The current rules of the #development-discussion are a bit vague as to what is on-topic. All it really mentions right now is that it must be development related and contributes something, but that really isn’t specific enough instructions which likely is why many are posting so many off-topic threads. It’s just not clear enough about what on-topic development discussions are.
I understand the rules likely are vague so that it isn’t restrictive, but it’s likely many are misinterpreting the rules as to what’s development discussion appropriate because of this. Some clarity would likely help limit the number of off-topic threads.
Personally I think the guidelines as a whole deserve a stricter rewrite. Currently it’s kind of abusable because you can attach “as a developer” to any random thing and make it technically on topic.
“As a developer, does smelling flowers make you happy?”
“As a developer, do squeaky chairs annoy you?”
“As a developer, do you need high watt lightbulbs?”
Yeah, exactly, people are sugarcoating other topics as a development-related discussion. You can’t really blame them though, because of the guidelines. They are very vague in describing what is development-related and what is not. You could argue that discussing if rainbow LED strips are good for development is on-topic because it affects your development. It isn’t, and members are then confused about their topic being taken down.
The “About” topic already tells you what a topic should be. It should be specific, encouraging discussion, should contribute something, etc, but they never tell you what a good discussion is. These guidelines are very subjective. Everyone’s perception of what is specific, contributing, or encouraging is different. Not everyone might think that a discussion is contributing, but someone else could. And that’s the problem. To someone, discussing lighting conditions when developing is very important, let’s say that they work in a poorly lit environment and would like to know how to change that. But to someone who has ideal lighting, it seems absurd to discuss what sort of light bulbs you should have in your room.
I’m not promoting this type of discussion, but we need to change the guidelines in order to prevent this from happening because right now, people will try and sugarcoat other things as development-related, and will defend themselves when their topic is taken down. Things such as “This is not a feature request, I’m just getting opinions on what the community thinks about this potential feature” are also a problem right now.
I have had one instance where one of my topics was subject to what is being addressed by this post. A misinterpretation of what contributes to developers.
Many posts in the #development-discussion do actually drive discussion about development…as it should be. But repeat offenders who repost the same thing such as “what are your pc specs” and other things simlly do not need to be there.
Clarification of what it means for a post to “contribute to developers” and a more well outlined guideline of procession would help this channel, for the polulation of the forum that makes genuine and contributive posts.
We already know that Roblox is going to change the forum (at some point), but why this hasn’t been solved already? Roblox would have much less work and clarifying what’s in the OP shouldn’t take more than a week (notifying the staff and all the other procedures.)
Like @Spagetti_07 said, you can make a topic on everything if it includes something like the word “script” or “development”.
As of right now, most of the topics in the current state of #development-discussion do not contribute to developers. There was a topic earlier today where there were several memes posted, character requirement bypasses, and even an argument occurred.
The image below is the current list of topics, and not all of them are off-topic, but if you look at the list of topics, about 80% of them are off-topic.
Perhaps define what kind of discussion is relevant. Posters often seem to think contributive topics can just be something that entertains people and they’ll insist their topic fits into #development-discussion …
A good amount of “What was your [adjective] moment in developing?” or “What is your worst/best/favorite build?” have popped up as a trend the past day. Most of the time they belong in #help-and-feedback:cool-creations, but many times they’re just nonsense topics because it’s all personal stories that couldn’t possibly be used by other developers. Despite being flagged, most just edit the topic to include “development” or a subtle statement trying to shame the users who flagged it. They’ve all gotten taken down eventually, but it’s still an issue because they sit on the main page for a long bit of time.
