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Way too many stupid illiterate posts occurring but a possible solution

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by hippocoder, Nov 23, 2011.

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  1. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Noob/Pro already raised as an issue...

    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/108184-Dividing-the-forum-up-into-basic-and-experienced-sections

    What about a rating system on the poster thumb up/down, where you can see a thread but filter it's contents based on the posts rating, level?

    Then you could turn the filter up to max and only see comments by the best posters, or turn it down and see all the noob content!

    To make it more fun all posters start as noob and can only filter to their own level, gamification to the rescue! ;0)

    Or have I just reinvented Unity Answers DOH!
     
  2. TehWut

    TehWut

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    That would be nice, kind of like a debugger. But what about topics like "General Discussion"? There is not always a 'problem' to be had, so how will that stop illiterate postings?
     
  3. UnknownProfile

    UnknownProfile

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    I guess have different versions of that page on all the sub-forums:



    General Unity Discussion: Remember these rules to stay on topic...

    Collaboration: Does the post involve an MMO and/or are you actually going to finish the project?

    Showcase: This is for Unity work, not art. For art post in the "What are you working on?" forum

    Commercial Work: Don't scam or be scammed...

    Assets and Asset Store: post if it's actually in the asset store

    Unity Support: Remember to search and/or look at these tutorials...

    Scripting: Remember to search and/or look at these tutorials...

    UnityGUI: Has this been asked before?

    Multiplayer Networking: Are you extremely familiar with scripting, etc?

    iOS Development: Has it been asked before?

    Android Development: Has it been asked before?

    ShaderLab: Has it been asked before and tutorials on writing shaders

    External Tools: Has it been asked before on this or any other forum?

    Teaching: Has it been asked before?

    Wish List: Has it been mentioned before?
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2011
  4. TehWut

    TehWut

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    ^^ What are you working on could even be its own section, it is extremely popular, and it everyone could get their glory without being passed up on the next page within the hour.
     
  5. Adam-Buckner

    Adam-Buckner

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    Some of you may know me from being around the forums, and I have some strong opinions on this subject as well - primarily when it comes to new users and users who have come to Unity with no prior experience in either game design or coding.

    When I chose a game development tool, I chose Unity primarily because of the community and its friendly cooperative supportive spirit.

    This entire subject is complex and there are no real concrete answers. I too feel that the feeling of the community has changed substantially in the 4+ years I have been involved in it. Much of this is due to the sheer volume of users and new users and the users drawn in by the huge and welcoming gate that includes MacOS, Windows and a free basic editor. I feel that the support for users in the community has grown - but not as fast as the community - and I think something needs to be done.

    To put my money where my mouth is, I have started working with Unity Technologies as of last week with Education and New User Advocacy as my mandate.

    I think there needs to be a clear path or pipe for new users that points out what the resources are AND I think these resources need to be tailored so they work well together in uplifting new users into viable game creators. Not everyone will be a profitable independent games developers, but with hope most will be able to successfully make the games they want to make with Unity. I think there needs to be a clear repository of resources and materials that everyone can find from any of the possible entry points - the three main ones being the editor, the website and this forum. There needs to be more integration of the wiki, answers, the forum and the website.

    None of this is an instant or easy change.

    I also plan to host live on-line training sessions for the most basic users. The details of this are hazy at best, but are coming together even in the week and a half that I have been working with UT.

    I'm not a fan of segregating the forums. One of the main turn-offs for me when I was deciding on a games development tool was when the tool-makers segregated their forums and as a new user I felt excluded from any of the serious discussions. It also seemed to promote a secretive and uncooperative environment. The Unity community is still primarily one that is friendly, cooperative and helpful - people pasting and sharing code, theory and solutions. Trying to minimize the fluff and nonsense on the forum, I believe, is a better solution. Uplift as many people as one can rather than shut them out. That seems to me more the Unity way. Accessible. Easy. Powerful. Cooperative. (A week and a half and I can use buzz-words, but I mean it.)

    What we are all seeing is an issue with any community or high density human environment: Do you take problem areas and separate them from non-problem areas, or do you intentionally mix them together? In the former, there is the chance that the problem areas will continue to deteriorate, as there is no forced participation in those areas, yet in the latter, mixing elements deteriorates the quality of the experience to those more successful. It's a difficult question with no good answer. In the case of the Unity forums, I believe in assimilation and education. You can never tell who is going to blossom into something fantastic (Charlie, stand up and take a bow...)

