Update about the future of the Unity Forums and Unity Discussions

TL;DR
The Unity Forum is being migrated and not deleted.

  • Important Dates:

  • July 12 Unity Forums read-only

  • July 15 Unity Discussions read-only

  • July 18 Unity Forums go live on Unity Discussions

  • The data is being preserved:

  • All topics with at least 1 reply or 1 like.

  • All topics younger than 90 days, including topics without replies or likes.

  • All staff topics.

  • All sticky threads.

  • All attachments will be migrated.

  • All private messages of migrated user accounts will be migrated, including attachments.

  • Current Forum thread and post URLs will be preserved as redirects to their new matching content:

  • Embedded media will be migrated.

  • SEO will be preserved.

  • FAQ


Hi everyone,

As we mentioned last year , we have been planning to migrate the Unity Forums to Unity Discussions for a while and are excited to announce that we launched a closed beta earlier this week. Our goal is to migrate by the end of July.

Alongside migrating the forum data, we are also working on a redesign of Unity Discussions to integrate the contents of both platforms into a cohesive system. This will create a unified hub for all your inquiries, discussions, collaborations, and more. Please note, that the current state of Unity Discussions does not reflect the new design and informational structure. We’ll share more details about that as soon as possible. In the meantime, here are the main reasons why we are moving away from the old forums.

  • A unified community platform: By consolidating our forum and Q&A sites, you’ll have everything you need in one location. This integration not only simplifies finding answers, showcasing projects, and engaging in discussions but also fosters a stronger sense of community. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or a curious newcomer, you’ll find ample opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals, share your knowledge, provide feedback, and discover official announcements across different areas of interest.
  • Enhanced functionality: The new platform comes with a host of features aimed at improving usability and information discovery. Highlights include customizable notifications based on search queries, topic filters based on families of related tags, more robust anti-spam tooling, and bespoke functionality and styling for different topic types, like the ability to mark a reply as the solution in a “Question” topic.
  • Better scalability and optimization of community operations: Migrating to a unified modern community platform will allow us to reduce running costs and focus more of our efforts and resources on developing a great platform for all of you. Once we launch, you can expect to see more frequent and regular updates to the platform than before. Through access to the built-in API, we will be able to integrate Unity Discussions closer with internal and external Unity services, for example by automatically gathering and forwarding “Feedback” topics related to certain product areas to the right teams without requiring them to manually sift through entire categories. The end goal is for us to improve the general user experience, help users achieve their goals, and improve the connectivity and engagement between Unity and the Unity community.

We understand that change can be disruptive, but we’re committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for all our members. We appreciate how much you care about the community and recognize the amazing contributions and rich history that have been created in the Unity Forums over the years. We are doing everything in our power to honor this legacy while also addressing long-standing issues related to accessibility and discoverability of content.

Here’s what you can expect during the transition period:

  • Communication: We’ll keep you informed every step of the way through announcement posts on the Forum and on Unity Discussions. Please stay tuned for our next update in early July.

  • Transition plan: The transition will happen as follows.

  • The new design and structure of Unity Discussions will be user-tested in a closed beta.

  • The data will be migrated to Discussions. This is already in progress.

  • We strive to minimize the period during which Forums and Discussions are unavailable to users. You will be notified in advance of the dates when each site will go read-only. Below is the high-level plan:

  • Mid-July: The Unity forums will become read-only and remain in this state until they are shut down. During this time, you can continue to post your questions through Unity Discussions Q&A.

  • Right before the Forums shut down at the end of July, Unity Discussions will become read-only for approximately two days to finalize the migration.

  • Redirects for migrated forum content will be set up to ensure that old links to forum posts will continue to work without interruption.

  • Data migrated into Unity Discussions

  • Users:

  • All valid user accounts that created at least 1 post or 1 like will be migrated.

  • If a forum user already has an account in Unity Discussions, their account information and data will be added to their existing account.

  • Avatars will be migrated unless the existing Discussions accounts already have an avatar selected.

  • Post and like history will be migrated.

  • Signatures will be appended to user bios in Unity Discussions, but they will no longer appear under user posts.

  • Account settings will not be migrated.

  • Topics (threads) and posts:

  • All topics with at least 1 reply or 1 like.

  • All topics younger than 90 days, including topics without replies or likes.

  • All staff topics.

  • All sticky threads.

  • Topics and posts with at least 1 reply or 1 like, but no activity in more than 24 months will be migrated as “closed”.

  • Current Forum thread and post URLs will be preserved as redirects to their new matching content.

  • Embedded media will be migrated.

  • Quotes, code blocks, inline codes, collapsable sections, and styling options supported by markdown will be migrated.

  • BB code formatting for font type, font size, font color, and text alignment will not be migrated.

  • Private messages:

  • All private messages of migrated user accounts will be migrated.

  • Attachments:

  • All attachments that have file names will be migrated.

  • Support: We are here to listen to you - our team will be on hand to address any questions or concerns you may have. Please use this thread to share them.

We can’t wait to embark on this journey with you. Thank you for your continued support and participation.

Your Unity Community Team

Edit 06/28/24: Added a TL;DR summary at the top, clarified that all threads with at least one like will be migrated, and adjusted the threshold of non-activity for topic closure during the migration from 12 to 24 months.

Edit 02/07/24: Added FAQ and preview screenshots of the new design.

