There should be a more private development support category

Forum Help
#1

Edit: Trust level names are outdated in this post, I’ll get around to updating them later.

Currently, most of the development support category is being flooded with low-quality, spam and unhelpful post or comments. It’s incredibly challenging to get good-quality help and support with issues because of the number of inexperienced new members who do not add anything helpful to the ongoing conversation.

I’m not trying to attack new members - lots of them are talented and know what they are doing. However, a far more substantial portion does not. The issue lies with the number of new members getting accepted into the forum at any one time. Before the automated process got put into place, the support categories fostered helpful and constructive criticism and practical support. People on the forum knew what they were doing because it got checked. Now, however, anyone can get in for reading a few posts. The barrier to entry on the forum has been drastically lowered - for good or bad - which means that people who do not know what they are doing are trying to give support on topics they do not understand.

I know the argument; “We need to teach new members the ropes so that, in the future, this doesn’t happen”. However, this doesn’t work - you can see that it doesn’t work. There are far too many new members being accepted that it is impossible to stop and prevent the low-quality posts. I’d probably predict that for every new member you teach the ropes, 2-3 more will join.

These low-quality posts are hindering and damaging the experience of members on the forum. I, and countless other members, do not utilise the development support categories now because it is merely too tricky actually to receive useful and constructive support. Most of the good quality posts are getting drowned out by low-quality ones, which makes getting your post seen even more difficult.

In my opinion, an excellent tempory solution to this clear issue is a new, private, development support category for members only. A private category for only members will bring back how the development support category used to be before it got flooded with low-quality posts. Experienced members will finally be able to help each other again productively and constructively.

The Developer Forum Community server (Discord) is a prime example of this in action. In this server, there is a development category which fosters useful and constructive support for issues. Visiting these channels, you can see this in action. The single problem with this setup, however, is that Discord is not a sustainable solution because it does not work in the same way as a forum. You can’t split messages up into topics so different conversations will often be confused and mixed up.

TD; DR

Development support categories are often full of inexperienced new members not contributing to a discussion, and a temporary fix for the more experienced would be a private development support category for members only.

I’d like to emphasis that this thread is not attacking new members.

Edit 1
New members should be able to view this category as it will contain useful information. However, they should not be able to make posts or reply in it.

34 Likes
Too many new DevForum members
#2

I just want to say yes. Less experienced new members sometimes teach other less experienced new members bad practices, and they spread like the (1500s?) plague. When a more experienced user points out the bad practices, it’s hard to rectify them later on.

I get it they’re trying to help. New members have good intentions. Thats for sure. But please, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t!

12 Likes
#3

I say No. Well, As a new member I can understand why you made this post but at the same time NOT every Member Is better than New members, we are all human and we all do little things to make people mad here to there and do stuff that makes people upset… At the same time it would just make more work for the mods here… I do not think making a another Category just for members is fair and is not fair for the mods here.

4 Likes
#4

Thing is, most members are going to know what they are talking about. Quality would barely be an issue in this suggested private category.

The problem with many low-quality “solutions” is that the writer is sure about the answer even though it might not be good.

And new members, in scripting support don’t know about formatting, so we either get screenshots of code or code not in a code block. The issue with requests for code with no effort from their end is still going on.

4 Likes
#5

Are you also saying that new members are not the same as members? A NEW Member means that they are new to Dev Forums NOT new to the topic. It does not matter what rank you have someone will know more than you all Way’s.

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#6

When new members are promoted, they have shown they have skill and know what they are talking about. Existing members got into the forum by showing they have skill and know what they are talking about.

I’m not saying that this doesn’t occur with members - it does. However, the frequency at which it occurs with members is tiny compared to the number of members there are.

4 Likes
#7

Not everyone who is a new member is automatically good either. Member doesn’t mean you’re better. It just means you’re trusted with more posting permissions.

Literally, the only difference between new and full is that full members can see more categories, and can omit the post approval. Nothing else.