    To this end, I also believe there is a bit of "Ask not what your community can do for you, but ask what you can do for your community."

    If you see someone's post and it's very very noobish, don't pass it up - see if you can give one nudge in the correct direction. You only need to do this to one post every time you are on to make a difference. If you've done one, you can forget the rest. You've done your part. Give the poster one suggestion on how to find a solution and one link to the teaching section of the forum or resources page on the website. You can include one note on better netiquette as well. If they are completely unclear, just simply say "I don't really understand your problem, can you try explaining it again?". Done. This means the next person along might get a clue and have an answer. If everyone in this thread nudged only one n00b post every time they were on, not only would the user-base not feel ignored and they might actually learn something. If this is a bright but inexperienced 12 y.o., then maybe they just need a stern look and a suggestion on how not to be a n00b. On the flip side, if it really is a crap post, report it. We don't need trolls or bullies. I really detest the people who find the enthusiastic post of a new user and then just squash the enthusiasm for the sake of being mean. Report it. We'll put a cork in it. But you can't be firm with problem posters if you have not tried to help first.

    When it comes to searching, yes, Google is better than the Forum search engine, but one should use the Google Custom Search Engine that includes Answer, the Forums, etc.. I have a link as a tiny url in my .sig. It's been around for a while. Pass it around. It's a great way to get answers.

    I think this is an important subject and one that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. I/We will need some time to implement some solutions, but this in not a subject that has gone unnoticed by UT. The double-edged sword of the great productivity of UT seems to be that they have been concentrating on making such a great tool, which means - they have been concentrating on making such a great tool. Let's see what we can do about the community.
     
  6. JRavey

    JRavey

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    People are kvetching about the lack of respect for new users, but to me it's the opposite: new user have little respect for the community. Asking others to answer your questions before making any effort to find the answers on one's own is disrespectful of others' time. Too many new users expect (demand?) free software to come with unlimited support and people who will do all of the hard work for them. I resent the introduction of Unity Free, it has been horrible for the community. Sure, it's a bigger community, but it's now overflowing with people afflicted with entitlement syndrome who are unwilling to pay for anything in time or effort. I've all but stopped posting and answering questions, because of the attitudes I've gotten from people. You give them a link to read about something, they bother you on Skype. God forbid you actually tell somebody to put in some effort, you'll be hearing from an administrator about how you might have actually paid for the product, but you'd better not hurt the tender feelings of somebody who will probably never give a cent to UT.

    Frankly, I'm insulted that UT treats paid customers worse than it treats free users.
     
  7. Dreamora

    Dreamora

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    I'm actually glad that the reworked board finally introduced the ignore feature JRavey, it allows you to just mark anybody who shows blatant disrespect for basic developer skills (R.T.F.M and use search + post what you tried and failed), especially those who ask directly for contact details etc to make you their momy to hold their hands as if this were a Kindergarden and they 3yr old that need to go to the toilett.

    It is helpfull as well to ignore users who think that signatures are there to be their personal advertisement board and I intend to bring the lack of rules and enforcing on this trivial aspect a bit more to UT boardstaff attention with a little 'walk to ad absurdum town' as nothing happened in that direction so far with some people having hell annoying 10 line signatures and more.
     
  8. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Stunning initiative. I really love the live training sessions. This could be a real event, since people will flock to see it live, and it will be a talking point as well.

    When I first came to unity, I came as an experienced programmer: I left unity again because I was confused just where my code would go; it wasn't spelled out for me that unity lets you structure it how you wanted. I was saying things like "where is my main.cpp?" - had it not been for iOS development in unity, I may never have returned.

    What I mean is, it is not just noobs that need what you suggest, it is people with all kinds of experience that need unity orientation. Thumbs up and good luck with the job. Unity needs more people like you with fresh ideas in this respect.

    I do exactly this. It is not usually code I give, but a pointer where to look, sometimes a link or two. I've been criticised for making worthless comments though, and I don't think it is worthless. I think if you give a little nudge, it can help. Plus it is all I have time for at the moment.

