As we all know, Development Discussion is currently in a very bad state. It’s being filled with off-topic discussions, low quality posts, and excuse my French, shitposting. A major offender is the fact that most people do not read the rules. I believe that the Development Discussion template should be updated to contain the rules for the category, instead of simply stating that the category is for discussing development. While this may not completely fix the issue, it will expose users to the rules wheither they went out of their way to read them or not, so they understand that what they’re doing is against the rules. This is an example I made:
Before you post your topic, please make sure if follows these guidelines:
Development Discussion is not a dump for miscellaneous topics, it is a place for thoughtful discussion on the art of making things. If your topic does not fit in any other category, please don’t post it on this forum as it’s not suitable for it.
Do not use this category to circumvent restrictions on other categories. If you need to report a bug, contact the Developer Engagement Team, otherwise, please respect the limitations we have put in place.
Do not create topics similar to ones already created.
Your post should have substance. It shouldn’t be just a simple question or a poll.
Your topic should be specific. Too broad of a topic can lead to many off-topic discussions. For example, instead of making a topic on what people think of Studio in general, make specific topics about certain parts such as “What do you think of the dragger tool?” or “What do you think of the current layout of Studio?”
And of course, please follow the official rules of this forum, which can be read here.
Of course, it’s far from perfect, but it could easily be improved on.
I support this. This will definitely get offending posts taken down quicker when flagging with the “Something Else” option, and will hopefully reduce offending posts.
Can we add clarifications to this? Or examples? Such as “Builders vs. Scripters?” or “New to dev, how to?”
Since it seems to be a perfectly legitimate discussion, I assume it was taken down due to already being discussed before. Either way, it’s just an example and if it was ever used it should be modified as the moderators know better then me.
Honestly the category should be used for discussing “the art of making things”, as the old description once said, not just anything related to “development”. Nowadays you can literally get away with any off topic post, and just tack on “as a developer” to the title, e.g. As a developer, is caffeine good for you?
What we really need is more resources invested in properly educating new users when they join the forum in general, so that these issues are less likely to happen. There are some users that on their first day create 3+ topics in that category, usually aren’t up to par. Many misinterpret the current guidelines, but I don’t blame them – they’re too vague, even I avoid creating topics there because of how vague they are.
I see no reason for including this information specifically in DD when these are global rules which should be followed across most, if not all, categories anyway. Alternatively, I would consider implementing much broader, effective solutions such as adding additional emphasis on the need to read the rules and current category guidance in the first place (since this seems to be ignored far too often). Simply changing the category guidance likely wouldn’t make much of a difference considering too many people don’t bother reading it anyway (either that or they just ignore it).
I agree entirely with your view on the category, though, and I think a solution to this accumulation of spam is long overdue.
Increasing the length of the template increases the chance people won’t read it at all. If the Forum Bugs template explicitly says not to use that category for platform bugs in one sentence right at the top, but it still happens several times per day, making the Discussion template longer will also likely have no or even opposite effect from what you want.
I just replied in a forum features topic about his, and I agree that development discussion has been filled with
I think we all get the point. Back in my early Member days, I posted a topic on there but I didn’t know it was off-topic until I realized that it was for discussions about development only. In fact, many people who post off-topic things have been on the forums for months, but they just don’t know the rules.
I think there should also be a cooldown time between creating topics, especially for new users.
…which is the point of this post. I was trying to figure out a simple way to hopefully slow the flow of crudposters. I realize now that my idea would not be very effective and better ideas are out there, but my intentions were to simply try and get people to read the rules so they don’t make these mistakes.
A cooldown for making topics seems unneeded. It doesn’t matter if someone makes 50 topics a day, if they’re all thought-out and follow the guidelines he can knock himself out. Moreover, what would be the time limit? An hour? Two hours? And how long before they trigger it? Only two posts?
This punishes both rulebreakers and innocent users, which is never a good idea.
Nobody who posts that junk reads it anyways… kind of depressing isn’t it?
But I agree, especially specify that if a topic gets posted, no making the same topic with a different name(look at the vc topics). This just clutters everything, why don’t they reply?
I mean, if the topic was 7 years ago and you can’t find an answer, sure, knock yourself out and do it. But creating the same topic a day after it was posted instead of replying? C’mon
There could be a quiz system where you have to read the rules and take a quiz and has to pass 80% and if you fail you have a cool down of about a hour to study. This would likely make the problem smaller and also force people to read the rules. I would think this is annoying at first but it would benifit the forum.
If there was a multiple rule break in a week like maybe 4 the quiz can pop up again.