I think there should be a reason about why the title is being edited, like post removals. Because it’s like being banned without a reason, that will keep the question of (Why my post title has been changed anonymously?)
with anonymously, I mean the reason is not known
Thanks for reading 
We’re looking into making better use of tags. The problem is that we’ll probably have to delete almost all of the current tags and restrict the creation of tags (and then manually create a whole suite of applicable tags) because the system has been horribly misused over the years.
Also, an important distinction: the Post Approval Team and the Community Sages are not forum moderators.
Would it be helpful if the aforementioned parties posted in the topic, e.g. “Topic title changed from X to Y”? Or are you just completely against the concept in general of changing topic titles, even if it improves forum functionality and topic discoverability?
Could you guys DM the author first to discuss the changes before making them? this way whatever change you want to make wouldn’t be misinterpreted.
Though at the very least if a change was made to a post the post would then get some sort of -clearly distinguishable- sticker indicating that its been modified??
Until better solutions are available, perhaps something like a small footer at the bottom of the post along the lines of “Edited by @user at date” would satisfy all parties?
I think there shouldn’t be any content modification by anyone except the author, at all. If the content is inappropriate, remove it; if it is almost the same as another, merge it; else, leave it. The idea of “improving” by rephrasing is stupid if it is done by someone else. I am the author and I should be in total control of what gets written.
If you really want to keep on doing this however, you should only suggest edits by messaging the authors, nothing else.
I’m seeing this suggestion a lot in this topic so I’d like to explain why I personally do not believe it to be an effective solution at all.
I used to send feedback and suggestions to users on their topics when things were inaccurate or poorly phrased and for the grand majority of cases, users never made the suggested changes and/or outright ignored my DMs entirely. While in a perfect world discussing changes with OP before making them is the ideal way to go about handling this, it does not work in reality.
As explained before, changes are always made for very good usability-oriented reasons, and do not change core content; they improve the function of the forum for everybody else, including engineers in the case of #platform-feedback, which is extremely important. Often, these changes are not really suggestions.
It’s unfortunate that it results in some toe-stepping, but in the context of a large-scale forum meant as a resource for the entire community, as well as the company itself, I believe this is necessary. It is not feasible to discuss minor phrasing changes or clarifying additions with every single user.
This is just my opinion of course.
I think this change would be the most ideal as it includes what the original title was. The issue isn’t the intent of the editor, it’s merely that miscommunication is an unavoidable eventuality. Word-choice can be vital, and the poster merely does not want their intent to be misconstrued.
If your post is edited, Discourse sends you a notification automatically, and you can see the edit history at any time.
I am completely against any content being changed by a 3rd party without permission. The problem of changing our post content isn’t that it’s done anonymously, it’s that it’s done at all.
If it is not feasible, and not necessary, then why force an edit?
This is very troubling to me.
If there is no urgency, then there is nothing wrong with just leaving the post be as it is and shooting the author a message advising them to edit it. If it’s urgently necessary, it should be removed.
In the end it should not be up to you how my post is phrased. I also don’t believe that editing people’s posts is, at all necessary or moral for a forum site, no matter how large or small.
Content should either be allowed, or denied, never amended by anyone except the author.
If you go to any large forum or site, then posts are edited by admins.
In Forum Feedback, PA can make minor edits to improve a post when it comes to fitting in to forum standards.
Personal Information that is leaked accidentally should be removed immediately — not ‘send the user a message and wait for a reply’
Users are sent a notification of any edits, are able to see edit history, and usually get sent a PM whenever someone makes larger changes to their post.
Changing the wording of a post does not impact its meaning. DET nor PA nor sages are going to completely change what your post is trying to say, but rather improve it to fit in with the forum’s bar of quality; and provide feedback when necessary.
See:
These changes are oftentimes necessary for aforementioned reasons, most particularly in #platform-feedback.
To add onto this as well, improving searchability of topics decreases the number of duplicate topics users create.
This does not hold for topics such as bug reports. Simply deleting the topic because it’s subtly incorrect in title or has unclear repro steps is absurd. However, the topic needs to be edited within the day, preferably the hour, as soon as possible, because engineers may pick up on it at any moment.
If it’s a hot issue, then making it as searchable as possible will help prevent other users from creating dozens of duplicates as well.
If this occurs, the post should be removed or hidden, like any asset on Roblox.
… Of course it does! By definition.
Well, it’s happened to me in the past, and I’m sure it’s happened to many others, and it will continue to happen so long as there is no policy against it.
In all such cases, please notify DET directly if any inappropriate changes was made, including a link to the post.
Every time I make an edit, that edit is in an audit and can be seen by all PA, Sages, plus DET.
Should we then have global post approval to maximize the efficiency of the content that gets posted to the forum? That’s a lot of vetting…
Edit: In all seriousness, you’re really campaigning for “ideal world” scenarios. Unfortunately, topics with bad titles are going to be tough to find and tougher to incite action. “I don’t want to pay for uploading sounds” is a personal desire; “Audio should be free to upload” is a feature request.
Improving the discoverability of topics/posts is more so a cosmetic measure than anything else, and doesn’t warrant these anonymous edits. At the very least, as mentioned by many above, publicly visible notes or tags that highlight both the editors and their additions/alterations to the original text would be fine (out of respect for the original poster).
Discoverability is not cosmetic. If you’re posting a feature request or bug report, you want that to be discoverable by Roblox engineers.
Edit: We’ll discuss this policy as a team on Monday. Personally, I don’t think everyone’s grasping the value of clear topic titles.
Although, you are correct here, Soybeen does have a point regarding his perspective of things, words should not be amended unless absolutely necessary, like in the example you provided where the engineers have to locate a bug report.
Both of these are completely viable at the same time.
You should absolutely be comfortable editing posts, including titles. This sort of active curation is healthy. Communicating at the bottom of the post that an edit was made will work.
I really believe that the only reason they have to edit the posts are because of people not being smart about what they write down on the dev forum. I do agree there should be messages sent for when they decide they need to change something, but I believe this is to make the community more healthy and professional. Also to help new developers a little bit so they can get use to making posts here.
Even if the forum technology does not support adding better tags, that’s no excuse to rewrite what someone has written, and the software needs to catch up.
The principle is privacy.
It is a complete breach as far as I’m concerned, and many agree with me. This is why I started the thread. It’s clear that many people share a very negative view towards 3rd party authoring.
This is an unhealthy Roblox-knows-best dynamic and needs to be revised.
If the policy is sacrificing individual liberty down to the level of my wording for the greater organization of the forums, then it becomes a place I do not want to contribute to, and that’s not good.
If there’s no doubt the information can be used for engineer benefit, then the information should be filed internally over Jira, or the Slack, or by some method other than rephrasing our posts to improve discoverability.
The Post Approval process is already enough to ensure that topics are filed in relevant categories, and contain relevant information. Any further priority or relevance can certainly be interpreted by a happening engineer.
If an engineer is using the forum to gain information on a serious inquiry, it is completely within their power to contact the author of the post to gain clarity, extra specification, etc, using the same forum software.
If a duplicate topic is created, they should be merged to the best fit, or an umbrella thread should be created where the moderator may choose the best title for the bundled request.
There is no circumstance where authoring our posts for us is necessary. It is also not a job anyone should want to do.
We would all be better off if content that did not meet forum criteria was completely withheld until amended by the OP.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Other methods should be used for organizing posts. If I chose a title, I chose it for a reason. You can suggest, you can withhhold my post for irrelevancy, but you should not interject your own material into the content of mine.