Remove 10 project limit, and improve other Talent Hub limitations

Hexcede · June 19, 2022, 2:48am

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to list my work experience on the Talent Hub because I am only able to list a maximum of 10 projects, each with 500 character limits, allowing approximately 5500 characters for me to describe years and years within. I have twelve years of experience and counting, and that is a lot of history to condense into only 5500 characters with 11 compartmentalized sections.

If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my development experience because I would actually be able to list my work experience.

As a long-time Roblox developer, the Talent Hub is simply too limited

As I mentioned I have been developing on the platform for over twelve years, and have worked on more than one project a year, not all of which I find interesting or good portfolio material, but many of which I may still want to list. The number of projects I have worked on has grown, over time I have been expanding my Talent Hub portfolio to include both older, and newer work, however I have recently discovered the 10 project limit, on top of all of the other numerous limitations of the Talent Hub.

There are 500 character limits, limits on what information I can list, limits on links and resources I can add, and limits on finding jobs that meet my criteria. There are limits on communication, receiving any notice that any of the multiple applications I made have been replied to. Some limits are understandable, like filtering, and only some links being allowed. These are safety features and are perfectly reasonable. But some limits are either features which have not received the attention they need, and some limits feel illogical.

Many of these limits do not seem to have any obvious reason for their existence, and they have been around and have been complained about for a long time. These limitations of the Talent Hub have been brought up numerous times over months and months, since the dawn of it’s existence. And, the fact that I am still discovering new limits on the Talent Hub, feeling like none of these issues are being addressed is deeply frustrating.

The (outside) impact of Talent Hub limitations

I feel like the impact of these limits is not really fully pointed out or addressed.

The Talent Hub creates a magnet for developers and those searching for developers for their projects, but it ultimately has so many limitations that make it terrible at what it aims to achieve.

It’s potential is huge, it is backed by Roblox, and it feels like it wants to offer many nice features. But I really feel Roblox is not addressing the problems that make it difficult to use and really make it less good at what it could do. I feel there is not much transparency about why these limits have remained for so long, and it doesn’t feel like Roblox sees these limits the way developers do.

They don’t just exist on the Talent Hub, the Talent Hub has a significant sway on how people look for developers and jobs on Roblox. This has an effect off the platform, not just on it, and I feel that Roblox’s choice to push the Talent Hub introduces some responsibility on their part to ensure they are, at the very least, keeping the capability of the Talent Hub comparable to the capability of other alternatives which will and do see less use.

Conclusion

In summary, I genuinely feel the Talent Hub currently is mostly an active hindrance to me personally, and I feel that it negatively impacts off-platform stuff, whether or not I use it or choose to take part in it. It does this by dividing job search, and sucking up my time as I put effort trying to work around its severe limitations. I reword until everything simply feels “good enough” and then I move on, but I don’t feel that I can achieve anything more on the Talent Hub, whilst still feeling obligated to utilize it.

Thank you.

Megalodox_Official · June 19, 2022, 6:02am

I see! Thanks for explaining. I’m actually hiring programmers but my budget isn’t enough for a professional like you, so good luck! Hope you find partners soon

Sticksdacat · June 19, 2022, 1:05pm

As someone who specializes in 3D modeling, building, and level design, I rely heavily on visual representations to create an effective and eye-catching portfolio. I’ve been lucky enough to secure a few well paying jobs using the talent hub, and from those jobs I have created more work I can use in my portfolio- however, roblox’s limit on experiences, word count, and images per experience makes organizing and creating an extensive portfolio showing the extent of my work nearly impossible.

I have to segment certain projects into two different experiences because they’re so large. Instead of having a “Tycoon building: part 1” and “Tycoon building: part 2” experience, I should be able to have just one “Tycoon building” experience that supports enough images to show all of the experience I have in that particular area instead of having to segment it into two. Not only does the image limit harm my ability to organize, but it causes me to have to cherry-pick examples to showcase- making me choose between focusing on one part of a build and its details, or the extent of the build and its map design, etc. The image limit prevents me from showing both at once and leaves me in a dilemma.

Furthermore, the limit on word count makes having a “terms and conditions” page with an already large portfolio impossible- the word limit forces me to use multiple experiences, but the limit on experiences makes it literally impossible to do so. In addition, I am unable to provide a proper, in-depth introduction to myself and my forte in my bio due to this limit. I would like to be able to list who I am, how long I’ve been a developer, who I’ve worked with, and why developers should choose to work with me, but it is impossible due to the word limit.

I am also unable to provide any links offsite to my pre-existing external portfolio website (it’s not yet whitelisted by roblox yet), and even if I was able to, it would be an extremely rudimentary workaround (especially for a platform of the Talent Hub’s caliber) that would be inconvenient for any potential client.

