Enable easier communication with the Powers That Be
First time on the new site (yeah, it's been a while), and I noticed a bunch of spam accounts in the scroll. This is not what anyone wants to see (I guess except for the people who clicked on the advertising videos uploaded as "reels").
These accounts were newly created (i.e., no posts, comments, etc.) and the only thing on their profile is an ad. Where do I report this? Posts allow reporting, but not Profiles.
Also, where do I ask this question? Here, I guess. How do I contact an administrator or moderator? There's a "Give Feedback" link hidden here and there, but that goes to git, and one needs another login to interact there. I did discover a link to animat.io , though, so that's cool.
Besides, this is not a code critique, but a policy question. Perhaps I should check the FAQ. How about that button there on the left with the question mark? Perhaps that will lead somewhere.
The accounts I mentioned were only six or so hours old, so perhaps I am jumping the gun, and they will be gone soon (TM). I am not linking to the accounts because I don't want to be associated with them. But if I could privately message one of the Powers That Be, I'm sure they would like to know sooner than later.
Thanks, and enjoy your vacation, Pablo -- even as I suffer withdrawal symptoms every Monday :)
18 Comments
RCS V3
I propose the site be reorganized to meet the requirements implicit in the words on the "Welcome Page."
Or, if the site is working as intended, reword that section of the site.
(This thread is a parking lot for ideas as they come to me.)
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Premises of the "Proposal"
Development resources are stretched thin.
I'm writing checks I can't cash: my proposal requires even more resources (dev/moderation).
RCS sometimes means "Comunity Sites" in general depending on your needs.
I am an expert in only some things.
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Background:
The question I ask myself is, "Is this a place where I want to spend hours of my time?" On the one hand, the answer is, "Yes," just because it's Blender. On the other hand, the sites' functionality make achieving the stated goals difficult as opposed to supporting them (IMHO).
So then the situation becomes: Are the current users and maintainers happy with the way things are? If so, my work here is done. If not, I have some ideas:
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New user experience:
Imagine a new Blender user stumbles upon RCS, and what do they see?
On the left - An infinite social-media-type feed of ideas sort-able by Hot (default), New, or Top. Hot and New are only nominally different, and the Top posts are 2-5 years old.
On the right - An invitation to participate in a place to "Share your idea with the community. Discuss it. Revise it. Flesh it out to the point that it's a well thought-out, actionable proposal that a Blender developer can work with." Also, "Help other people improve their ideas by voting and offering comments and insights."
I would like to visit that place, or perhaps help make it a reality.
There are also the buttons on the left to consider, as it is all maintained by the same few heroes.
What I propose involves re categorizing and resorting, not something new and flashy. My hope is to engage and retain new users. I believe it has already been stated that RCS is not intended to replace something like BlenderArtists, but this is not a zero sum game. Having spent time at BA, I must say it's a nice model for engagement.
What a person might see upon visiting:
Highlight of a recent proposal which is now in main. (To say, "See? It works?") A way to find out what this site is and how it works (FAQ, Contact Info) A way to find out if the idea they have has been proposed already, and what the status is. (easier said than done) A selection of current ideas and proposals. (Based on user preference if logged in).
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Categories and Tags
I am using the terms "proposal" and "idea" as separate things. For instance, proposals are voted on, ideas are tagged. It starts with categorizing a new post. These categories are based on what I have seen on RCS, not some conceptual ideal, so everything's up for discussion.
Categories: Feature Proposal Improvement Idea Support Request Bug Report Observation
An initial post may become a Feature Proposal, but likely its not. The day-to-day goal is to generate ideas and discussion. The proposals will develop with time (or not) to become well thought-out and actionable.
The post may have an idea for improvement, but it probably is a repeat. After a short time back on RCS, I stopped trying to connect new posters with better explanations of their idea.
A fair number of times, a "proposal" is for a feature that already exists in Blender. In this case, it's a support request.
Sometimes it's a bug.
Sometimes it's a complaint or other observation.
Tags Add-On Candidate Annimation/Rigging Rendering ...
Voting on Proposals could make sense, but voting on ideas does not, particularly when the first expression of the idea needs work.
