Pretty much my thoughts exactly, my main scepticism about this update remains to be this line from the pinned post on the forums: “This coming year, we’ll be investigating options to re-build forums that better serve you, our community, and our goals in providing a safe and constructive environment.”
Call me cynical, but that line just screams of damage control to me; An empty commitment to try and appease those not convinced by the update. I realize that sounds a little dramatic but consider that this sort of thing has been done several times in the past, a good example of this was the removal of tickets (Which by the way is an update I was completely fine with) : NBC users were promised alternative incentives for logging in such as milestone rewards, yet that never saw the light of day…
So if anything, I’m yet to be convinced we’ll have a proper solution to this other than the already provided sledgehammer tactics. There’s no denying that the Roblox forums harboured some of the worst of the community, but that also doesn’t deny that the forums served a significant function for users. I also don’t really agree with this mentality some have that “oh we have the dev forums so it’s fine” because the perks that come from a forum environment like this should be seen as a basic necessity for users and not a privilege that needs to be granted.
The goal of this was to stop kids going offsite and protect/keeps kids safe (I’m a 50:50, nice forums are going but why because good threads) but the irony is now that someone already made a ROBLOX forums site, away from the ROBLOX site which anyone can get to or find easily thus sending them away from official ROBLOXia and into a area of uncertainty and potential un-safe exposure or dangerous encounters.
I’m just this one through and I still would of re-vamped the forums I completely agree with that but I don’t think that removing the forums outright was a good solution.
Hopefully we get the group revamp pretty soon, that might include a group forum. (and maybe a trade page revamp where people can suggest offers, much like rolimons.)
It’s pretty clear Roblox is trying to push aside it’s social aspect, and just focus on games, development, and sponsors.
Every single social aspect of the site is either a hassle to get to, hard to use because of excessive filters, or just extremely outdated.
And, there’s even less and less reasons to actually participate on the site, with more statistics being removed, and the badges being neglected, I don’t see many users actually interacting with the site in the future.
Hopefully something is done about this soon, not 1-3 years soon, 6-12 months soon. Too many features have been removed in such a short time leaving us with little to no social interaction with others via the site.
As for the closing of the forums in general, I quit using them 2+ years ago, the only side-affect it’ll have on me now is group related things. (I understand #bulletin-board exist. But it is not a permanent fix. Nor viable in the long run.)
It’s good shutting down the Roblox public Forum. That way, moderators can focus on moderating much more important things. Plus over the years, the Roblox public forums has gotten worse. But instead of public forums, there should be forums for each group with better moderation tools for group admins and a higher cap on the maximum number of groups a player can be in at once. Not everyone on roblox can be a dev. For example, clan members need a place to engage with their community. But they often not part of the roblox dev forum and their only option left is to use the group wall feature to post updates and the group wall to share their thoughts. The group wall feature on roblox is inefficient and outdated because there’s no way to search older group wall posts to view. The group wall lacks a lot of features like, bulk delete, different categories for discussion on the group wall, pinned group wall post, ability to include images in group wall posts, etc. Basically, the group wall feature should be more like the forum. The other option is for the player to go offsite to engage with their community and that’s not good because it’s not only a violation of roblox rules but it’s a safety issue. Roblox should take steps to encourage users not to break rules not just by consequences but adding features that suit their needs without going to a different website for a specific feature.
Surely if people used group forums to chat it would add to moderation complications as you would need “live” moderators to actively monitor more locations than what the old forums provided? “Live” mods would be needed in group forums surley for the same reasons they were on the old forums?
