No? #lounge is the equivalent to #general-chat. #development-discussion is for meaningful discussions related to Roblox, not about a funny meme you saw on the internet.
Also, hundreds of members are joining each week, can you imagine the way DevForum will look in a month or two? We need to solve this before itâs too late.
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Roblox is a platform, not a game. It being a platform for game development is correct though. It doesnât look like you fully read the OP, or understand the target audience of the devforum. The devforum is strictly 13+.
The forum is simply not as useful for more experienced developers, the point of the feature request is to change that so it is useful for everyone, not just starting developers.
Please donât tell people to just âignoreâ âdumbâ topics â there are far too many new users joining that do not care for forum etiquette posting everywhere, which clutter forum sorts. âIgnoringâ is not a solution.
Developers that will actually benefit from it and donât use it for miscellaneous topics wonât have an issue getting in 
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I have a hard time believing that anyone browses Development Discussion other than to kill time or maybe occasionally to run into some inspiration to make a game. So
- Youâre browsing it to kill time, ignore stupid stuff and look at cool stuff
- Youâre browsing it for inspiration, and there will never be enough threads of this quality to expect anything anyway
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Itâs already hard enough to find âcool stuffâ among low-effort and off-topic topics at #development-discussion . And as @sjr04 mentioned:
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The forum is simply not as useful for more experienced developers, the point of the feature request is to change that so it is useful for everyone, not just starting developers.
When has the forum ever been useful for more experienced developers outside of the threads someome makes something cool?
Please donât tell people to just âignoreâ âdumbâ topics â there are far too many new users joining that do not care for forum etiquette posting everywhere, which clutter forum sorts. âIgnoringâ is not a solution.
Sounds like whatâs actually needed is better moderation, not higher entry barriers.
Developers that will actually benefit from it and donât use it for miscellaneous topics wonât have an issue getting in
No idea about you, but if the DevForum is going to require me to verify my ID so I can post a question about how to make my metatable work I donât think Iâm ever using it again.
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The devforum literally started as an âelite groupâ where it was invite only, eventually they opened up applications and dropped those to let anyone in. If you read the solution (by a staff member) of this topic, Robloxâs vision is to be an open platform. Just because it is open does not mean it should all of a sudden be impossible to use for more experienced developers. So we can say before the forums went completely open that is probably when. But going back to the old times is obviously not a good idea.
We need both. While I am not the author of the OP I invite you to at least read it, all the concerns are addressed there as well as in replies.
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Iâm so surprised that the developer forum about a platform designed for 10 year olds that you browse to kill time doesnât have posts of as high of a quality as youâd expect.
And this sucked because people who would otherwise greatly benefit from the forum couldnât get in.
The staff memberâs answer hints at something far more reasonable, which is an exclusive space within the DevForum for more experienced developers.
That is what the OP is suggesting when he/she says
Verify a userâs real name / age to automatically be promoted to a certain rank (deter 13- users)
I think there is a misunderstanding here, my point is that the forum should cater to developers of all skill levels, for the past year or two the forum has only done so for newer developers. It can still be open, but if certain users are not going to take development seriously they should not be in the forum as they are unlikely to benefit from it or contribute.
That says to a certain rank, e.g. promoting them to TL2 if they are verified, not necessarily that you need to provide that information to even post.
Also going back to
The devforum is 13+, we are talking about the devforum, not the main platform. Yes, underage users joining/wanting to join is inevitable, but there should be higher restrictions so the amount of them joining is much smaller, and if possible, zero.
off topic
A feature request: since most of these users try logging into the devforum via their main (for which its birthdate is correctly configured), they make an alt and set the birthdate to a date over 13 years ago. The IP or entire device could be banned from creating an account until the user is 13.
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How do you âcaterâ to a more skilled developer? What could you possibly need aside for maybe an exclusive subforum? What are you coming to the DevForum for that currently doesnât exist? Do you expect Developer Discussion to be the equivalent of a Roblox Developer subreddit?
So I would never get TL2. Sounds annoying.
But because the average age of a Roblox player is like, 8-9 or something, youâd certainly expect most current or aspiring developers to be 13-15. The number of developers who actually make reasonably high-quality stuff on this platform that are 18+ is probably <1000.
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I want a place where I can discuss development professionally with similar peers. The devforum is currently too far balanced in the favor of new developers or people who are not here to talk about development at all and instead just rant about Roblox/etc. If I ask a question here at my level of experience I will not be able to get useful feedback or a resolution. So Iâm asking for the target audience to be made more specific or to have better content sorts, so that I can use this forum properly again.
Not asking for an âinsiderâs clubâ, you are putting that into my mouth. Forum is publicly visible currently and that is totally fine. Anyone can log in and instantly participate by liking/viewing posts.
If you donât have anything meaningful to say, refrain from posting instead of acting up for no reason.
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Many places do not accept birth certificates as valid ID.
Not all Roblox developers are Roblox game developers, many people (like myself) are more interested in developing tools and libraries for developers to use, rather than fully fledged games, and while I will admit Iâm not the greatest of resources to the forum, I do still think I should be at least allowed in, despite the fact that I have never devexed, and my game only has about 4k visits.
You donât have to have made a good game, or even be a good developer to make a game that makes a load of Robux, and likewise, you can be a great developer, but not want to monetise. You can be an amazing scripter, but without knowledge of building, game design, etc, not many people are going to play your game
Yes, In your location it might be easy to get ID, however in some places ID might not be available to minors, require parental consent, or cost money.
I propose a âreputationâ system, where new members are allowed to post in certain forums such as development resources & help, and reply to some others, with stricter moderation standards, and if they get enough likes or higher ranked members can remove/add reputation for that user to access the greater forum.
