What can we do to improve the quality of UnityAnswers?
As a professional game developer using Unity, the super low cost of entry for becoming a developer, and the community it brings along with it, is interesting to me.
Also, the fact that the Unity developers themselves use this site and provide in-depth technical knowledge that isn't readily available or in an obvious location makes this website valuable.
However, other than a few nuggets of information here and there, there is a lot of cruft and not a lot of useful information or interesting discussion to keep the professionals and advanced users really engaged in this community.
Just looking at the questions that often come up, it's pretty easy to see that this website is probably not living up to what it could be. There are lots of issues that are more prevalent here than on some of the "better" stack exchange sites:
- Questions that involve a user complaining that copy/pasted code doesn't work, usually because the user doesn't understand the language
- Users who do not mark valid answers as "accepted", causing the "Community" bot to continually bump old, answered questions.
- Duplicate questions left and right, including going so far as to be able to find answers to what they look for if they just typed the question they asked into the search bar
- Lots of "write my script" questions
- Very few votes for questions (either good or bad), leading to poor filtering of what questions I should spend my time reading and potentially providing answers for
- General game development questions (usually at a super high level) that don't fundamentally have anything to do with Unity itself and show a lack of thought or research on the topic at hand
Joel Spolsky had a very good point about what makes a good community:
The power of the Stack Exchange platform is detailed, expert answers to extremely rare, long-tail, highly technical questions. To get expert answers, you need experts. To attract experts, you need a site where people are asking very interesting and hard questions, not the basic questions, so that its clear that this is a PRO site, not a consumer/enthusiast site.... and remember, the pro sites WILL attract the enthusiasts, but not the other way around.
Right now, this website attracts very few experts. Part of it, I'm sure, is the low barrier to entry of Unity itself. Part of it is also probably because the two biggest chunks of interesting questions (game development/algorithms and the C#/javascript languages) are probably better covered by different domains. But part of it is how the community here seems to handle itself.
Now personally I don't have all the answers. This is more of an open ended question itself. But here are some of my suggestions:
- Vote up good questions.
- Vote up answers that are valid
- Vote down bad/duplicate questions/comments/answers. Leave comments when you do vote down.
- Encourage people to do their own research instead of just asking for people to do the work for them.
- Push people to the forums when it makes sense.
It's mostly just to prevent the answer from being continuously bumped by the Community bot.
A suggestion of $$anonymous$$e is to let people with high enough rep be able to accept answers for other people so the "Unanswered" Section is NOT loaded with already answered questions...
@DingBEN: Or we could not use arbitrary and pointless tags that you just made up, and that have no meaning.
Answer by Cyclops · Jun 05, 2010 at 03:24 PM
The TL;DR version -
- we as users, don't have the power to solve the fundamental issues with UnityAnswers.
- The fundamental issue with UA is not enough users - we lack critical mass.
- UT needs to encourage more of the 180,000 hypothetical developers to sign on, possibly via email notice.
(tl;dr = too long; didn't read - usually how someone replies to a wall of text :)
If you've ever hung out at StackOverflow, you'll notice that Questions frequently get answered within minutes, and that the average user rep seems to be 2K+. In fact, I one posted a fairly minor Question (actually on meta-SO), and got eight upvotes - in less than a day. Sigh...
But If you were to look at SO's user statistics (which I just counted, for your convenience :) , they have 184K users - of which 83K have only 1 rep point. That is, SO has (nearly) the same percentages as UnityAnswers - we have 750/1450 users with 1 rep. They have almost as many bozo users as we do :) And if you look at the Questions, there are some constantly being closed for being poor questions, or off-topic, or duplicated.
Why is StackOverflow different? They have critical mass. Sheer numbers. They have the same steady stream of bad Questions on their site, that we do - but theirs are: a) closed/deleted almost instantly, and b) overshadowed by the number of good Questions.
UnityAnswers needs more people
Part of the reason that SO deals so quickly with bad Questions, is they have 600+ people with 10K rep (yes, I counted that also :) that can delete Questions, and I don't know how many can close Questions. We currently have two people that can delete Questions (not counting Admins). And while @Duck and @Eric5h5 are certainly good, even they have to sleep sometimes. I think... :)
More users would mean more people voting, more reputation gain, more power-users (10K+). If we could get even 10% of the Unity-users to join, then we'd go from 1,400 users to 14,000. Which would (eventually) also multiply the number of power-users by 10, maybe more.
Yeah, I realize there would be short periods of chaos and madness, while the new users got used to the system. But it would eventually settle down, and we'd have more competent people using the site.
Only Unity Technologies can boost UA users
One easy thing that UT could do, is send an email notification to all of the thousand of people who downloaded the free version. And also mention the site to buyers of the Pro version, when they get their licensing email. I recently bit the bullet ;) and got the Pro version - and the email UT sent had a link to the forums - but not a word about UnityAnswers. That email licensing letter really needs to be updated, UT - any admins reading this? :)
Basically, UT needs to get the word out to every potential developer. They're the only ones who can, since they know who downloaded what, after all...
Not that this isn't a fun thread, but the solution - is really up to UT.
