Dedicated forum team

Edit 2: After all, it turns out Unity agrees, they have started a community team! More details from Unity Staff later in the thread.

Edit: Let me reiterate this suggestion.
I see some questions going unanswered on the forum, a dedicated full time or part time team to answer these questions could potentially help the community.

In my personal experience I see some users complaining that the forums are inactive, "dead", etc. I think it would be really great if Unity hired a small team of Unity veterans, full time or part time who are dedicated to being very active on the forums! One of the biggest things Unity has going for it over other engines is all resources and help online, I would hate to see this advantage be minimized over time.

Such a small cost in the big picture for Unity could greatly improve the experience of using the forums.

I think this could be a great way to help keep new & old users!

Cheers

 

Who is saying the Unity forums are dead? Unity Answers maybe, but not the forums.

 

I have not seen anyone make this specific complaint in actual years.

 

Where?

 

Which forum?

Most of the locals here are very proud of our community presence. If you mention where the community has a gap, chances are we can fill it.

 

this thread is dead

 

Assuming there isn't a very sound reason for why it's dead. The Vuforia subforum, for example, has very little activity.

https://forum.unity.com/forums/vuforia.138/

But this is due to Vuforia having their own official forum as well as being a niche product with several major competitors.

https://developer.vuforia.com/forum

 

I am not dead. Yet.

 

lmao its 2019 whos alive anymore

nerd

 

Jokes aside, I see you all have a very high number of posts, so I am sorry if this was taken personally, that wasn't the intent of course.

To answer your questions; In my circles and browsing the forums I have seen such comments relatively frequently, while normally not using those exact words but insinuating something similar, generally out of frustration for an unanswered question.
If I wasn't clear, I do not share this opinion, I think the forums are active enough considering the user base.

With that said, it is true the forums are filled with thousands of questions that seem trivial to more active/experienced users, therefore they go unanswered.
Thus I think it would be beneficial for Unity to have a small team which gets around to answering all these questions on the forums, as trivial, silly, or lazy as they may seem to a more experienced user.

Anyway, not much else to discuss, just a suggestion which I think could only benefit the community.

Cheers

 

People prefer live chat is what I hear.

But when I see discord servers with tons of members, they seem.dead too.

Like, you have little hen pecks here and there. Somebody regularly post memes. One person will offer short answers to big questions. A few boring jokes here and there. That's it.

Some discords centered around 3d learning are more active. But it really makes no sense why the owners of these would want to maintain them. Answering same questions a thousand times because there is no search history.

I have no idea why people prefer live chat. It does not feel more human. It has less practical benefit overall.

I think maybe people is afraid to be seen in public for long time or slmething? I dunno. General sense I get from most 3d and game dev circles is severe, crushing insecurity. More people should speak up and be themselves. You supposed to be creative and all. If somebody don't like your opinions shame on them for being so sensitive.

Real serious types probably have their own selective circles they operate in. Personally I like the public. The more that is discussed in public, the better. In smaller group maybe individual feels more respected or important. Or maybe they feel like they don't have to put up with peons who might otherwise bug them. Still, I think public forum is best. You can simply ignore anybody you feel beneath your intellect, so I see no need for concrete filters.

Benefit of public space is one good idea shared can reach maximum number of people. Also, you get biggest pool of input from diverse audience. If you think a complete noob might not have something to teach you, I think you got wrong attitude. If you afraid to jump into fray and show people who you is, well just what kind of creative do you hope to be? A lame one if you ask me. I got no respect for the lurkers! Yeah, you! Speak up you spineless worm!

Anyway just killing time ranting.

 

@deverolirc I am curious as others, which post indicates that forum is dead? Is this forum? Or third party?
As already mentioned, you may be confusing with Unity Answers.

Either way, if yo look into new posts and flip through past few pages, you will see, most of questions are answered / responded fairly quick. Including yours.
https://forum.unity.com/find-new/115249052/posts

People can deduct valid questions. And discard called "lazy" posts. In fact, many such post are responded, with some request for more information. Unless thread is at level of ridiculousness.
Also, there are questions, which basically have not easy answer.
Or are posted in wrong forum section, so they are forgotten. No reason to bring them alive.

