answers.unity3d is Not Beginner Friendly

I just started out on unity. I looked at a few dozen answer pages, and they helped me greatly. However, there is a flaw in this system. Most people that want questions answered and newcomers like me. In fac,t I did not even know how to call another script until yesterday. However, this is where the problem comes. I have faced this problem twice.
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1.) Needs a question answered, and can not find another help page or answer page with the relevant information of my circumstance.
2.) Posts a question
3.) Question is put off until a moderator accepts (at the time of posting my own question has not been checked for 3 hours)
4.) As a result, I am just sitting here trying to find a viable solution.

To get out of this loop you need 15 reputation. How do newcomers get 15 reputation? I look at the front page of answers and I cannot answer a single question. So I am stuck with a measly 1 reputation.

To recap. I know nothing except what I managed to learn in a week. I can not help anyone's question to get reputation, and as a result, I am stuck in the waiting cycle to get my question approved. Now I am waiting for hours not for anyone to help, but just to get an answer post approved.

I think you need to fix the system. Here is my solution:
I understand why the approval is needed, it's to prevent bots. I say that you need to add an achievement worth 10 reputation called "first post", and then give 5 reputation when you give the best answer. Then you can get 15 reputation. You only get the first post reputation if a moderator accepts.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully something is changed. What is your opinion?

 

The help room does not have the mod queue and was built for just this issue.

This is the most common question on UA. There are thousands of answers too it. I'd imagine the rest of your questions also have many answers. It may just be a case of sharpening up your google skills.

 

Honestly my opinion is that you're almost always better off using Google to locate something than trying to use the internal search system for the documentation, forums, answers, etc. Unity's internal search engine is simply terrible at finding accurate and relevant results.

Additionally you may want to ask the question in the Getting Started section as well as on Answers. At least until you've gotten beyond the karma requirement that forces your questions through moderation.

It's the first result on Google when searching for "site:docs.unity3d.com call one script from another".

 

In addition to what has been suggested you could follow the tutorials on http://unity3d.com/learn . Most of the questions you'll face as a beginner will be addressed in the tutorials.

 

I think the best bet with all frameworks is to study available documentation and tutorials. Unity's documentation is decent.

Unity manual: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/index.html
Script reference: http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/

Tutorials are worse, because you can't ctrl+F through voice in the video, but you can get the information out of them, if you're patient enough.

p.s. I have exactly one question on unity answers and I answered it myself. I also 1 reputation there. I think I know the engine fairly well at this point.

 

Oh, that's just what I needed. I wish they was a link on community tab on the website, or I would not of known this was a thing.

 

Yeah. Answers is not good at communicating how its meant to be used. That is a big weakness of the site.

 

Is it just me or is Answers also just... not good in general?

IIRC, most of the time if you're googling something and answers comes up it misdirects the link to a list page. In general, the answers links I've come up with have very, very rarely answered a question I had or were more than an extremely narrow solution to a very specific problem. The search results that point to forum posts generally get you much farther and have far more information.

 

I have a soft spot for the site because that is where I learned most of my Unity stuff, but I can't really disagree with you. I do try and clean up bad answers and questions when I discover them on google. But there is only so much that can be done, the rate of questions coming in is higher then the rate of questions being giving high quality answers.

 

This is great feedback everyone! We are making some major changes to the entire community platform in the next couple of months, which includes Unity Answers.

 

Once a new user has had an answer approved, they should be able to post freely thereafter. The reputation thing is adding way too much admin/backlog to Unity Answers.

 

Honestly? Unity Answers was better before last big changes (near or after Unity5). Not only questions weren't closed by mods even if they were actual questions but also site was easier to navigate.