Good useful statistics. Why don't you send an e-mail to HiggyB with a shorter version of your argument, plus the suggestion they link to Answers on the purchase e-mail?
@Ricardo - email the great HiggyB? Is that permitted? J/k, just sent him an email. I think at a $$anonymous$$imum they should inform Pro devs about UA in the licensing email, since they're the ones most likely to be knowledgeable and committed to Unity development. Rather than constantly posting the same question over and over... :)
Heh. Well, he is the platform evangelist. I'm sure he sees the value of evangelizing about Answers. :-P
Two weeks and no response from HiggyB - guess they're all busy with 3.0.
I haven't bought the license yet but the emails you get when in the pro trial phase do have a link for here. I just got one on 6/20/10.
Answer by Cyclops · Jun 04, 2010 at 08:35 PM
I have to say, all of your suggestions are already part of the FAQ - they're the whole point of the site.
And I'm not sure if you are aware, but this is - not quite a duplicate - but very close to another Question:
How can we as users get the most out of UnityAnswers?
Update: Just FYI, I had posted in the Forums, a list of UnityAnswers Statistics. So you can see, for instance, that half of the users (700/1400) have 1 rep - meaning they posted a Question, and never again responded to the site (even checkmarking an Answers gives you some rep).
One other thing, is we only have a little over 200 users who can even comment on Answers, much less downvote. We simply do not have anywhere near the numbers of StackOverflow. So it could be that the only way to change things, is to increase the numbers.
That is a good question, and AngryAnt's answer should be required reading for anybody who signs up for an account here. $$anonymous$$y question is more from the perspective of making a site useful and engaging to "experts", who really are the ones driving whether or not the site is worth co$$anonymous$$g back to (see Spolsky's quote again). Sure, it's nice that somebody can have my "hey how can I access a variable in another script file" question answered, but if those are all the questions being asked, the web site might as well not even exist.
I'd be happy if the FAQ was required reading, but so it goes... The big problem with any solution intended to modify people's behavior, is the ones that most need their behavior modified - don't care. And don't read FAQs or use search, or... We can downvote all we want, but if the person just keeps posting bad/duplicate questions, we can't really stop it.
Well there are two sets of people. One one side there's the people who don't have any kind of investment in the site or the community. On the other are people (like you) who obviously are. People in the latter group should spend more time on using the site as it's intended (like you said it's the whole point). I just think that the natural order of things is kind of stunted since the points system isn't being used. Basically, I was hoping to bring up the idea that people like you and me should be voting a lot more than what we appear to be doing.
I've got nearly 400 votes - how many more do I need to do? :) Seriously, how I do things, is read the site daily, and vote up/down several times - if I feel competent to judge the answer. There's a ton of Q/A here that I don't have a clue about, so I stay out of it. But if something is obviously right (or wrong/duplicate, etc) then I'll vote on it. Again - Voting won't fix certain types of problems.
Ah, @GODLI$$anonymous$$E, my Answer is in response to the original Question, not your Answer - otherwise I'd have added a comment to your Answer. I was saying that @Tetrad's upvote/downvote suggestions, are already in the FAQ.
Answer by Ricardo · Jun 05, 2010 at 07:17 AM
This is such a forum-like answer, I'd probably downvote myself.
The topic of a "walled off" section has been brought up before. Unity will not implement it, and I can't say I blame them - not only would they be seen as alienating their newcomers, hardly a move they'd like to make, but for them there is a lot of value in more experienced users mingling with the new ones. Even if they get only one Duck or Eric5h5, who replies to a ton of basic questions, that's an advantage for them.
There are two possible assumptions on the Path that UnityAnswers can take:
- Unity decides to build their own platform, and we get to vote on features like walled-off sections and +5 vote users.
- UnityAnswers gets migrated into the next StackExchange iteration.
Regarding #1... yeah. It's not like they don't have enough stuff to do, with the summer launch of 3.0, all this feedback, the next Unite, 3.1, and who knows what else. I'd much rather see them focus on the game engine than have to become webmonkeys.
Which leaves us with #2, and us working within the confines of the StackExchange platform. The tools at most people's disposal are:
- Upvotes
- Downvotes
- Tags
A few people her get to also ask that questions be closed, but so far I don't see a reply to this topic by anyone with enough rep to do it (maybe they're just happy with the site as is - something to consider).
My personal approach is:
- Downvote most MMO questions with furious anger.
- Upvote questions that I haven't seen before, that post an interesting problem, or where it seems that the poster has a legitimate issue.
- Downvote poorly written questions ("how 2 get my app 2 workz?"), argumentative ones, vague questions, or anything else that is not development- or game-creation oriented.
- Star things I'd wondered about myself.
- Upvote what I consider the best answers, or those that add to the original one.
- Downvote anyone who comes in with "What @Bob said"
- Comment on anything that is a basic programming topic ("why do I only get two values with bool?"), pointing them to what they should be reading, and downvote. They're not related to Unity, and people should really learn to program before attempting to implement their Modern Warfare MMO.
