Why did the Godot Q & A stop being used as much?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By toivocat

I’ve been using the godot Q & A for about a year. One major thing that I have noticed is that when I started it was used a TON and suddenly people just stopped answering questions as much. Does anyone have any info on why it has lost popularity?

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: Gluon

If you look back an awful lot of the questions were being answered by a half dozen or so people a lot of the time. I am guessing those people got bored of answering so many similar questions and stopped visiting the site. Just a guess but I think so, one person called kidscancode for instance used to answer a hell of a lot of questions on here but has all but stopped over the last year.

Thanks! The kidscancode account was VERY popular and usually people search what they want to know first though.

toivocat | 2022-05-13 21:57

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: DaddyMonster

I stopped answering…

I was enjoying it, felt like giving something back to the community to help beginners. As always on the internet you get the odd person who’s just rude, abrasive and then there’s the very worst sort who picks apart what you’ve written without even having the decency to be right… And I just thought, why am I going to all this effort?

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: jgodfrey

In my case, I do still spend time here answering questions. However, many questions tend to be a one-way street - and honestly, that gets old. That is, someone will ask a question and get an answer, but never reply again. No “that worked, thanks” or “that’s not working for me, let’s refine”, or a “+1” or a selection of “Best Answer”.

When asking a question, people need to realize that those who help here are volunteers and could be doing something else with their time. At least be decent enough to say “thanks” and select “best answer” when appropriate.

Yes, exactly this. A thumb up or a “thanks” can put a smile on your face, getting blanked when you took the time to double check the docs and were careful with the wording and examples, not so much.

DaddyMonster | 2022-05-13 23:18

This is exactly what I’m looking for!

toivocat | 2022-05-14 00:02

In addition to all that was said, in the op’s time frame it was still pandemic season and users may have had more free time.

I personally had too much and my strongest skills were problem solving, art and knew a bit of coding.

So did a Google search that combined those and found Godot.

Hmm that may actually be a good question to ask… “How/why you got intersted in Godot”

Wakatta | 2022-05-15 19:18

I got interested in godot last summer and have been doing it since. It was introduces to me by my aunt.

toivocat | 2022-05-20 22:53

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: CharlesMerriam

StackOverflow once did a detailed study to answer the question, “Is StackOverflow an abrasive community to new women joining the site?” After much research, the answer was “StackOverflow is an abrasive community to everyone.”

The Godot Q&A community is more abrasive towards people who answer questions and does not particularly add cohesive knowledge. Most questions are vague questions about how Godot works, and may get one or two answers that may be one point. Then the question disappears.

There is no follow up from the person who asked. The knowledge is not particularly searchable. Any knowledge added is not incorporated into documentation.

More than grouching, how could these be addressed?

  • Set some expectations on users about how to ask, respond, and seek help. Particularly about answering their own question if they solve it.
  • Ping the person asking the question to reply in some way to each response. Even a “Thank you. Doesn’t apply to me.” would be a great improvement.
  • Have some path for updating documentation from here, probably something not seen in StackOverflow. As one example, allow someone to tag a specific section of the Godot docs, and then provide rendered version of the documentation that links back to all associated questions. This does speak to how fluid documentation will become; pull requests are simply a way to prohibit others from changing the owner’s code :).

When the system doesn’t work, change something. Keep notes.

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: SnapCracklins

Godot 4 is coming out? With all the new stuff I imagine the more experienced people would rather work on getting ready for that rather than master a build that may soon be (in version terms anyways) obsolete. I think some people may be waiting on pulling the trigger on their questions too to see if Godot 4 answers them beforehand. (pretty happy for the tilemap update).

I was wondering, since you started talking about Godot 4, I downloaded the beta build which only supports Vulcan, and I don’t have Vulcan rendering. Does godot 4 work on your computer? If it does what computer do you have because I can’t find aby with Vulcan support.

toivocat | 2022-05-20 22:50

If you are on windows, older integrated intel hd graphics gpus have no vulkan drivers. Linux have vulkan drivers for them so if you really want you can use it.

magicalogic | 2022-05-21 05:49