    Perhaps its even possible to flag really noobish posts via voting, to get it seen by someone with more patience, maybe with a little icon like "unsolved", which could be made solved by a moderator or upgraded helpful user.

    I think that karma system here in unity could encourage people to post. Even old pro's do enjoy being recognised for their contributions. Back in my blitz3D days I would post code solutions every day, but years of it does take it's toll. I see many users on these forums happy to code a solution for people... perhaps it's time they were recognised for their effort in helping new people.

    Unity Answers

    ... is not the answer. The problem with unity answers is, it is on another site entirely. People will have to literally, use google to find anything useful on unity answers.

    If the unity search system in the forums was tweaked to also search unity answers, then, just maybe we could have a much stronger situation in helping people help themselves. To do this would require replacing the unity search with a google powered search I suspect.

    Another issue I found with new users were:

    1. they don't search because they don't trust or understand that searching can yield faster results for them. Perhaps when you create a new post, it should have a search field there too, with encouragement to search for an existing answer instead.

    2. A lot of new users don't really understand the correct search terms to look for. They can often search and come up with nothing even though there's plenty of answers. Google search embedded into the site, can go a long way to solving this issue.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2011
  9. koen.pis

    koen.pis

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    What if the would just merge the forum and answers ? Take the best of both worlds to make one sleek looking web app to deliver a smooth support experience.

    Probably won't happen over night but one can dream not ?
     
  10. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    Hey, that's the magic of secrecy, once it's out, all sorts of human beings thrive to the quality that is curiosity, and dump or poop whatever they think of in this forum.

    Unity made a grave mistake of posting advertisements in youtube, kids who turn to youtube as their future will surely bombard Unity Forums with everything they can think of,(And I don't mean the good ones)

    A new member has to be humble and not stick his head out like a chicken when trying to communicate with the forums. They should lurk more and study the way how the Unity Community works, and try to answer as practically as possible. Innocent mistakes are fine one in awhile, but posting like "I'm going to make an awesome MMO/zombie/FPS and everyone else's sucks balls" or every thread that is related to money-making MMOs isn't going to cut out. When people first joined a forum, they dont bother to read the PMs the mod sent or try to observe in the forums, or even just blatantly try to copy a regular member's manners and just post whatever they fancy that is what they think of Unity.

    And no, no Segregation of pro/noob forum topics, no karma system, no sort of voting. As you know some moron can come around and troll about the "elitist" movement and start fires while everyone takes sides and beat the crap out of each other. Another moron might create 10 accounts just to vote down the people they dont like, even when their threads make sense.

    But probably we need a ASK A QUESTION(not the noob section) section so anyone with questions can just dump it there, sparing the remainder sections that the sane community so wishes to stay that way, since UnityAnswers is TOO messy to be organized in my opinion. Heck, I cant even find the right questions without swimming over a hundred useless ones. Community intervention should be there to help anyone instantly without any sort of wadding through mud.

    The Unity community is really helpful if you're asking politely, although their solutions to my questions are a hit-and-miss, heh.

    And yes, I'm fustrated to why Unity has just sent itself to the youtube community that consists of egoistic apes.
     
  11. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Like it or not, a lot of clueless people are coming. It's ultimately down to us as a community to actually sort of deal with it. It's called community for a reason and it is actually impossible to keep making new moderators and throw them at the problem so it's not entirely solvable by unity themselves.
     
  12. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    I dont like the way that sounds. Ironic how Video Game Quality these days has been decreased to make up for the huge "potential" of what everyone calls it "businesses" to pave way that everyone will be able to pick up and play them easily with no sort of intelligence needed. If game developing is to fall to this trend, then i'm stumped to where my future to be a game developer will be at.
     
  13. Tudor_n

    Tudor_n

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    I'm doing an interesting game development Master's class and most of the lecturers are veteran game or toolset developers. One of the first thing they remind you is that 90% of the gamers out there are dumber than a rock. If you're going into big business you'll have to cater for that market. The rest of them make up a huge number of niches and it's the only market you can target a smart game to.

    As indie developers, that's ok for us. As AAA or even AA developers, that just won't cut it. All the latest >AA game releases show that. Even games that were once considered to be hardcore to the bone have turned to mediocre no-brain slugfests. Rpg's are the perfect example: skyrim, wither 2, mass effect 2+, dragon age 2, etc. All dumbed down immensly within a single game generation.

