A lot of people go to both Unity Forum and Answers and expect different things from those sites. On this FAQ, it is stated that Answers is supposed to be used for getting answers to objective questions and the Forum is used for discussion, showcasing work, getting feedback, and general community chatter.
Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing a lot of threads asking “How do I do this?” or “Why is this not working?” - very objective subjects that are probably better left in the Answers for people who are actively looking to answer questions. While I don’t mind helping newcomers out, it does get annoying that when I look in the Multiplayer or Physics sub-forum, I see more technical questions (i.e.: “Why are new players not seeing old players in Photon?”, “Hinge joint not working?”) than discussions or feedback requests.
Is this part of the Forum’s design or is it an unseemly turn made by the community? If the latter, should we start making an effort to encourage technical questions on the Forum to be posted on Answers?
Every time I find a question on “answers” that I’m looking for an answer to, there is no answer, yet there is generally a few forum threads with answers about it. People respond on the forum and there is no draconian process to get your question posted. Path of least resistance n’at.
I don’t even click answers links in google anymore. They’re useless.
I feel like part of the problem with Unity Answers is that there is too much competition. Not only do we have the Unity Forums, but we also have StackExchange/StackOverflow.
Answers will typically have clearer answers related to Unity stuff and its API, the Forum will often have the same thing but is more prone to being derailed from the topic. SE/SO are a much more authoritative source if you have a low level or C# question that could be engine agnostic like how to use Dictionaries or something.
Plenty of places to ask questions and look for answers. Personally, I just google my question and don’t care where the answers are, the answer is basically always on the first page of results somewhere between the places mentioned above.
Answers is supposed to have one good question and one good answer for each issue. That’s why the mod process appears draconian. It’s not a place for noob questions about finding missing semi colons. Nor is it a place to ask “how do I access a variable on another script” the question has been asked and dealt with thousands of times.
So directing noobs with no Google fu to answers is not the solution.
On the topic if questions with no answers, I typically delete these questions if they appear near the top of google search results. Or answer them.
The other issue I find with answers is that when an answer does appear in google results and I click the link it often takes me to a list of questions rather than the answer that was supposed to be in my google results. Then I have to search that list to find the answer that I already found in google. It just not worth the trouble really. If you make a system hard to use, people won’t use it.
It’s just that I’d rather have bad questions on Answers rather than on the Forum, if anywhere. Answers is not that hard to use imo. The mods are really lenient and if your question gets rejected there, chances are it won’t get attention here.
Plus, Answers is more standardized and will help more people out since it’s more direct. With a forum thread, others will have to comb through the thread to find what they need. Of course, some questions have to be a thread because they’re prone to discussion but the examples I gave don’t - and they’re the most common.