Collab Section Concerns

Merging the collab and WIP forum is not a good idea. Although having a portfolio or screenshots of your previous work is something I'd like to see in collab posts

 

I agree about the WIP with the collab not being a good idea. I think it would be a mess, and we'd need a forum more specific to finding a team to collaborate.

 

Yes exactly. but it would be nice if users who post in collab who also have a thread in WIP link to that thread.

 

That would be great. Maybe it could be a requirement to have a picture or portfolio before posting.

 

I'm liking this idea. Would it be possible to have a required link? I suppose it could just be an enforced rule, but having it built it would make things easier on mods.

You will, of course, run into people proclaiming "I don't want to tell people, cuz they'll steal my brilliant idea!!!"

 

I don't think we could set that requirement technically, it would have to be something to look out for in moderation/post reports.

 

If it would be possible to just get faster response times, that would help greatly if you didn't want to change everything. Another big thing I would like would be posts on the thread though. Maybe allow a post limit for the OP?

 

I'd have to see if that's possible, with everything else that has been suggested. If you want a quick fix it would have to be within the constraints of the forum systems, anything fancy takes dev time unfortunately.

 

Unfortunately, I understand. Hopefully something can be done however, and I won't have to lock my doors and turn the other direction when I pass the Collab forums .

 

Without some way of telling whats a good project and whats not then people wont take the time to find the diamonds amongst the garbage. I remember back in the gamedev forum they would actually have weekly highlights of the good projects that would get posted to the frontpage.

 

I like the idea of showcasing solid projects, but its not the responsibility of the mods, the collab forum, or this community to determine whether a project is good or not. As long as its well thought out and presented, it should be allowed.

 

This. I personally don't think any project that somebody worked hard on is garbage, and I don't think that it's anyone's job to decide that. They put good time into it and worked hard, it shouldn't not be allowed because it isn't beautiful.

 

Exactly, which is why collab posts were not approved/rejected based on quality of the project, but rather the quality of the post itself.

 

How many teams do you need? Perhaps you should address the reasons why you have such a high turn around, that you require quick and easy access to recruit team members. Constantly adding and removing team members is a detriment to any project.

 

My take on this topic:

First, for all those that say they don’t go to collab anymore: why did you go there in the first place? Did you honestly go there looking for a project to join? If you don't have time to dedicate to a project, why even enter the place in the first place?

Full disclosure before I go on: I was one that would enter the Collab forum only out of curiosity and would end up posting purely out of... questionable reasons. Let’s say I am sure I added my bit to make these rules necessary. But honestly, if you are not looking to join a team you should never have gone to the section in the first place.

Also, if you are in the section to find people for y our team and you are not looking to join other teams, you should not have gone poking in other threads either. But I also know how hard its to not do this (also, I sometimes ponder if some of the bashing of threads made by others posting their own threads was just an attempt to kill competition...)

Anyways, as for Collab and how it stands or should be:

I honestly don't think Collab will ever work on a forum structure. The ideal structure would be a dedicated page coded for project creation, where a user can create a project and sustain it. No sort by last update, no comment section, just a project description, status (open recruitment, canceled or fully recruited) and a signup form to join the team. Questions and messages should exist but only privately, not publicly.

Now, I know this is impossible here, and I doubt there are dev resources to do this so I go to forum-friendly option b:

I am not sure if this is possible but, this is what I would attempt to shoehorn things into a forum:

1) No approval. Let users create threads in the collab forum without verification requirements.
2) No replies (from anyone). Once the thread is created, the thread creator can modify the first post, but no one can reply, not even him.
3) Posters better use their post wisely, they can only create threads every 4 months.

This may require a bit of coding, but I think not insane levels of it.

If the project recruiter wasted his time and left a trollish post without contact information, then he will just never get anyone aboard, other than updating his post he won’t have another chance to do this for 4 months. Given no possibilities for replies, no bumping and no trolling is possible, and given thread creation limit per time, the section should not be flooded.

Just for safety, I may also make the collab forum locked for a time window after account creation (to avoid people to create mass bunch of accounts and spam the forum with new threads), something like a week or so. Either that or base the 4 month lockout on IP address.

I still can see many potential exploits and ways around this, but it’s too hard to do this stuff on a forum structure. If we can’t make it work, I think we are better off without a collab section (and with strict no recruitment rules) than with an open collaboration forum.

Finally:

If you don't like the locked nature of the collab here, just create a forum of your own somewhere (there are services out there, some free) and change your signature to work as a recruitement link to your project's own forum. There, you are responsible for your own moderation.