    As always, game development toolsets (especially the ones marketed to be easy to use) will attract gamers. If we corelate this to that ^, well......
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2011
  14. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    Glad to see that I'm not the only one thinking alike.
     
  15. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Another idea I have:

    Perhaps limit the number of posts per day to 3 or so for free users, encouraging more docs searching and less random babbling. Also encourages a purchase of basic etc while ensuring people talk less and work more, which includes searching as well.

    It would possibly also make them think things through before posting, to ensure their post hits the mark. It'd also be a nod to paying users who suffer no such restriction.

    Of course people can make more email addresses to circumvent, but that is a hell of a lot more bother than searching unity answers.
     
  16. scarpelius

    scarpelius

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    If you think people are dumb, then truly you don't have enough life experience. Neither the people that teach you in that class. Sure is easy to label those who cannot crack your smart quests or understand where is the fun in your avatar being beaten up to death at every corner of the game. They are just a bunch of morons who cannot read and understand your directions. Your subtlety, your desire to be different from the rest of the developers crowd and push the gameplay to the new limits. In the end your genius.

    In my opinion the peak of a developer/designer or whatever is when he understand his clients needs, their mentality and consider their wishes/suggestions to be incorporated in the product. There are so many examples around with great companies, companies with tradition in a market that failed miserably to take into consideration users and thought they know better what is suitable for users.

    So, do yourself a favor and start think about gamers like normal people no less smarter than you. They may not have time or enough incentive to learn a new interface, they probably want to play the game to feel heroes not to sweat to achieve some victory. Or to solve intricate puzzles.
     
  17. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Personally I am not dumber than a rock. But I do prefer how easy skyrim is to play. Why should it be hard to be entertaining? The fact of the matter is, love or hate Apple, they live by the mantra of "it just works". That is pretty much how games should be designed. They should just work and be understood without instructions.

    It's possible to be easy to play and still be entertaining. I think dumber than a rock was more a turn of phrase than anything else - much like my initial comments in this thread.
     
  18. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    I disagree with that statement, free users should not be differentciated by Pro users by allowing them full access to the forums if they purchase Unity. I aspire to be a game developer someday, and am level-headed when answering my questions, but I cannot afford Unity and had to use the free version, which is great for people who want to get the experience and education. Not everyone that comes in here are sincere, but 3 posts per day? How does the free users get to know the community and chatting up or even offering help? This isnt UnityAnswers but the community itself.

    And about the topic of why games are so simplified nowadays, its rather the idea that the majority of people have in mind that games have to be just like movies with all the flairs and cinematics, or simply, judging a book by its cover. Good old games used to have depth and content that surpasses the enjoyment that people do not see until they had actually played a whole lot of that game. Not to say that people are dumber than a rock, but they dont often poke in enough to see the magic that old games do perform back then, and preferred pisazz and shiny things.
     
  19. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Aha, but you have: Posts Per Day 1.15... so the proposal would not affect you at all. But duly noted. How would you suggest to encourage new users to think over their posts and search for answers first then?
     
  20. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    I'm not the only one who has sincerity in creating great video games but cannot afford expensive products that costs a month's salary....

    Unless of course, people bother to read before they write, there is no easy solution.

    But in the case of a newcomer, there might be a small time-limit restriction(3 day perhaps) before the newcomer can actually learn and become a regular member and be able to posts as much as he/she wants. I would agree to your 3 day per post idea on one condition that it is only temporary for the newcomer to post during his "orientation" period. Mods can bombard whatever newbie help advice during this time and newbs with the lack of trolling power can actually lurk around the forums without trying to make a mockery of this forums. That would at least filter out most of the masses, leaving the totally *puts eltiist nose on* incompetent to fly around.

    I'm pretty sure mine's a bad idea too, or does someone else have a brighter light bulb than us?
     
  21. JasonB

    JasonB

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    @Little Angel

    If you're truly interested in overhauling Unity's education, the first thing you can do is scrap the entire Tutorials section of the site and remake it.

    Unity's Tutorial section makes newcomers think that this is some sort of click-together game engine; they're not so much tutorials as they are working projects with a few plugs pulled out of the wall, and telling the user that by just plugging stuff back in, you can make your own game.

