Really great, thanks Amanda!
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Yay! Now who do I need to send a gift basket to to get signatures brought back? 
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Hard disagree. Of the potential customers who even know you can click avatars, how many actually will? Not many. Then how will they know about the solutions I offer?
I don’t have any hard data about how this will affect sales. No one does, it just happened. We’ll see how it goes but I’m not convinced in any way that this is better.
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Maybe I’m getting old, but I just can’t fathom the reasoning behind switching to this style of forum software, bearing in mind the following:-
a) An official UE subReddit already exists which offers similar functionality, mobile device bias and target audience.
b) It’s likely that a high percentage of those who make games with UE do so on a desktop device (and this is less desktop user friendly than the previous forum software).
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I used to do that as well (on Google Groups & some Joomla forums). And I used Discourse on a few popular JavaScript forums. So, I have some experience of both.
In practice, people really value the effort we put when helping them. At least your potential buyers. So, they will find you from your profile. And when you are answering use Youtube videos you created or your blog posts.
That gives you ROI rather spamming every message with an ad.
I am new to the forum and really want to help & also learn new things. And people will come & go. They have their own reasons. I bet Discord (specially their own) or YouTube is one of the reason to move away from here as well.
I cannot speak of Epic employees. And I’d really to more of them coming here.
Reddit is always a different community 
I usually think it’s for showing off things & never used as a developer help.
I am still using Desktop & I really like this format & it’s so quick to navigate, search & reply.
You know, I really appreciate your idealized view of people and the efforts they’re willing to make and the amount of time any one dev has to work a 60 hour job and write value-adding plugins and make youtube videos and write a blog and maintain a family all at once but I’m not sure any of that’s realistic.
Don’t get me wrong, I come here specifically to answer questions I’m qualified to answer because I like helping people. But I still don’t think it’s asking too much to expose people to my solutions when it could help them. I’m sorry you feel spammed by a few lines of a signature. Never was anyone’s intention to spam you or anyone. We all just trying to make a living.
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That was one of my points. The endlessly scrolling page format is of less use for giving and receiving help, so only having that option is a step backward.
After all, there’s a reason why scrolls were replaced by books with individual pages.
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If this is your worry. There’s a much better tool for that in Discourse.
Give it a try. You’ll love it.
I am with you totally. Not complaining, but my point is there’s much better way to market your product while helping people. Signatures are quite old way to do it. Here’s my summary. Not going to discuss on this matter any further.
- If you like to help, just do it. If someone found it helpful, they will definitely click your name & see the profile. Advertise on that.
- Right now, I agree not many will check the profile, but eventually, everyone will. Just like we check Twitter profile, etc.
- I know you made some great plugins. I suggested one of your plugins (easy CSV) in my Discord.
- |
( This is just a co-incident, but I didn’t discover it via the forum. I just searched it on the MP) - You need to target your project for the right audience. If you help someone with material stuff, that person rarely needs a CSV parser.
- So, don’t try to promote your CSV parser in that thread. That’s what signatures does & that’s spamming. (This is just a hypothetical example)
- Spend some time creating a Youtube video or a blog post on CSV parsing with your project. These days, you can do it in a couple of hours. Use Medium, dev.to for blogging.
- Then next time, someone asks for CSV help in this forum, just share your post. (Or someone will do it for you)
My point is simple. We don’t need signatures to promote our products. That could be a thing 20 years ago when there are only emails. But the internet & people have evolved. This forum change is one of that.
Just embrace the change.
Keep in mind, UE5 is going to be a massive change. We can complain like this & live in history or move on with what’s next.
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Your solution to scrolling being a problem is to use the scrollbar? Seriously?
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I’m with you on this one. I understand why a minimalist design might lend itself to a mobile-centric experience with the small screen form factor, but most people who post here are likely using a desktop or a laptop.
Hiding basic user information like post counts, badges, and signatures behind sub-menus on a desktop experience just seems rather unnecessary. It kind of feels like the equivalent of porting a console game to PC without considering the additional benefits of a mouse/keyboard based interaction system. I would much rather see at least the basic/most relevant information directly instead of it requiring two additional mouse clicks.
And besides the usability factor, things like post count & badges also help in the same way Answer Hub score motivates people to engage with that platform. It may not be the reason why we’re all here, but having additional bits of motivation like that certainly doesn’t hurt.
Having said that, I really appreciate the drop-down menu in the new search. Makes finding and getting to a required post a lot faster than before.
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Not a big deal but the Anniversary badge is omitting three years of service.
ps.
Am I the only one who thinks the forum trend here mimics somewhat the early days?
Src https://twitter.com/mikko/status/311429162063781889
How about no. Reinventing the wheel is change for the sake of change. Like adding a second scroll bar to your browser that already has one on top of being far less responsive and functional.
This kind of insanity is why websites regularly get broken in everything that isn’t Chrome.
So much of Discourse is just adding extra clicks to things that should just be there like the user menu.
Speaking of which, this “Trust” system in Discourse. Wow. They really want to beat you over the head with visiting somewhere regularly like a gacha game. I really hope this thing is being turned off.
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Embracing the change is not an option. I just basically have stopped using the forum. It’s unusable like this. Difficult to read. Difficult to navigate. Using way too much screen space for one post.
It’s truly awful. I don’t know how else to put it. It didn’t level up, it’s lost a level. The only positive I can really say about it is that it looks kind of pretty but that goes away quickly once you try to actually use it.
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Post signatures are spam, requires the brain to filter it out or read all of this “I have awesome marketplace plugin”. I DON’T care about stuff you’re trying to sell me with every post. I’m not gonna accidentally buy your asset because I stumbled upon it while reading totally unrelated discussion.
I hate this on every single forum. It’s such a relief that this crap disappeared. Brings usability closer to every other social tool on the internet. If your posts are valuable to me, I’d be eager to check your profile, even follow you (if the given platform allows for it).
Hardly disagree. This is the best thing that happened! Post counts and badges are useless, it doesn’t tell me anything useful about a person who posted. So why is there? Because it’s easy to do, an equivalent of programming “Hello, world!”. 20 years ago every website creation course would teach how to put the clock on your website. It was useless, but it was a “cool thing”.
There are a few exceptions though.
- It’s nice to see “Engine Contributor” or “Marketplace Creator”. It definitely shows that if a person isn’t a hobbyist or the kind of guy that “just talks”, it’s a doer.
- I’ve noticed that Discourse here highlights posts or new users. Or “this first post of this user in 6 months”. Might be not perfect, maybe some tweaking would be needed here. Generally, a much better direction than just filling a big part of the page is useless post counts and badges.
It’s 10x better now to read threads if… opening thread from Google/UnrealEngine search. Now there’s only important content displayed, no spam.
I only wish these useful “roles” like “Epic employee” or “Engine Contributor” would be a little more visible. The overall style is now too spartan 
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I’m referring to the same badges. Right now, they’re hidden and combined with a more pointless quantity over quality approach to the badge system. Earlier just as you said, badges like Engine Contributor or Game Jam Finalist meant something and gave immediate relevant information about a person, and I would prefer still having those visible since personally it never felt like they cluttered the screen.
As for post counts, it also helps to know whether a certain person has been quite active in the community while looking for solutions to a certain topic. So while the visual style might have become more spartan, it certain doesn’t always transfer to the process of minimizing the mental workload involved in sifting through posts.
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