Reasons as to quality of members/newer users posting

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#1

In categories such as #development-discussion, the quality of posts is diminishing. While some of the users may downright choose to ignore forum guidelines, or create pointless discussion, I feel there are some reasons why they continue to do so.

There are suggestions on #forum-feedback over improving the quality of discussion, but many members don’t look into it anyways.

Every so often, there may be a discussion topic created by members + that contribute to what people are kindly expressing their thoughts about. Every so often these topics blow up and, users may or may not use it as an incentive to post in discussion. For example if a lounge-like topic was created, many members may think hmm, I should create one too. In #forum-feedback, people encourage to create quality topics that are fit for discussion. Lounge-like topics should belong in #lounge. However, if there’s inconsistencies then we catch on and soon it’s a long chain. I say that there are inconsistencies in every aspect of the forum, but if we reduce these inconsistencies then users can understand is what is excepted of them when posting, especially in categories such as discussion.

Discussion also has a very vague description. Users shouldn’t be to blame for what they post, if it’s lounge like and it fits the description, then it’s not wrong; is it?

Finally, newer users should be given freedom of what they post. But there’s also a line that has to be drawn. The forum should be able to filer in people capable of using it correctly, while educating users incapable of doing so. Discussion is a great example. Narrowing the description, and making change between all of us can encourage users to follow through.

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#2

Still looking at it as Regular vs Member is the issue. There are 2 ends of the spectrum. On one end is users completely capable of using the forum unaided, and on the other end are users who actively misuse the forum.

It’s not that Regulars hate Members, that’d be silly. The issue is that statistically it is much more likely for a Member to be on the lower side of the spectrum than a Regular is.

You mention about users going from Member to Regular and then complaining about the former in the span of a week. What more likely happens is users were either capable of properly using the forum before or eventually got accustomed to it were promoted, and they at that point likely held similar views as the Regulars tend to.

It is of my personal opinion that DevRel should handle promotion of users as soon as it’s possible to see that they understand how to use the forum. But I don’t work for Roblox, and I don’t know that they have those kind of resources.

So until promotion is made easier and capable users are filtered in, we’ll end up with the upper part of the spectrum feeling their experience affected by those in the lower part. It just happens to be that Members are more likely to reside in that lower part.

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#3

It’s just a bit sad that I’m lost to what to actually believe. Why is it that the upper spectrum contradict their own beliefs. I’ve seen this happen wayyyy too many times. If the uppers complains about lounge like topics, then why is the upper creating it? There’s so much contradiction, I’m honestly lost.

Btw, the one week span thingy was a exaggeration. I always felt like the forum is like divided.

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#4

I can’t really speak about hypocrisy from others. I’ve haven’t personally seen regulars (in the sense of frequent users) do this.

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#5

Please don’t misunderstand the Regulars’ posts. From what I’ve seen, in discussion posts, even though they are repeatedly asked (post without searching), many regulars still reply in a helpful way. But no one can do that forever, there’s a breaking point in which the matter heads over to Forum Feedback.

I don’t think most meta posts are that offensive to members, especially PSAs. If people don’t learn anything from it, then I don’t know what to say. And sure, there are many threads that claim we need close off certain categories to members, but it’s not false that most members violate the category guidelines.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t regulars are better than members thing, but rather a “learn front those posts rather than push back.”

It’s just that if members are much more careful in creating posts, they would think twice if the category is wrong. I remember when I was a member, I checked many times if the category was correct before posting. Back then, I didn’t see any meta posts complaining about the problem that we’re having now. I honestly just learned myself.

Even if many member do learn after their mistakes, there’s the newer generation that also needs to learn. From the outside, it looks like members don’t stop breaking rules, a misunderstanding. But with that being said, most members don’t even look at Forum Feedback most of the times, some continue to make mistakes.

A good solution to this is diverting members to the Forum Feedback category first, before any other category, so that they have time to search what is being talked about there. Hopefully, after reading, they learn, but at least they’ve visited their category, unlike now.

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#6

Yes, people make mistakes. And that’s why they can succeed today. With the criticisms they had, blamed or whatsoever, it’s the critical parts that helped us to improve something. I know that Regulars or old Members complains about new users on dev forum, but that’s just how life and success works. No person success without hates or blames. Only failures comes with no patience.

#7

I apologise If It seemed like I misunderstood the posts. I was simply pointing out the forum in the perspective of members. It isn’t this kind of superiority sort of thing between members and regulars, it just always feels like the term member has a negative connotation. In my post, I explained hypocritical behaviour which may not be frequent but still happen. I just feel that users should be acknowledging other sides or possible reasons for members crap posting or whatever, then rather just stating the obvious.

#8

As someone who regularly flags bad posts, I can confirm that most (although, not all) of them have that pink ‘New Member’ tag.

I myself (and others) are in favour of [new] members that regularly make good contributions being promoted to regular; that’s the point of the trust level, to show that the user is (mostly*) trusted to make high-quality or acceptable-quality posts unaided, as such they gain special priveleges that can be eaisly abused, such as lounge or platform feedback.

If you are a new member making good contributions and being labelled as a spammer and untrustworthy by association, I genuinely feel bad for you, however until DET provide the new promotion system, there’s not really much that can do. This is a tricky issue without an easy solution; cast the net too wide, and you get a lot of spammers; cast it too low, and a lot of contributors are locked out of higher trust levels.

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#9

Really tired of this whole “class system” we have going on on the devforum. This community should be about game development on Roblox.

I hope DevRel gets rid of forum ranks and titles entirely and finds a way to make the forum work without needing to bar off certain sections depending on “level”. There’s way too many dozens of toxic/meta-driven people on the “upper” end of the spectrum and the trust levels / titles are the primary cause of that. Would be very refreshing not to see so much focus on trust levels and maybe disincentivize these people from participating, to give more room for the people that actually create content actively and don’t have toxic personalities.

