I have been using the DevForum for quite a few years now, albeit with some periods of pauses. However, in recent times (within the last few months), there has been an almost exponential influx of new members joining the forums.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I fully endorse the increased number of members so as to provide more opportunities for Roblox users. However, I feel that this has come to the detriment of the effectiveness of the forums as a platform of communication. One big problem is that when I ask for scripting advice that is just slightly more advanced than what is usually asked in the section, due to the overwhelming number of people using the scripting help section, my post gets pushed down with people answer more simpler questions which (in my opinion, have sometimes been already asked many times before).
Therefore, what I am proposing is to divide the scripting help section (and other sections where applicable) further into three different parts for users to decide which to put into, namely, basic, intermediate and advanced scripting questions. I think this would help to organise scripting questions so that older scripters questions do not go unanswered by the wave of new member questions.
Of course, no solution is perfect on its own. And as much as it has already been said, this solution may still be overrun by new members and thus should also work hand in hand with greater criterion for who can join the DevForum.
I write this post when it’s starting to become too late. The new wave of members have already somewhat overwhelmed the developing help section, and I suspect they will go for the private messaging forum function soon, in which top developers may start to receive tons of spam messages and just ignore them. Of course, things are not so bleak yet, I have still been able to write to popular Roblox Developers and am still touched to receive their replies. I cherish this, because I am afraid it won’t last for long. Soon, this unbelievable connection that we used to have with any developer on the platform may just be lost. I foresee that this day would come.
I think we should go back to the application process, because people are starting to farm for posts read, while not really knowing what they are reading.
The application process was not scalable and had a backlog of several months. Not everyone accepted through auto-promotion is bad, either, and it’s a bit rude to suggest that.
I see your point but Roblox has to evolve with the times, i.e. a platform for anyone to develop on. As such, I would propose a more balanced approach, not one to revert to the past. As mentioned in original post, a two-pronged approach of stricter criteria for members to join as well as greater dividing of sections for organisation.
One thing I do utmost agree with is that the forum is starting to look more like a social media platform, not a place of development and collaboration. I could literally get addicted to reading forum posts as if I was watching YouTube. Shouldn’t this be a place of productivity?
Even speaking as one of the aforementioned new members, I wholeheartedly agree with your statement. I often see many questions in scripting help that could easily be answered with a simple google search. I always try to look in other avenues before posting on the forums, but I admit that the requests in my posts are much more basic than questions that could potentially be asked by a much more experienced programmer. Having the scripting help section split into different “skill-levels” so to speak would benefit everyone.
I agree with all of this. Although I got in same as many other people, I’ve at least been using the forum and studio for multiple years despite membership status. Many of these people are now asking questions that used to be put on ScriptingHelpers and are flooding #help-and-feedback:scripting-support preventing more advanced questions from being asked. I’ve ended up going to the advanced question area of the ScriptingHelper’s Discord to ask questions since the DevForum has few people now who will even see my question before it flies by with posts.
Some examples of low-level posts that floods the forum are:
“How to make my motor rotates?”
“How to get the player from touch?”
“How do I make a open button, and make it visible for group members?”
“Can some one scripter or if u know what is wrong help me”
I’ve pretty much just gone to recent and started reading down and that’s out of 15 posts.
Those are all things that members of the forum should know all ready. If Roblox wishes to open the forum to the public, they should still have an application for the actual roles. I’ve seen many people indicate themselves as a “Programmer” who can’t read documentation for the life of them.
New member here I totally agree it is way too easy to get into the forums and I think they should make it harder to get in. Only 2 hours read time to get in which is easy to do.
Edit: I think maybe there should be a section for new people to the forums maybe?
New members are new because they don’t know how to use the platform. What I am suggesting here is that new members would be less knowledgeable on the divide and thus are less likely to abuse it. Think of akin to the forum’s private messaging which hasn’t been abused yet (but I do suspect that they’ll learn about it and stat abusing it).
Additionally, I never said that this was the sole approach to solving the problem. As mentioned in the first post, the approach is two-pronged, involving tiered sections as well as stricter criteria to join the DevForum. There is no strategy that does not have limitations and the approach I am proposing is to allow both prongs to complement each other and reduce their respective limitations.
Also speaking as a new member here. I mainly joined the DevForum just to expand my knowledge and meet new people, and I totally agree with this post. 90% of my time is spend trying to get help/give help on the scripting support page and most of the posts are just flooded with questions that can be answered with a google search.
A basic, intermediate, and advanced section for scripting support would benefit alot but as @sjr04 said it might just get overran by beginners either way.
Although maybe a quick fix could be adding more requirements to use those categories, but then again I dont know how that would work.
I understand you said that wasn’t the only solution to the problem. I am just saying why it wouldn’t work. “Advanced” is relative. There is no objective view on what “advanced” is. What everyone calls “advanced” I call the basics. I have a lot of experience.
And @chexburger: application for the roles won’t work, because there will just be a backlog. It will be much smaller since it’s 1 little role vs the applying for entire forum, but still a significant backlog for each role.
However a small quiz that all programmers even with the least amount of experience should know the answers to, might be useful. As well as for other roles like building, 3d modeling etc.
Although, do keep in mind that of course there will be basic questions, as the stickied “About” section on each help category says:
And there is one more thing the new users(Not everyone) join today and gets promoted the next day. How?
I took me 2 weeks to get promoted.
We all can relate with that but new people to the dev forum is mostly new developers and it is out job to help newbies and make a bit advanced like us.
Yeah but still your point is correct.
@sikowwitzz
Good idea but the forum isn’t allowing new members to post instantly because they are new they wouldn’t know which category to post and as you said a forum for newbies would be non - useful because of new members there are a few people who can answer scripting problems.
But I appreciate being honest that you just had 2 hours of read time.
Edit 1 @AbandonedRick
Also I wanted to talk about something that is common.
As I mentioned above that new players wouldn’t know which Category to post often people flag it and complain it is in wrong category. Can’t they see that their days visited would be low? It is very obvious to everyone and every new person can relate with it.
You could probably fix posts being spammed by beginners in a advanced category if they ever added it by possibly flagging it as off-topic to that category? Which would make sense because a beginner question like how to detect a touched event should not belong in a advanced section.
A quiz would be a good idea. This should be a very in-depth quiz though designed to pick out the levels of people. Like 50+ questions as anyone serious about the forum would do that.
A quiz should contain basic, intermediate, and advanced concepts.
Only problem with this is people giving out the answers. A rotating bank of questions in that case would be more effective.
Maybe the quiz could force the person to use the documentation just so those who do the quiz can know where to find most the information they’re looking for.
I think this is a bold idea, yet a good one. I think there should be requirements to gain these channels but not as much reading the forum, more experience in actual coding or roblox itself, I can’t think of anything that could work but if you just let all users post in all channels, like @sjr04 said, it isn’t going to work.
There should be set guidelines for “advanced” “experienced” or the other mentioned parts of this. It would be really silly if someone asked how to use print() in the highest level. Imagine someone posting something like Why are my topics grey? in an experienced category; it wouldn’t make sense.
If you are referring to the current topic “Adding an advanced, intermediate, beginner section”, I dont quite understand why you think this way. If you could share your opinion on why this would be a bad idea I would love to hear it.
Edit: If you meant something else then just ignore what I said…
There are not like 50million members on the dev forum (I am exaggerating). If we do we might as well get kicked off of the dev forum. Not a good idea in my opinion.
I totally agree it is way too easy to get into the forums and I think they should make it harder to get in. Only 2 hours read time to get in which is easy to do.