    This is not only misleading, but it teaches nothing. Not a single one of these tutorials shows you how to write a C# script, for instance (not surprising then to see so many kids here asking for scripts).

    If you want some idea of what you should be teaching new users, check out BergZergArcade's YouTube tutorials. He shows the long, boring programming process, which is necessary to prevent kids from signing up and then begging people for pre-written scripts.

    @hippocoder

    I agree with others that a proposal to separate Pro and Free users is a horrible decision. It's petty class warfare and nothing more; whether someone has a Free or Pro version of Unity has absolutely no bearing on how dedicated they are to constructing a game. I've seen plenty of people with Pro asking very basic "RTFM" questions on Unity Answers.

    I may be a free user, but I'm about a month or two away from publishing my first PC game on Steam. That's a big deal. I surely wouldn't want to be left out of the discussion just because I'm not wealthy, because if we're going to throw a blanket judgment over free users, that'd be as silly as also throwing blanket judgments over iPhone developers just because a majority of iOS games are shovelware (so that must mean they're all shovelware, so let's disallow them from interacting with people making real games! ;)).

    In order for your idea to bring results, it would have to be proven that people who have a lot of money aren't capable of being stupid, and it would require making absolutely no exceptions for people like myself who are Unity Free users but are chest-deep in the process and close to releasing full games for real money. It's not terribly logical.

    The problem is you're seeing "we have to separate two groups of people" as the only solution, and so now you're just trying to figure out which two groups to separate instead of considering that your entire approach could be flawed.

    @Little Angel again

    What really needs to happen, in my opinion, is the Unity team needs to be more aggressive about making note that this is not a click-together engine, you must have programming knowledge, and completely remastering all their tutorials so that they actually teach the process instead of giving students completed projects that just need a few values plugged into them. It needs to be stressed that the ease of the Unity engine is that it's extremely easy to assemble your games once the assets and scripts are finished, but that you must have the capabilities to create those assets first.

    As such, tutorials on using the Unity software should almost take a back seat to tutorials on how to make scripts and assets for later including in your Unity project, if that makes sense. Go look at the most-used tag on Unity Answers. "Scripting"... and yet, there exist no real scripting tutorials on the Unity site, what little "tutorials" there are, they're buried inside the manual and don't really make any effort to teach required techniques to achieve the most common results people are seeking.

    If after an overhaul to the education system of Unity we still have people who just post here begging people for free scripts in broken English, then put your foot down and ban them (after making it clear in the rules that begging for people to write scripts for you, particularly without any desire to learn is an offense, so there is fair warning).

    Alternatively, have the first few posts people make have to be approved by moderators first.

    There are a plethora of tools available here that don't involve launching class warfare against people who don't have $1,500 just laying around.
     
  22. Tudor_n

    Tudor_n

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    @hippo

    "dumber than a rock" included a lot of variables, very few of them actually related to IQ (which big companies do plan for though):

    Casual gamers (a big part of the market now), lazy gamers, add gamers and a lot of company-side problems like racial and regional typecasting (that dilutes the core experience but that companies have to do in order to get sales), sex independent gameplay, political corectness and all sorts of other variables lovingly encapsulated in a small, easy to read phrase.

    Ontopic:
    The point was that this is highly unlikely to stop unless you separate forums, which in turn would probably hurt Unity more than it would help us.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2011
  23. ColossalDuck

    ColossalDuck

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    Yes, but I try to help people as often as I can (granted, it does not happen too much). And if I posted 3 things, I would not be able to help someone if I could. Maybe make it a limit of started threads instead.
     
  24. tatoforever

    tatoforever

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    Sub-dividing class of people is just an other elitist idea that only comes from egocentric and/or individualist mind that completely breaks the roots foundations of Unity itself which is to give powerful game development tools to masses (anyone).
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2011
  25. Adam-Buckner

    Adam-Buckner

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    JasonB:
    That is a big deal. That's fantastic! Drop by http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/70252-What-Are-You-Working-On and post some WiP's, or some Finals when you're done.

    Azzogat: Great link in your .sig (to the teaching forum), and great site as well. The number of people who are unaware of "Teaching" is too high.

