untold yoke
There are a lot of unanswered questions in every channel, and even answered questions are hard to track.
Just feel like it would be better if each channel in the Content Creation category was a forum channel (like #969360633386655744 is) so that individual questions/answers aren't lost in the inevitable endless stream of overlapping chats.
What do you all think?
cinder barn
There are a lot of unanswered questions in every channel, and even answered ques...
If you want to read the last discussion about this (although more focused on the Programming section) check here:
Start: #982578548936146964 message
End: #982578548936146964 message
languid oyster
Nope.
Official Unreal Engine forums already cover that AND searchable by competent search engines
untold yoke
I agree with the rules, makes perfect sense. To me, it's more of a format issue. It's not too hard to use server-wide search to find questions people have asked, but tracking the answers given can be difficult in a chat stream is all
languid oyster
I agree with the rules, makes perfect sense. To me, it's more of a format issue....
untold yoke
Haha yeah, fully aware of the UE forums, and I use them frequently as well as this server (though many google result links to topics were broken when Epic moved the forums to the new url, but that's a side track to my post)
languid oyster
If all Q&A channels turned into forums, I might as well just go to the official UE forums instead of this server duplicating it per your suggestion
untold yoke
I just have to wonder if many people that would know the answer to someone's question never even see the question because it's lost in the chat stream...
As to the point about just going to the forums, there seem to be different eyes on the Slackers vs UE Forums at any given time, and having two different forums to post a question to would (imo) increase everyone's chances of getting an answer or insight from someone 
But I digress. If it doesn't make sense for most of us on this server to switch to a forum format, then that's what it is. It was just an idea 
spark roost
Yeah forum posts aren't gonna change unanswered questions. You still have to scroll through new things either way. If one forum entry gets ignored, and buried by another it's no different than being buried by messages
It also won't increase activity. In fact it will decrease because I know a couple of the regulars here that abhor forums
daring talon
"couple" 😂
paper topaz
I def don't want them converted but maybe a section that is in addition could be cool but like many have said a lot of people hate the forum sections
daring talon
Having 2 places to post the same thing is just going to lead to cross posts and "hey, I just posted this thread, please go read it"
untold yoke
True. It would really have to be either or I suppose.
paper topaz
if that's the case then I'd rather it stay how it is forums are nice for certain things and if used correctly but I don't want only that
pliant meadow
I wish there could be some conversation around this topic but the regulars here are just too salty and opinionated about forums to even give it a try. Here they figure it's going to upset the few people whos loudness outweigh the quieter masses so we will never get forums. And you will never get any actual discussion on this topic besides the same few people shitting on it for no reason.
Like you said, eyes in different places is a great point. People say just go to the unreal forums, well the forums don't ping your PC, and don't give you as much live feedback as you can get from here, and don't contain the all the people who hang out here. There are tons of benefits from forums and tons of servers who do it right, but the people above will never drop the wall and let there be actual discussion on it
To the point where now the mods just flat out aren't interested in forums anywhere here
daring talon
Sure they are. Just not to replace chat channels just yet.
spark roost
A lot of the forum benefits assume that it will increase activity.
Forums don't stop posts being spammed or drowned, nor do they fix poorly asked questions not getting answered, which is what a majority of unanswered questions are.
Forums won't change the fact that it's exhausting to play 20 questions to identify the issue because people can't provide the necessary info
And in my experience it's the poorly asked "help me my character won't do X" with no screenshots that get ignored
90% of times well formatted questions get answered
untold yoke
I wish there could be some conversation around this topic but the regulars here ...
I see. I'm not on this server enough to call myself a true 'regular' I think, but it has been extremely useful for me on many occasions when I've had oddball or highly technical issues that fall outside of Epic Dev's "intended" use cases for engine features, or just things that simply aren't explained properly (or at all) in the UE Documentation.
Many times, just having active people to bounce ideas for solutions to those issues off of has been enough to get me in the right direction and get the problem solved on my own. So it's not always been a simple "I have question - please give answer" situation.
This is why I originally suggested a forum-based format. I've found that occasionally someone will reply to a user's post without tagging them, which complicates things further when trying to keep up with a discussion about a topic. More commonly, you get someone asking a question, then another asking another question, and another question... By the time a decent number of people are able to see the channel chat, Question 1 has been buried 100's of lines of text up in the chat history.
daring talon
90% of times well formatted questions get answered
It's not even that, tbh. Badly formatted questions aside (somebody usually asks for more info... which comes maybe half the time), people just ask at unlucky times when the person who can actually answer isn't around. Forums may help with that (in that there aren't as many things to scroll back through to look for unanswered questions) - but it still relies on people willing to scroll back through forum posts.
spark roost
^
If people already don't scroll a few discord messages up I doubt they would with forum posts
daring talon
It's more likely with forums, tbh, because there's less "noise".
spark roost
Plus I think it would hurt activity. Look at work in progress. That's gone from like 30 posts a week to like 30 a month. It's activity has dropped off a cliff
untold yoke
90% of times well formatted questions get answered
True, I agree! Which is great for that person that asked the original question (because they will get a push notification due to being 'replied' to. But then the answer is often lost for everyone else (or at least not easily searched for, since discord search is server-wide and/or answer text may not contain the keyword being searched for by others).