A common counterargument to expanding the project limit (as seen here ) is that potential collaborators shouldn’t have to sift through several experiences when hiring, and that the creator page should be treated like a “cover letter”. However, given that sending a message to a job listing with images (like a cover letter for a job in building or 3d modeling) does not exist on the talent hub, and that modifying the creator page for each job listing you apply to is very inconvenient makes this impractical. If I’m being hired (or hiring someone), I want to establish as varied of a portfolio as possible. That way, when people reach out to me, they get to see the entire range of my work instead of just the “best” work I have.

Additionally, another common counterargument is that you should only display your best work- however, I have several projects under my belt with varying levels of expertise, but also in different genres, such as military, roleplay, tycoon etc. with varying levels of expertise. I want to show my best work, but also that I have experience in the aforementioned genres.

In conclusion, the changes that @Hexcede has suggested in the post are direly needed, especially for people who have several years of experience or rely on visual representations to make their creator page stand out.

Crazedbrick1 · June 19, 2022, 3:21pm

Moderation

I would also like to bring up the moderation aspect of the Talent Hub. My creator page just got moderated for having an off-site link. I was not given which link was off-site, so I have no idea how to fix this problem. When I hovered over the small caution symbol, I was told that my creator page would not be visible until I fixed the problem. When I checked back 4 minutes later, the caution symbol said “this content is pending moderation and is not currently visible in search. No action required currently.” So now it looks like I cannot do anything about it until moderators act. Why would my creator page get moderated twice? Why not have a bot or human look over the page and moderate it once? Now I must wait for my page to pass moderation even though I did not break a single rule.

None of these links break the rules:

User Experience

As someone who is only a freelance builder, displaying pictures of my work is necessary to show people what I can do. When viewing pictures of my work, I noticed that it looks extremely blurry when not enlarged. If users will not be able to see the screenshots clearly, it would be a better idea to have the pictures displayed in a higher resolution by default and allow users to enlarge the image to take up most of the screen. When clicking on an image, I am greeted by a small image that does not capture the detail I want to show users. And when you want to exit the enlargement, you must click on the small X symbol that is found far away from the image on the upper right corner of the screen. It would be a better idea to allow both the option of the X symbol and the ability to click off the enlarged image to close it. The Developer Forum allows for both options. And again, the arrow to view different images is too small and too far away from the image.

The interest section of your creator page also needs changing. When my commissions are closed, clients cannot know what kind of work and do and other details unless I have the “open to work” square ticked on. This is important since I do not want people messaging me about a job that I cannot do. It would be better to have the kind of work and other details displayed while you are not open for work.

When editing your creator page, there is a small misleading pencil icon to the right of your username that appears like it would allow you to change the profile picture and your username that you would like to go by. But upon opening it, I am greeted with “Your name/alias and thumbnail picture are imported from your Account Settings.” This debatably serves no purpose, as common sense would tell you that Roblox must have developed some way to import that information over to the Talent Hub without magic. If Roblox does not want to remove that text, they could at least change the pencil icon to a question mark icon to tell users that the information gets imported over.

Reditect · June 19, 2022, 3:51pm

There was a talk yesterday for Connect 2022 by people who work on the Talent Hub: (ENGLISH) Talent Hub: Make Your Dream Team a Reality by Roblox Creator Resources | Connect 2022 - YouTube

Towards the end of it, there was a Q&A where I got to ask some questions. I only really asked about things I had on the top of my head, but the team behind does really want to improve the site. (Timestamp: (ENGLISH) Talent Hub: Make Your Dream Team a Reality by Roblox Creator Resources | Connect 2022 - YouTube)

I feel the character limit and all the other limitations all the time, so I love that someone with the Regular trust level was able to address this situation. That whole can of worms could be another topic in itself, but yeah. I agree with everything listed in the post.

The Q&A starts here btw:

Hooksmith · June 19, 2022, 8:30pm

Hey folks, there’s a few tangents in the thread about moderation and other UX issues not related to character/entity limits, I recommend filing separate threads for this so that we can effectively respond to all the feedback.

At a surface level I completely understand the impression this gives: why can’t Roblox just send someone in there for 5-10 minutes and just tweak the values, shouldn’t this be easy?

Ideally, yes! Unfortunately due to some design decisions that were taken earlier on in the engineering lifecycle of Talent Hub, we are dealing with some constraints that are limiting the size of the values we can put for these fields. This is what changes it from a 5-10 minute tweak to a quarter project because the team had to change a few architectural assumptions and tooling choices.

The team working on Talent Hub is going to ship some changes very soon™ that should finally unblock this part so that we can more freely control the character limits on many of these sections of the profile/job. Someone is working on this at the moment and has been making great progress. Really appreciate the patience here and sorry about the long wait.

