All the time, I see people who delete the whole thing and ask questions, not understanding that we need this info to help them. Then I see people who use it, but leave the comments in, like: āIf you share code, please wrap it inside three backticks or replace the code in the next block:ā
Iām used to decorum on programming forums where people know you get out what you put in to a question. And typically new people learn by having a bunch of questions asked of them and they learn to ask better questions.
However these days we donāt get as many repeat customers, and more people are coming with vibe-coded scripts asking us to debug them. They do not care that they make their code hard to read, or donāt give enough information to get a good answer. Iām also seeing a lot more X-Y Problem posts.
Am I just pining after a bygone era? It seems like thereās no way to expect people to learn how to ask good questions, especially if they donāt stick around to learn and just want a quick LLM-like answer to their questions.
More people are used to chatrooms i.e. discord, posting a question and hoping it gets answered immediately or drowned out and lost. As mentioned XY problems often come from a chatroom setting, asking for the quick-fix in the wrong direction rather than scoping out the whole problem. I donāt think forums are manyās first introduction to online discussion anymore.
Mobile users are also large in this community, it can be tough writing with codeās special symbols on a touch screen.
I wonder if you have to scroll down to see the āif you share codeā¦ā section for mobile. I know the new topic box starts out really small on desktop too, maybe it should default to full-screen for new topics; wasted space above as thereās nothing to reply to. There are certainly UX improvements to be made on discourse.
This forum has always (well since I have been following it) been (some you already mention):
people asking questions and then not following up on answers
people asking questions without giving up any code and few clues to go by
people leaving long code blocks with no formatting
people asking too vague a question to reasonably answer
I believe it is due to the nature of Godot. It is very open to people new to programming, new to developing, and new to structured live help (the forum, Reddit, etc)
A new person googles āwhich gaming engine is the easiest to learnā and Godot will top the list.
I like to try to give posters the benefit of the doubt in their intent in posting here.
I also think not many people TRULY care about their projects, the many wonderful people who go into making them, and will stick it through challenges long-term. (Or work on netcode for a year. cough cough)
Game development is a lifestyle. One not many can stick to. Thatās why I think they are either VERY experienced devs or VERY new devs and nothing in between.
The reason I joined and stuck is because I cared about Monkanics so much. It was already my lifestyle, my brain meshed with fundamental programming logic, and I already had development experience from Unreal 4/5. The Godot Forum was just an extension of all those.
Maybe Godotās popularity recently hit a tipping point, after Unityās huge mistakes, the success of Slay the Spire 2, and whatever other factors, such that thereās a big influx of new Godot users who are completely new to programming and associated community culture.
Thinking back to forums in general, ~20 years ago, people werenāt behaving that differently, so itās not entirely new
I havenāt been on the Godot forum long, so Iām not sure if a change has happened recently, but I think it should be taken as a sign of success, of the forums and Godot in general.
Personally I think we should try to help and be friendly to beginners - theyāre the ones that need help most. Many ask poorly phrased questions out of ignorance, not laziness, and while many will give up on Godot soon enough, a few newbies may become the regulars of tomorrow.
It was tricky at first for me on mobile. I have been using the formatting now when I have several lines of code. It doesnāt affect me but I get how itās easier for others to read. I tend to skip the version though as it mostly hasnāt seemed relevant to what Iāve been asking and I also tend to assume people use the latest versions. One thing that has bugged me on other forums over the years is non specific subjects such as āa couple of questionsā I try to aim for specifics in my subjects. I personally wouldnāt say disrespectful. Twenty to thirty years back I probably would have but I think itās more a general shift in peopleās behavior and attitude over the years than disrespect. Iāve mostly found people on here to be polite and helpful.
Thatās surprising, my experience has been the opposite - 20-30 years ago it seemed to me that forums were generally civilized, and forum etiquette was mostly known and respected. Then came the age of 4chan, anonymous trolling and YouTube comments, and it all kind of went to shit.
It was the same in the Torque Game Engine community at GarageGames forums from 2001 onwards: people starting a new thread when their question is answered in the next post down, people not knowing game design, coding or art asset production wanting to do the latest FOM as their first game. Back then it was MMO and tactical FPS, etc.
Oh I definitely think so. Unity drove a number of people here who had C# experience but didnāt know how Godot works, and so have been trying to solve problems with complex code when an understanding of the engine makes using a Node much simpler.
Even more recently, LLM learners have been posting a lot more frequently. I call them this because theyāre clearly trying to use an LLM to learn, and they usually pipe our answers back through the LLM. So the LLM is the one learning, not them.
Except, I want to help. To @phoenixdkās point, some of those newbies will stick around. Itās just becoming more frustrating.
20~ years ago I had a different experience. But then at that time a lot of the forums I was on I also was moderating. So maybe my lived experience was just different. I clearly remember Stack Overflow being very clear about how you had to post, and your posts had to be approved, and often edited by another member before they could go up. I learned very quickly there how to make a good post.
I remember that. And I donāt know if thereās anything that can be done to make it easier for mobile users.
Hey i wasnt disrespectful or even not knowing it. I just did as like others do. Also i explained but i just didnt used the template. And also I dont want to be tagged or mentioned like that without my permission and after being called disrespectful. (Sorry i typed fast and i didnt want to type ābunsā on the original for being too rude i just tought of the hamburgers buns so like it ment my script was basic and bad )
Im not new but im just the person that writes like as he talks (also im not native american, im italian)
Im really sorry,
And yes this account is new but i script for like 3 years almost and i just got into 3d recently this year. So thats why i have a lot of questionsā¦
I know people wont respond me in 2 seconds but i have also anxiety so when i see an error i do sometimes the same reaction as like im doing a test. So i just rush and type to the forum..
Also i know that the template says āplease type the godot version here ā but i just like to put it into the tags.
Sorry I know i sound rude but i really dont want to be it or the main character so im really sorry. If its needed i can try to type as like the template says.
@realkris I do not think he meant to attack you. When he said new, he meant new to the forum. Thereās nothing to feel angry or ashamed about. We are here to help. Just keep in mind that you get out of this forum what you put in.
If you press Ctrl + E on your keyboard, or press the toolbar button, it will give you the backticks to place the code between. If you do not do that, then all of your tabs are lost. It makes it really hard for us to read, and we can assume you did things right, when you did them incorrectly because we cannot tell.
We totally understand language barriers here, and try to help people who do not speak English as their first language. What we ask, and what this thread is about, is respecting our time as volunteers and doing everything you can to make our job easier. Which also results in you getting better, more complete answers.
I enjoy helping people, but there are days when the quality of the questions I see are so poor that I donāt feel I can do anything but walk away. I get there are a lot of people who are new to both programming and Godot, but GIGO is always a thing and without pertinent details the odds of getting to a solution rapidly approaches zero.
Ideally I want to know what you are trying to do, what is happening instead, and - most importantly - the code that you are running. Bonus points if you have actually taken the time to narrow down the scope of the issue. Debugging code is one of the core skills of any developer, and demonstrating that you have at least made an effort in that direction will make me take the question more seriously.
toolbar button, it will give you the backticks to place the code between. If you do not do that, then all of your tabs are lost. It makes it really hard for us to read, and we can assume you did things right, when you did them incorrectly because we cannot tell.