Due to the low threshold and as more and more users join the forum it has become evident to me that the quality of posts being made are sub-par. While I’m no here to debate about thresholds and such mainly since its been addressed a million times before and buildthomas will defenestrate me, instead I want to talk about how we can address the low quality of posts and help new members to this forum create better posts (I am not referring to people with ‘member’ title, just people generally who joined the forum a few days ago).
Firstly I would like to suggest a standard flagging option for ‘It’s low quality’ on this menu in addition to an official rule against low quality posts since it only leads to spam replies and general negative behaviour, I think we can all say the temptation to react when someone creates a useless post and complains about low quality help can be overwhelming.
I don’t feel that this is a problem that should only be reduced by brute force however, I feel for topics there should be a 200 character requirement to prevent generally brief topics with a ban on a ‘200 CHARS, 200 CHARS 200 CHARS etc.’, I also feel there should be a tutorial for creating a full higher quality post, since currently the tutorial only addresses features of posts, this tutorial should be given within the feedback message. I also feel it should be made compulsory for users to complete the standard tutorial before gaining access to the forum.
These are all simple changed that can hopefully give users constructive feedback and help when structuring and creating posts and it should hopefully have secondary affect including the reduction of spam replies complaining about lack of information in topics.
I have my full support with this. I’ve noticed a lot of low-quality posts on the forum and most of the time these people are either reacting in negative behavior or spam their own post and make it a bigger problem. I do believe a “200-character-requirement-” would definitely be needed and could potentially help reduce low-quality or spam posts, tho we should have different requirements for each category. The current system in order to join the forum is pretty easy to join and become a new member without having the least required skills and/or knowledge of the studio. We should enforce the forum rules a lot more by adding requirements harder to achieve or that need knowledge.
Edit: Therefore, we should provide more information for the new users on how can they get started.
I must admit, I greatly support this. As a member, I agree that low quality posts can lead to spam, but not necessarily negativity. People may be constructive when asking for more details and such, not negative. But it can certainly be overwhelming. A little guide to creating posts rich in quality seems like a good idea to me, as many people may not know how to properly expand their post without making most of it redundant to the issue. A minimum of 200 characters would be a great requirement for posts, as some posts may be shorter, therefore lacking a lot of information necessary. Obviously, the minimum of 30 character for replies, not topics, should be kept.
Every post must contribute meaningful content. This is already a rule which you can flag posts for by selecting “something else” and explaining why and how it isn’t meaningful (please don’t go crazy, only flag objectively bad posts).
The issue with implementing a 200 character requirement is that it’s hard to quantify meaningful contributions. There are many cases where valuable feedback or good posts can be under 200 characters.
It’s hard to teach users how to post properly without them actually posting, so I’m not sure how helpful a forced tutorial would be. Post approval does a wonderful job of restricting posts into more serious categories and providing feedback to help new users learn how to use the categories properly.
I don’t think there’s any other way to learn how to post properly. This means that the non-PA categories aren’t as tightly controlled and are more prone to low quality posts, but this is where flagging can come in, or alternatively community members can privately message the user helpful tips on how to improve their posts.
I don’t think this is a problem in platform feedback. Do you have specific categories in mind where this is a big issue?
Flagging and deletion really shouldn’t be used for lower-quality posts in my opinion. The fact that some people here have comparatively less experience with post formatting (and possibly the English language) than others doesn’t mean we need to delete their posts. That’s confusing and nit-picky.
If a new option for flagging is added, it should be for posts lacking information (ex. hiring posts that don’t follow the format or give insubstantial details), not posts that are below the quality generally desired.
Also, 30 characters can be too much in some circumstances, and 200 characters is absolutely absurd. A massive amount of posts don’t require so many characters (ex. “I’ve sent you my application”, “I am interested in this position, contact me here”, etc.). A 200 character limit would cause people to add superfluous information to meet the character limit.
A tutorial for higher-quality posts is an interesting idea, though I don’t see a way it could easily be done since the quality of posts is purely relative to the category the post is in. You should probably come up with some ideas on how to add that feature if you’re advocating it.
The forum has clear rules for all users, that you are required to read. Failure to follow such rules has appropriate punishment. The staff does an excellent job of keeping these forums clean.
Edit: I see now that you guys are advocating for a 200-char limit on main topics, not posts…terminology confused me. I still think it’s a bit too high, especially for #help-and-feedback:building-support and #help-and-feedback:scripting-support posts that are easy to explain. Perhaps something like a 50-75 character limit would work.
(Continuing what Galaxy said), True; and not only, but most of the time people are also seeking help in regards to information that’s already provided in the Developer Hub, which is accessible for anyone to visit with full information on learning what they’re looking for. It’d be great to enforce the use of Developer Hub more often and a great idea would be before people post their threads, to have a new UI popping up showing similar posts with similar titles and saying “Do these posts answer your question?”. That way we can reduce the posts with simple questions and the ones that have the same question with another one.
@byc14 would firstly like to apologise to you and @frogg_r for incorrect terminology when stating post I was inferring to ‘topics’ and not replies, I have edited the posttopic to clear up confusion!
Couldn’t agree more, post approval is Amazing, yet in un-reviewed catagories such as collaboration and support it would be impractical for all posts to be reviewed,
Being real here, 9/10 people post the feedback (generally negative) in the replies which causes spam, in the past I was also guilty of this so I know that realistically this is not a problem going to be stopped soon.
Not discriminating over a language barrier is actually something im big on, I respect people who have take the time to learn my language even if their fluency is not perfect. By low quality I was inferring more lacking of information / entirely unclear.
Another solution I just thought of is making the first topic of the user go through post approval so they learn the basics in a practical way.
Apologies, if I said post anywhere through assume I mean topic, bad habit I guess.
You’re very true but, we could have an easier and simple guide that could contribute to teaching new users such as I believe the forum should promote a lot more and enforce the Developer Hub, which in most cases is what answers lots of people’s questions.
The issue with support categories is discourse (the forum software used) is a discussion forum and doesn’t support the functionality required for these sorts of categories. There’s no weighted visibility for topics and replies to topics in those categories, or threaded responses. Ideally bad posts would be less visible than good posts without manual intervention.
Ways to improve the categories are actively being discussed.
You can flag any obvious posts which are spam in support or collaboration for deveng to review.
There are already resources pinned to the top of each category, and a FAQ page. I’m not sure visibility is an issue. No matter how much they’re promoted, some users won’t read them and some users will need practical experience going through post approval to get the hang of it.
It’s more a basis to stop the lowest level of quality posts such as It open studio and it crashes after 5 mins how do I fix?’, however I agree it’s not a final solution.
I believe my best solution currently is making all users first topics go though post approval, i understand this would require more manpower however posts wouldn’t need to be accessed to the same quality as posts going into say community tutorials.
@LuaBearyGood
I have to say I do want to agree with you, but there are some flaws in your plans. For example me and other builders like to get feedback on our builds and we use short captioning and images for our post not needing anywhere near to your 200 character limit. While I do not think that all the post on Robloxs’ Forum are that great there are reasons that is happening that are not within our control. For example Roblox is growing everyday, a lot more then it used to. This is because more Devs’ are joining the Roblox community and some make very successful games, while others our more mediocre. What I’m trying to say is the Roblox Dev community is no longer a few hundred boys and girls that all know each other fairly well and are all making the best games on Roblox, because its not like that anymore. Unless you want to impose a strict rule on letting new members into the Dev Forum I suggest not arguing this topic. Now, I do really respect you and the things you’ve done for the community, but that doesn’t mean that this is the right course of action for Roblox’s future. Please take this all into consideration. Thanks.