 

One of the things we have been looking at is including a dedicated space where you can add projects you are working on, incorporating collab elements into that isn't a bad idea. All for a possible future of course, nothing concrete [reminder].

 

That would be excellent!

 

You heard it here first, guy, the devs just promised us a project management system!!! I bet they also are implying it will be ready in the next 30 days!!! Is that not epic!? So we hold them all up to Aurore's words

(JK, but remember remember, the GUI expectations of pre-Unity 4.0 and the anger of it being 4.0+ after it being on a "eventually" roadmap )

On a serious note: such a feature would make the Showcase, Work In Progress, Collab and Commercial sections all optional. If it's searchable, having a flag for "hiring" or "looking for collab" can allow interested parties to find appropriate projects to join. And a simple "finished" or "in development" separates the WIP from the complete Showcases. Hope the project gets to see the light of day and does not hit a brick wall.

 

And if it's not done, we'll riot. Just kidding, but seriously, this would be great!

 

Collab needs to be its own beast all together. It is quite simply the heart and soul of the community. Without it the rest goes to pieces. Fix the heart before the body dies!

 

Alright, sorry, I couldn't pass up making this one.

 

If this was E3 I'd say TODAY! (If anyone ever watched E3 keynotes then you'd get the joke, EVERYTHING is announced to be released the same day.) But seriously don't hold me to anything like that Let's start from the simple fixes first like collab first and see what we build from there.

 

I can't see duh pic!

{Edit} Wait now I can

 

Can you see it now?

Nevermind, I see that you saw it.

 

My proposition to the Community

1) Have thread view counters to see how many views your thread is getting, very important to see if your actually getting any attention. Most successful forums have this.

2) Have a thread rating system, a star rating 1-5 stars. This will be the most important piece of the puzzle. Threads with less than 3 stars will be looked over to see if the thread needs removed or closed, or if people are just trolling and posts need removed. This is much quicker to get sorted than reviewing each thread for acceptance. This idea may need to be more refined but manageable.

3) No thread acceptance anymore, make it instant as the above idea will cover it.

4) Allow posting of course, we are on a forum after all.

5) Possibly have more volunteer Mods with limited power to help manage the Collab section. Giving power is scary but let us hope that we can act mature here and actually help the community out, not tear it down. We are all here because we like/love the Engine right? So why ruin it? Little power and some trust can go a long way.

6) Now this is more or less for all the forums but let us get a rank system, like badges, we can even have a nice badge design contest for us GUI,UI, and 2D concept guys. Just a little fun to have here on Unity with no reward except your badges being used on Unity forums. This shows both recognition and responsibility. If you fail to maintain either you will lose your right to have one either for a bit or forever.

7) Projects that gain large attention say for example 20+ pages of replies, give them a week long sticky of the thread, to represent them for their great idea and wonderful community support. This does not need to be done right away but would be nice. Also would need to be better refined.

All the above listed ideas are for both better management, and easier use for the community members. All ideas are up for refining and some may even be changed up. Some are more needed than others but all in my opinion seem like a good idea to both get Unity Staff and the fellow community members involved together to make what the name says stand.

My quote in my own opinion..................................

"Unity, to unite as one to build for a better future"

Say it with passion!

 

lol! Man you've got to be joking. If not I fear for this forum.

What about deleting Collab and having a Worklog area? Basically a worklog area with contact details stickied at the top for each Members Worklog, they being the only ones that can post and update their Worklog; bumping not possible and visibility done via a custom search by others looking to contact the Author of the worklog.


???

 

Those are great ideas, never thought of some of them!

 

At this point it may just be better to make a whole new collaboration instead of trying to rebuild the old one.

also, to your proposition:

1) We used to have this. I don't know what happened to it. Maybe the community switched forum software.

2) This would be good, but what is to prevent users from making other accounts to spoof votes? Also, what if somebody is just voting every thread they see as one star? Maybe there could be some kind of community ranking system. and only those after a certain level can rate posts. Look to Yahoo Answers for an example.

3) See above

4) I agree

5) I agree with this as well. As Antenna Tree pointed out, though, good, unbiased volunteers are hard to find.

6) See 2

7) I don't think that's necessary. If they have a lot of attention they will always be at the top of the forums anyhow.

 

Well essentially we are trying to make a new Collab but keeping all the information from the old one. You do not want to toss aside all those years of content, behind some of the mounds of garbage there is still plenty of decent threads with good info in there.

