Make DevForum acceptance manual

Forum Help Forum Features
#51

They most certainly did axe Post Approval, if you want to claim otherwise, please demonstrate the usage of Post Approval as of today.

Fully disagree. The issue is both topics and posts. Too many times have I seen someone trying to have a high level technical discussion only to have the post be absolutely flooded by low-quality repliers who have no idea what the topic was about. I have seen this first hand countless times.

And plus, if we can establish that non-vetted members tend to be young kids who are habitual bad posters, then I think we can then predict that should these members be allowed to leave replies, under the current structure of Discourse, members will reply in massive volume to the topics that they can most understand (which incidentally will be the lowest quality topics), meaning that the top of any category will be dominated by lowest-quality topics, since obviously there are far more members than regulars.

The method of submitting a bug report by messaging the devrel inbox is not explained in any official manner. The only official documents explaining proper procedure for a member submitting a bug report all link back to Post Approval, which as I said, is currently dead.

1 Like
#52

You don’t even have proper evidence or any facts to support this, they phased out Post Approval because of the stress the team has been having due to the influx of threads being made at categories requiring post approval procedures.
Remember, it’s not really their responsibility to check or examine your post, and they’re not even getting paid to do it, so it was a good decision they took down Post Approval.

Buddy, let’s be clear here, the way this forum is getting bigger and bigger is letting in more Members, also we can’t avoid new people making minor mistakes at times, if you’d like to review most of the topics created at #forum-feedback are about and concerning the topics being created at #development-discussion, not the posts.
The only way to remove irrelevant topics is to close down #development-discussion’s permission for Members to create topics, until Developer Relations set up a new replacement for Post Approval, we can’t completely lock #development-discussion for Members, and if they can’t reply what’s the use of the category anyway.

We can’t avoid bad actors or people posting irrelevantly, there’s many reasons honestly, one, some are actually bad actors, or people are just new and can’t understand proper forum rules which results in starting off-topic arguments.
Closing down #development-discussion fully for Members is again, a horrible idea, let’s also be clear here, before trash topics began flooding #development-discussion, Regulars who create topics there, are able to be replied on by Members. If they lock it to them, think why #development-discussion should’ve been made in the first place, they could’ve just deleted it fully if Members can’t reply on it.

Are you sure? I saw tons of topics in #development-discussion that are about bug reports, being locked with the reason of reporting it to the Developer Relations Team, it’s the only method to report bug reports. I honestly, don’t support the ideas of Members complaining that they can’t post in #platform-feedback, DevRel has already given a temporary method, and seriously, you could just report bugs to Support - Roblox, rather than posting it here while #platform-feedback is locked, I know some Members’ motives of posting bug reports or features requests in #platform-feedback are just to get likes, sure they’re reporting platform, studio, mobile, or website bugs, but as a former Member, I can confirm the reason why some Members are posting bug reports are just to get likes.

In conclusion, applications for the Developer Forum is bad enough, and proposing to close down a category for Members completely even closing it down to them, for posting is completely a horrible idea.
I’d honestly, prescribe they’d just make a more stricter enforcement in the rules, rather than making this forum manual acceptance.

1 Like
#53

While I’m unbothered with the automation process currently, I wish for some better filters. I’m all for an open and welcoming acceptance into the forum. However, the reality is that somewhere along the lines, crappy forum behaviour arises due to loose entry criteria and filters, which is likely the root cause for the current issues we have on the forum.

There’s a relatively large range of users joining with different intentions. The goal should be to filter users capable of using the forum correctly and those with good intentions while educating other users incapable of doing so. With better filters, we get a more stabilized and accurate range of developers that genuinely want to seek assistance concerning their Roblox development and/or help others while maintaining good conduct.

