I’ve seen a lot of threads which start off with the following phrase or something in this nature:
If this is in the wrong category, please tell me where it should go.
There’s no need to include this. You have many resources at your fingertips. There’s a reason why I post “please read category guidelines” like it’s a mantra on so many threads. The category guidelines and summaries help you understand what a category is for. Other users in the community, such as Sages and Editors, can also help you find the right category for your post.
These are simple steps you can take to ensure your post is in the right category and avoid getting flagged or having your thread edited, the latter of which I am well aware a lot of you dislike happening as per the PMs I’ve gotten before. There’s virtually no excuse for misusing, intentionally or unintentionally, a category. No, not having access to Platform Feedback isn’t an excuse either. Use Forum Feedback to convey to Developer Relations that their PA alternative is still missing and that access is important to you.
It’s just unfortunate that a lot of posters choose not to read information plainly available or access the resources they have and prioritise posting their own content even if it’s not even the right category. Seeing that happen too often lately and the cherry on top comes when the complaints do as well.
Mistakes happen, I get that and it’s a pleasure to move threads to a more fitting category in that case. The margin of error can be so much lower if people could just take a second to read the information we have up or to message us instead of rushing to get a post up, oftentimes said thread getting flagged (an increasingly common occurrence in Development Discussion).
Of course, there are some things out of all of our capabilities and that’s where we need to call on Developer Relations to address the problem or to communicate with us on what’s going on. Talking about lack of good categories to post in (i.e. Game Design Support becoming a void for topics that don’t fit elsewhere, sort of like Lounge for Regulars but with the absence of casual platform discussion), access issues and all that.
Thank you for writing this, I think people might think you guys aren’t here to help them, instead working with DET. I feel in a sense that this post should be pinned at the top of development discussion, as I see:
All the time. Here is a relevant thread that I’ll just slide in here:
While @buildthomas does not think we need some more forum meta, based on the current state the forum is in, I think it would be beneficial.
This is good to know. Even as a Regular, I sometimes have gray area questions for category placement, but I was afraid to ask before since PA was extremely backlogged already. Community Editors hopefully won’t face this issue, so people will feel more confident in asking.
The people who write this sentence at the start of their post likely do not browse Forum Feedback and so there is not much point to making this post. Only the most fanatic forum users really look at Forum Feedback topics. I think that’s a good thing to realise.
Most people just want to post and get their answers, they don’t really care about how we have categories set up or which group they can ask what info. That’s partially because they are too young/inexperienced with using a forum and partially the community’s fault for not guiding them properly / setting up the forum properly so that they are guided towards the right behaviors. PSAs in this category, or any other category, are completely ineffective at reaching this group of users over large periods of time, so it’s pointless to make these topics.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I don’t recognise that. It’s very clear that if a majority of our younger or inexperienced userbase is incapable of reading simple things like category guidelines and summaries to understand where better to put a post, then expecting them to read a PSA is absurd. This isn’t fully geared towards them.
There are still a number of experienced or mature forum users, regardless, who are concerned with seeing more signal in categories where they’d like to see discussion valuable to them; and there are also people out there who help others by posting where a thread would better belong in the replies. Those people are more likely to view Forum Feedback. Not all feedback readers know they can reach out to Editors and Sages for help even then.
If you read my third post, community guidance and forum setup is something that I already did address in response. That’s where feature requests in this category can come into play and Developer Engagement response would be best, because those hold more weight than a simple community PSA. Excerpt from the reply:
I do not find it completely pointless to make these topics. It’s a complete void to the implied target audience, but it isn’t to those who
A) Read this category and don’t know this information, or
B) Those who are looking to pitch requests to help improve the forum.
Just because a majority of the forum userbase is young, inexperienced and more concerned with their own questions and such over how we’ve constructed the forum, doesn’t mean this is ineffective in reaching other audiences who do care.
The idea isn’t preventing category misuse, rather to highlight an available resource and possibly also making some talking points clear for those submitting Forum Feedback requests. Category misuse is an inherent problem we will have to face for two reasons, at least from my own perspective.
The way the categories are set up. Users may feel that they do not have enough options at their disposal or they can’t figure out what a category is used for, so they just post anywhere. Once Platform Feedback is open again with the new process, then the rest of the worry is just low quality threads in various categories.
The DevForum is an open community and we host a lot of young ages here. Naturally, younger aged audiences are less inclined to read anything or understand how the forum works - they’re only concerned about getting answers to their questions (and in some cases, bolstering stats), as pointed out above. They don’t care about the processes we have. Some might.
The Lounge category shouldn’t belong on the DevForum, but it does and it’s the only appropriate place where most of the unfitting threads you see should be going into. Quick questions, non-Roblox talk and the like can be put there. As Members do not have access to it however, they use what categories are there to post whatever content, leading to this predicament.
There’s no good solution and I don’t even want to begin to discuss that. I’ve seen enough discussion about the diminishing quality of the forum, not really my business other than being annoying to a volunteer job with no obligations. Just putting a word out and that’s it.