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Thatâs fine, please review this post:
The list in the first post is just a suggestion and it doesnât mean it would be âyou need to meet all of theseâ. Roblox wouldnât make the criteria related to just monetization, but it is one of the signals they can use among other signals.
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Personally I have no issue, I feel like the current system is working very well.
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I understand that it is not your job to create the solution to this, but out of the 3 signals you proposed, they can easily be circumvented/not include actual developers. (not everyone has/is willing to submit id, people have specialised skill sets and cannot make a full game and monetise it, people might not use Studio/leave it open in the background for hours and hours) Maybe continue the ânew memberâ system currently in place, with even tighter moderation requirements, and forum limitations, and have those who can prove themself to be useful and a positive contribution get in, even if they match none of the âsignalsâ.
Just to be clear Iâm not suggesting to get rid of being able to participate on the forum right away. It would be more like you are able to skip ahead in forum trust level (and so do more things on the forum) if you meet some aggregation of these signals, and there would be more restrictions for lower trust levels.
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Iâve been reading over this for awhile. I agree with the point. Something needs to be done to increase the quality of the devforums, otherwise I donât see the devforums being around in 5 years. Perhaps maybe as a meme but not as a useful resource. Even when searching questions in the search bar I often have to read through useless posts of nothing before I come across an actual answer to what Iâm usually looking for.
The API Reference is still the best place to look, also those random golden threads. I only use the dev forums to read up on new features since thereâs not usually any API References for them upon release. I do believe thatâs an oversight and should be fixed so that its possible to omit the devforums completely. Iâm not going to say the devforums isnât helpful⌠but it is useless at this point. Making a new thread to probe for solutions to problems often end up being a timeline of âwrong categoryâ, âobvious answer that doesnât work for the current issue (usually the reason why the post is made in the first place)â. I end up looking for solutions on Unity or Unreal Engine and then adapt the code to Lua because thatâs already 100 times more helpful.
Itâs nice to be able to help other developers, but often you get into a power struggle with some beginner developer and then the OP starts listening to both and nothing works out precisely because of the two different sources and two different experience levels clashing.
Instead of making the target audience more specific, It might be worth abandoning ship, and put in place other avenues (the roblox blog, developer hub, some new product) and make sure that all new features are well documented before making an announcement thread on the devforums. Perhaps maybe throw the forums into read-only mode to preserve the historical threads that did answer questions at some point.
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What they need to do is get rid of #lounge and lock #development-discussion because it is encouraging non-developers to use the forum and engage in discussions that have nothing to do about development.
Even though I have only joined the DevForum five months ago, I can already tell that the quality of this forum is plummeting. I have never seen so many people put bug reports in #development-discussion and ask them to be moved, and I just saw the fifth topic like this in the past 24 hours. If you go to off-topic discussions, most of the people posting are clearly underage as they spam memes across the forum, and their profile descriptions consist of Among Us memes or whatever trend is popular right now.
I know a lot of people will disagree but #development-discussion should be at least regular-only, and #lounge should be removed completely because it is making non-developers think they can post more so they can have access to that category. I donât even use #development-discussion anymore because I donât think it is useful to me or the community. The only purpose #development-discussion has right now is to attract non-developers to the forum and to create spam.
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Alright for starters, I only joined in that discussion as the devforum is just getting plainly useless. Thereâs no other way to say it. Discord is a better resource, as well as youtube tutorials then most of the devforum tutorials atm. Sure, there are some good gold stars out of all of them; but my question to you is why lock away lounge and yet allow development discussion to normal members? Iâm confused what you want.
Continually, donât judge a book by a cover. Just cause I was idiotic in one topic doesnât mean I canât be serious at all.
Adding so-called âtactical barriersâ will make it get fueled even more. Trolls like when people attempt to stop them, as they get their reaction out of the people trying to stop this. I donât see your end goal whatsoever. #lounge should be opened to normal members, as idiotic content can go there instead.
Oh, and about unity. The only reason why that forum contains more serious content, is as the general demographic for developers in unity tend to be around 15-17ish. Not many younger devs will move to unity as the platform itself is confusing. Roblox Studio is pick and play, props to the developers of the studio itself for somehow achieving that.
All I want from this devforum, is to replace discord itself; I see this forum as having worth but with the way it currently is, I donât see that happening. Sure, maybe there are some idiotic posts here and there, but like;
In all honesty, Iâd rather not have #development-discussion like what is it for? News? Whatâs meant to be supposedly âdiscussedâ there really isnât any clear description on what really COUNTS as development and hence people get confused about what they can ask in that exact part of the devforum.
I would rather you not just pick out some random person in the thread itself, just link the thread itself.
Oh and, all I want to happen personally is the for starters:
removal of #development-discussion
opening of #lounge to normal members, that at least prove to be helpful members.
Thatâs all, really. The devforum does come in help sometimes, but not much anymore as answers tend to be just referring to something instead of providing a clear cut answer. This platformâs sorta become the stack overflowish hellscape. Dunno about you, but Iâd rather have a serious devforum too, just I donât find that thereâs any reason on why to try as discord is already a more helpful, in live time resource then here. I see many threads just go abandoned with devs having no clue how to do this and that, and really simple questions be glorified due to the sake of time.
Also, please donât judge a book by a cover; I want the devforum to be much of a resource like the next guy, but I just essentially vented out in that thread with how stupid the system in the devforum is.
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Replying to this again; thereâs no need to make 5 threads just cause some troll post went up. Clearly they can see those posts and again begins the saga. Let DevRel take care of them, thatâs that. No need to start a flame war against troll posts. That only fuels the fire. Continually, maybe redo the member joining system again?
Edit: My opinion may be a little harsh and confusing; sorry for that.