    Hippocoder: Personally, I like answers as it's, well, full of answers. Tho', tbh, I'm unclear what the difference between answers and the forum really *is*, as they both are primarily for asking questions and seeking answers. Answers seems to me a little more geared around searching first, but many don't there as well. This is why I always use the GCSE when I am looking for something, and try to hawk it on any unsuspecting users.

    JasonB (again): You are correct about the over simplified and/or under explained tutorials. There is also the confusion between demo projects (which are often un(der) documented) and the tutorials. This is compounded by conflicting ideas on whether it is Unity Technology's job to teach coding to users, anymore than teaching modeling, texturing, animating, audio recording or music composition. The assets required to create a game (this includes conceiving and coding the scripts necessary) and the time and experience it will take to create them can be deceptive. This is where so many users stumble. I plan on showing how coding is required and how it fits in the GameObject/Component paradigm. I also want to show where and how to find the resources and solutions available to Unity users. This should be using the "teach someone to fish" pattern, as it's not about giving people solutions as much as it is training them to find their own.
     
  26. Eric5h5

    Eric5h5

    Volunteer Moderator Moderator

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    There's some overlap naturally, but UnityAnswers is supposed to be a database of specific questions that have clear-cut answers, whereas the forum is for discussion. If there's a significant element of opinion or back-and-forth, then it's more appropriate for the forums, whereas a straightforward "Q: How do you accomplish X? A: First do Y, then Z" would be more appropriate for UnityAnwers.

    As an aside, I would strongly encourage people not to put identical posts on both sites. It's inconsiderate and wasteful.

    --Eric
     
  27. DangerSnoot

    DangerSnoot

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    Well this is a volatile thread if ever I've seen one.

    For what it's worth, I'm sure I've posted my fair share of daft, already-answered questions in the past, but in the process I've learnt how to use other resources better. For example, with more knowledge of the fundamentals of scripting I was able to search for the correct terms on the scripting reference, and with better knowledge of game design in general I could ask post questions with loose ideas for possible solutions already in mind. I suspect that in many cases this early daftness can be attributed to this kind of thing, but I do understand where Hippo's coming from. This is the internet after all, so intermittent douchebaggery pretty much constitutes the local flavour. Still, from my work with animals I've always found that a spot of conditioning makes all the difference, even in humans. Ignore adverse, non self-rewarding behaviour and it will go away.
     
  28. LordJulian

    LordJulian

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    No, no ideas to segregate free and pro members, the community is reachable to everyone for a reason, for the reason that it's a Community. As much as I have people with no bearings talking blabber in the forums, pro users arent entirely "immune" to trolling either, so don't assume just because you paid for the pro package you are able to have as much power as you like in the forums.
    Free users are what make up for the Bulk of the whole community, if you think 3 posts per day restriction is the way to go, you'll see less traffic from even the regular members who made this community whole. Think about the consequences before you even start suggesting such a thing, it only can be viable if the post limit is temporary for newcomers.
     
  29. JRavey

    JRavey

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    Well, if that isn't a sense of entitlement then I don't know what is. God forbid Unity Pro customers be treated differently than Unity users. The community, as it stands is nearing an embarrassment comparable to GameDev.net forums.

    Free users may make up a larger portion of the user base (let's not abuse "community"), but they make up 0% of the revenue.
     
  30. tatoforever

    tatoforever

    Joined:
    Apr 16, 2009
    Posts:
    4,364
    Free users also buys lots of assets in the Asset Store. They are both important.
     
  31. JRavey

    JRavey

    Joined:
    May 12, 2009
    Posts:
    2,377
    They buy "lots of assets"? Based on what? What exactly counts as "lots of assets"? Do you have metrics for this? Do they spend $1,500 in the asset store? Do they spend over $600, which is what they'd have to spend for UT to make near the $200 Unity Basic once was? Unless you have a reliable source, you're just speculating.
     
  32. TehWut

    TehWut

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2011
    Posts:
    1,577
    Treated differently? I desperately hope not. The only difference is that Pro users might be more serious about game development, but that doesn't matter, we are all one community, free users are not worthless. I will not stand for this elitist bullshit.
     
  33. faultymoose

    faultymoose

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2010
    Posts:
    246
    Just wondering if we can get a clear definition on acceptable degrees of literacy, both in English and code?

