What can we do to improve the quality of UnityAnswers?

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.

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:

1. Unity decides to build their own platform, and we get to vote on features like walled-off sections and +5 vote users.
2. 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.

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?

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.