 

We do want all the good posts, but we don't want to bring along all the garbage.

 

Yah, #2 will need some refining. But it does seem that if done right could work well. 2, will need 3,4, and 5 from my proposition to function right. It is like I said a puzzle, we just need to build up the pieces right.

For #2 like I suggested when a thread hits below 3 stars we can look them over to see if it was trolled or was truly worth that ranking. But still needs refined a bit more. We also need to trust each other a little that we act out right and not act like a small child.

 

Isee what your saying, sadly it would take ages to sort that mess out. Perhaps we can make a section called the Archives and move all those old threads that date past 6 months with no posts to that section.

That would cover all forum sections as well. Clean this place up a bit.

If by chance a new post does come up on one of them then they return to there proper original section.

Makes sense.

 

Richard, that was only one of the reasons. Collab is somewhat hard to use to get a team partially because it is a slow process when submitting a thread, but also because of all of the restrictions the current collab section offers. Many people don't even go there anymore. There is no doubting that a new collab section would benefit the community.

 

Rating and ranking systems are horrible.

Ratings are an amazing tool for trolls, and ranking systems tend to encourage spamming to increase post count or farm (with friends) for upvotes or anything needed to go on top. At the end of the day, it tends to be the most quite and productive posters that have true answers for people. Rank will always favor the posters that dont develop anything and just hang around the forums daydreaming.

 

Partially yes and partially no. The decreased amount of posts decreased the traffic, but also now that there are no posts allowed on a thread, information about the project is somewhat more difficult to get, as it is not available to whomever is reading the post; it is only available to those who specifically ask the poster. This can often be a big factor in deciding whether one would like to collaborate or not. I'm not too sure how many successful collaborations there have been on these forums, but fewer readers does generally mean fewer people, many of whom are very talented, even contacting the poster let alone hearing of the project. I don't want to say X only leads to Y and Y only leads to Z. It isn't like that. There are a lot of problems, each influencing each other.

 

It isn't that the system is horrible, it would more likely be the moderation was horrible. Also no governing rule was at play. Sure forums are fun but they need leadership and direction or it will be constant revolution and no compromise. The systems I proposed had ways to counter trolls, and lay waste to those who abuse power. Like I mentioned though, they need better refined. But every idea has a start point.

 

I have seen this activated (most forums have it by default) and the ways to counter the trolls always seem to be the same: turn the frigging thing off. Anything that adds another layer of responsibilities and potential source of trouble the mods will need to look after should be automatically rejected (unless, like the case with the current collab, it also decreases moderation somewhere else by higher than equal amount.)

BTW, no issue at all with displaying view count. That's on every forum I seen and even thought it was visible here.

 

Here's some ideas for the collaboration forum I think are fair and effective.

I have numbered and will explain each one.

1: Any posted topic that does not follow the following rules will get deleted by the mods, multiple breaches of the rules will result by a time based/permanent ban from the collaboration forum by the mods.

(This rule means that the any breaches of the rules will get your topic deleted and if you brake the rules time and time again you will be banned)

2: You need a minimum of 50 posts before you can post the the collaboration forum, if this can not be made available its best to simply have it that anyone can post instead.

(The reason for this rule is to make the forum an active forum instead of a reactive one which before takes up the mods valuable time reading and reviewing each post, the mods can concentrate on deleting topics that violate the rules rather than reading each one, the minimum post count is so that someone new will have to chat and get know and understand unity and this forum before posting a recruitment add to the collaboration forum. if this can not be done it better to just let them post but apply the following rules to each one)

3: You can only post one topic a month. After 30 days you can post another. Post another topic before this deadline will get your new post deleted and a warning given, a second warning removes all your posts on the collaboration forum and a third is a ban from the collaboration forum.

(This is an interesting rule, its to stop people from spamming the forum with lots of posts, even if you have more than one project by limiting your post it stops people from monopolizing the board. Also if you do not have the patience to stick with one project for one month its not likely your collaboration will last, the warnings and bans are fair and are there to enforce this rule)

4: You can only post a topic you can not reply to one, only the creator of the topic can reply to there post for updates(this is covered in another rule below)

(This is to stop any conversation both good and bad about the project, people should make a WIP topic on there project in the WIP forum and link that post from there collaboration topic people can talk about your project there not here, by letting the creators of the topics reply to there own post they can post updates about there recruitment like places filled)

5: Bumping your own post is banned and will get your topic deleted. This includes posting irrelevant information to bump up your post, all non-recruitment information should be posted to a WIP topic about your project.