3 Likes
#8

As a new member, I absolutely agree with this. I see a lot of posts that ask for scripts in #help-and-feedback:scripting-support, which is not what the category is for, and I see a lot of posts in #help-and-feedback:game-design-support that would fit in #discussion more. However, I think that the support categories should be kept, but a new set of support categories that is limited to members should be private to new members, while new members can still create topics and such in their support categories.

7 Likes
#9

Yeah I never said that the current one should be removed at all. I’m saying there should be a new category for just members.

3 Likes
#10

You are saying that because they are a new member they don’t know how to make a post? Or don’t know how to help someone?

#11

No, not at all. But this has clearly been demonstrated countless times (with other ones that is)

1 Like
#12

My point is that now there is an automated system you don’t have to SHOW you have skill. I’m not saying you don’t have skill. However, the large majority of new members are very new to development, and this hinders the more experienced developers drastically.

2 Likes
#13

People don’t seem to understand that the majority of new members are young kids that are new to development. Regulars understand forum etiquette and can respect a place that is only for ‘proper’ development.

That being said, the category should be visible to new members for the help of the community.

New members, as the same suggests, are new. While there are many new members that are very familiar with the forum and can make good posts; they are still learning the ropes and (unfortunately) many lack the proper communication skills needed for professional and technical discourse.

7 Likes
#14

OK, I can understand where you are coming from like I said I am a new member but I have been here for about 5 months and I understand why you want this done but at the time things like this post approval as to mini mod these things. But overall I say Yes they do need this so new members can understand how to post. And when I say post I mean not write a whole School paper. I mean to understand what is helpful and what is not and need to have a little bit of good grammar…

1 Like
#15

Please don’t take it as personal against new members. In the OP it is stated that this is not the intention of the post.

I will repeat once more: new members, as you said, are new to the forum, and not necessarily to development. They might not fully understand the way things go here.

3 Likes
#16

Sorry, if it feels like that I was told a lot to make your point viewed and shown the best way you can.
Sorry again.

1 Like
#33

I would like to remind everyone to stay on topic and not turn this into a meaningless back and forth like it’s becoming.

I don’t think the solution to having a bunch of bad posts in the support categories is to just leave them to fester. That’s tantamount to saying “announcements get a bunch of bad replies, we should start a new announcement category”. Instead, effort should probably be put in to actually moderate the support categories – I assume you’re flagging all of the threads asking for scripts or that are generally bad? If not, you only have yourself to blame.

We do not need more member only categories on the forum and we absolutely don’t need more support categories. We just need to actually control the current ones.

13 Likes
#34

I experience the complete opposite problem. When someone asks what plugins they should use only having 6 months of experience, a top contributor said none, learn how to do everything manually, and that plugins should only ever speed up a process, not create a process. While I gave a large list of plugins I think would be great for newbies. She was very thankful and kind for that.

There are just as many bad developers who are full members as new members. Being a full member, top contributor, or any of the following ranks, doesn’t make a genius. It just means you’re likely to not violate the rules of the forums.

5 Likes
#35

This is better for a separate topic however the forum rules don’t necessarily have guidelines against general low-quality posts. It’s technically possible for something to be following the rules, but lack any sense of quality. There are even some replies to this topic that, while follow rules, are unreadable mess.

Debetable. There is a sense of correlation, however correlation is not causation and there are some bad regulars, although they are usually hard to find.

Forum rank isn’t about following rules, it’s about making positive contributions that embrace and promote discourse.

2 Likes
#60

As a newer member, even I approve of this, I think it would be more beneficial for members to have their own support category where they could get help without some of us new members, who some of us I don’t even understand why they’re on the DevForum, try to tell people things when they don’t know what they’re saying. Us new members being able to view it may also demonstrate how to format posts, what real, helpful replies should look like, and might help clearing out some of the spam (etc.) in the other categories.

2 Likes