Two forum features in one topic, I thought it’d be smart to combine them
Clarify that devforum staff & DET are not Roblox support staff
If you’ve been a forum member for a while like I have, you have noticed that over the past year these off-topic posts are being made regarding a user’s account being hacked and such. It hurts me to see members willingly post in the wrong category too (they know it’s wrong and apologize in the post, yet do it anyway), so I’m proposing that Support - Roblox will be posted somewhere where members can clearly see and go there instead of asking here (maybe make it more clear in the forum rules?).
Clarify that #development-discussion should not be a place to house topics regarding Roblox events
Quite frequently nowadays I see members posting “what are your thought” topics about any one of the following:
not receiving their Bloxy Awards items,
Egg Hunt 2021 being cancelled,
Metaverse Champions event,
and so on. These topics are not development-related, nor are they helpful to developers, which makes DD just seems like a dumping ground for random topics about the platform. They lean more towards posts made on the Roblox public forum.
I was initially going to link some example topics, however, out of respect for the people who create these kinds of posts, I will not be doing so.
Things are pretty clear in the category guidelines. The problem is that no one reads them before posting. Forcing users to read them isn’t really possible either. All we can do on the user end is to just flag those posts and move on with our days.
I mean what he meant is Roblox Support staff, like the ones who operate in Support - Roblox as seen in the following…
I’d just like to add something on this, forcing users to read the rules isn’t even valid considering the fact that despite numerous warnings from the Developer Engagement Team, some users are still too stubborn to follow simple rules, one example for that, a user with so many times got their post flagged in a certain category still keep on posting, off-category posts despite the fact that there was already numerous warnings sent to them from their past mistakes. Even if we are able to force users to read the rules, I doubt some would be competent to follow them, however there’s a possibility that would minimize the off-category posting, however that’s still a possibility, and judging how users and how the forum increases with the influence of some users breaking the rules, I’d doubt forcing them to read everything would change anything.
I’ll be honest, even before they create topics it said
should be development discussion worthy, and as long as people see the term “Discussion” they instantly think it’s a category for discussion with whatever topic they could think off.
I agree with @ItsKoiske statement, though, as long as there’s no change in the system, or a proper solution for our current situation in #development-discussion the best is we could do is flag the posts.
One of these topics, I flagged, after that it said that they reviewed it and that it did not need further flagging.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but #development-discussion is just not the place to post egg hunt topics, overall the entire DevForum shouldn’t have discussions about this kind of stuff.
Why?
Well, because these don’t change almost anything in developer’s lifes.
The DevForum lets us know that topics in development discussion are supposed to be from a developer’s point of view, and made with development in mind.
The developers that participate in these events, are very specific people, and very few people, these topics are bound to be thought of as player discussion, because it is, it doesn’t bring anything useful to developers, it doesn’t talk about anything Developer specific, it’s just plain Roblox event discussion.
Somehow they messed it up, or allow that?
(Up in my post)
One of these topics, I flagged, after that it said that they reviewed it and that it did not need further flagging.
They didn’t “mess it up”, however, I feel they allowed the members to be post in #development-discussion is because there was no Post Approval process, and instead of completely locking the category from Members, they decided to open it.
However, in whatever excuse it’s still not the allowed category is still not a place to be trashed
I actually also keep thinking why even flags in #development-discussion are no longer be taken seriously at times, like if you keep on flagging non-contributive replies. E.g. “I agree with this post” type of replies in a discussion topic, or sometimes even the Discussion itself in #development-discussion is non-relevant though they think it’s “safe”, however, I learned that based ok @PeZsmistic’s statement on this…
They consider non-contributive replies to be “soft” and is “safe” to ignore, and they’ll probably address topics that are more on inappropriate, however, we all are already getting fed up with this. The more they tolerate it, the more #development-discussion is getting trashed. This also not just trashed #development-discussion into a public discussion category, it’s also ruining the Developer Forum’s purposes of being a Developer Forum into a public forum.
I’ll also share my experiences towards this, I’ve notice numerous topics here in #forum-feedback, that had the same rant regarding #development-discussion to be closed down.
I’ve flagged one however, I only got the reply, “Thanks we’re looking into it”, however there was no response against the topic of getting deleted, and it’s obviously spam, considering the fact how many times this subject has been brought up in numerous topics…
However, as #development-discussion became worst there are already same topics being created over and over again, instead they could just add their points and facts on the original topic. This should be considered spam.
They used to consider such topics to be spam, back then, however when they soften up, they allowed this. I understand that people want to create topics because they want to express some issues here in #forum-feedback however, they should’ve searched first before making a topic, and this is also applied to same thing in #development-discussion at times.
I don’t understand why we need to add extra clarification that DD is not a place to discuss Roblox events when the category guidelines say anything not related to development is not allowed there. The thing is, the issue isn’t the rules, it’s the fact that people either don’t read the rules, or they do but they simply don’t care. Altering the rules won’t help if the rules as a whole already aren’t helping. Unfortunately, there is no way to gatekeep people who don’t intend on reading or listening to the rules, which is the real root of the problem.
I’m not asking to change the rules, I’m simply asking for clarification.
DD guidelines are already very vague; at this point it’s hard to tell what counts as a Development Discussion. You will come across posts occasionally which, when you flag, will show the “we already reviewed this” message which then you will have to flag as “Something Else”. Most of the time, this doesn’t work, as they’ll just respond with the canned message: “Thanks for letting us know. We’re looking into it.”
I do not want to put the whole blame on inattentive, new members. I was once like this, and I’ve learned and grown from my mistake. The issue is that the guidelines are too vague that’s it’s hard for new members to distinguish between what is fine in DD and what isn’t (even I still struggle with it).
I must admit, the guidelines are very tucked away. This is why I can understand that members might not want to read the rules and just post away. I feel like the rules need to be more open and bigger, and will show in some way that will stop anyone who is about to post and read before posting (I think I like the idea of having some sort of agreement before posting anywhere in the forum, you are obligated to read the entirety of the rules before having access to the forum).
Clarifying that you cannot post these types of things will hopefully catch member attention and prevent more of these posts.