Responding to every single question is neither good.
Often more generic questions been already answered and can be very easy searched, by multiple means.
That also potentially lure trolls and spambots.

And finally, no matter team size, unless all Unity team, but with few members, is still impossible to answer all questions. No way to be expert in every field. Algorithms, network, shaders, rendering, meshes, animations, lights, marketing; just to touch few.

 

Live chat could be interesting solution, Unity has their new "https://livehelp.unity.com/" which is something similar but I don't think it has caught on, or maybe its still in early stages of development.

As for Discord, I have had a similar experience.

 

Is pointless in any form of development and unproductive.
Information is simply getting lost. And chatting cost tons of valuable time either party.
Leading to questioning and answering same over and over.
Without that, we already have on forum recurring repeating question, by new users. But probably by miles less, than chatting.

On other hand, how many would you be able assist by chatting?
1, 2, 3 at the time? You know, that one question leads to another and another ...
Then realizing, you spend with someone on the project few hours.
And what about others chat users?
Tomorrow you will have person with same question anyway.
Ok, check forum, that would be the answer.

At best, I would create chatbot assistant, which redirects to relevant forum section / thread.
I think would be best resolution.

 

I think real issue isn't the platform but rather change in collective psyche. Insecure and selfish is what social media environment shapes. Public forum is all about the opposite. (Even a disconnected internet forum).

I know there is senior leaders in industry afraid to let their real name ever come out on public forum. And all they do is provide answers to technical questions. Indicative of toxic environment looks like to me. Nobody should be afraid to have a personality, granted you aren't a straight up Nazi. It's 2019 and humans build our own environments now. A real shame that people anywhere are too afraid of social pressure to put their name on their own words.

Game developers need to strive to find kinship and community, embolden others to be themselves, embrace difference of opinions, and destroy insecurity wherever they find it. End result is gonna be happier workplace and way more substantial games.

 

I have a rather high number of posts for the time i'm here, most of them are for like you said, trivial things like missing references (besides this one, i swear. lol), floating point errors, code tags and alike.

I actually stopped answering this questions unless the problem is actually unique.
It can be probably be solved by a quick search though the forums (and stackoverflow).
Unity should just make some kind of FAQ.
But if you're down with paying me for my time in the forums - I'm game. just saying. (;

 

I just answered this. Are you expecting me to compile a list for you? I am not here to argue whether you think these opinions exist or not, if you want to believe they do not, then nothing needs to be said.

This is a contradiction, and you just explained to yourself exactly why something like live chat could be a solution for such questions in some cases.
If it was pointless Unity would not be investing in such systems.

The particulars of how a live chat system would function efficiently, is not my concern, nor do I care to discuss because I am uninformed on the subject.

Support for any product or service can be similar to this, a beginner user may not be as familiar as you with forums, terminology and search techniques to find such answers.
While not the greatest comparison, when a 75 year old women calls her internet provider, she probably has some very trivial questions, and just because they are silly to you, doesn't mean she would not like for them to be answered. Unity is providing services after all.

Lastly I am not advocating for a live chat, nor do I think Unity is obligated to answer every single question but I think it could potentially be helpful if executed correctly.

 

It is always great having people answer these questions, I am sure the people on the receiving end appreciate it greatly.
Of course it gets repetitive, I understand why you would stop answering such questions, which is why I think it could be interesting to see Unity take a part in this some how.

 

You literally didn't. You made vague gestures towards unanswered beginner questions, but most of the beginner questions that go unanswered have been answered by the people you claim don't exist, repeatedly, in other threads.

Generally, it is not because "the forums are dead" but "nobody wants to answer a question that has been solved dozens of times before and can be easily googled." At some point you have to understand that the labour cost isn't worth it.

This problem has persisted to the point where, several years ago, a thread was started outlining how to ask a good question, because many of the things asked are in threads titled things like "BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" with a body of "my cube won't rotate."

There is a point where some responsibility falls on the person asking the question.

 

With all respect, but you can not just pull two random statements out of context and make it one. You can not state is "contradiction", if you don't understand process behind community system mechanics and whats involves. My two quotation pointed earlier, are discussing separate community systems.