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#10

I can truly agree with you. I feel like Regulars don’t treat us members the same. We are on the same road to become a Regular, the same road they were on.
Some might know the situation I’m talking about but I had a Regular telling me that the website I made would never work out and nobody would ever use it. I felt very hurt, and especially when it’s coming from a popular community member, a well known developer, a community champion. Even though this unnamed user did apologize, it still hurt and still does hurt.

Now I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything but I just want to get the story out. :eyes:

#11

Literally making topics like these make the problem worse. Heck, maybe the regulars are treating the members poorly(although I don’t really see that), making a topic like this makes it worse. People don’t want to be made fun of, so they want to blend in with he crowd, hence the reason why these topics make it worse–people want to agree because they don’t want to be called out.

What I really think is that, unironically, members are mistreating regulars, not the other way around. We spend out time volunteering on the forums, to help people. Regulars know what to expect on the forum, and have dealt with it before.

Think of it this way: What if all regulars were removed from the forum? What would happen?

#12

Do you have any suggestions on how they can allow others to post and others to not without having levels?

I’ll keep you guys updated when I think of a way this can be fixed.

#13

Not sure if you misunderstood, but my point is this is wrong to begin with.

They should instead make it much easier to file topics with proper format in Platform Feedback and much harder to mess it up (accidentally), that way they can have it open to all. A pinned guidelines topic doesn’t work because people do not read this.

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#14

So you want a template just how there is a template for portfolios? I would defiantly vouch for this anytime.

Even better, they could force people to read the guidelines and then have a test that proves that they understand it. (I’m not too sure if tests are a thing on Discourse though.)

#15

Here’s my response to this. I agree and don’t agree with this topic.
The whole stigma between Members and Regulars is a very powerful topic on the Developer Forum. I agree with this topic in some ways because whenever new members join, I do see sometimes, they’re being treated unfairly, and that’s a slight point you pointed out. However, I don’t agree with half of the statements you made.

They don’t complain about members, that is completely not true. They just suggest ways for members to properly and to teach new members how to use the forum. That’s basically the whole point of Regular status, they help out. The ironic thing is that you made this post thinking that all Regulars are “top dawgs” or “since that, I’m a regular I can complain all I want and mistreat members”, so from the post-it looked like you mistreated them. Finally, it’s the whole meaning of the rank, this proves that they’re capable of using the forum correctly and they help out others, volunteering members if they need help.

While I do agree with some of it though. I do sometimes feel that Regulars can be a bit-harsh to members, but it’s all a deeper side to both parties. Both parties need to be understood.

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#16

This is an impossible task, It has been proven, as you said yourself that members do not tend to read these posts, and if members do not read there requirements then I don’t understand how you are realistically going to communicate the guidelines too them? The only solutions I can think of which are alternates to reading are just humorous.

Im not going to deny your point, however I would appreciate a realistic example of how a reduction of accidental crap posting can be achieved.

@Crazedbrick1 there are already templates, people just delete them when they start writing their post.

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#17

Were you not a Member once, we all begin here, we all have our own qualities, if we all try hard enough we can make the other fall to our knees and make them begin talking crap.

There is no spectrum here, or atleast there should not be. we can all type, and if we can not do it properly our place is not in this forum, but as guests.

As a regular, I think you should re-evaluate this statement by looking around. take a look at what is going on, Regulars bullying Members in groups.

That is exactly what I think we should do, look at the situation right now, people of the middle class fighting for their lives while the higher class points guns at protestors as if they are dangerous. This thing shouldn’t happen here, we’re all about development, not about classes.

I want to tell you of another forum that I participate in. We have roles, but they don’t really matter. you can still post while being civil, there are guidlines but they aren’t as strict, allowing people a maneuvering space, eliminating the need for off topic posts. there is moderation, and they manage to ban and strike just who needs to be. it feels like a civil and friendly place for both moderators and a user who just joined. so it has not been proven to be impossible, as evident above.

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#18

Bro, calm the hell down; you’re overreacting heavily.

That forum you participate in has different requirements; the DevForum has some ten thousand users, with some of them being quite young (when they shouldn’t be here :angry:). Normal forum etqieutte and forum systems (like flags) simply don’t work at this scale. In fact, the DevForum did used to work that way; then it grew.

This is why the trust level system was created and used in the first place; to automate spam combating and to sandbox new users to prevent damage (paraphrasing Discourse co-founder Jeff Atwood). The primary issue with the forum is that users that do make good contributions are not being recognized, or are discouraged from posting due to the less than glamerous status the forum has currently.

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#19

Except this topic is the other way around lol. Members victimizing themselves and regulars being villainized. This just contributes to the toxicity.

As a regular im a bit scared of even talking about this because im going to be villainized for being “anti-member”. And you can’t compare not having the same access as a regular to “fighting for your life”. Tl2 generally have more forum experience than tl1, so tl2 generally knows what they are doing. Heck, that is even the point of trust levels; to show which users have gained more trust. “Removing trust levels” is unreal since it is just raising the standards for new users they can’t be expected to be perfect from the get-go. Here, that is the purpose of the tl1 sandbox; so that new members can organically grow into regular contributors of the forum (tl2).

That is your community, which is objectively smaller than the devforum community with over hundreds of thousands of accounts registered, and only a couple thousand of those participating frequently.

1 Like
#20

I would like to clarify that no, I was never a Member. I joined the forum before that change. But my point remains, because I was once part of the group that didn’t know how to use the forum very well.

However you want to think of it: spectrum, line, curve. There are people more accustomed to how to properly use a forum than others, and everyone looking at the public-ish categories can see that.

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