Is the DevForum slowly becoming like the closed Roblox forum?

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#1

Well, sure. The Developer Forum has it’s differences from the closed one, like it being run on Discourse instead of a custom forum engine, the fact that you need to be approved as a Member to post, the fact that the community can lock/unlist/archive/pin, or knowing if staff handled your reports/flags.

But over the past few years, there were changes to the DevForum which made it look more like the public Roblox forum.

  • The invite-only process was removed to let more people post here
  • Unlike 2014 or the old years (see old forum posts), today we have little to no communication to Roblox staff other than flagging posts.
  • A warning/ban system was added.

Sure, as you need to be approved as a Member to post, you likely won’t find anymore scams on here like the classic Roblox forum. We can also talk to staff about warnings and bans and ask questions to the Dev Engagement Team. But other than that, unlike 2014 where staff replied to almost every post, we got absolutely no other way to contact staff. I submitted 2 messages to Exploit Reports and didn’t get responses after about 2 months, plus there’s a message to the DET which wasn’t reviewed after a month.

And now that PA is being removed, there’s going to be no kind of “filter” on content other than flags. There is absolutely no filter on bad words (neither Roblox’s nor a less strict one), so people can just post swear words and then the DET needs to deal with that.

This post doesn’t mean in any way that this forum is “bad”. I enjoy being in this community and talking about stuff I like, even though sometimes I mess up and get flagged. I enjoy suggesting new, interesting stuff in Platform Feedback. I enjoy that through the removal of applications to be a Member, we got more people to meet here.
But even though some of my Platform Feedback suggestions got more than 25 likes and I got a “Good Topic” badge for it, the staff never noticed it. In fact, there are many cool ideas that staff is missing out on. Sure, again, some of the suggestions actually made it, and I am not saying there’s not a point in posting on PF.

While there is little to no communication with staff and the removal of PA, I am still however going to stay on the forum as again, I like it on here and this is not a reason due to which I would leave.

If you were on the closed Roblox forum, surely you would notice how there was also little to no communication to staff or moderators.

Feel free to share your opinion here about this forum :smiley:

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#2

I think a huge important difference is that the Developer Forum will remain development-related. The old Roblox forum was largely about non-development topics.

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#3

First of all, swearing is not entirely against the rules so long as it’s not directed to anyone and that it is in private sections. See this for more info:

Second, I think the root problem is the lack of enforcement of the Forum’s professionalism. The new influx of members is seeing the Forum as more of a social media (misuse of the categories, low-quality posts, replying instead of liking, using 30 charrrrrs bypass, etc.) than a place where the Roblox Staff and developers discuss about Roblox development, features, bugs, you get the point. As the Forum becomes more and more like that, the Staff sadly has no choice but to slightly back out. Their oasis in the vast desert is #platform-feedback, for now. Yes, they do keep in touch sometimes, but rarely is it a conversation back-and-forth. I have visited the “ancient” DevForums and it amazed me how often the Staff replied to comments and concerns, and it saddened me that when the dam burst open, the flood tarnished what was once shining.

Third, speaking of the Staff (awesome transition!), I did make a topic about feature requests getting little to no responses lately (even though the topics are or were posted by Regulars and PA approved posts).

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#4

There’s Lounge, and staff sometimes participate in topics in there.

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#5

Also, regarding Staff and my topics, here’s an example that got 28 likes and is not even being considered by Staff.

But if I made that in 2014, I would surely get a response from Staff with their opinions. Now, they reach out VERY rarely (about 1 per 250 topics)

And that’s the problem with large companies - when a company is large like Roblox, you can only hope you would ever get a response from their representative.
While when a PC game is made by 1 person or a small team of like 3 people, it’s almost guaranteed that you will receive a response when you ask.

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#6

I think staff are more careful about bringing opinion into it lately, compared to 2014. I think only the staff themselves can speak to whether they’ve considered that topic at all or not.

