Connect job offering needs improvement

There are a lot of spam and job seeking posts in the Unity Connect job offering channel. As a business owner looking for contracts, this makes it very hard to sort through all of the noise.

Is there any moderation in the job offering chat at all? If there is, I can't tell. I'm really disappointed with the quality of Unity Connect so far. It was a lot easier to connect with new clients on the forum.

 

Hey impossible,

Have you used the connect.unity.com/jobs section? That is the portal where you can search thru, filter, and message people who have posted their tasks and full-time/part-time gigs.

 

I wouldn't worry. Unity's answer to every gripe concerning Connect is that there is a fix on the way. Meanwhile those of us who are trying to run a business have the pleasure of floating in the breeze while they finish this beta.

In other words, "The fixes for the system that is supposed to fix all the problems with the forum will be released later this year... hopefully."

 

Mark offered to get your feedback live, through Skype. As a self-proclaimed professional I'm having a hard time understanding why you're discrediting yourself by ranting about Connect and directly disrespecting people like this.

For what it's worth, I've used connect and hired several people through it. It isn't perfect, but it works fine and they're quite open to feedback.

 

Mark and I did have a chat. Just about every point I made was met with "that's coming in the future."

I am not singling out a single person, never have. I am not a fool and I don't blame Mark for this. I fail to see how sharing my feedback is disrespectful. I fail to see how pointing out that I shouldn't be forced to use a beta system when a system that was already working was taken away. These are legitimate complaints.

Congrats on hiring several people through Connect. I've had a few small gigs through Connect as well. Nowhere near the amount of work I have found via Reddit and Discord. If you are hiring people, you have the advantage of posting that you are hiring; I do not have the option to post that I am looking for work outside of the chat system, which is a perfect example of one of the features that Unity says is "in the works."

 

I have high hopes for connect still. I'm just frustrated that it's not living up to it's potential. I hope that these issues are fixed soon.

 

Couldn't agree more. My frustration comes from being forced to use it, especially while it is still in beta. If the forums were still there but Connect was a better alternative, I'd use Connect, but that is not the case.

 

One of Unity's best assets is the community.

I feel like Unity Connect should be a priority because a lot of us are making money from the exclusive use of this engine. Specialization benefits not only us, as business owners, but also Unity, because Unity-exclusive businesses like mine could move to another platform but haven't yet because Unity has so far provided the best, and specialization is more profitable than diversity.

But, it could be that moving to Unreal or Godot could become more profitable in the near future, as Unity spends fewer and fewer resources to maintain the community, and splits the engine further into 2D and other secondary features.

Mark is not at fault here, in fact I think Mark is doing an outstanding job. Do not pile on him as he can't be expected to take care of all of these problems. Unity Technologies is a large, well-funded company and as such is slow to respond to problems.

I am reaching out now because I feel like this core, and pivotal part of the Unity ecosystem is being neglected: the Unity Community. Unity Feedback is now a JOKE! It's where good ideas go to die, once being the cornerstones of development it now symbolizes the rot that is eating away at Unity Connect. Voxel isosurface terrain, for example, has been a top-voted request since 2012! But we still don't have it!

Unity's name is already in the toilet, with more new developers starting with Unreal and Godot than Unity because of community and image/brand mismanagement. Yet, Unity is still the best engine.

It won't be this way forever, unless something changes soon. Unity must support the businesses that are at the core of it's community. The pains of neglect are never felt until after it's too late. But the signs are there before the turning point, and we are seeing the signs now.

I would encourage anyone reading this to reach out to the Unity developers and community managers. PLEASE PRIORITIZE CONNECT!

We all want to win here, and we can only win together. Let's make Unity the top game engine for 2020. Let's work together. Let's "Connect".

 

1.
Yes, Mark is likely not the one to blame, the poor guy is just doing his job.


2.
Unity's name is in the toilet because they're making a really accessible engine so every kid can make their ... game; thus dragging down the perceived quality of the engine.
The main problem there is that the kids using it, obviously use the free version; and when they publish their game, everyone knows its made in Unity, thus people associate the logo with really low quality games.

The big studios of course pay to remove the splash screen, so good examples are not associated with Unity (at least not immediately, only if the player actually keeps an eye out in the credits, if Unity is even mentioned at all).


3.
I don't know what's going on with Feedback, but I agree about the Terrain thing, it has become a running gag years ago.
Still, not really the point.

4.
As for Connect...
After following the feedback on Connect, I feel pretty confident in saying "we didn't need or even want another Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn".

Whoever came up with that idea really has no idea what they're doing.
The whole concept feels like some experiment run amok.

The most important part, not actually considering what people who used the forum sections previously actually want or need out of an improvement (if they even need or want any), wasn't done.

Then the person in charge probably also thought it would be a good idea to "force everyone to migrate to that new shiny thing" because obviously "ahh, people always don't want change, they'll surely get used to it eventually".

In any case, I don't envy @markp-unity , he's the one who has to deal with the fallout and (probably (?)) didn't have much say in the actual decisions.

If I were to guess he'll eventually manage to bring Connect up to parity with the old forum section and probably make it even better than that. But by the time that happens people will be pretty pissed off (I know, as if they weren't already).

 

I think that Unity Connect can be a useful tool. I like the idea of connect, but I don't feel like it's living up to what it could be.

I merely mentioned the publicity and feedback issues to illustrate a point, that I feel like the most important issues are being pushed aside in favor of new engine features. I don't subscribe to the idea that Connect is just another social network, I think it has real value.

So what I really want from this thread is to have an open discussion not just about what the issues are that we have with Connect, but how it can be improved. Some ideas:

1. Better moderation in the public job seeking/job offering chat is important. That's one thing that made the forum so useful, if someone posted off-topic threads they would be moved to the correct area by the admins. The chat by it's nature favors recent posts and small tasks. The casual nature of the forum was conducive to small tasks, which may evaporate or go stale in the job posting section of the main Connect site. And as a job poster, the current system leads to a lot more spam than the forum did.
2. Better default job sorting. Connect currently puts the most sought-after jobs at the top. This concentrates competition on a few jobs and makes it harder to find one that fits. Perhaps if we set job search settings, the job board could default to this instead of just the most popular ones.

What I really like is that Unity staff are communicating with us, it's encouraging. I realize that not all of my ideas may be implemented, but I hope that this thread will lead to some improvements.

I'd like to thank everyone for participating in this discussion! I hope that we see more improvements to Unity Connect in the near future, as I think it's a platform that has potential and fixing some of the issues with it will go a long way to keeping the Unity community alive and thriving.