I’ve noticed that with a large number of new members that joined through the new entry process, the #platform-feedback:documentation-requests category is often abused as it is the only platform feedback category new members can create topics in. I’ve seen on average 4 topics in there every day that have nothing to do with the developer hub itself, but rather a new member posting there for an unrelated subject, such as a bug report or feature request (I’m not going to call anyone out or link to any posts). It’s safe to assume these posts slightly annoy the IX team who regularly use this category to find issues on the developer hub.
So, the leading question here: Should new members have access to post in the documentation requests category in the first place? Here are the pros and cons I can think of if the permissions stay the same as is (new members have topic creation permissions).
Pros
Faster process for reporting developer hub issues (approval process isn’t necessarily that slow, this would be a tiny bit faster, however).
New members get familiar with posting in the platform feedback channels.
Cons
Abused category- new members post here when attempting to post in a different category (such as #platform-feedback:web-features).
(Possible) confusion can occur when new members realize they can post there but no other platform feedback category.
So, what’s your opinion on the matter? Should new members have access to create posts in this category? Why or why not? (discussion open for anyone but please contribute, don’t just say “yes” or “no”.)
Note
I’m not against new members, nor do I mean to target anyone in particular (as almost all new members have read the approval process prior to posting). I just think that there is little reason for new members to have access to the documentation requests category in particular, due to the reasons stated above. The approval process works as it should for the other platform feedback categories, and I don’t see the harm of also making this category go through that process.
Yes, new members should have the ability to create topics in Documentation Requests
No, new members should not have the ability to create topics in Documentation Requests
0voters
tl;dr Should new members have access to post in the #platform-feedback:documentation-requests category? Why/why not?
I think it’s a double edged sword, if access to #platform-feedback:documentation-requests was restricted you’d start seeing posts pop up in #development-support, and if documentation requests were added to the post approval process it’d only increase the amount of work for lead top contributors, and increase wait times for users to have their (more important to the forum) feature requests/bug reports reviewed and moved.
I think it’s best for the community to point them in the right direction by posting the following quote:
I do see your point however, but there isn’t really any other alternative, plus it allows New Members to demonstrate that they’re capable of contributing to the forum outside of the existing post approval process. That’s why the New Member role exists afaik, to slowly integrate people into a professional environment.
This is the fault of the new members who abuse it, not the category itself. There’s nothing about the category that would expect higher than average post quality (unlike boards like Feature Requests and Bug Reports).
This is true, but still not convincing enough to warrant locking the entire category for them.
My thoughts as a new member:
There are definitely pros and cons to a topic like this. While I would love to have unrestricted access to all categories and sub categories, it would allow the forum to stray away from the professional and well kept attitude we used to have.
With the recent influx of new members being accepted just for looking around, there need to be more guidelines and restrictions in place. We’ve seen a large increase in very unproductive posts and players who have rocked up and are very obviously not reading the rules, not to mention we’ve seen people getting accepted who aren’t developers.
For categories that are deemed more serious and are visible to the public, I don’t think new members should be allowed to post in, not until they have demonstrated themselves as being productive and able to maintain good quality conversation.
The issue is alot of the new members don’t exactly know where everything is meant to go, but that is natural. The forum is quite enclosed and still even some sections are off limits to new members.
Personally, I’ve seen alot of threads on the #bulletin-board category that really shouldn’t be there, like rather random items not concerning roblox, but I think the only change that should be made is making it clearer to the new members but also make sure they can demonstrate maturity and knowledge of a forum before trying to use this.
This isn’t to say that all new members are incorrectly posting on the forum, but obviously it needs improvement in general.
Your cons aren’t convincing enough.