They reply less to topics nowadays, however all important topics I’ve created in Platform Feedback recently have received response where required.

Your specific example is tricky, as a staff member likely doesn’t want to say “no”, as they may change their mind in future, and none of the staff members want to put opinions on it from their staff account. The only time you’ll get a response on feature requests lately is a clear no, a clear yes, or a request for more information. Anything else doesn’t need a staff response and would open them up to criticism if they threw around lots of opinions and promises that they then backtrack later.

I agree it’s an issue with the size of Roblox that leads to this apprehensive approach, but I don’t know if you can nail it down to the devforum’s widening community directly or specifically, or that it makes it equivalent to the old forum. It’s hard without actually being a staff member to know the internal workings and what they have or haven’t read or discussed internally.

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#7

I feel strongly that this forum is plagued by young children who don’t fully understand what this is for. The quality in posts range from terrible, to fantastic. The front page used to be full of good resources, challenging questions / problems, and great discussions, but now it’s just repeat posts, OK resources and badly written questions. The collaboration and hiring topics are full of terrible exchanges where children are asking for “professional” developers’ help, but only are willing to pay >1000 robux (>10$). I wish Roblox didn’t automate their acceptance system.

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#8

Who said this? You seem to be guessing at this without reading anything provided to you first. Categories will not be opening to indescriminate posting.

And of course, DET is paid to deal with moderation. Users who break the rules will not be in a position to do so much longer if they intentionally continue.

Further, your bug reports and feature requests are not entitled to staff responses (perhaps due to volume, effort, information allowed to be shared, desire, etc.), but rest assured everything is seen. It also looks like there are efforts being made towards having more staff presence on these topics lately.

There is significant contact with staff here if you’re making valuable contributions.

I’m not sure why you’re drawing this parallel when the old forum was an absolute cesspool and the worst places here - collaboration and support, are still better than the least active categories on the old forum.

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#9

I mean, I don’t ever really find anything that’s not development related or unprofessional. I am kind of new but all the posts I’ve seen have been constructive and professional. Considering all of the categories and topics have to do with development in some way. So toxic conversations aren’t very common and are flagged rather quickly if they do pop up.

Swearing is allowed but they’ve never been directed at people from what I’ve seen. The last reason I personally don’t think this forum will become like the closed one is because unlike that one this forum consists of a more mature audience. I’m not saying this forum isn’t flawed but it most likely won’t become like the closed one.

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#10

Quick correction, I really mean to say most of the posts I see are professional. I have seen some that really just need a quick Google search to be solved but what I’m trying to say is that this forum isn’t as bad as some people make it out to be in my eyes.

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#11

The former forums were more mixed than actual development specific. DevForum is quite the forum for developers only(or somewhere around it). It is designed to be a professional environment.

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#12

The original Roblox forum was toxic. The community tended to orient solely around join dates and post counts to accrue prestige.

This is mainly a social phenomenon; nobody forced people to rank one another higher based on their statistics yet this trend is seeping into the DevForum as well. People are being judged for how active they are here, for when they joined, and for their publicly visible stats.

I’m referring to this trajectory in a social context and not in regards to post quality simply because that’s already been discussed. In this vein, yes, the forums are becoming similar, but as others have pointed out, the DevForum is still very much development-based.

#13

I really don’t think that it’s becoming the same as the closed Roblox Forums; it’s just similar and that doesn’t means it is bad.

I personally like how the Roblox Staff and community members are carrying the DevForum. The community of Roblox’s developers is growing really fast and the DevForum needed to modify its rules so they can adapt to all the new changes.

Even if it’s similar; the DevForum is used for “developer purposes” and there aren’t topics like: “How do I get 1M cash in Jailbreak” or stuff like that.

You even stated some of the differences between both forums in your post:

TL:DR: I don’t think that it is becoming a new version of the dead Roblox Forums, and even if it is; it still pretty useful for the “developer purposes” that everyone have.

:wink:

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