(Vol. 1 had some valid arguments about Post Approval. But after trying it I feel like it is not the correct solution to the problem)
Nowadays, New Members on the forum are almost the same as Members. They can comment on bug reports, create bug reports and can even request for a feature to be made on the platform.
But the thing is that as of now, New Members are not allowed to comment on Feature Requests. This should be changed. If your concern is about spam and them saying “Totally agree! this should be added to the platform”, you should not be worried because the current system allows these same New Members to make bug reports and even comment on them, and we do not see a lot of “Can experience this bug too! YOU GOTTA FIX THIS URGENTLY”.
Now to the second argument: “Why not just use the Approval team?”, so TL;DR: It’s slow and new members can’t have a conversation with other developers that do not want this feature.
Let’s take for example this feature request I commented on not so long ago. I explained my opinion then another developer said that 9 Slice can work here, a thing I think is too much of a work by the developer, and Roblox should implement this. But I can not comment on it and waiting 3 days for the Approval team to approve the comment and place it is just frustrating and slow.
In conclusion, if New Members get that level of trust as commenting on bug reports, and even making them without the need for approval. they should very well be able to comment on Feature Requests.
I have to agree with this, though the issue cannot be easily solved.
I remember before getting the Member role, posting pretty much anywhere significant (besides support) was a pain. You have to send a request, wait for them to review it and tell you what to fix, then have another one step in sometimes. The aproval team is somewhat small, but does its job the way they can.
The main reason this was added is to avoid bots and alts from spamming and it works well enough and there are no other reliable solutions. Captchas can be easily fooled (my friend literally just chose random images and skipped the process 7 times in a row) and they were considered the most reliable solution for a long time. Roblox’s community is just too immature to be trusted.
If the developer community can not trust itself I think we are in a big hole. New Member Requirements should be much higher and not just viewing the forum for about an hour. maybe even Roblox based requirements.
Post approval is actually for quality control, what you wrote here is inaccurate. We hardly ever (if ever) deal with bots and alts. It’s about making sure the category isn’t overrun with low quality responses / topics and duplicate discussions.
I have explained here why New Members should not have to go through all of the Post Approval mess, we do not see a lot of off-topic responses therefore I think the same will apply in Feature Requests. instead of approving posts, The contributors should focus on reviewing these posts after they have been posted.
New member access to categories has been thoroughly discussed internally. There’s an observable difference between how quickly new users become accustomed to correctly responding to bug reports and feature requests. Bug reports are relatively simple, whereas feature requests are generally more abstract and new members typically have a tougher time responding to them without bloating the thread.
By using the post approval process, we can guarantee topics merged as replies meet our quality standards, address the problem, and justify use-case outside of “We need this feature because it’s good to have” which is initially very common in newer users. Meeting these standards is much easier with bug reports because typically it’s a yes/no type discussion, quickly and easily grasped by new users.
The approval process is quick for replies. We typically merge topics as replies within 10 minutes to 1 day at most.
New members not being able to reply to their own moved feature requests will hopefully be resolved in the long-term.
Dismissing post approval as a whole is somewhat irrational to me because it has led to significantly higher quality topics across the board in Platform Feedback and it makes both users and engineers put more effort into communicating through this category. This is a good thing for everyone because it means it is easier for Roblox to be transparent if the signal-to-noise ratio is high.
In terms of reply permissions, we can discuss whether we still need to have the feature requests category locked down, sure. We’ll get back to you on that one.
Public is basically a spam on its own. Most responses are in the lines on “nice!” or “can’t wait to use this”. The moderation in those boils down to removing inappropriate posts and there is no reason for exploiters to target it.
Help and Feedback is much more attractive, but still not ideal. Most posts last for a day or 2, but considering how many categories actually need to be went through that don’t require confirmation before posting, it is fairly easy to track down anything malicious.
The rest need to be confirmed before going out of Bulleting Board and can be pretty much ignored here.
I thought of a little suggestion: A “Reputation” System. Something mid-tier that once a New Member’s post have been approved a few times through the Approval system. the user can comment on Feature Requests and possibly more types of categories
This is unnecessary because new members who thoroughly grasp these concepts without the need for post approval and actively contribute to the forum are promoted to full member.
This takes a lot of time to do. the fact is that there are some users who may be less active but does not talk off topic. that ruins their chances of becoming a full Member and even though they are capable of talking correctly, they are still not able to comment on posts like Feature Requests
Quite! Many members like me are often occupied developing and can’t check on the forums often, a reputation system would be a welcomed change that allows less active but still contributing new members to easily post bug reports/feedback in the forums.
To add a little bit to your point, I for one have been through the post approval process multiple times when I was a new member. This process may be annoying and frustrating but it really helps you with creating better quality, on topic posts. It also helps you understand the forum and how to post correctly in certain categories. I think the process is super important and I feel as though all new members should take advantage of it.
Removing the need to go through the post approval process to reply to feature requests is a step back in my opinion. Remember engineers read through this category and I don’t suspect they want to read through a sea of low quality duplicated posts. With the use of post approval you are ensuring every post here is meaningful and constructive.
I find it more frustrating how I can’t reply to posts in development discussion, especially about programming where I feel I can make lots of good contributions. I don’t know how to become a member to do this because there is no proper system. Post approval takes far too long to be able to post relevant replies to topics, so my only option is to send personal messages which eliminates the purpose of a forum.
You aren’t removing the need. New members will still have to seek approval for new topics, but not to reply because the approval process takes days which means by the time your reply is approved it is already irrelevant and out of date.
We can process replies within 10 minutes of submission if they meet our required quality standards, further taking generally at most 1 day to be merged into a topic because of sage availability. This process will be quickened shortly once additional PA tools are released.
Perhaps you could have a staging area for feature requests that new members could post their idea? I have one right now and most modern 3d programs have this feature. Unfortunately I have no idea how much time it will take to become member. I can post here but not there… seems strange. If you agreed with my feature request then you could move it there yourself?
Topics will naturally take longer to be processed and moved. This also extends to replies which don’t meet our quality standards or require further discussion between PA members. I’m looking through our recent history and for the most part replies have been merged into their topic within 1 day.