On the other hand, discord forum channels have a search that only searches within that channel, which makes it easier for users to see if their question has already been asked.
spark roost
You can filter discord search to a specific channel with the 'in:' keyword
But also barely anyone searches anywayy
untold yoke
It's not even that, tbh. Badly formatted questions aside (somebody usually asks ...
It's easier to scroll back through forum posts when topics are clearly separated by posts, and also users can choose to sort forums by "last activity" or by "post newness"
spark roost
The most common questions here this would benefit from get asked as infinitum
daring talon
It's easier to scroll back through forum posts when topics are clearly separated...
Totally agree. Doesn't mean I support forums, though 🙂
untold yoke
You can filter discord search to a specific channel with the 'in:' keyword
Yeah, I use that sometimes, but honestly many people can't be bothered (or aren't aware of that) to do it because it's an extra step. Which is silly I know, but it's all about results here, right?
spark roost
I mean if people can't see the in modifier that appears automatically I don't see how forums search would help
Barely anyone uses the search anyway
untold yoke
I mean if people can't see the in modifier that appears automatically I don't se...
Forum search doesn't require the discord know-how/extra step, doesn't that help?
spark roost
Forum search doesn't require the discord know-how/extra step, doesn't that help?
I mean you don't need know how to use the normal one, it presents it as an option before you even search anything
The people search benefits the most don't even use it anyway
Otherwise we wouldn't have like 5 "I'm new anyone have resources to learn" questions each day
I just don't think it will help personally
untold yoke
Ok, I concede. It would be nice however if there was a push of some kind from the mods to have users create a Thread when they have a specific question in one of the channels maybe?
Those are a decent middle ground between text-wall and full forum. And if the thread settings for each channel are left at the default "Hide after 3 days of inactivity" that would be nice as active threads show up on the side bar underneath the corresponding channel. That would allow potential answerers to see them more easily. If there's fear of the side bar clogging up with active threads, I'd even take "Hide after 24 hours of inactivity"
At least that way there would be some structure for people to go off on a side conversation and have the question/answer right next to each other
spark roost
i do think threads would be a good middle ground to avoid clogging the channel
its also less destructive than trialing forums
daring talon
IIRC pfist was against threads for some reason.
pliant meadow
you would have somewhere where you can live chat about the topic, and somewhere you can throw a question about the topic that doesn't get buried. maybe you take another implementation and have a hybrid system where the forums and threads can only be made by bots, so you can ask the question in the live chat, and just throw a !q at the end of it, so anyone interested can see it and revive it as a thread or forum question. There is a server with something like this that has been working very well
spark roost
threads are the perfect solution imo, there if you want em, can ignore em if you dont. not like forums where you force everyone under it
cinder barn
threads are the perfect solution imo, there if you want em, can ignore em if you...
Regular Discord threads (not Discord forum threads) expire and auto delete
that's the issue with that soultion
daring talon
Well it's not l ike anyone uses search to go back to find them anyway 😂
cinder barn
Well it's not l ike anyone uses search to go back to find them anyway 😂
lol I know that's the joke but there are a bunch of people who actually do (usually the regulars searching for old posts to link)
daring talon
🙂
untold yoke
Regular Discord threads (not Discord forum threads) expire and auto delete
They do expire, but they don't delete. They are simply hidden from the sidebar and list of Active Threads.
However their contents and title are still searchable via normal server-wide search bar in top right
You can also still post responses in inactive threads iirc, which makes them active again
cinder barn
They do expire, but they don't delete. They are simply hidden from the sidebar a...
if that's the case now, it has changed
untold yoke
At least that's how they work in my server I think. I'll double check
cinder barn
At least that's how they work in my server I think. I'll double check
I last looked into them before they added Discord forums, so they may have changed the way it functions
untold yoke
Yeah, looks like threads are indeed simply hidden after x-time of inactivity
This setting has to be set per-channel via Channel Settings in right-click menu. As I said before, all channels default to being hidden after 3 days
untold yoke
you would have somewhere where you can live chat about the topic, and somewhere ...
So I just tried to create a thread in one of the content creation channels, and it's disabled for normal users so Admins would either have to enable it for all users or create a bot command as per @pliant meadow idea
daring talon
By content creation channels, what do you mean exactly? Like #animation or #graphics ?
slender matrix
I guess everything in that category?
untold yoke
The channels in the category 'Content Creation'
