Restricting Announcements replies to regulars only

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#1

Whenever I go to an announcement post, I’m interested in extra info that is asked by some people and answered by engineers or whoever knows the answer. The thing is, each and every announcement post is bloated with useless replies that no one benefits from.

Replies that usually just express a user’s feeling about this update. No offense, but no one really cares what you think about this update. Announcement posts ends up getting cluttered with these sort of replies, and salvaging info gets harder.

The forum is not a place where you farm likes.

I suggest making replying to announcement posts regular-only. It’s true that some regulars also reply with useless replies, but the majority of the forum is members, which are usually the ones making these sort of replies. If a member wants to ask a question or report a bug about a new announcement, well he can use #help-and-feedback:scripting-support or #platform-feedback instead.

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4 Likes
#2

Yes, but not all members post useless stuff, there is a small cohort that actually provides feedback instead of just “yes! this is a great update” response. Speaking of such responses, I think that is the main issue there; the length that you have to scroll (when you combine all the useless replies) is much longer than the feedback posts even though each of the latter tends to be longer. At pretty much every update/announcement, IK that many DevRel and Sages/PA members are there at the time. So, if they are able to merge those replies with “off-topics/bumps” or delete them right away, it would decrease the clutter significantly.

Let’s talk about that actually: whatever happened to merging useless posts in announcement threads? I’ve don’t see this happening anymore. I mean, flagging works, but the post is still there. Having hundreds of hidden posts still takes up space, plus, after the hype dies down, they’ll just edit the post for it to come back. Not many people hang out there anymore and they don’t get taken down afterward. Plus, if the post is flagged only once, the author can leave it at that to avoid it getting moderator attention when the second flag comes around. The post is still like-able and as I said, it still takes up space.

I think another idea can be giving out strikes for doing this repeatedly. It should be able to discourage the majority of bad posts.

So, yes, I agree that only making it regular+ can work, but I usually don’t like such solutions as they exclude the small portion of people who can qualify to post there.

6 Likes
#3

If I’m being completely honest, I’d much rather they completely lock announcement replies or lock it to TC+ than this. Regulars and members both do what you complain about, and I don’t find any discernable majority. I agree that farming likes is annoying, however, many regulars do it as well. You’re just locking out members for no real reason in this case.

Of course, Roblox’s stance on these types of suggestions hasn’t seem to have changed. I doubt they’ll lock announcement replies to any specific group (or higher.) Likewise, they wouldn’t want to disable announcement replies.

8 Likes
#4

It has been said time and time again that there should be no reason for anyone to think that a regular is automatically better or more knowledgeable than a member.
Yes, there has been a flood of members and a lot of newbies are mixed in. But why should announcement replies be limited to only regulars? What makes a regular’s comments more valuable than a member’s? A large amount of developers are members and not regulars simply because they are not at all interested in gaining green checkmarks and virtual popularity points so that one day they can become a regular; they don’t care.
Being a regular does not at all make the user more experienced or better at developing, as Roblox states themselves many times. They are just more active forum users, that’s it.
You could try locking people who just joined the forums from replying, but this has the exact same problem. The only thing that can be done is the addition of a filter that allows you to hide any comments from non-regulars or newbies if you wish. It should not be forced.

3 Likes
#5

This isn’t about development skill, this is about making sure that announcements is not spammed. The same reason new members can’t (usually) make posts in platform feedback unassisted is to stop clutter for Roblox staff who want to focus on fixing bugs rather than like farmers and people making wow this is cool! posts 400 times, or new members calling their feature dumb and spamming polls saying “REMOVE THIS” (see player list, ugc, etc.)

See above.

2 Likes
#6

Then instead add a filter as in my first comment. If you want less spam, activate the filter. Don’t lock experienced developers from sharing their thoughts on an announcement just because they’re not interested in becoming regulars.

2 Likes
#7

If you have a reliable solution to the forum’s major spam problem, feel free to make a topic for it in #forum-feedback ! :slightly_smiling_face: I’m sure the sages and DET would love to hear it.

1 Like
#8

I’m personally more in favor of something like this:

As a new user on this forum, it would feel pretty limiting not to be able to comment on new announcements. I think we should just have better tools to filter what you want to see.

I don’t think this solves that issue. Besides, Likes don’t really mean anything unless they are on bug reports or feature requests (where it is a weak signal for engineers to figure out support for a topic). Anywhere else Likes are pretty meaningless, so if people want to go farm them, let them waste their time.

13 Likes
#9

I get what you’re saying, but sometimes feedback and criticism are useful, even for ROBLOX updates.

Yeah, the average “this is cool” reply isn’t really useful into advancing the conversation, but sometimes it’s important to give input on Roblox updates to let Roblox know what we think about it. And whether you’re a regular or just a member, your opinion is as valuable and could help the development experience altogether.

This might work, but I think that Roblox should concentrate on making anti-spam filters or something similar instead of removing all member’s right to reply on announcements.

3 Likes
#10

While I do see it somewhat clearing up the clutter there and the nitpicking that is happening in the UGC announcement, I’ve also noticed that a ton of regulars don’t know where to post their stuff or not know if it’s appropriate to post anymore and just clutter the #lounge categories with posts that could be better off in #discussion or in case of #lounge:off-topic, not posted at all.

2 Likes
#11

We can always just flag useless replies.

#12

Almost hundred of replies exist per thread. Unless you stay active on the thread for multiple hours and flag each new one individually, that’s gonna take a while and is super inefficient. Also, way too many flags would be created, and the staff team will face a clutter of reports which isn’t ideal.

1 Like
#15

I do and you should, opinions can be used as feedback. Just look at the replies and the opinions on the new top bar and menu. Roblox used those replies to make changes to the update.

2 Likes
#16

I think Announcements should just be locked entirely. This would prevent users from writing half-assed responses just for the sake of getting first reply for some likes.

Actual feedback can be given through users filling out a survey.

4 Likes
#17

I should’ve said “no one besides engineers or whoever is interested in user feedback”, but for another user reading the replies, it’s basically useless.

And the thing is, when I say “what you think about this update”, I mean people exaggerating and expressing their love towards the update, which can be expressed by just a simple click of the heart icon, by very effortless 2-line replies that even the engineers don’t care about,. Making replies expressing how you love this update is useless, although giving actual constructive feedback, like suggesting other changes, or telling about a small problem or bug, those are absolutely welcome.

1 Like
#18

I honestly argee with restricting the replies to regulars only. When I use to make the “wow this feature is cool” comments I would be told time and time again that “of you think the update is cool, just like the post”. Liking is a much better way for members to show their appreciation for an update or feature rather than wasting space for comments with actual concerns and criticisms.

1 Like