Refine the scope of 'Development Discussion'

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#1

The Problem

Since the removal of Post Approval on Dev Discussion posts, it has become a lot more difficult to find quality threads or discussions because it is saturated with relatively low-quality discussions that serve more as an open ended “What do you think about XYZ” than a place for Intelligent, On Topic and Respectful discussion about Roblox development.

This isn’t the fault of the posters in most cases - it is a problem with the scope that is defined for Dev Discussions, which is extremely vague.

The current scope for Developer Discussion is:

For discussing any and all topics related to development on Roblox.

This allows for threads that sound like the following:

  • “How often do you use Roblox Studio?”
  • “What do you want to achieve on Roblox?”
  • “How do you normally design a game”
  • “Why do you use unions”

n.b. That none of these threads are real, and any likeness to existing threads is coincidental - I’m not calling out anyone in particular

As you can see, these kinds threads don’t serve any purpose other than generating Lounge-like discussion, which makes it harder for people to find genuinely insightful or interesting topics, and hence people are less likely to get involved in debates or discussions that could have an impact on the platform for staff and developers.

Proposed Change

I propose we narrow the scope of Developer Discussion to something along the following lines:

  • Discussion about new features (not announced elsewhere), or upcoming changes to the platform
  • Discussion about specific development topics (not open ended) i.e. a particular feature, methodology or practice
  • Generic questions regarding a specific problem or narrowly scoped inquiry, however not pertaining to a real game or scenario (which would be more suited to one of the #help-and-feedback subcategories).

Any other topics of a vague and open-ended nature, such as “When did you last use a Union in a build?”, that are meant to generate discussion that does not solve a problem or develop knowledge of an area, should be delegated to #lounge:roblox-discussion instead.

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What are we going to do with the Development Discussion Category?
What are we going to do with the Development Discussion Category?
#2

Does that mean topics have to either be true or false. What about questions like discuss your experiences on the Roblox platform - your successes, setbacks, ect. I apologise If I asked that. It does rather seem open-ended.

#3

More along the lines of:

“What are the benefits to using Agile methodology over Waterfall?”
“Plagarism - what is the difference between inspiration and copying?” (saw this recently)

The thing about the posts you gave as examples, “discuss your experiences on the Roblox platform - your successes, setbacks, etc” - who benefits from these posts? It’s not the posters, since they’re just sharing what they already know; it’s not the readers, because generally this kind of information has very little learning value. They serve generally little more than idle off-topic discussion (and as such they should go in lounge)

The thing to remember about the forums is they’re not primarily a community forum; it’s a place for developers to learn and grow from their peers, and in turn for Roblox and Developers to communicate (via engineers or DevRel). It’s not like the Roblox Forums; topics should be, as the old RBXDev motto was: “Intelligent, On-Topic, Respectful”

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#4

I agree, do you think we should allow members to post there too? I think it could be a great thing to try. It could cause the main discussion area to be even less cluttered. Overall, I really like your set of ideas and think they will greatly improve the discussion category and return it to its former glory.

#5

I’m of the view that members shouldn’t be allowed to post in there; the point of regular is to prove that someone can post in an area without post approval, and removing post approval on a topic shouldn’t be a reason to lower the quality of posts. However on that front, I think it’s a lost battle and so I’m pushing on for improvements in other areas.

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#6

Whelp I thought it was pretty valid topic.

My apologize, I thought DD was primarily used just for discussion - where everyone just contributes their opinions. I’ll make sure not to do it again. Thanks for the clarity.

#7

Don’t worry! :stuck_out_tongue:

The problem isn’t that your posts aren’t allowed, it’s that I think they’d be better suited to #lounge:roblox-discussion - Dev Discussion should be focused, specific, and to as great a degree possible technically focused. This is the environment that it used to thrive in and I think it is something that should be replicated.

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#8

Wow, I swear. Everytime I see a lounge-like thread in guise of a discussion topic, I’m just thinking: is the OP intending to start a discussion and refer back to it or just post to get attention in a popular category? I mean how the hell does “At what time do you develop?” help or impact the OP in any way?

Ironically, some of these questions get too specific. For example, “What was the last time you used scale sizing for UI?” We need to make the guidelines more specific to eliminate lounge-like and … overly specific topics.

Anyways, I think a good way to filter out such topics is adding this to the guidelines:

  • Your topic must be meaningful and you must post with a clear purpose. You should only be posting if it will assist or improve your skills, not just for the sake of it.

Let me know how effective this sounds.

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#10

Complete support for this, I think this goes along with my request about adding a new category for studio/engine support.

#11

Yeah - I think the sentiment is the same for ours, however I’m worried that if the guidance isn’t specific enough then the quality of posts won’t increase.

