Top Contributor, or just for Member>Regular?

11 Likes
#17

This is EXACTLY what I am thinking. Hence my,

9 Likes
#18

This update doesn’t really make a massive difference, but it clears up confusion while also adding some.

7 Likes
#19

At first, I actually thought I was granted the “Member” role but when I saw this post, I was like, “Aww darn it”. To be honest, I think the names should be switched around. Regulars should be like the new members and member can stay the same. It just confused me at first. It would make a lot more sense if the Regulars were New Members.

13 Likes
#20

The interesting part about the new trust level names is that it no longer forces DevRel to keep people in the Regular rank if they use the post-approval-restricted categories inappropriately by i.e. making bad bug reports or feature requests constantly. Ranking someone from Member to New Member makes little sense due to the way the trust levels were named (can’t really make someone “new” when they have been a member before). The new trust levels enable that better. :eyes:

30 Likes