Lock replies in announcements to only regulars+

Forum Help Forum Features
#1

As the forums expand and allow more users to join, inevitably, more spam/clutter replies rise. With the recent posts (actually, most of them) in #updates:announcements I believe I, along with others, have to agree that there have been many unnecessary posts that don’t contribute to the topic. I’ve seen very random posts that don’t fit along with the idea of contributing with your own opinions/concerns/questions. For instance, but not limited to, I’ve seen:

  • I like this update!
  • Great update!
  • Something we’ve all been waiting for!
  • I dislike this idea

and so on. It’s a lot harder for me, many other developers, and even Roblox Staff to answer our questions and address our concerns because of the large scale of spam/cluttered posts. This is why I am creating this post. As a developer who uses this forum more frequently to get updates and see any concerns/questions from fellow developers, I’d like to request the posts in #updates:announcements to be locked only to users with the trust level regular or higher.

Currently, this is done in #updates:release-notes to keep unnecessary posts out of the way and allow us to ask questions and give our feedback to new features such as API, built-in functions, etc. This can be pushed to #updates:announcements too.

Why should it be locked to only regulars+? Typically, if a regular has a question/concern about a feature, members will have the same/similar question as well. Recently, many users have tended to snipe for the first reply to boost stats and grind on the badges. First off, this is spam if it’s not contributing to anything. Secondly, it puts the more contributive posts and those who have questions towards the bottom, which makes it harder to get answered. if you have a similar concern/question, the like button exists for a reason, to show that you agree with the post / have a similar idea to that reply.

42 Likes
Clarify that devforum staff / DET are not Roblox support staff, and also clarify that DD is not a place to discuss about Roblox events
#2

I disagree. Members also point things out to change or to fix. We have flagging anyway.

49 Likes
#3

I have to disagree, flagging has taken a long time. People tend to post duplicate post due to the unfamiliarity with how our forum works. This feature needs to be implemented. That’s why the like button exists, someone is going to have a similar concern/question you may have.

7 Likes
#4

Agreed!

I enjoy reading the community responses to new announcements and I end up having to scroll through 30 yes-man replies that usually cut up a lot of interesting discussions. Even tho, there are slightly fewer of those posts than there used to be, I still find those very annoying. The only way one can really have a discussion about new updates without the sea of users who kiss the ground everyone that works on Roblox walks on is by going off-site.

5 Likes
#5

You can’t just assume that all members will tarnish #updates:announcements though. And with post approval being on halt, the update makes life a little bit harder for members. Personally, I don’t find an issue with this.

21 Likes
#6

I personally have flagged some of these spammy replies that have nothing to say other than “thanks” or “cool” and they go unaddressed. But I think closing it will have its drawbacks. In general, as a developer with about 7 years of experience now the forum is really hard for me to use as a resource.

In the past I’ve suggested closing them down entirely, even to regulars, and just leaving announcements read-only, and have feedback sent through a survey, as even some regulars may attempt to post just for likes. I’ll admit im somewhat guilty of doing this in the past, but I always try to add some sort of meaningful insight.

It kind of sucks that buildthomas ended up taking down his own topic that addressed the issue of users racing to first reply in announcements just for the sake of it because it ended up “not being worth his energy anymore”. It was a good topic. And it just shows how much worse the issue got. The forum indeed should disincentivize posting just for the sake of posting in that category. A good start is disabling post badges on the category, like they have on #forum-feedback, and maybe setting a longer timer, raising it from 15 minutes to maybe 30 minutes or even 1 hour.

19 Likes
#7

I understand that, but with the halt, they are trying to redefine how you should become a regular, what traits you need to have (in some form such as activity, contributions, etc.). In order to allow more contributions to posts, those people who are a lot more experienced should be able to express their concerns/questions rather than having a sea of duplicates.

It would be a hassle for DET to create a group for “trusted” users to reply hence why I’m suggesting to lock it to this trust level.

6 Likes
#8

You may not see an issue with “I like this!” responses but many engineers did before they locked #feature-requests and #bug-reports to Regulars+. The same was happening on top of every smallest bug being reported as platform breaking.

The staff reads through replies in #updates:announcements as it was proved many times with them engaging in conversations with us there. They’re equally important and that’s why it’s important to keep those as clean as possible.

9 Likes
#9

I understand now. :+1: We must think about the staff gathering feedback. The replies are their only resource for it anyway.

This actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea though. Roblox could always have a small poll that says if you like it or not. But there are always some downsides to everything.

7 Likes
#10

I’d have to agree, removing the badges from being received there will help lower the snipes of replies. There won’t be as much incentive to having a high number of likes in that category.

8 Likes
#11

I’d say this would be a good idea the moment they reopen the whole regulars application thing, which I see no hope of happening. Until then, I don’t think there’s enough regulars to properly make use of something like this.

3 Likes
#12

Some of the worst offenders are regulars. This would accomplish nothing except promote elitism and worsen an already severe divide in the community.

20 Likes
#13

Is there another alternative that makes the forum still useful for everybody, not just newcomers. Elitism isn’t good, but sacrificing usefulness for accessibility isn’t either. Which seems to be an obvious pattern on the forum. #feature-requests and #updates:release-notes already are locked away anyway. (keep in mind im not necessarily against this feature request but not 100% for it either)

3 Likes
#14

This isn’t geared towards elitism, if those regulars are acting like so, they don’t deserve the trust level. This is geared towards gaining a better responses from staff and removing the clutter from replies.

2 Likes
#15

This wouldn’t make the forum any better since

2 Likes
#16

If that’s the case, staff will be able to respond quicker to flags in those replies due to the lower number of replies.

I’m trying to make it so that we can ask questions and express our concerns and receive responses from staff, it’s pretty hard to do that currently with the high volume of responses.

2 Likes
#17

I’ll agree with this once a replacement for Post Approval is discovered

3 Likes
#18

I disagree, tho I’m a member I still leave feedback. Locking #updates:announcements to only be regular+ doesn’t make sense, about 70-80%ish are visitors/members. And if they lock it, about 20-50% are going to leave and go to the roblox discord or other unofficial ones.

2 Likes
#19

This happens along with this:

Duplicate replies of same question are sent every time I check there. Majority of the replies are also similar in #help-and-feedback:cool-creations category.

2 Likes
#20

I can count the worst regular offenders on my hands, they don’t create as much clutter as hundreds of new members trying to post whatever they can to get attention and a sense of helping.

5 Likes