Part of that work could happen in the form of identifying what is being talked about more exactly by categorizing and tagging. Through voting. No one is voting on an idea, just trying to understand it. Once voting is open (and the OP gets the first vote), the relevant tagged communities get brought in, and they can give more specific feedback.
The tagged community might want to disown the idea, and instead point out that it requires deeper changes out of their control (depsgraph? for instance). In which case they say, "You don't have to convince us, talk to them." And they "vote" by suggesting a different tag.
Over time, this should get more efficient, and an idea won't bounce around too many times before finding a home.
I believe that over time the largest number of non-support posts will be Repeats and Observations.
For example, a post along the lines of: "My particular workflow is faster/better/more intuitive/etc. in a different 3D program." This is an observation the community can debate in chat for 30 days until it times out. A user would not necessessarily say it this way, and the first few exchanges are used to suss this out.
Often times, the feature proposed already exists in Blender, in which case it's a support question.
Difficulty can arise when these two things combine. Imagine a user says, "Blender should allow you to extrude faces." Someone might tag this as a support issue and leave a short (perhaps dropdown boilerplate) message saying this functinality already exists. Or perhaps a longer response with graphics explaining how.
The OP returns with, "Yes, I know that, but I want it to work like SketchUp." In this case I would change my tag suggestion from Support to Observation, and leave it at that.
As for repeats, it would be good to point the commenter in the right direction, and attach the comment there, where they could find a fuller discussion of their idea (and why it is or is not in development).
In any event, the goal should be to ensure the capture of useful ideas.
"Useful" is subjective, but for instance an idea that could be or is useful in Houdini might only be useful in Blender if Blender changes that way it does things from the ground up to be like Houdini. By their nature these situations involve complicated explanations and understanding to get a point across, and often the OP is left unsatisfied.
The idea of "useful" needs to take into account the overarching goals for the Blender project. One admirable feature of Blender is its small disk storage footprint. Therefore, avoiding bloat might be a reason to not implement an idea, but again it is complicated to explain/justifiy for every possible case.
Thus, capturing useful explanations for previous decisions goes a long way to to resoulving how to handle repeats.
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Anecdotes
My hope is to <not> leave people hanging. Currently, the most used way to acknowledge someone's contribution is to vote. The other way, by leaving a comment, happens much less often. Those are the only options. (This is based on looking back through recent months, and I do not have any information on actual site statistics.) If your post is not noticed in the first few days or so, it's gone forever. Until it comes up again.
And by "noticed", I am including a single downvote and no comments. Think about that. A person puts up an idea, and checks back each day. On the third day, someone downvotes it. After that, nothing. It's not much better if one gets 3 upvotes on day one, and then silence. I'm not speaking from experience, here. I'm in that group whose proposed idea went completely unacknowledged.
I thought it was a good idea. In my experience seeing the new layout, one of the first things I noticed was the amount of spam posts and that there was no way to report them. I spent time just trying to click each possible button to see where it took me.
When I made my first comment, I typed in a couple of sentences, and hit enter expecting a new line, but it submitted the comment instead. This explains the many walls of text among the posts, I guess. However, I saw enough well-formatted posts to think that mark-up language was allowed, and even thought I remembered seeing a link to a reference for it. (Obviously, I'm more of a WYSIWYG person - buttons for bold, newline, indent, ...) I spent a lot of time looking for it but never found it.
This lead me to making my first post. I asked for a way to allow me to contact someone to ask for help. In the meantime, as my post gets buried under the sediment of newer posts, I participate as I can.
See here for the results of my first downvote: blender.community/c/rightclickselect/nOz5/
The "Welcome" page might more accurately state: "Where persistence triumphs."
When I first came back in December, I found the experience at #support to be discouraging, and I switched my focus to RCS. Weeks later, I went to #support because I was having a Blender issue myself, and found new UI changes there. For instance, the choice of light gray text on a white background. I need to press CTRL-A (Select All) in the web page to be able to read threads. I suspect it has to do with the theme, but could not find where to change it on the website.
I imagine that electronic systems at Blender are in flux with the official change to Gitea. I am not surprised, then, at the lack of response to my request for help. After all, a lot of questions seem to go unanswered. But I am also disinclined to ask about the site display issue, for fear of being skipped again.