Some examples of plausible criteria/ filters are:

  • Completing the @discobot tutorial or in some way recognizing what is expected of you when joining the forum.
  • Valid account ages (bots)
  • Less focus on status or fame, de-incentivize this behaviour (I don’t know how, but somehow?)
  • Maybe a quiz about forum rules
  • Raising the criteria for becoming a member (I don’t know much, but I know when I got promoted to member, it was quite easy and didn’t take long)

Now, Don’t get me wrong; I want the forum to be accessible to all, a place where developers can openly talk about their Roblox concerns and reach out for help, and in no way am I encouraging elitism. However, without appropriate filters/ criteria, we end up with this unstable ratio of developers joining with otherwise bad intentions and behaviour. Of course, I don’t want these criteria to be intimidating to new visitors. But something needs to change alongside the automation process as a testament to the current behaviour /issues on the forum.

3 Likes
#55

Why not? A major focus of the forum is to help people learn. (#help-and-feedback and #resources)

5 Likes
#56

They can still read those topics, but they shouldn’t post. There’s also other places where they can learn (like developer.roblox.com) but they shouldn’t have those privilege or they won’t read anything and ask “How do you add a TrussPart”.

2 Likes
#57

Yeah, that is what TL0 (Visitor) is for.

6 Likes
#59

Whatever “trash” you’re referring to, I’ve seen none of it, so as for my experience, I cannot sympathize with you nor join your stance.

1 Like
#60

What’s the point of #help-and-feedback if the people who need help can’t post there? They’re there to help people with their issues, not be gatekeeped for only top devs (who are unlikely to post there anyways).

Good thing that’s not a requirement, then. It’s not supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to check if you’re willing to put in effort to join.

3 Likes
#62

Yes, in other words they axed the feature. The feature no longer exists. No idea what you’re trying to argue.

I also don’t see you contest my claim that replies made by members are equally a problem as topics created by members. All you did was spit out some conjecture. I have seen first hand how members can completely derail topics with meaningless replies. For example, if you made a topic discussing Luau performance upgrades, your first 5 replies tend to be useless crap like “I like Lua but it’s hard to use but Lua is fast and cool” or “I don’t know what Luau is but it sounds cool.” These meaningless non-contributive replies flood topics and make it very very difficult for people to have intelligent discussion.

By the way, I think you may be misunderstanding something. The reintroduction of Post Approval, or its successor, will allow members to make both topics and posts. They would just have to submit both to Post Approval. Members tend to have a habit of trying to reply to absolutely everything, impulsively. Forcing them to submit their replies to an approval process would encourage them to take their time and think out good, relevant replies.

2 Likes
#63

No, that is not and has never been the actual requirement.

5 Likes
#64

Manual acceptance would be a great idea to re implement however it just isn’t viable anymore due to the sheer influx of developers that would like to access the forum.

We’ll be here until the rapture occurs by the time developers get manually processed.

I do however, understand your concerns with the professionalism of the forum and I fundamentally challenge the current flawed automated system. I believe a more rigorous structure and process is needed to prove commitment. Some of my ideas include this:

  • A question which tests your knowledge and relating to building, scripting graphics etc. You will be given a question related to the aspect of development you have ticked in a ‘tick box system beforehand’. This would have a criteria that checks if the answer has been questioned and marks your work out of 10. I understand this alone would take a while for Roblox to implement however in the long run it would allow for the automated system to coincide with a competitive but committed forum of developers.

Concluding my comment, I can understand your frustrations however I don’t think a reversal back to the manual checks are the right path.

Thank you.

#65

My main point for your statement is not Post Approval was removed, axed, or whatever words you may describe in the dissolution of a certain team, my main point in why I’m discussing and arguing is that based on your point, that the Developer Engagement Team’s plan in removing Post Approval was a bad idea, which caused me to respond why it wasn’t a bad idea in the first place.

We can’t deny the fact that Members would reply on #development-discussion categories and the #updates:announcements categories, unless they’ve installed a solution to that problem, nobody is perfect, and we can’t avoid people posting in the topics at the first place. We can’t just also close down the ability for Members to reply on that certain category, the category and threads there would be useless as some Members also wanted to contribute something to the thread, but are unable to reply.