(I think this one is simple enough you bump your post you lose it, by bumping your removing someone else from the front page, only relevant information about the actual recruitment such as positions available or not available should be updated, new updates about your project itself should be added to your WIP post)

6: Your post should contain enough relative information to help people decide on your collaboration. Basically if it fits in tweet it gets deleted.

(If you don't post information like positions required, or what project your looking for help with then its of no use to anyone and is taking up space. This does not mean that all details of your project should be needed but a basic description should be available)

7: False or Obscene posts will get detailed and a Warning/Ban will be given. If your project is adult in nature i.e. 18+ rating state this in the topic title but still keep details save in the post itself.

(Providing false information misleads people and should get your post deleted, if you game has 18+ elements you can state them but keep the details between your team only forum is family and work friendly)

Think that's it? What do people think about these rules? Any more people think are needed?

If people post recruitment for slender games or MMRPGS let them, with no bumping or replies allowed they will just disappear if no one is interested and hay a lot of people are interested in those games let them get together and try and make one they deserve the chance to recruit the same as each of us.

 

Darkjayson, about those rules:

1) Agreed. It should be that way for any section.
2) I disagree. This could easily be spooked by posting a bunch of useless posts. It could be fixed by requiring karma, but this has been discussed and has not been a popular decision.
3) What about just one open collaboration thread at a time?
4) I think replies should be open, but there would need to be a restriction system in place to prevent the flaming and abusing of the collaboration section which caused its restriction in the first place
5) Bumping should be allowed, but maybe only twice or thrice a week. If you can't bump, a post can easily disappear.
6) The initial post, yes, but if somebody is asking a question that doesn't require a long answer or if you are doing a quick update the short posts would be perfectly fine.
7) False information should definitely be banned. Adult content should not be banned from a thread as long as the post title states that the thread contains it.

 

We need a heat meter for all users shows the level of trolling/flaming they commit. Kind of like warning levels but as a meter to represent there bad behavior. Will help users see who is a hot head and who is understanding. These levels can be reduced every month with no violations.

 

The simple solution is to allow all non-MMO threads to post freely but make MMO threads need approval and the requirements should be stricter. It wont prevent all unrealistic pipe dream threads and flame-wars, but it will prevent most of them and make the collab forum manageable, that's the key. Once a thread is approved people should be able to post in it freely.

Fad games like slender would persist, but until a duel collab is made, or mods flat out reject them, they can't be filtered.

Somebody suggested a screening collab forum and then a special collab forum that users voted to allow projects to be posted to. I actually suggested a similar idea long ago.

The way a duel collab forum could work is this;
Screening forum is free to post in.
Pro-Collab forum requires mod approval to post in, approved threads from screening can be moved here. Once a thread is in the Pro-collab thread, people can post to it freely.

What this gives us is a forum where serious projects can be collaborated on without the clutter of trash projects and flame wars. Now serious developers have a solid resource to find serious projects. The problem is that while we quarantine the problem to the screening forum, it still leaves the mods with a lot of work if they intent to keep any order there.

Trolls would simply make new accounts.

 

Problem is MMO was only part of the issue. There were just as many I wanna make the next Call of Duty type threads as well.

 

Let's just say all unrealistic threads in general. There is no good way to filter them.

 

perhaps there should be a certification process to be allowed to start a thread there, but everyone should be allowed to post on the threads, because often it's the public mixing of ideas that factors into someone's decision to join or not join a project.

 

That could work, but it would make a lot more work for the mods. This would be a good place for volunteer mods just to look over the applications. The applications could be anonymous so there would be no bias from the volunteer mods.

 

Yes, but then they would have to look through all of the unrealistic threads, making the process longer D: . Maybe have them deleted immediately. I think that auto-posts would work if there were more mods to watch over. Maybe just assign certain mods to the collaboration forum!

 

If the process of getting certified looks daunting enough, it may prevent a lot people from trying to begin with, thus reducing forum noise and promoting serious quality projects.

 

Ok guys, once again, its none of our business if we think a project is realistic or not. You do not get to tell people what games they should make. Period.

Also, you will be able to find a "what if" situation to counter every possible solution. So stop worrying about it.

Personally, I like the thread rating idea. I also like the idea of user ratings (not just post number). Will people manage to screw with the system by breaking forum rules, such as creating multiple accounts? Yes. But who cares! No system will be perfect, but anything is better than bickering back and forth for months at a time about what SHOULD be done.