    With a considerable number of spelling and grammatical errors in this thread, I'm guessing we aren't aiming for college-level English? I'm also going to assume that we're not okay with Facebook shorthand or 'L337' (but I haven't seen much of that around, so that can't be the problem here).

    Where are we on non-English-speaking-background?

    Also, without knowing what the forum police consider as 'acceptable' knowledge shortcomings, I'm not sure that I feel entirely comfortable asking for help in this environment. I expect that what I consider to be a near insurmountable problem is likely inane drivel to some. I certainly wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by asking the wrong questions.

    Perhaps it'd be easier if we just didn't allow anyone to post who hadn't already released a triple-A title to resounding commercial and critical success?

    Or perhaps I should stop being ornery and sarcastic?

    <3
     
  34. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2010
    Posts:
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    An inane drivel question:
    Whereas a properly worded question would appear thus:
     
  35. faultymoose

    faultymoose

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2010
    Posts:
    246
    Step 1: Clearly explain your problem in as much detail as possible.
    Step 2: When posting code, use [ CODE ] [ /CODE ] tags.

    Makes sense!
     
  36. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2010
    Posts:
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    Indentation is nice too. But a few hundred lines of code with "it broke it no work make it work nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!" is only going to garner negative attention.

    Go ahead, ask the most basic questions about Unity. But please try to spend some time hunting down the information and a fix first, before jumping on the forums. If it is C# related, go to MSDN first. UnityScript you can kind of slide by because its not JavaScript and most people don't think to type in to Google "How do I declare a variable in Javascript?" but rather "FUUUUUUUUU! UnityScript sucks mah balls cos I cant declare variable and docs are bad! if i could declare variable i could have my zombie MMORGPFSPBBQ done by tomorrow"
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2011
  37. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

    Joined:
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    DO YOU MIND?!? I was just about to head to bed when you go ahead and make an utterly idiotic statement like this!
     
  38. GiusCo

    GiusCo

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2009
    Posts:
    405
    Said that the tone from hippo is sometimes patronizing (hey man, we're making games, not running the IMF), I second the request of some sort of barrier to the access of the forums, just to make them more useful for business.
     
  39. CharlieSamways

    CharlieSamways

    Joined:
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    3,424

    You sound like a hippy, get your head out the clouds.
     
  40. DangerSnoot

    DangerSnoot

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    Don't want to sound like one of them dirty hippies, but I think it'd half kill Unity to go segregating everything. I know I'm making a few assumptions here, but it strikes me that a chunk of Indie users are liable to eventually upgrade to Pro. They may not have the initial funds or confidence in the product to go straight in at the deep end, or perhaps lack the skills to even require the more advanced features. I expect that plenty of students fit this bill, but I'm sure there are many besides. Shouldn't we be treating Indie users therefore as potential customers?

    With that in mind, were we to expose those potential customers only to inane drivel, begging and half-baked MMORPGs in some kind of metaphorical forum ghetto, how many of them would be liable to develop their skills and requirements to the point of making a purchase? I maintain that what we need is more common sense and tolerance, not some nanny-state mentality. Idiots are everywhere, but that doesn't mean we have to pay attention to them. We'd do better to make more of an effort to help out the sane ones, that way the prannets would see what they were missing for want of a little spell checking, formatting and common courtesy. I can also guarantee that polite suggestions to improve in these areas would do better to improve the situation than any amount of abuse.

    I for one don't fancy catering to the lowest common denominator.
     
  41. deram_scholzara

    deram_scholzara

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    To be perfectly honest, the only posts I'm getting tired of are the ones like these - complaining about people on the forums.

    Another issue I have with this particular post is that it doesn't seem to have occurred to you that instead of being "utter morons" the people might just not speak English as their first language; Unity is a world-wide product.
     
  42. ColossalDuck

    ColossalDuck

    Joined:
    Jun 6, 2009
    Posts:
    3,246
    Ah, but that's just it, a lot of the illiterate posts come from people who are in fact native English speakers, and who have said so themselves.
     
