Hi everyone,
Thank you for your feedback and questions about the Forum migration to Unity Discussions. We consolidated frequently asked questions below.
Q: Currently Unity Discussions looks like a Q&A site mainly. As Unity Forums is migrated into Unity Discussions, will Unity Discussions have more categories and functionalities that are served in Unity Forums at this moment?
A: Correct. As part of the Forum migration, the Unity Discussions Platform has been redesigned to offer much more than a Q&A site. It will encompass and support a broader range of use cases and topic types such as Questions, Bugs, Feedback, Collaborations, and Showcases that are currently available on Unity Forums.
Q: What will happen to categories?
A: We are retaining the general structure of the Unity Forums but in a more streamlined form with fewer exclusive spaces. Instead, we will rely more on tags to segment and filter conversations. To recreate the experience of separate rooms despite having fewer categories, we will support dedicated filters that encompass related tags.
For example, we currently have five distinct forums for user-created content discussions. Post-migration, there will be a single “Showcase” category where the community can discuss their Made with Unity projects, non-commercial tools, and art assets, or commercial ones (Asset Store). The segmentation currently provided by separate sub-forums will be maintained by a dedicated group of showcase tags, which users will choose from during topic creation.
As another example, Unity Engine-related discussions that were split between more than 100 sub-forums in the Unity Community Discussion and the Beta & Experimental Features areas will be consolidated into a collective Unity Engine category with tags to preserve their current structure. Instead of having four different categories for physics-related discussions (2D, ECS-Physics, Physics, Experimental Physics), there will be a physics tag group users can choose from to specify what area of physics their topic is about. And for folks who are generally interested in seeing all physics discussions, we will have a filter that will show all topics with at least one of the physics tags.
Q: How will topics about very specific subjects be handled on Unity Discussions? What measures are in place to ensure these posts aren’t lost?
A: The new Unity Discussions, once the Forums are migrated, is designed to improve search and discoverability of specific questions or topics, without them being lost between different sub-forums.
It will allow tags to be attached to each thread to identify topic types, products, related subject matters, etc. Advanced search will enable users to find desired threads using these tags.
We’ve also enhanced the composer to guide users via dropdown menus to create new topics in the correct place from the start. Additionally, the “Getting Started” category allows beginners to start conversations even if they are unsure which area it relates to.
Q: How does the Forum migration affect the SEO or Google ranking?
A: Once the migration is completed, we will enable redirects to preserve SEO value. Also, the new Discussions supports additional SEO features like the schema support for the questions, using the QAPage schema and the Sitemap.XML (an index of all pages, with publish date, and frequency to recheck). We anticipate this will lead to better search results and more accurate listings.
Q: Will “watched threads/watch list” be migrated?
A: All topics you have replied to will be tracked by default. We are also exploring the feasibility of bringing over other types of watched threads.
Q: Will you add an “Official” tag similar to the forum?
A: Yes, the “Official” tags will be there and colored in a similar way to Unity Forums.
You will also be able to see all official topics in one list and set up notifications specifically for new official topics.
Q: What will happen to the job forums?
A: We are migrating the job boards into a combined “Collaboration & Jobs” category. The distinction between commercial/non-commercial job offering/searching topic types will be maintained via tags.
Q: What will happen to threads without replies?
A: We are migrating threads without replies if they have at least one like. This has been clarified in the original announcement.
Q: What attachments don’t have filenames? Images that are pasted from the clipboard?
A: There are about 26 attachments without filenames, leftovers from a previous migration.
Q: The width of topics on Unity Discussion is too narrow compared to the Unity forums. Are you planning to change that?
A: Yes, we are making adjustments to the overall topic width in the redesign of Unity Discussions.
Your Unity Community Team