Note Feb 2020: trust levels were renamed from New Member, Member to Member, Regular. The first post has been edited to reflect these changes, but the replies have not.
Hey Developers,
As many of you are aware, the process of gaining entry into the Developer Forum has been one of frequent change and iteration. After careful consideration and planning, we have implemented our first steps towards a permanent, automated solution. This means that users who actively utilize the Developer Forum are now able to receive Member permissions automatically.
The application process failed to meet developer needs - instead, it discouraged participation and led to unfortunate bottlenecks and long wait times. The goal of the Developer Engagement Team is to empower developers with opportunities to participate in discourse about Roblox development and make information as readily available as possible for all developers on the platform.
The primary reason for this change is to ensure that the Developer Forum continues to be accessible to our ever-growing community of Roblox developers. The forum needs to be able to accommodate the influx of interest in Roblox development. The forum should continue to be accessible in the interests of our developers of all skill levels, backgrounds, and amounts of experience. The ideal solution to facilitate this is the automation of the entry process, which was previously the most strenuous bottleneck on developers being able to engage with the forum.
To summarize, the process has changed: applications are now closed, and this is to the benefit of developers who are interested in joining the forum who no longer have to wait for manual approval. The new process is simple: use the Developer Forum. Browse the Development Support category and discover answers to questions you may have yourself, read up on recent updates made to the platform, and check out some of the tutorials created by our community.
FAQ
Q: How do I receive entry into the Developer Forum?
A: Entry is based on your utilization of the Developer Forum. All you have to do is browse the forum for information and resources. If you don’t quite know where to start, we recommend using the Discourse tutorial bot, reading the Official Rules of the Roblox Developer Forum, and browsing topics to get familiar with the format and atmosphere. To get started with the Discourse tutorial, just navigate to your Messages (click your avatar icon in the top right corner of the forum and click the message icon in the menu that comes up) and look for your very first message from Discobot.
Q: How will this system prevent unintended users (bots, non-developers, scammers, trolls, alts, etc.) from gaining entry?
A: Discourse has excellent built-in tools to catch alts and prevent botting and spam. It also has features that the Developer Engagement Team can use to prevent this type of behavior from happening, which will be utilized as necessary. Scammers and trolls are not a new issue introduced by automation. These types of users will be dealt with the same way they were before: in accordance with our official rules and our three-strike system. Because this system requires users to actively utilize the Developer Forum, it isn’t worth it for non-developers to attempt to gain entry. If you do encounter any of these situations regardless of the measures put in place, please bring it to the attention of the Developer Engagement Team by using Discourse’s flagging feature: https://devforum.roblox.com/t/how-to-utilize-the-developer-forum-flag-system/41905
Q: What happens to applications that are pending right now? Why not just get more people to read applications?
A: Applicants have been waiting on results for a while now, and we apologize for the delay. The application process was not designed to scale with the rapid growth of our developer community and, as a result, would not be able to scale well no matter how many people are on our team. We’re aware that many applicants put a lot of time and effort into their applications, however we believe that this change is in the best interest of all of our developers, who are no longer subjected to a long and arduous application process. Instead, the process should be to the benefit of the developers: all of the power to join is now in your hands and nobody should experience several months of waiting for entry.
Q: What is the specific criteria for automated promotion to Member? Will there be similar automation to go from Member to Regular in the future?
A: At this time, we will not be disclosing the exact numbers or criteria needed to receive Member permissions automatically. Going forward, the Developer Engagement Team is looking to reduce the number of manual processes involved in progression within the Developer Forum. The next areas we’re looking into addressing are the ways Members can become Regulars and the ways we recognize and reward developers who make great contributions.
Q: How are you going to ensure the incoming Members quickly learn the rules and etiquette of the forum?
A: We have reformatted the Official Rules of the Roblox Developer Forum to be more concise, but still go into necessary detail. The rewritten rules are less of a wall of text and provide more general information, while the content provided previously can still be found in a neater and less intimidating format.
Thanks,
Developer Relations Team