Edit 03/07/24: [Shared the dates]( Update about the future of the Unity Forums and Unity Discussions page-6#post-9921951) on which the forums and Unity Discussions will become read-only, and when the migration will be complete. July 12 Unity Forums read-only, July 15 Unity Discussions read-only, July 18 Unity Forums go live on Unity Discussions.

19 Likes

Am I the only one who opens up the Discussions page and thinks “yegads, what a mess”?

95 Likes

Oculus Start member was here…

tbh I actually never saw a difference between unity forums and discussions so it was kinda messy…

Definitely not! This thing can do with a few more UX iterations

10 Likes

I will miss these forums a ton. The Discussions UI feels like a convoluted step down in usability compared to this.

61 Likes

In case anyone else wonders “is there some way to turn off infinite scroll in topics lists/threads” like I did (mainly a preference, but sometimes for coherent searching within a page, or for just “oh yeah, the post I was remembering was just at about page 10”), I think the answer is “no.” And “no” as in “we at Discourse don’t like it that way”.

4 Likes

After the migration I will ask my forum/discussion account to be closed and anonymized as per I promised before. Please make sure the simple discussion-visit in order to search for information does NOT reactivate user accounts, even if the user is logged in into their Unity accounts.

No, you aren’t.

https://discussions.unity.com/t/920546
And they don’t really care if people don’t want it. Feedback worth nothing at Unity unless you’re agreeing with their plans.

15 Likes

at least the dark theme is ok on the eyes and not giving you a tan like the current version

4 Likes

Well.
9902079--1430409--Capture.PNG

2 Likes

That does fit perfectly with them running the thing on Discourse, which doesn’t like feedback almost as much as it doesn’t like you using a browser not on their whitelist despite there being no technical reason for it.

3 Likes

Very nice to hear this! Unity has an outstanding community and massive reach across all skill levels, so retaining as much as possible and respecting that is an effort I appreciate. I’m glad we can put to rest any issues with post history retention and working redirect links.

I like these old forums, but I’m interested to see what can be done with modern technology. These days everything changes extremely fast and I find it crazy that these forums survived this long without any significant changes. But, I guess that’s the point. There has to be a significant change if we want more features and better workflows.

I’m stoked to see more robust features down the line like JIRA integration so staff members can hook straight into our community posts and interact directly. So much room to grow, just gotta deal with the pain of a new workflow.

4 Likes

Guys, I’m long time forum member as you may know, and love it with my heart (especially DOTS branch, is my home forum), and was sceptical about that, but refreshed discussions are ok! I was worried at first, but then surprised how well migration went, all I had on forum - migrated properly and looks exactly the same as I used to see it on forum, and after some feedback Unity accepted UI/UX improvements people suggested. Discussions you’ll see - looks good. I can get that not everyone like them right now because of forum habit and current state (myself personally was like that), but just wait a bit to see how it went.:wink:

Through closed beta they were very responsive to feedback, and accepted most part of it. Of course they can’t just do everything community wants, but most part was confirmed to be improved according to feedback. (Worth to mention feedback was not like “Hey just left forum alone” but in more practical way of how to make Discussions new home for forum members)

9 Likes

Look, admittedly I am not in the closed beta and I have no desire to be in. I guess at least they asked for permission this time and not just dumped on people like they did with the Asset Store disaster.
But just look at the blog. They basically killed it and “we will continue to try to get it on par with the deleted one and beyond”… They did what Unity does. They killed the feature, present an unacceptable mess “as temporary” solution and then they will cancel the whole thing after a while.
Sorry, but they missed any sane mark on the Asset Store, on the Unity Blog and now they are doing it with the forums. I have zero faith in anything they do with any kind of web stuff. They have a bad reputation on these things and they don’t surprise on any occasion so far.

9 Likes

Most likely I’ll be ending my participation by the time it goes live. Because from here it looks like another lithium and another unity connect and I’m not seeing why this would be necessary or beneficial in any way.

Lack of pagination mentioned by another user is already is already a red flag.

As they say, “All journeys end”.

13 Likes

I guess until all the groups are made, and all the aspects are migrated, I wont know for sure, but it just doesnt feel like somewhere i want to be. Ive been part of a couple of things that were only done on it, and sure, its been in beta all this time, but when you post and even the unity guys who insisted you use it dont read it?? its left me with bad impressions of it, and i dont feel like its as inviting as being here. I mean, sure here is a very traditional forum setup, but, for me discussions is a bit like twitter and reddit had a baby

Sure, Unity has a history, and I don’t like new Blog either, but from refreshed Discussions I really got good feeling.

1 Like

I had the same first impression when I tried “to be on Discussions” for two weeks around the end of 2023. Eventually I quit because I couldn’t get it to send meaningful emails and everything was just a giant “Questions & Answers” dump.

What I’ve seen and experienced thus far in the beta makes me cautiously optimistic. I can definitely work with it, and after some time adapt to it altogether. It’s different for sure so some habits need re-learning. But overall I’m looking forward to it specifically because of the tags (users will be forced to provide some) so it ought to allow for more narrow filtering of emails and notifications.

Oh and … no more DUBAI GURRRLS. :smile:

5 Likes

BAH, they’ll just try harder :smile:

2 Likes

Imagine a “for the time being” appended to my statement. :wink:

All these reasons for the transition are the exact same reasons we were given for switching to Lithium.

5 Likes