We cannot under no circumstance, rely on the new Post Approval process to be installed even in posting replies, I’d honestly, think that topics should go through Post Approval, however, creating posts for a topic, and bringing it through the Post Approval process is not really a bright decision, considering the fact, that we can’t really presume this new process would be done either automated or via another team conducted manually by people.
If this would be done through people, then this would just bring back the issue where there would be additional work for the new team to do, what’s worst is that this forum is getting bigger and bigger, and more people post in topics that require Post Approval. I also don’t believe a new automated system would magically approve posts and have the same human understanding in post approving.

In general, applying Post Approval for replies is a horrible idea, and this is why there’s already a flagging system for the issue.

#66

The flag system is ineffective because it takes too long for a community flag to be responded to by the devrel team. With such high volume of replies from members, it would mean that by the time the devrel team is able to respond to the flags, the damage has already been done (in the form of lost productivity, lost discussion, etc).

The only functional parts of the devforums are the help sections. Aside from those, I don’t see why members should be entitled to posting permissions on somewhere like Development Discussion. Nothing that is discussed in Development Discussion is essential to any developer.

Here’s what they need to do:
Lock down topics and replies for Development Discussion. Reinstate Post Approval and the automatic member-to-regular rank up system. Problems solved.

There’s no way around it: the devforums are simply NOT FUNCTIONAL without some form of Post Approval. Development Discussion is a total disaster through and through, and practically everyone agrees with this assessment. We NEED some way to filter and restrict who can post what, otherwise all is lost. If Post Approval cannot be figured out, then we might as well just discard the entirety of the devforums as a failure.

#67

Patience is the key to success, it’s better to always be patient rather than ranting that the flag system is ineffective due to the long response of the moderator team. As long as the post has been flagged, it’s better to not reply on it, I don’t see why it’s a problem to you considering the fact that the community has flagged it and the post has a higher chance of being taken down.
Even though the response for the flagged post to be deleted could be taken long, you could just browse other topics in that category rather than focusing on the ones already hidden due to community flags.
Until the new process comes along, our temporary solution to our situation is to flag irrelevant or off-category topics.

If you’ve read my earlier statement, closing down #development-discussion made it look like you completely destroyed the use of a category. What’s the point of Members being able to see threads there, if they can’t reply, or create topics. Closing it down completely should not be an option, closing the ability for creating topics temporarily at #development-discussion is a more suitable solution rather than closing down the entire category.
Regulars already have #lounge, and we don’t need #development-discussion to be Regular-only, sure I agree they make Regulars to have the ability to make the topics in #development-discussion, but closing down replies for Members would just lose the purpose of the category being made in the first place.
Remember, not all Members who reply at #development-discussion create trash posts, some also have contributive replies about what the thread was talking about.
The only main issue about #development-discussion is the trash topics, not the posts.

There’s no point in ranting that there’s no Post Approval for the forum, we can only be patient until the Developer Engagement Team, could find a solution or replacement for Post Approval, we can’t expect they’re doing nothing about it.

#68

I agree with this, this is why I no longer use the forum, however manual approval isn’t scalable/possible. Here’s a topic which I made which explains why it’s not scalable.

This is not possible people can copy showcases and it’s impossible to tell if it’s copied.

What? How does not knowing what a local variable make you a troller/spammer. Not everyone who enters this forum is a scripter or has to know everything about scripting. People shouldn’t be excluded from the forum for not knowing something about development since some people come here to learn.

Currently, I don’t really have a good solution for this, and it’s pretty hard to stop this (also why the official Roblox forums fell (spammers). But the thing you’re proposing is NOT the way to go.

3 Likes
#69

I’m sorry, but do we really want people in here that have zero development knowledge? At least have them make basic things from the DevHub.

Simple fix: make it a Studio screenshot that has their username in the corner of Studio. Probably can be edited but definitely a lot harder.

Sorry for using an anecdote, I also included the DevEx anecdote.

#70

Yes, I do. How can someone learn without being taught?

8 Likes
#71

There’s so many other resources to make your first steps with, including this forum (read-only). All of the basic questions have been answered either here or developer.roblox.com, so it’s just going to be full of duplicate topics.

#72

By copying showcases I literally mean copying someone’s builds using exploits (synpase:saveInstance()) and pasting it in studio. Or using an uncopylocked place and using that for your showcase.

1 Like
#73