My point being: either Lounge should be opened up more so these topics can be posted there, but even better would be to take these topics to more casual discussion mediums such as Twitter / Discord, those mediums are made for sharing opinions en-masse. Discussion forums like this are on their best when used for discussing concrete issues rather than infinitely long threads with everyone’s opinion/story.
2 Likes
It’s hard to keep track of a conversation with Discord, but there are Unofficial forums for Roblox players. So it isn’t an excuse to come here out of the blue and post a story/opinion.
Thankyou, I have deleted my off topic posts on #development-discussion
1 Like
Thank you Swiftaloon, I’ll take some time to read those tonight.
Makeineer
I agree with just taking casual discussions to Twitter and Discord, but opening up lounge to members would turn the DevForum into the new Roblox Forums bcause all someone needs to do is read ~3 hours and you would be able to freely post in a non-development related discussion, and non-developers would flood the DevForum just to post in lounge.
#development-discussion is a very broad category; how about sub-categories like scripting discussion and building discussion, and even slightly off-topic ideas can be shared in categories such as update discussion (how does this update affect your development, how could you use this update to improve your game).
1 Like
Hence the “even better”, not sure if you missed that in that sentence.
3 Likes
It is also interesting, as the visibility of things has been ruined.
I posted a CLI, for “power users”, that directly opens Roblox Studio places from terminal (and many more things!).
These things mean nothing to the average person on here, but can be really helpful to let’s say big development teams and other people who create Roblox games for a living.
It’s worth noting that I got no visibility at all, while all the other posts around me got 100’s of views. I only got some after advertising it on a discord channel.
If the visibility is ruined - how are developers supposed to share stuff that is useful to other non-novice developers - not just something like an AFK System module.
The drive to include everyone on the forum has honestly made me feel more alienated from the developer community.
The devforum was significantly more useful to me before I was able to post in it. I was promoted in the early trials of the new automated system because I was using and enjoying the devforum as a resource. I used to be a small part of a community of serious developers having useful and interesting discussions - even if I was just reading and liking their posts. I don’t know what I’m part of anymore, but it doesn’t feel like a developer community. Everyone left months ago - the people that are still here are drowned out by the noise.
The forum is huge, and always has been. There’s almost always someone who’s said what you want to say, and the like button is available to anyone with a TL0 account.
I don’t think posting rights are actually that important to the target audience of the devforum.
I’m seeing a really pervasive notion that developers can’t engage with or make use of a category (or the forum as a whole) unless they can post in it.
I think higher restrictions make the devforum more useful to everyone - even the developers who are “locked out”.
7 Likes
Maybe some sort of form and you need to get approved, with age, account age (to prevent spam), a showcase of creations, etc.
1 Like
I think Roblox needs to implement a trust level system similar to that of stackoverflow, restricting people’s ability to post or reply to topics if they gather too much negative attention. They don’t need to implement an upvote/downvote system, just use things like how many likes they’re getting on posts and how many have been taken down for violating the Devforum rules.
Quality will significantly increase and I believe that it’ll return to how it was before they decided to open the floodgates to everyone. Sure I was one of those that only got in through the floodgates as their application process was a bit vague however recently it’s gotten out of control and needs reigning in fast.
2 Likes
Likes aren’t a reliable way to determine how good a post is. Plenty of off-topic posts gain tons of likes because it’s funny or whatever.
1 Like
I saw this in another post, where someone said that Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced tags should be added. It could definitely help draw a line between different levels of experience developing, for that one group who sees the tag and replies because they are “advanced” and understand the OP, already this helps a lot.
2 Likes
The main point of opening up devforum is to make access to resources more easier for developer. Making it private would make it elite, and that’s what is being discouraged here.
2 Likes
Different countries have different policy. You can’t expect Roblox to store all 195 countries data, like names and all.
IMO, I wouldn’t be comfortable sharing my real name with people I hardly know, just to get into the forum.
1 Like
I think it was mentioned several times before but in no way was it mentioned those had to be the requirements verbatim, it was just an idea out of several. I believe users would be more comfortable verifying age (there is even a slash between “real name” and “age” to indicate “or”!), which would probably be more important and more feasible anyway. Also you would only be verifying it with Roblox.
2 Likes
Believe it or not, I don’t have any of those criteria mentioned. I don’t open studio often, because I’m a translator, I don’t devex because I don’t have the bare minimum, I can’t reveal my name, due to privacy reasons.
It didn’t have to be either of those either. New developers who are actually interested in developing should be welcome as well. Also what you quoted literally says afterwards
to automatically be promoted to a certain rank
e.g. promote them to TL2 right away since they are more likely to be mature if they have devexed
1 Like
I disagree, getting an OK in devex doesn’t mean that they are mature. We should look through few of their posts before deciding whether they are mature or not.
1 Like
Do you use the translator portal on the site? Roblox can use that to determine you are a developer.
If you don’t, it’s going to be very hard for Roblox to automatically figure out you are a developer. I recommend putting some suggestions down on how that could be automated for developers like yourself instead.
The bullet list in the first post is a suggestion. Please don’t interpret it as my personal wishlist for what this should look like down to the letter – they are just suggestions.
3 Likes
I full-heartedly agree.
I enjoy occasionally dropping into the forums to help beginners out with development questions, however, it has recently gotten to the point where I have simply given up due to how rudimentary and “attention seeking” some of the posts are. If that is not the case, people are dying to offer advice on subjects they are not well versed in simply to seem credible or boost their forum stats.
I’m glad they disabled post-approval requirements for member because quite literally it was asking forum users to make-up reasons to post to the more important parts of the forum so they could be “promoted”
I agree with you that offloading a lot of non-developer related content could help solve some of the unwanted forum traffic, however the key thing you mentioned is absolutely the personal information requirements. I don’t believe that personal Dev-Ex numbers should be used as an access requirement as that discourages newer-yet-serious developers from equal opportunity forum access - however nearly every other massive platform requires your real name and age to be considered a “partner” or certified developer and in certain cases even forces you to verify it via government ID such as Epic Games.
I hope they take a serious look at the forums and revise it in the coming months.
1 Like
Imo, It just made developers not use this site… Ever… All it is is users s**tposting and trolling with nonsense. Users getting in and spamming the wrong categories. Less genuine help from users due to the spam of smaller devs replying to your post with nonsense or things like “I don’t know, but…” and not taking the forum as seriously as they should to make it a reliable site to actually make developing easier. I’d rather it just be private and elite with developers who intend to help being able to post and reply and having other users be able to view it and not post unless approved.
3 Likes