Official Unity Connect Discussion Channels are live!

Unity Connect, the first talent marketplace and professional network dedicated to Unity creators has just launched Unity Connect Discussion Channels! These channels are dedicated spaces for Unity users to meet potential collaborators, discuss work opportunities, and chat about game development. The release of Unity Connect Discussion Channels is meant to supplement our existing communities on the forums with live discussions.

We’ve launched eight channels with more on the way. The current channels include: Announcements, Introductions, General Discussion, Commercial: Job Seeking, Commercial: Job Hiring, Getting Started, Work in Progress, and Non Commercial Collaboration.

As part of this rollout, three subforums will eventually be closed down and directed to Unity Connect Discussion Channels: Commercial: Jobs, Commercial: Job Seekers, and Non-Commercial Collaboration. This decision was made in an effort to provide the community a centralized location for finding work, hiring Unity talent, and finding collaborators.

These three subforums will be closed to new posts beginning on October 31st. Until that time we recommend users cross-post any existing job seeking, hiring, and seeking collaborator threads on Unity Connect. Please take a look at this blog post here with more details on the rollout. Other forums outside of the three listed will not be affected during this rollout.

Ready to join the conversation? You can start chatting with other Unity creators on the Unity Connect Discussion Channels here.

 

What?!? This seems like a big mistake to me.

Job postings should be job postings, which appear on some sort of job board and stay up until they are fulfilled. This benefits both employers and contractors:

• Employers need only post their job once, and know that it will be seen within a day or two by job seekers in all time zones, not just by whoever happens to be hanging out in the discussion channel at that time
• Job seekers get to see job posts made since they last checked — again, not just from people who happen to be logged in at the same time
• In addition, job seekers can subscribe to the Commercial: Jobs forum with the e-mail option, and get job postings directly in their email — which I assume would be impossible (or at least impractical) with a discussion channel.

I'm all for real-time discussion as an option for things like helping newbies, introducing ourselves, and chatting about our day. But it seems like very much the wrong format for job postings (or the related activities, resume postings and collaboration requests). Please reconsider this move.

 

Our goal is to provide everyone with the best experience. Unity Connect is a platform designed to find and post jobs, which is why we are encouraging users to post to it. The discussion channels exist to supplement the core website as a way to gain more visibility on jobs and tasks you've posted on Unity Connect.

 

I see. Well I went to the discussion boards, and it was not obvious to me (or apparently to other participants there) how/where to find the actual job postings. Can you give us a quick explanation?

 

I clicked around randomly and found job postings, Upwork style. Links are at the top. Just as hard to find as Learn is to find on this site.

I found it bloody annoying. EVERY TIME I visit the General chat two things happen:
1)An annoying popup about what the channel is for
2)It has scrolled back in the chat history, so I have to scroll all the way down again

Then there are the notifications haunting us like Jason Voorhees.

 

At the moment there is no interaction. Probably because is new and there are no Users in it. Probably is better to put it by default on the side always visible of the Unity Connect pages. As for example, twitch.tv does when there is a Unity live video.

 

I don't like how channels and PMs disappear from the sidebar once I enter a chat channel. That whole sidebar is clunky.

But the cardinal sin here is that zooming the page does not work well - controls and text disappear out of the window, rather than acting like a proper responsive page and just letting me resize it.

 

Thanks for your feedback everyone. Our teams are paying attention and hopefully we can get some updates out that address usability and flow.

All job postings should be coming from the Unity Connect website. The discussion channels are there to supplement the website with a separate space to share your job posting and potentially connect with someone interested.

 

Hmm, OK. But with the forum here, I can subscribe to it and see all new posts (job offerings) as they are made. I don't see any way to do that on the Unity Connect website. Am I overlooking this feature?