We’re taking this issue as a lesson for the future whenever we need to create another field where developers need to input long-form content, so we’re working on not hitting a constraint like this again.

You’ll see the limits for all constrained long-form text fields on Talent Hub vastly increase whenever the changes mentioned above go through on production.

Hooksmith · June 19, 2022, 8:34pm

As for the 10 project limit, this is something that the team can definitely discuss about. I will forward this feedback to the team.

Personal advice/opinion: (does not affect the request)
When you are applying for work or showcasing your experience, it’s best to keep it concise and only list your most relevant or most impactful experience. Someone that is looking through profiles would want to get a quick impression of your level of experience and skill and may not have time to read through dozens of sections with information on each individual project. If you have many smaller bodies of side projects or open source work, you could consider listing them together under a section and describing that experience as a whole.

Crazedbrick1 · June 20, 2022, 1:51am

Thank you for being so transparent and swift. This is probably the only post to explain in detail why it’s taking so long for changes to happen. Thanks again.

Hexcede · June 20, 2022, 2:52am

Thank you an absolute ton.

I appreciate this response a lot, and, I apologize for writing up such a big and likely very unhelpful post. I have pent up frustration about the Talent Hub, and I suppose my post was sparked by seeing people still complaining about the Talent Hub, which kind of invoked a false idea that I am going to feel significant pressure from real world economic problems directly because of issues with the Talent Hub, but the reality is those issues aren’t caused by the Talent Hub having limitations even if they do impact it a bit. The association I was feeling between economic issues and the Talent Hub at the time really just wasn’t reasonable (I think saying that sentence emphasizes that), which I am very glad to grasp after the fact. I feel the Talent Hub, because of its issues, unfortunately just became a bit of a scapegoat for my feelings of stress (which have lessened significantly by just dealing with relevant problems in the first place smh)

Your response is perfectly reasonable, and I am extremely grateful for the transparency and the patience, I really respect your reply here. I’m again very appreciative for taking the time to read and then write up a genuine response, and, I look forward to what improvements are presented for the Talent Hub gradually.

I think this is a bit of a misuse of this category on my part, I think while I was pointing out genuine issues, I was not doing so in a helpful form, or with a helpful magnitude or attitude about them, whether or not the place it was coming from is genuine, and I will make sure to avoid doing this again in the future.

This section isn’t for me or other people to write giant text walls about problems even if they’re coming from a genuine place (that’s not helpful to anybody) and I would like to point that out personally. (I say, writing a giant wall of text about problems )

112365595 · July 23, 2022, 12:06am

You can just list all your stuff on another website and link that website.

Hexcede · July 23, 2022, 3:41am

You cannot, the talent hub only allows for certain links to be used, so, as far as I am aware this would not be allowed unless it is an allowed website. This really isn’t a solution to the problem either it’s just a sort of iffy workaround.

Thankfully, it seems that the project limit is being increased along with character limits (for new projects, it seems that old projects will say 2000 characters but will not let you update them if they’re >500 characters which is a little weird but )

I don’t even use the full 2000 character limit or anything and it’s magnitudes better since I don’t have to force my stuff all down into the limit.

k1go1 · December 10, 2022, 2:01pm

please add a better notifaction system like a red icon on new messages to show you have somebody interested many people are unaware that they receive new job applications

Hooksmith · December 10, 2022, 2:03pm

We’re aware of lack of notifications on all the creator sites and team is working on this.

Please make sure to post separate topics for each request so we can keep track of it better!

Katrist · July 25, 2023, 11:33pm

Bumping this since it’s been a while, I hope Roblox staff haven’t forgotten about this.

Having just a 10-project limit has really affected the way people see my portfolio because they don’t see all my work before making a decision. Please, consider increasing the limit to at least 20 (or more).

WinnersTakesAll · July 28, 2023, 7:58am

Oh please oh please remove the limit. Having a limit on the first place just bamboozles me. Before the #collaboration:portfolios we could have unlimited “projects” and text limit (or an very high one) and how the replacement is not only filled to the brim with low quality jobs posts and content but unusable for me.

I do commissions very frequently and go way beyond 10 commissions a year. Being forced to pick only 10 forces me to cut out some really amazing and great work that otherwise I would want to showcase.

If the limit could be increased significantly to like 100 or removed altogether it would be another step into making what Talent Hub sought out to be.

IncredibleTeamAidan · February 2, 2024, 1:25am

How has this limit still not been increased/removed? I have far too many different examples of work that I need to share which I cannot here. I get that creating my own website and linking everything there is the current solution, but for something that is supposed to be for roblox specifically made BY roblox, I think this is another problem constantly overlooked.