  43. TehWut

    TehWut

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  44. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Maybe english people are in general a bit stupid? Who knows :)

    Kiddingmode off

    Maybe it`s the language barrer. Maybe those guys or girls we talk about here are really not this clever. So what? They are Unity users. They have the right to ask whatever they want to ask as long as it isn`t against the forum rules. And honestly i like those kind of "morons" much more than "pro" militarists. If even i would be for separating the pro militarists so that they are out of the way and stop making trouble to the community. It`s just a handful of oldtime users that cannot deal with a big community anyways.

    While at it, i am against bashing in any form. And i count calling other people morons to it too. That this thread stays this long open where the initial post already contains bashing doesn`t really let the mods and admins shine here.
     
  45. ivanzu

    ivanzu

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2010
    Posts:
    2,065
    PRO

    FREE

    Just kidding!
     
  46. TehWut

    TehWut

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    ^^ thanks for easing the tension
     
  47. SomeGuy22

    SomeGuy22

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    Jun 3, 2011
    Posts:
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    Pretty much sums it up.
     
  48. techmage

    techmage

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2009
    Posts:
    2,133
    Maybe we should require people watch through a series of basic tutorials and then take a short quiz before they can post in the support forums in order to make sure they've learned a basic proficiency?

    1. Every thing in a Unity scene is encapsulated in a:
    a) GameObject
    b) Holder
    c) Container

    How do you declare an instance of a new object?
    a) var myClass;
    b) MyClass myClass = new MyClass();
    c) MyClass myClass : MyClass;

    How would you connect one class to the instance of another class?
    a) public MyClass myClass; - Then drag a GameObject containing a MyClass object onto the myClass slot in the inspector.
    b) blah
    c) blah

    All models must be exported to ___ in order to come into Unity
    a) FBX
    b) blah

    All classes automatically extend from:
    a) MonoBehavior
    b) Hippocoder
    c) whatevs

    Static modifier means:
    a) poo

    You get the idea.

    This would weed out people inept at english, it would also force people to achieve a certain level of knowledge before entering.

    Either Unity needs to do something like that or they need to stop avdertising 'Make you game in Unity!!!" on every website. Because I agree that it is very important to keep this forum proffesional. The success and reputation of Unity I think rests alot on the professionalism of this forum, and with that the success of everyone who is actually making money with Unity rests ont he success and reputation of this forum.

    I am a constant frequenter to many other CG forums, I visit cgtalk.com, zbrushcentral.com and lamrug regularly. All these forums maintain an exceptional level of proffesionalism, and they have done so for years. You get noob users but the many older members often correct their behvaior quickly.

    To give some benefit of the doubt here, you could say that since Unity is still so young, it is bound to go through a phase like this before developing a stable mature community.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2011
  49. taumel

    taumel

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2005
    Posts:
    5,292
    I'm surprised that no one referenced TRON, you know the blue and red guys. Looking at those pictures, i feel great being a free pro user, but more importantly today i was climbing F***ing fine, indeedeedoo.
     
  50. thellama

    thellama

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2010
    Posts:
    360
    I left this forum long ago. I rarely come back anymore. I do when I find something to share or am just looking to read what's up, see if it's any better.

    Last year around this time too many morons showed up starting new topics about unity vs udk and I decided this was no longer the community for me. I still drop by to check on my pals, other members of the community I still respect, but other than that I find this place a waist of time.

    Sadly the community was one of the reasons why I enjoyed game deployment in unity. Sharing my discoveries, asking questions about design and coding and getting responses from people who have been there or are looking to solve the same thing and we can work together to get a solution to share with everyone.

    The last few times I posted anything like that. I got posts from people begging for my to give away my assets and code. Just greedy little beggars to lazy to learn and just expecting to drag and drop some characters and hit play for the next WoW clone. This place is almost as bad a youtube sometimes. I would post a tutorial and have people begging for my models and code non-stop.

    I respect hippocoder, we've agreed on things before and he's helped me more than once but sadly I just don't come here very often anymore.

    Unity could charge for the free version, they could heavily moderate the forums, they could do a number of things. The only real solution I see, is a user starting a new community where a few power-players hold the authority to ban and remove the idiots, and leave the official unity boards to devolve as they are.

    If someone created a board where members respected each others and the beggars were not allowed to run free making asses of themselves and ruining good topics. I would gladly participate and share my development with a community once again.

    p.s. I'm a pro user and I know plenty of awesome free users. But it only take one bad egg to ruin them all.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2011
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