My own internal rule for posts there is:

Will I care about what people have to say in my thread?

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#12

As a Member of the forum the fact that only Regulars were allowed to post there motivated me to read the guidelines like a thousand times so I could be a nice member and be promoted. Since everyone is allowed to post now, I’ve lost some motivation to achieve that goal. I like the solution you proposed, but since members aren’t allowed to see the #lounge:roblox-discussion category I don’t think that could help that much

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#13

I feel perhaps some regulation is needed within the #development-discussion category as there is a prominent lack of common sense within most of the threads created nowadays. It might seem selfish, however, most topics consist of spam, or just a lack of second thought when a thread is published.

  • Case 1:
    https://i.imgur.com/t2zLGhg.png
    Granted, some of it is a genuine concern, such as copyright, however this isn’t the only instance as to a rather stupid thread.
    what is this even meant to mean? it’s incoherent

  • Case 2:
    https://i.imgur.com/ZmBb1p0.png
    These tend to consist of topics which are widely controversial and/or very subjective. They do not have definite answers, hence spam.
    anything along this lines of “how well do x ads do”, “how well does x amount of sponsor do”, although it’s a genuine concern, it’s once again a subjective topic and tends to mislead people, especially if not executed correctly, causes for blame.

Perhaps some harsher moderation would apply some quality control for this channel. It is genuinely useful, but the unintentional abuse of this topic tends to drive away quality discussions which is what I feel most of the forum comes to see.

Your points are so valid. I just wish that the development discussion category was more developed and not tone-deaf.

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#14

I’ve said this a couple of times over but I want to make it super apparent when people make these suggestions since they might not recognise that attempts were made before.

The last time I did this, it was not a good experience.

  • A Forum Feedback thread was created to ask me to stop doing this.

  • I started getting afraid that I’d be setting a weird precedent, get called out for letting members cheese the category or that Lounge would start getting spammed with the topics people don’t want to see. I enjoy helping the forum out whenever I have time, but I also don’t want to be at risk of losing my role because of the ambiguity and frustrations of the community. I’m supposed to support the community and it doesn’t look good for me if my actions are not well-received, so I make changes accordingly.

  • I agree that a lot of topics could fit better there, but people got upset with even that so I stopped filtering out Development Discussion threads to Lounge. I’m only a Community Editor so I don’t hold that much or any weight. If I were a Sage, it’d be a whole lot less of an issue for me to move posts around and I might be able to actually discuss potential changes to the current flow and not set a weird precedent.

  • Sometimes threads don’t fit in support categories. Game Design Support is already trashed up as an “anything-else” category and I’ve been told several times not to move threads there if they don’t fit and not to enable people to use the category that way, but I haven’t been given a better alternative so it’s really my only choice sometimes. In other cases I don’t know what to do with threads because of the massive ambiguity.

You can catch a list of the posts I’ve made in this category if you need some semblance of stuff I’ve requested for clarity or changes on with little to no response. I could forward the feedback internally but I don’t talk much on said line and I’m always iffy about using connections. Again, heck knows if bringing anything up even has a point for me anymore, so I just don’t.

Here was me trying to keep Development Discussion clean of ToS-based threads amidst no response from Developer Relations and expressing the fact that my previous way of dealing with this wasn’t received well:

Here was me proposing a potential way to keep Development Discussion clean with a new Lounge category for general platform stuff, which was both strawmanned and not positively received:
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/close-down-discussion-for-members/715314/30?u=colbert2677

Here is the aforementioned Forum Feedback thread that was created regarding my actions of recategorising non-fitting Development Discussion threads to Lounge:

Here is a thread asking what I should do with a certain type of non-fitting Development Discussion thread which just got zero signal at all:

As you can see, it’s already painful enough trying to clean categories. Developer Relations has had no communication throughout this time, people are suggesting that PA should have dealt with the mental workload longer because DevRel doesn’t respond (which is completely fucking unfair) and some attempts I’ve made to keep things clean have been met with disapproval or high noise. I don’t mind putting myself on the line to encourage quality discussion, yet simultaneously I don’t want to put myself on the line because then I might lose that opportunity to keep things useful here.

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#15

I think the problem here that you’re referencing is the lack of management from Developer Relations - it shouldn’t be the job of the community to create or enforce standards, and it’s no wonder that it was not fruitful before.

As a test, I flagged a bunch of these - for lack of better word - shitposts, so I could understand what the criteria was for moderation. It appears DevRel will remove threads that have absolutely no value added, however that isn’t a rigid guideline and it’s almost a guessing game on if something will be removed or not.

I think this sort of change would be helpful for all parties involved - for developers posting, for community editors trying to keep some semblance of order, and for staff to clarify their position.

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