I’m very sad to see this change happen and I think Roblox is losing a great source of engagement by doing this. Had the forum not existed when I joined Roblox I likely would have never progressed past playing games and certainly wouldn’t still be active 9 years later. Groups don’t replace the center of discussion that the forums created where users could feel connected to the Roblox community as a whole. The bug reports, scripting helpers and building helpers sections also provided value that will be hard to replace with groups.
It’s also very sad to see that Roblox will not be hosting archives of the old forums, there is some amazing history there that will be lost forever. I really enjoy looking back at old posts to see how Roblox was in previous years. Old posts from notable users and from the first Roblox employees as they figured things out and communicated directly with the community are fascinating to look at and very much a part of the story of Roblox.
While I agree with removing the forums for the highly toxic community it fostered, this leaves game/group managers with no way of sharing long posts of information with their fans. (such as rules posts, longer update notes, or anything else that’s too long to fit in a group shout or description)
A lack of any method for sharing long posts will seriously stifle my ability to communicate with my fans. There is not nearly enough character space to fit all of your important information into one shout or description. Either the character limits need to be increased by a lot, or there needs to be other methods of making longer information posts. I hope something of the sort is in the works ASAP.
I believe this was a good call made by Roblox. It seems clear that the best way to avoid negativity is to eliminate a place that easily has as much negativity to view.
Though I’d be lying if I say I’ll not miss the forum, even though I really never used it. When I did however, there was some really funny stuff to see and there were some pretty nice people there too. At least we still have groups, it’s a fair alternative.
I cannot completely decide if this was a good idea, but at least we don’t have to worry about being warned/banned for a three/four year old forum post. That was pretty ridiculous. Groups should be in a green-light for being overhauled.
This is really a surprise!
To be honest, I’m kinda happy about the forums being shut down but at the same time, I’m not.
It’s good because mostly, there can be a negative atmosphere in the forums but it’s bad as clans use their Clans & Guilds section for rules and more.
Don’t forget about the scripting helper’s forum!
One concern though. Will groups be good enough to “replace” the forums?
The group overhaul has had its green-light for a while now (ie, green-light for doing it), however last I heard it was pushed back in light of higher priority tasks.
Can we at least have a functional/easier to use groups page first?
The Forums are an important way of communication with the community, and while I do agree that it has been really toxic for some years now and that this measure was unfortunately needed, there are some… uh, “use cases” for it we will need a replacement later on.
There simply isn’t enough space for anything in the group description box. We can’t use Discord or Pastebin either, so we’re pretty much left with nothing here to write clan guides, tutorials and the alike.
Communities like the trading community will have to rely on external websites/platforms because the group wall’s filter is often stricter than the Forums’. Preventing people from flocking over to external services like Discord and Reddit will be harder than ever before.
With the Forums, we had some sort of category division per say, with the different subforums and such. Now, we’ll have to join groups related to our interests - but given that the majority of the userbase is NBC, we’ll only have limited spaces for them - and again, we will need to move on to outside services to fulfill that need.
A lot of friends (developers, video makers, creators in general) I know started their careers in the Forums, because exposure/help there was great. One of the things that made me get interested in Roblox were the Forum Simulators - albeit offensive sometimes, they were funny and hooked me into this universe.
Please tell me the group overhaul will actually be looked upon this time
A replacement should be a high priority investment. As others suggested, the group page needs a overhaul or entire communities will go dark in terms of keeping their fan base in the loop of things.
Removing the forums and no replacement? This puts so much more distance between Roblox and the community. How will Roblox know how it’s average users feel about things? It’s like they are being silenced.
And it is being removed because we can’t find a solution to moderation? How does this problem apply to only the forums?
I also feel, since other non-specified 3rd party communication applications aren’t allowed on site, a replacement is required. Communities need ways to communicate with their audience.
I feel as though a lot of communities are being wiped out recently. This could have a big negative effect on what made Roblox great in the early years which was the community.
Unless the group overhaul is a few days away, it may be worthwhile to have direct-link, no-replies-allowed threads until the overhaul is here, rather than removing the forums immediately. This will allow users to post guides/rules/etc without fostering toxicity.
Roblox Forums were a huge part of learning lua for me. It’s what originally got me engaged in the community, so it’s difficult to see it go. I understand why, but I think this will leave a large void on Roblox - especially with Discord (the most obvious replacement) not supported.
This doesn’t affect any of us because we still have our forum, but this seemed to come extremely sudden. How much notice were players given? I think Roblox does a great job at taking care of their developers and hearing them out, but are we doing the same for our player base? Knowing how important these communities were to me as a kid, I can only imagine the anger some of them are probably feeling right now.
And groups are not a valid replacement in any shape or form. How do we communicate large announcements now? I think this change came a little too sudden.
no discord and now no forums, what’s even happening…
I never was very active on the forums, but it’s nice to see old conversations with people like NXTBoy about some scripting stuff. Haven’t talked on the forums in the past few years except once or twice though.
aren’t allowed on site, a replacement is required. Communities need ways to communicate with their audience.