TL;DR
DevForum Members are given too much access to the DevForum with zero sense of accountability and a lack of a standard to be held to when creating posts across all categories; this is especially problematic in a system where advancements are automated, and there are diminishing returns on meaningful activity on the DevForum.
Preface
I joined the DevForum a little over a year ago when I decided to return to Roblox and seriously pursue my dreams of becoming a game developer on the platform. Heck, I even thought to myself that if I learned enough, maybe I could start helping other people out who share(d) the same issues and development roadblocks as me.
I can happily say that I have done both, with the latter goal being the main reason of me writing this post.
The issue with Development Discussion
To the best of my knowledge, the DevForum was made so that all developers, spanning across all levels of development knowledge and ability, would be able to congregate & commune, with the focal point being development on Roblox.
No problem.
However, Members are given too much access to the DevForum’s plethora of features out of the gates. (As of writing this post, I think that promotions are being revised again) There was too drastic of a divide between Visitors, Members, and Regulars, and as of now, the only notable benefit of trying to become a Regular is to circumvent PA.
This category (Development Discussion) used to be locked for Regulars+, and meaningful, productive discussions would almost always stem from these posts. This is because Regulars, who, through time spent on the devforum and working with PA, know what works and what doesn’t.
Ever since the switch for topic creation was flipped for Members, I cannot even fathom the amount of reposts, low-effort topics/discussion subjects, and posts that raise more than a couple eyebrows. Ever since this change, this was the first time that I ever saw the phrase “reply if you agree” used unironically in a post. The poster?
- Low reading time
- Zero posts created
- Zero solutions
- No evidence of community engagement
- Joined less than a week ago
Now let’s look at the stats of a Regular that I found:
- 35+ days of reading time
- 2000+ posts created
- 200+ solutions
- 4000+ likes received
- Member since 2018
Imagine reading posts for a few hours and the automated promotion system decides that you are prepared to facilitate meaningful discussion on the DevForum.
Welcome to the playing field of serious, knowledgable developers.
The issue with Scripting Support
Over time, I’ve seen an increase in the frequency of posts and an alarming decrease in the quality of posts. There really is no standard that posts can be held to, and rules that posters can be held accountable for.
Let’s take a moment and look at the first thing you see when you fire up a + New Topic in Scripting Support:
-
What do you want to achieve? Keep it simple and clear!
-
What is the issue? Include screenshots / videos if possible!
-
What solutions have you tried so far? Did you look for solutions on the Developer Hub?
… and click on pretty much any random post in the category.
… and tell me if it checks off more than one of these criteria, most especially #3. Most issues can be fixed by just trying an alternative method or restructuring your code.
If you sift through my solutions, you’ll see that more than a few of them are just links to a Development Hub article.
There are so many issues that can easily be solved with a google search. I remember reading a post pertaining to a development issue that I came across in 2017, and saw it beautifully rabbit-hole into a competition for who could best-optimize a solution to the problem.
Now, everything is oversaturated with 100 posts about the same issue or subject, just with a different face behind the problem, and nobody is doing anything to prevent this.
If the process was manual, then I wonder how the staff was able to cope with the applications. It must have been overwhelming, but probably better then it’s now.