Answers is pretty much not maintained and a mess.
Discord is self contained very cheap option, with relatively little moderation required. But try finding information there and following discussion chain ...
Forum runs also, mainly propelled by community and active eye of moderation. Here is main value of content.
Plus blogs, and content on 3rd party forums and websites.

We as developers, or related professions, are not some random 75 yld. We are expected to be at least minimum technically oriented, which is able to autonomously search for information. This is greatest thing you can teach anyone. I call it, give fishing rod, rather a fish. Specially, most of information are already there.

If individual has unique question, on chat one to one, person is not contributing to the community. Information is locked. That is not good approach.

Not really. But yes please, examples can be informative, because for me, is just your own impression, rather general public view. Which is fine. However, if you can point at case as you state in following quotation, because I, or others may not be aware. That would be more into contribution, rather than ranting, which normally lead to thread closure.

 

I've learned that you never mess with the forum. Unity's learned it too.

*makes the sacred sign of lithium*

 

Some questions inevitably slip through the cracks of even the most active sections. I don't know about anyone else but I tend to ignore questions where the OP couldn't be bothered to follow the basic guidelines that the forums have like using code tags to syntax highlight code rather than just blindly pasting it. Or posting that they had a problem without any info.

Basically if I don't answer the question it's almost always because the individual put zero effort into it, and if the person asking can't be bothered to properly explain the problem why would they expect me to be bothered to answer it.

 

Unity does already have staff look after their own areas of each forum though... generally staff on these forums have a very high activity vs other engines.

 

Unity is already moving in the right direction with Unity Live Support, nice to see, would be interesting to see a forum team!

 

Right, so instead of free support in the forums from people who donate their time, you would like to pay.

 

Unity livehelp! For all your HTML header needs!

I guess producing a graphic that would be relevant to Unity would be too much work.

Or is it a hint that soon Unity will more or less become a website generator?

 

I don't see anything wrong with either way, especially if its a question someone doesn't want to donate their time for.

 

Good idea. They should slap beta on everything (while accepting money for it) so they are impervious to criticism.

 

Would be a good idea to submit that feedback to them.

 

Yeah, sadly they don't have a proper channel for feedback any more.

 

Yes, I assumed a good place for feedback and suggestions would be this general discussion forum, maybe there is a better place.

 

There are several (many) paths of support depending on your level of need.

COMMUNITY:
FORUMS:
The forums are a community support site. They exist as a way for users to gather share tips and support, show the projects and works in progress, get feedback and share feedback. As it is a message board, it also means that prior discussions are archived and can be searched. Much of the time most common questions can be answered by searching, not asking. A bonus (not a guarantee) is that many of the staff jump in a do provide support when they have time and ability to do so. Let me repeat for clarity DEVELOPER STAFF RESPONSE IS NOT A FEATURE OF THE FORUMS, when they, they are doing because they are passionate and all around good eggs.
You will find developers here are all skil level, from industry pro/vets, high end indies, related fields that, passionate indies, artist, engineers, designers and goofballs. Some cover many of those descriptions.
Again: The forums are Community Space for Community to help one another. It is not "dead" or "slow" or whatever, if the at your perception, it is an incorrect one, and literally trivial to assess. The phrases "some people say" or "some believe" are 100% equivalent to "I have no clue, but going try to negative spin to get a reaction". pointless waste of time, literally everyone here is smart enough to smell the bullshit. If you have a intelligent reasoned question, ask it. If you don't get an answer ask way. Most likely it uber repetitive or poorly asked. (@angrypenguin has a great list to help you ask better questions.) . Adding a "Staft team" is unnecessary and contrary to what these forums are.

DISCORD/SLACK:
Public chat about all things unity . Fast paced, and as above a community service, also as above staff to do show up and help when they have time, and it is in their wheelhouse. In my many years here, on maybe the dozen times I had to ask a question about something wierd, most got a staff response. Of course, I wrote a clear question with lots of details . (not "Is borke! HALP") . I would use the chat stuff second, the forums first.

STAFF
LIVE CHAT:
If you have a more complex issue that you haven't found answer for you can try chat.

SUPPORT TICKETS / BUGS:
If you believe the probem may be unity misbehaving , file a bug report. Make it super clear and include a repro. They are proritzied by quailty and rerpoducableity. If your ticket sucks, it won't get far.

