New Promotion System Proposal

Forum Help Forum Features
#1

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard and tedious to make bug reports and feature requests as a Member. This is because in order to do this, you must require help from some third party person, which this can either be a friend who’s a Regular, or a DevRel member.

This is because these categories require posters to be Regular+ to post, and on September 2020, the promotion system from Member → Regular was deprecated, and we were told that a new system would be out soon, but now it’s almost September of 2021, so one year has passed since that day and there’s still no promotion system.

A proposal that I have for this new system is a point based system, where every “positive action” done on a user account is a certain amount of points. If you need more of a visual aspect of what this can look like, here’s an example:

Point Requirement for Promotion: 1000
Making a post: +40
Making a reply: +20
Getting a like: +1 (this can be removed if you want)
Getting a post deleted (locked and unlisted) by user flags: -80
Getting a reply deleted: -40

Things like Join Date and the rate of deleted posts/replies would also go into account. For example, if someone is a frequent offender and gets most of their posts and replies deleted, then they are disqualified to become a Regular. Also, if someone goes below 1000 points, they get demoted until they reach 1000 points again. This is because then someone can’t just screw around with their newly founded permissions

Current Regulars won’t need to follow this system as they already did the work required to get the rank, but I won’t mind if you impose it on them

You might ask then what’s stopping someone from spamming posts/replies to get these points: Nothing really, but the DevForum community has grown to mostly flags posts that actually deserve to get flagged, and once their locked and unlisted, all their efforts would go to waste

If someone were to bypass these filters, if they get caught, they will face a permanent ban on their DevForum account, which can’t be appealable.

If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my experience using the forum because then making bug reports and feature requests won’t be as tedious as it is now, and it’ll be possible for people to become Regulars again

If you have a question that I didn’t address in this post, please post it in the replies and I’ll try to answer

I might make changes to this depending on feedback that I get, but these changes won’t be applied until later

19 Likes
#3

I know it was kinda out there, that’s why I just put it there to see what others thought, though I do believe a DevForum account ban should be justified

1 Like
#4

I also want a new promotion system, but there are a few issues regarding your “point requirements” that I would like to mention.

This would cause users to make more low-quality topics because it gets them points to level up to regular.

This would also encourage users to make non-contributive replies and bypass the character limit so they can make replies faster.

All this will do is encourage users to make meme/troll posts to get likes.

So all someone needs to do is make four replies when their topic gets deleted to make up for it?

These requirements will also turn the DevForum into a game, and it will deteriorate after that since you can just spam topics and replies to get to regular.

12 Likes
#5

It was actually September 1, 2020. I vaguely remember post approval still existing when I first joined, though I didn’t use it.

The problem with this is there are a lot of users who only post things in Cool Creations that don’t really deserve to be ranked. They aren’t really contributing much, and besides, some people aren’t actually developers (or good ones) yet they still post a lot.

If this were to be implemented the posts should ONLY count for:

  • scripting support (replies only, double points for solutions)
  • building support (replies only, double points for solutions)
  • game design support (solutions only)
  • resources (both, posts only)

Those are the only categories where anything is helpful. Deleting anything, even years later, would revoke the points.

Also, getting anything deleted would have to be more harsh. Under your system, someone could screw up with posts 1/3 rd of the time and eventually rank up quickly.

6 Likes
#6

This looks like a very flawed system that only encourages further abuse of the forum. I suggest refining it a lot more as well as doing further research on how and why things are how they currently are.

6 Likes
#7

I like this system too, but remember that users can set their own posts as the solution, making it really for them to level up to regular.

Also, I feel like people are going to spam any #help-and-feedback:scripting-support topic with low-quality replies to try and get solutions to get to regular.

2 Likes
#8

I said in the post that if they frequently get their posts deleted, then they would be disqualified for promotion

I just now thought of this, so it can really depend on what DevRel does with it, and I wouldn’t really care if they just decide to not implement it

I address this by saying that if people are caught spamming, they would get their DevForum account banned

I do like that idea, but it should also include #development-discussion posts as I’ve seen some pretty nice discussions being start in there

#9

Stats should not be a requirement for leveling up, this will make new users creating low-balled topics, terrible responses to professional or new commers, and inflation on a user’s profile.

Wait for DET to finish up, or establish a new promotion system, we shouldn’t have members just grind stats for the sake of a title, do we? The previous system should be brought back than this suggestion imo.

9 Likes
#10

You have a point there, I feel like maybe points should only be awarded for solutions given by other users in those categories.

For example, that would mean that I would have been ranked up forever ago, and so would you.

For every good discussion, there’s about 25 low-quality ones. Discussion points should be awarded manually or not at all (I prefer not at all).

4 Likes
#11

But this isn’t going to be something that can be easily moderated; many people are going to be spamming to get to regular, and it will be too much for the small team of moderators.

#development-discussion is the last place where users should be awarded for posting in. That category is a disaster and it will encourage further troll/meme topics in #development-discussion.

4 Likes
#12

The old system iirc was deprecated due to the influx of requested posts. I made this post to represent an automatic way to get Regular, which imo stats has to be included in some way or another

#13

what if there’s botting issues for this regular promotion system that you’re talking about?

#14

I feel like it’ll be obvious that someone would be botting threads and replies, so those can be flagged, and the spammer can be banned

#15

Feature requests should be focused on a problem, not a proposed solution.

As for the proposed solution, it’s not a good one. It’s far too easy for users to abuse metrics this way, especially considering that there are a large number of users who are incapable of posting properly or don’t bother to read rules. Committing any of these actions is not inherently positive.

The trust level’s label makes sense; you don’t need Regular if you’re not an active user of the forum. Bug and feature request categories are acknowledged by DevRel as something more users need access to and is working on a solution that will scale with the forum’s growth.

4 Likes
#16

System seems a bit flawed, I mean likes and number is posts/topics shouldn’t even be considered. It about the quality of posts/topics. Sadly the DET doesn’t have enough force to check on over 100k+ people’s posts/topics, meaning we have to rely on auto promotion or manual promotion.

#17

I believe some people on Cool Creation deserve to be ranked. I feel like only the people who only reply “No feedback! It’s absolutely perfect!!” on every post shouldn’t be worthy. But, the people who are strongly criticizing and, helping others improve their work should be ranked.

#18

Why don’t you come up with a better solution? Instead you just point out flaws without any benefit of value.

#19

Can you think of any reason why @Friendly4Crafter is wrong? I’m centrist in this issue leaning towards “it could be better with improvements” but I have to agree that points will encourage users to spam posts and replies.

A user does not have to come up with a solution just to criticize something, nor is a proposed solution automatically “good” because someone can’t find a better one. For example, the “best” solution to keep <13 users off of the forum is ID verification, but that’s still not a “good” solution. Also, could you explain why you are in support of this post?

5 Likes
#20

I liked Discourse’s original intention behind trust levels. Maybe the original requirements can be a guideline for creating new promotion criteria.

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Of course, these requirements are merely meant for ‘smaller’ communities (and this criteria is very easy to reach). The DevForum is a large community, but the idea behind is good. It can help crafting new criteria for the Regular rank and enforcing inactive regulars to work on their activity (instead of being lucky that they applied when it was possible).

Moderation benefits like how Discourse intended it to be shouldn’t be given, the DevForum has a higher rate of abuse given the fact it’s intended for younger developers. (That’s why communities like Stack Overflow benefit from granting moderation benefits over time, since their audience is much more serious)

Source to Discourse Trust Levels, written by the co-founder of Stack Overflow:

8 Likes
#21

That’s interesting, I wonder why you think that?