I’ve been noticing an influx of new users asking for help on various parts of unity and game creation in pretty much every section of the forums.
I like the scripting / networking / shaderlab / etc. sections to be there when I have a specific need for advice, this is a good thing.
But the gossip / collaboration and even showcase sections are getting quite muddled with threads that don’t belong made by users asking simple questions.
I’m not complaining that Unity is getting a lot of new users, but there is no clear place in the forums current structure for them to ask for the help they need.
Anyone else feel the same ? Expecting new user to do a simple search for old topics first doesn’t always work ( although its nice when they do ) and being a new user its hard enough to put your hand up and ask questions. Maybe a section just for New User Q&A would help get them up to speed.
Cheers.
Edit - I realized I clicked Unity Support and not Gossip where I meant to post this. I am a victim of my own criticism! Doh !
What do you mean it doesn’t always work? I see no reason why anyone shouldn’t search the manual and the internet, especially here and Unity Answers, before asking something. You’re going to info a lot faster if it was already asked and answered.
There’s no reason to be embarrassed about asking anything if you searched first.
I think I was not clear. I meant that many people do not search first. Especially with the recent rise in questions regarding very basic stuff. I’m not saying that searching doesn’t work, it does. People should go that route first.
But even after a search has yielded no answers, there is still no " New Users Question and Answer" section for them to go to.
Certainly, you cant argue that gossip and collaboration are not the best places for new users seeking help on things like these threads
While there is a scripting section that would envelope a lot of these, there really isn’t a help section for general game dev / content creation and new users.
The general game dev questions usually end up in gossip, and content creation questions usually end up in the external tools sub-forum. However, they were probably moved there by Andeeee, originally having been posted in teaching or the wish list subforum.
My favorite will always be a guy who posted gui questions in the multiplayer networking sub-forum. When mentioned to him, he stated he posted it there because his game would eventually be multiplayer.
That would be the problem with a new user section. The new users will ignore it and post their queries in random places.
As far as searching before asking, someone is searching the forums if not the documentation. There’s been a huge increase in the number of thread necros recently. You’re not going to easily find a year or two old thread by clicking on the previous page link.
How about a separate set of forums for Pro customers? Those that own the Pro version get their own forums. I see too many nonsensical questions and answers.
I’m actually pretty convinced a New User subforum would be a good addition. Like Kyuss77 said, a lot of people (unfortunately/ strangely) seem to think posting a thread is quicker/ easier than doing a search. I can also speak from experience when I agree with Kyuss that it’s a bit daunting at first to start asking basic questions. I personally always hate posting newbie questions on forums where the general ‘level’ is a lot higher.
Would new users use it instead of the already existing subforums? I don’t know, but I say it’s worth finding out.
-Patrick
PS: I’m not too sure on the use of a Pro-Only subforum? The only big Pro-Only features I can think of that could cause problems are Occlusion Culling and Asset Servers.
PPS: While we’re on the topic: ever since I got here I’ve been posting my scripting problems here, rather than in Scripting (as do lots of other people). Is this considered wrong/ annoying?
