Howdy there… again.
Some of you may remember my original post on the recruitment category, suggesting adding post-approval. That has since been thoroughly debated to a point that if Thomas has to say it’ll never happen one more time his head may explode. As such, I wanted to create another suggestion that has been slightly touched on, but I’d like to hear a more focused debate on: removing the ability to reply from recruitment topics. There are, as always, three principal reasons why: the state of the category right now, the redundancy of being able to reply to a topic, and the flagging system to take down bad posts.
First of all, the current state of #collaboration:recruitment is, by far and away, unacceptable. Most of the community agrees that something has to be done about the current state of the category. To quickly summarize the issues without going into too much detail, many threads that are created in the category fail to meet the guidelines/bare minimum outlined in the topic template, replies to threads are often ending up causing large fights in public forums, and many people are responding to topics that they simply don’t need to respond to. If you look at almost any recruitment topic, you will find one of those three issues with it. The result has been the emergence and/or proliferation of requests to add post-approval to recruitment(wonder who started that), mini-modding, and spam-flagging. This is a pain for moderators, community reps, recruiters, developers, and visitors to the forum. While I still believe that adding post-approval would be far more effective than removing replies, removing replies does solve the issues of mini-modding, fights in public forums, and redundant replies.
Second, replies are redundant to topics for recruitment, since(if people ever followed the template) one of the bare-minimum requirements is a method of contacting the author. Replying to a topic is just another way of communication with the author; the DevForum provides the ability to message, uncensored, another user directly. Most recruitment threads(though granted, not all) provide another method on top of the DevForum for contact, whether it be email, discord, twitter, or even an application. All this is pointing to the fact that replying to a topic isn’t necessary at all. We aren’t moderators, so pointing out flaws or calling out an author for their “sketchy schemes” isn’t our job, at least publicly. If we have an issue with a post, we can message the author privately about it, and hopefully provide constructive criticism that they are receptive to. If the OP is offering another method of communication, almost all of the aforementioned methods are more efficient than the DevForum, either through quickness or the frequency the author checks them. I know for myself at least I check discord far more often than the responses to my DevForum posts. While my experiences aren’t representative of the whole, I still feel that because of the ease of other methods of communication and the fact that there is nothing you could post publicly in a reply that couldn’t also be sent via a direct message, replies to recruitment topics are utterly redundant, and just don’t need to be there.
Finally, for posts that do break the rules, it is always better to flag it than to make a public spectacle out of it. I don’t need to tell anyone who pays attention to Forum Feedback topics how many times the staff and community reps are repeating this to us. I’m sure some of us have noticed that a certain Orthinian Studios has been recruiting across six or seven accounts with almost the same post, and through the use of flagging them, they have all been taken down within 24 hours. This is proof that the flagging system works, meaning there is no reason why we need to take moderation into our own hands. Let the guys who are representing the DevForum take care of it. If you want to send a message to the author, it even has that option. There is no reason why you should need to reply publicly to a post to point out the author’s failures. Simply flag it, write a report, and they will be taken care of.
I know that by removing replies to one of the busiest channels in the forum, we are losing a great privilege. However, I cannot think of a single constructive, positive reason why we should have this privilege at all. It isn’t an end-all solution to the problems of #collaboration:recruitment, but it will ease the current situation.
Happy trails, and stay safe,
CaptLincoln