- Retag, retag, retag. If we help classify questions properly, there's less of an excuse for others not to find them in the future. If we use the "duplicated-question" and "write-my-code" tags when necessary, we can easily warn other users off them, or assist mods in closing them.
- And yes, answer. Particularly when I feel I have something to add to the discussion, but lately mostly on my pet topics.
In the end, UnityAnswers is a functional democracy, and majority will rule. The most every user can do is nudge it towards the type of site they'd rather end up with.
@Ricardo, I say that downvoting is off-limits for this Q/A - it's a metaquestion anyway, not subject to the laws of physics :) Also, while I'm totally on-board with downvoting $$anonymous$$$$anonymous$$O questions - chill on the furious anger. :) People are going to be people, bad questions will keep appearing - if you let it get to you, you'll just burn out.
Answer by _Petroz · Jun 06, 2010 at 07:41 AM
The newbies are clearly having a detrimental impact on the quality of this resource and are clearly ignorant of the rules. Whether the blame entirely lies with them is another question. In my opinion stronger moderation would be treating the symptom not the cause. There are things beyond moderation, which we can do to help them help themselves.
Firstly: stop enabling them. I am at times guilty of this myself, but helping people who haven't put in enough effort is rewarding laziness and encouraging them to continue in this way. A subtle nudge in the right direction is often better than a complete answer. It will also help to develop a culture in the community to reinforce this.
Secondly: more accessible resources. I personally feel that learning from documentation can get tiresome pretty quick. For people with little to no background in game development, it can be very difficult to extract the required information from written documentation. Personally, I find written documentation makes a good reference but a poor teacher.
By comparison video tutorials allow one to absorb information far easier. Not only do they convey required information to perform the task, but also show best practices such as naming conventions and game architecture at the same time.
Generally video tutorials are used for teaching the user interface but I've seen many very successful programming and math theory videos. It sounds boring but it can actually work!
And one of the best source of video tutorials is How can I learn Unity fast?
I'm all for more resources co$$anonymous$$g out of UT, but I doubt it'll help the Answers issue. There are the duplicated questions, of people who didn't even put in the effort to perform a search; and then there are the "write-my-code" questions. Neither of those would likely take the effort of going through a tutorial. Still, you make good points - we definitely shouldn't be giving lazy users all the answers - so upvote for you.
@Petroz, I added a link to your post (only because links in comments don't work so well). It's a great source for video (and every) tutorials. In fact, for a lot of Questions, it's the first thing I tell them, in the hopes that the questioner will try learning on their own.
"I think written documentation makes a good reference but a poor $$anonymous$$cher." +1, just for that. People learn best in different ways, some visual, some auditory. I'm tempted to bold that line, but I already edited your post once, don't want to overdo it - consider bolding it, yourself.
That's an interesting point that you've made, especially since I often point people towards the documentation (it's even gotten me some accepted answers in the past).
Answer by Maclypse · Jul 04, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Peronally, being brand new to Unity I find that the documentation is sadly lacking in many places, and that I just can't find the information that I need. As an example, the car tutorial and documentation on WheelColliders: There's nowhere near enough guidelines on how to set the friction, suspension, damping, terrain, mass, engine force settings, etc. I've done trial and error for DAYS and I still can't get anywhere near the desired behaviour. There's also repeated mentions that it's best to build graphical wheels separate from the WheelColliders - but no mention of how you actually map the movement of the graphic objects to the suspension. Only deep inside the car tutorial can you find ONE method, and it may not be one that people actually want to use for various reasons. I still don't know if there's any way to get the current rate of compression for a spring (or WheelCollider, other than using a groundHit).
What I'd like to see, is the manual to be somehow wiki-fied, so that you can actually add to the manual when you figure something out, and thus eliminating the need to ask questions in the first place. It would also mean you could add smaller tutorials and examples in more specific areas, so you don't have to go through massive projects like the car tutorial in search of an answer to a simple query, an answer that may not be in there in the first place.
Well put, if a bit off-topic - it's a suggestion that applies more to Unity as a whole than to UnityAnswers by itself.
Agreed, $$anonymous$$aclypse verbalized it for me... and this is only one example. I, also look at Unity as a whole, UnityAnswers being one of the principal means of promoting the nuts and bolts of Unity. As I worded elsewhere, leave a good thing be, and continue to shower us with all of the detail we need to keep evolving. Code and working examples are faster than to expect the crowd at large to become bookworms. Show pseudocode, I struggle to interpret that. Show a generic example, I have to interpret still. Show a working example, I will soon write the pseudo code, but why bother, a moot point.
Thank you! I thought I was the only one being annoyed by the lack of documentation. It's there but it's a 5.5 out of 10 at best.
I wouldn't call the docs "sorely lacking" -- it's actually way better than your average stack of docs -- but it certainly falls short of $$anonymous$$SDN. However, $$anonymous$$icrosoft pays millions of dollars a year to tech writers and test engineers to generate that stuff -- should Unity dedicate such effort to documentation, or to the engine itself? But I would love to see a far more comprehensive set of sample code for the scripting reference manual -- is this a task some of the us could undertake? I humbly suggest this would be a better use of time than repeatedly answering "Do you haz teh codez?"