EXPERT HELP
https://livehelp.unity.com/ Hire an expert on a per hour basis to help you with your project.

PREMIUM SUPPORT
Get exactly the help you need from unity support staff.

Basically all levels of support are available, including many groups outside of unity. If the forums don't help, work your way up the options, everything is there, There isn't really any reasonable argument to add "more" options. Especially if you have tried all the options.


(To my knowledge Answers is dead, just not buried) . Someone was hired to bring it back to life and they quickly disappeared.

 

"Goofballs"

Hehe. I like a good strong title like that.

 

What? How is the forum in any way dead?!

Almost every section has constant daily activity, and any sections that do not (such as vuforia section) either have their own forum elsewhere (such as the official vuforia forum) or are related to areas that not many people are interested in.

Its not just that some people have high post counts as you put it and are therefore defending it, its that these people are here daily and are much better placed to assess how much activity the forum gets than say, yourself. And it really does get a lot of activity.

I really dislike it when people use phrases like "I frequently see users complaining that..." which is another way of saying you are making stuff up and do not have evidence to back it up. If it was so frequent you would have been able to easily show a range of examples.

Id wager you could not / did not because its so infrequent that examples are pretty hard to find without some digging.

 

On several occasions over the years I was contemplating switching engines but the low level of staff interaction on the alternative engines forums quickly helped change my mind.

Of course there are specific instances where forum silence from Unity on a particular matter makes me sad and forces me to read between the lines, but this happens infrequently enough that I am usually very happy with their input on the forums.

 

Off topic but: Your profile picture looks a little bit like something NSFW on fire

 

Outside of general the forum is pretty much dead. For example I just asked a question in our WIP thread, lets see if anyone responds

 

So, the forum is dead because there are some vague questions unanswered. Right. Seems legit.

BTW, I tend to not to answer questions which are out of place. If the user is so lazy and do not pay any attention to the simple rules, then why should I make the effort? And neither should Unity.

*starts a band called Ion and only plays the record Battery from the Metallica*

 

Try getting a response to any WIP post on any platform. If you ain't a big name nobody cares.

I tend to do WIP just as journal for self to get thoughts settled during a break. But sometimes on more interesting projects there may be few people who check in now and then, and that's really motivational so well worth the effort.

I really wish more people would barge into WIP and offer unsolicited critique. I think most people wanna be sure the project is actually gonna finish before putting their own time into it but I think it's benefit to entire community to read critiques about any and all type of work. That's my favorite type of thing to read.

Lot of time spent discussion useless things, imagine if just ten percent went into thorough, thoughtful critiques of each others work on regular basis. That would be worth money almost!

 

Its very difficult to do it, unless you as the main guy are the main workhorse. Although its probably alot easier then it was before a decade ago

 

I'm going to go to the WIP forum right now, filter so it's only showing games, and then do this to five projects chosen at random.

 

I told myself awhile ago I'd spend more time doing that while on forum. I should do same. There is some real gems in there hardly notoced.

 

Speaking of which we have an entire section dedicated to improving the forums.

https://forum.unity.com/forums/meta-forum-discussion.111/

And we're saying we already have official developers assisting with questions on the forums. The Getting Started section, for example, has @JeffDUnity3D. Sections that don't have this are either not that relevant to Unity (eg General Discussion) or have a very large presence of Unity developers already (eg Scripting).

And even in the sections they don't make regular visits they still occasionally show up like Karl_Jones (we need a way of tagging people without actually alerting them) shows up from time to time all over the place including General Discussion.

 

Also I tried Unity Live Help and it still has a ways to go hence the beta, but I imagine it will be quite useful when more people begin using it.

Excited to see where it goes.

 

No, I added more people to the list.

 

Not only.

 

Update: wow, okay, picking games at random sure does reveal something going on in WIP. A lot of the stuff there isn't getting commented on because they're often super barebones and early on in development, to the point where the WIP thread content is functionally indistinct from a lot of the other WIP threads.

 

Yeah but there is gems too.

I think there is only so many tiny or solo devs who work alone and post in a place like this. More serious people have their own devblpg site or whatever. Probably most people only play at making games and aren't serious enough to be really looking for real feedback, even if they don't really recognize or admit it.

 

I do myself occasionally visit and comment some WIPs.