Close discussion back!

I believe the reason why people are making lower quality topics/posts is due to the closure of the regular rank and the fact that people are just giving up on becoming a regular. :man_shrugging:

I can say the same for myself. I don’t see the point anymore.

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Well, the peole with a trust level of “Regular” can acces the #lounge , wittch and me people with a trust level of “Member” can’t acces.

This is inevitable, and I believe it was the right decision to open the forum for all. It wouldn’t be fair for users who are wanting to use this resource for development-related objectives to be locked out and have to learn the hardest way, I would consider that really unfair.

The thing that the devforum lacked when the discussion was opened to all was the idea to have an approval system or some sort of way to prevent spam topics. By adding this, it would help reduce the number of ridiculous posts that are seen today.

Currently, people are only joining to get the regular role, which isn’t how development works or even the usage of the devforum. We can see this just based on the help topics. I believe that the pause for regular is the right decision currently, people are just going to grind out for that regular role which defeats the whole purpose of the forums in the first place.

Until there’s a solution to all of this, people should think about the following when posting a topic in the discussion category:

  • Is this topic related to development?
  • Is there another topic that’s very similar to another one? If it is, consider replying to that post rather than creating a new one
  • Are you asking for help? If you are, post in one of the help sections that are related to your need

These are a few questions to think about, there are probably more but I can’t think of anymore.

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I suppose this is just my old habit coming into the light, but back when the forums were private, they were considered a professional area (unless it was the lounge, hence its name, which was considerably more lax). The big thing that a lot of old members like myself have in terms of issues with new people is exactly this. The point isn’t for some personal care (or lack of care). The point is to contribute. This place is a resource, and when it gets cluttered with poor posts on the count of “meh, I can’t make regular, no point”, it taints the value of this place.

I suppose that “value” I mention has different meaning depending on when you came around. For an old hag like myself who has been here for almost 6 years, it means that everyone knew exactly what they were doing and you were going to get a good reply 90% of the time someone bothered to make a reply. Now, you get people giving terrible advice on support threads that makes me want to tear my hair out. That’s the issue I think most “vets” like myself have. We are used to a pretty high bar, and it’s painful to watch that bar plummet down into the abyss.

It’s a tough situation. I wish there were a simple solution but the only one is to embrace change, and at least make sure people care when they post.

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First, we need to know about the types of off-topic posts. There are five types of off-topic posts in #development-discussion:

Type 1: Posts that are unintentionally off-topic
Usually created by the newest members who post in Development Discussion for the first time who post topics that they did not know were off-topic. Most of these are about updates.

Example: “Hey what did you guys think of the new clothing update?”

Type 2: Posting things in DD without knowing about other topics
Also created by newer members of the DevForum who post a topic in Development Discussion because they do not know of other sections.

Example: “Now hiring! Low-poly builder with two months of experience”

Type 3: Posting in DD to grab attention
Posted by users of the DevForum to try to share their opinion on recent updates or moderation actions and have typically nothing to do with development at all. They will usually point out that they know they are posting in the wrong topic.

Example: “I know this is the wrong topic, so please don’t flag me, but I really dislike the display names update”

Type 4: Posting topics in DD asking if it can be moved to Regular only categories
This type of off-topic post is done solely by members, and they post a bug report or feature request and ask for it to be moved to that specific category.

Example: “Please move this to bug reports: My studio isn’t working and it takes a long time to load”

Type 5: Spamming absolute trash in DD
This is pretty self explanatory. This type of off-topic post happens very rarely since moderators are very fast in taking these topics down. These type of topics can also happen in other categories, but they usually happen in DD

Example: “MY FRIEND JUST RICKROLLED ME AAAAAAAAAA”

What we can do about it:

Especially with post approval being deprecated, we currently cannot prevent members from posting in DD, we just have to make a few small changes to decrease the amount of off-topic posts.

I am pretty sure a lot of people will disagree with me about this opinion but I honestly think some off-topic posts can be prevented by moving the DD category further down, towards where the Forum Help section is. This will make Help and Feedback become more of the “general” category instead of DD. This will also make some users read the other sections before posting in DD, therefore stopping Type 2 off-topic posts.

I also recently saw this post in the forum help section about limiting the use of DD around updates.

