What Unity needs the most is not features but better community answer ecosystem.

[5argon]

The big weakness is that the Unity Answer is not active and feels very deserted. Many questions sinks without any answer. I have been observing for several years, but an answer rate is very low compared to something like Blender Stack Overflow. (I think Unity’s user base is comparable to Blender)

Many beginners needs somewhere to comfortably ask about seemingly simple things where his search terms fails to arrive at Unity Documentation. That’s the core idea of Stack Overflow I think, to increase the odds of success of Google by providing more redundant answer in different ways.

Currently we have the forum, Unity Answer, and Stack Overflow to ask. I would suggest Unity should let go of the “branding” and ID system and merge the Unity Answer with Stack Overflow to reduce fragmentation. (Keep this forum for longer discussions)

If that is not desirable, please hire some staff specifically for answering in Unity Answer. In Stack Overflow, whenever I post questions about Firebase a guy at Firebase comes to help. That’s really nice. I know community answer depends on people, but Unity owns the product and can definitely solve that problem by dedicating people for this.

(Also this forum always say “Error : Sign In Here” every time I come back, after clicking new thread despite I already see my user name displaying above, or even as I am typing this thread. Is anyone aware of this?)

[DroidifyDevs]

Well, this thread is probably going to become a warzone, so I’m quickly going to throw a few punches and get out of here.

@5argon

Many beginners needs somewhere to comfortably ask about seemingly simple things where his search terms fails to arrive at Unity Documentation. That’s the core idea of Stack Overflow I think, to increase the odds of success of Google by providing more redundant answer in different ways.

Why not use the forums? I think the biggest problem beginners face is asking questions badly, so many people who can help simply skip the question because they don’t know what’s going on.

@5argon

I would suggest Unity should let go of the “branding” and ID system and merge the Unity Answer with Stack Overflow to reduce fragmentation.

Hell no! What do you even mean by “reduce fragmentation”? StackOverflow is just a general forum site that doesn’t specialize in anything. You can ask almost anything there, and it’s not exclusively catering towards programmers, let alone Unity developers. On the other hand, Unity Forums is EXCLUSIVELY for Unity (and the Scripting section is sometimes for general C# questions, and the Game Design section is for, well, game design). It’s an infinitely valuable treasure trove of information, and most of all, a community of caring people who are here to help. Every single one of us can go to StackOverflow if we want, but what makes the Unity Forums special is its members (and the occasional responses from UT themselves).

Also, StackOverflow has gotten very annoying to use as people have let the rule-enforcement get completely out of hand. People there seem to care more about rules than just answering the question. If anything, that makes it unwelcoming for beginners who might post in the wrong section without knowing better.

Finally, every major tech service should have its own dedicated forum. For example, there’s Microsoft Answers, Adobe Forums, Unreal Forums, Blender Forums etc… of course, they could all be done on StackOverflow, but the individual forums are better for organization in general.

Now, does Unity Answers feel deprecated and unnecessary? Yes, but that doesn’t mean Unity has to scrap the Answers and Forums and hope StackOverflow does what they used to do. My suggestion would be to get rid of Answers and leave the Forums in place, as the forums have become a place for both Q/A & discussion.

[5argon]

@DroidifyDevs

Hell no! What do you even mean by “reduce fragmentation”? StackOverflow is just a general forum site that doesn’t specialize in anything. You can ask almost anything there, and it’s not exclusively catering towards programmers, let alone Unity developers. On the other hand, Unity Forums is EXCLUSIVELY for Unity (and the Scripting section is sometimes for general C# questions, and the Game Design section is for, well, game design). It’s an infinitely valuable treasure trove of information, and most of all, a community of caring people who are here to help. Every single one of us can go to StackOverflow if we want, but what makes the Unity Forums special is its members (and the occasional responses from UT themselves).

Yeah I like the forum too, and I did not suggest about removing the forum at all, just the Unity Answer. So maybe in this paragraph you have a misunderstanding?

@DroidifyDevs

Now, does Unity Answers feel deprecated and unnecessary? Yes, but that doesn’t mean Unity has to scrap the Answers and Forums and hope StackOverflow does what they used to do. My suggestion would be to get rid of Answers and leave the Forums in place, as the forums have become a place for both Q/A & discussion.

Yes that is exactly what I meant.

Some questions feels “too small” for the forum in which it should go to Unity Answer. If we merge Unity Answer with Stack Overflow I think the rate of getting a green answer would go up and benefits everyone. (That’s what I mean by the fragmentation, the existence of both UA and SO) One thing Unity will lose is that the forum ID that is tied to Unity Answer is going away. Maybe we can ask a new dedicated subdomain from SO so that it looks more official rather than just tagging Unity3D in the SO question.

[fffMalzbier]

@5argon

If we merge Unity Answer with Stack Overflow I think the rate of getting a green answer would go up and benefits everyone.

The rate of questions answered on Stack Overflow is only so high because the enforced level of question quality is so high.
That extremely punishing for newcomers.
Stack Overflow is designed to work for professionals and a lot of people that post stuff at unity answers do not meet that criteria in any way.
That unity answers does not work as well as it potentially could is not question.

[DroidifyDevs]

@5argon

Yeah I like the forum too, and I did not suggest about removing the forum at all, just the Unity Answer. So maybe in this paragraph you have a misunderstanding?

Yes that is exactly what I meant.

Some questions feels “too small” for the forum in which it should go to Unity Answer. If we merge Unity Answer with Stack Overflow I think the rate of getting a green answer would go up and benefits everyone. (That’s what I mean by the fragmentation, the existence of both UA and SO) One thing Unity will lose is that the forum ID that is tied to Unity Answer is going away. Maybe we can ask a new dedicated subdomain from SO so that it looks more official rather than just tagging Unity3D in the SO question.

I don’t see why you’re so intent on merging Answer with SO. Just remove the Answers and merge what’s already on there into the Forums.