This very "proposal" is serving as my blog because it was missed completely, and no one will get notified every time I edit it.
What interested me in RCS was that there were support requests in there. They are called Proposals, but if it is for a functionality that already exists, it is a matter of education. This proves problematic at times due to the hurdles inherent in the site layout. In my exploration I even came across a support request (and answer) on Blender Today.
More recently I saw a request for help on RCS. The terse response stated that this was not a support forum.
Not only is this incorrect, it is unhelpful. RCS certainly is a support forum if you word things right. Think about it like asking for a feature by submitting a bug report. If an artist comes here to suggest an existing feature, they might learn something about how to use Blender, and be happy to accept the help.
The response was unhelpful because there was no link to where to go to get help with Blender. Here on the Blender community sites, this seems to be an open question.
============================================= FAQ:
Myth: Another software does it, and so it's easy. Reality: It's not.
Myth: Mentioning proprietary software is not allowed. Reality: There are perhaps copy write issues with logos and maybe trademarks. If your sole reason in mentioning said software is to say, "They do it," see previous myth
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Open Questions:
Why have Right Click Select given the existence of pages like this ( devtalk.blender.org/t/animation-editors-paper-cuts/27263 ). These pages are used by devs to develop ideas into action.
Just two more examples (with no list or bullets, see below)
I saw somewhere deep in one of the community sites a link to an external reference to how to use the mark-up language, but I could not find it again when I needed it. I instead type things up in a text editor, and copy/paste.
This is a small thing, but access to an FAQ would hopefully answer a lot of my other questions as well.
RCS is losing a lot of knowledge (leading to repeated requests for the same thing, for example). And who would not be annoyed if all they got for their effort was a single downvote and no explanation/comment?
As a Blender Today viewer since the beginning, I can confidently say that the show has promoted RCS a lot. I had visited RCS in the past, but only logged in occasionally for Blender Today. In the lead up to the most recent changes and in the time since, I had heard a lot of positive talk. By December I was looking forward to checking it out.
Until now, I had not considered why I did not participate in RCS in the past so I did not have any expectations based on past experience. My only goal was to participate.
I saw questions posed which I could answer, and so I did. I saw what I thought to be misconceptions, and attempted to correct them. I saw a pattern of posts getting single downvotes and no comments, and commented when I could fit an opinion in, if only to soften the blow.
Now upon reflection, I realize I did not participate in the past for the same reasons I am questioning the site now. There does not appear to be much here for me to do. This is more about my skills rather than anything.
I have good general understanding of Blender, and much specific knowledge in certain areas. In many areas I have little knowledge and no opinion, and at first avoided those RCS categories. Then I noticed that the choice of category was sometimes questionable, so I started reading everything. Given the flow rate of the site, this was not too hard in the time I had available.
Which is another point. I have some open time again, and wanted to focus it on Blender (as witnessed by the walls of text above). I could have gone back to that other site I've mentioned, but hoped this might be the place. Instead, RCS appears to be a small club rather than an international Blender destination. No complaint or judgement, except nothing on the site explains this. Someone who just picked up Blender a few weeks ago should know that their post might be ignored or downvoted without comment, and that they should try again because eventually someone will engage.
Thus, if I saw on Mastodon* some comment saying RCS is an unwelcoming place, I would not immediately think they were mistaken.
I noticed that the VSE has its own channel now. Do feature ideas for the VSE go there or RCS?
I fear repeating myself, so I'll leave it with this:
I'm fine if the user base of RCS (and associated sites) are happy with the status quo, but one area needs to be addressed since this site is easily discoverable (perhaps intentionally) by the general public.
Support questions are littered throughout. There is a link to blender.chat where one can find the #support channel which clearly invites Blender questions. The individuals who inhabit that site, I feel, have more important things to do than answer noob questions.
When my question in there went unanswered for many days, I thought I might try a different channel more specific to my issue. When I went to the geometry nodes channel, and saw the individuals active there and the nature of the questions asked and answered, I knew I was in the wrong place.
They had much more important things to do than to read my question, much less answer it. (Full disclosure: I only just figured out the issue on my end - so, user error.)
Perhaps a link to this page? blender.org/community/