The #development-discussion is open to all members of the forum from the second one gets promoted from a visitor.
Avoiding the rant behind the measures needed to control the category from spam and unnecessary topics (includes rant/repetitive replies), a simpler method could be to await manual approval from a staff member before the topic gets public.
Now, this causes a delay in genuine topics as the staff members can’t be instant every time naturally. This can be solved by a usage of experience voting. What I mean is when a topic is sent out for publishing, the topic becomes visible to Regulars and above, but rather than being open to replies, it would just be counting upon the number of flags they get. A new “Upvoting” system can be established in the window where regular+ can take the decision over the topic being the experienced ones on the forum and hence reliable, before getting published for the members.
We would be able to instantly see the result for the bigger majority of the forum (the members).
If the topic is genuine the replies would have lesser spam than a topic which in-itself off topic (sourced upon personal observation and practical)
This method would stop the biggest problem in the forum because honestly speaking, as a developer the NEED is #help-and-feedback and #resources from where developers actually gain knowledge and receive feedbacks and help each other.
#development-discussion is important too, yes, but can be managed using the above community based approach towards a better option to filter good and bad topics.
This process, until the staff members devise a more professional way, would save the dignity of the forum which is to be maintained professional.
Also not to forget that due to certain game jams being open to public, receiving waves of spammers would be on a push in the coming months >_<