Many off-topic posts are about updates (Types 1 and 3) and this could potentially decrease off-topic posts. I was also thinking of adding to the text that appears when you post in DD something like:

Posts about updates are not permitted on #development-discussion unless they are about development.

And to stop the posts that ask moderators to move a topic there should also be something that says:

Do not ask for topics to be moved, this will get your post deleted.

If we can make some small changes like these, DD will be a little bit better without having to lock it to regulars only.

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People don’t know the meaning of sbp(Search before posting) anymore, a post is literally number 1# (trending?) and people create a new topic instead of replying. It’s such a weird mentality on the devforums :confused:

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People are just gonna say “this is about development since I get all my dev money from trading” about an update where the trade button is added to profiles. We need to just forbid these.

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The description could just be reverted back to “the art of makings” so that those posts can be curbed by at least a little.

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Well, I would agree to this if they allowed people to be promoted to regular from member.

Since Roblox removed that option, it’ll turn dev forum to an elitist group where only a select few can remain but nobody can enter in.

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Additionally, to what I mean by what I mean of “like throwing pitchforks in San Mateo” people are VERY Mad and quite annoyed. :roll_eyes:

The majority of them claim that it’s creating loads of spam, etc.

I could produce a video with some background music of threads like these’s complaining about the current state of #development-discussion

My frustrations are getting and higher as the time goes on. Development Discussion officially has become the catch-all category of the forums, with topics that even are no longer related to development on Roblox at all.

DET is ignoring us on this point. They didn’t do anything except for telling us to keep flagging these topics. DET, I came here for a place to have a serious discussion about development related things and to use this forum as a resource. I didn’t come to flag things over and over again and nor for scrolling though a clutter of off-topic topics.

Fix this huge problem!

If you don't agree with me, please check these topics made recently.

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/i-lost-robux-for-buying-a-gamepass-that-i-did-not-buy/1086694?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/chat-logs-in-your-game/1086383?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/roblox-studio-bug-problem/1084655?u=dutchbloxxer (was originally posted in Development Discussion)
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/so-many-ideas-so-few-skills/1084548?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/do-you-think-roblox-should-bring-back-game-comments/1084000?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/is-there-any-hope-for-my-vibe-cafe-game/1078351?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/how-did-you-learn-to-script/1079772?u=dutchbloxxer (posting for the sake of posting)
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/recently-false-termed-on-roblox-anyone-know-how-to-save-my-models-onto-a-new-account/1078437?u=dutchbloxxer
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/is-it-against-tos-to-use-copied-clothing/1078149?u=dutchbloxxer

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I’m actually concerned that some of these topics get flagged, but the flags go ignored, and when others try flagging because there is clearly an issue, moderators have already rejected valid flags, and it can’t be flagged anymore. And only this category has this problem. I’ll probably message them later, at this point I believe it’s a bug.

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Sounds about right.

The more flags = The more stress that’s on DET so basically they are hurting them self’s in the process.

Yeah, my discussions keep getting taken down, yet It’s me asking/discussing things on the platform. Literally making posts exactly what the category is meant for gets your post taken down…

Probably because your discussion topics aren’t specifically related to development.
When a topic of you gets taken down, you receive a feedback message. If you still have questions about it, just respond to those feedback messages.

My statement wasn’t about too strict moderation in Development Discussion, I actually think it’s too loose.

My discussion was specifically related to Development, yes.

I actually saw this happen with the voice chat opinion topic. It was ignored by the community for about thirty minutes but moderators decided to keep the topic going because there was so much activity, even though it was off-topic.

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I didnt know the rules, and as you said i was “Posting for the sake of posting” I wasnt. I was introduced to scripting, and found it interesting. I then spoke with a staff member who gave me the rules of the forum. 2nd off it was flagged the same day.

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It’s not my purpose to attack individuals with my post. I attached a few violating topics from the last days to put more force on my statement I was trying to make.

I reckon if people just made better choices regarding their posts, we would see less of this happen.
This “underlying issue” will never change due to some systematic rollback of closing Discussion. Making decisions within the forum is part of learning and progressive growth in maturity and understanding. DD is definitely a viable place to make these decisions and to learn from them. Until people can start to make better choices and intuitively choose right over wrong, this “underlying issue” is never going to be solved.

Sadly, some people are just choosing to do the opposite.

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