800+ pages of unanswered topics. What to do?

Hi there.

TL;DR: I like construct and would like help people to feel the same as I do about the engine. Would you care sharing your opinions on what to do about the 800+ pages of unanswered topics?

I have used the forums and it really helps when someone takes the time give you a little light.

Sometimes I, and I believe most of us too, have nowhere else to go, and if there was nothing in the forums that would be it.

I understand people are capable of solving problems if they take the time, rewrite and read documentation, as well as other relevant coding and logic tutorials from other engines and/or prog langs, but my point is that Construct is somewhere I feel safer, somewhere that won't send me on a deep voyage through maths and complex algorithms (which I do enjoy sometimes but obviously not always).

Recently though I've been trying to help with what I can in the unanswered topics, and just today I realized that there are 800+ pages. Some topics even go back 12 years.

I understand that most of the topics are dead and many may have contrived problems with mostly unanswerable questions, but like I said, Construct for me it the "mama bird" of engines, somewhere to work and also have fun, and I would like for other people to be able to feel like that too.

So, what do you think is something we can do? Or should do? Is there anything at all?

I just feel like staring into the abyss every time I look at that number.

Hoping this is not the worst post ever.

Cheers!

I've dug through ages-old forum posts to find answers to questions (I'm very much a newcomer), and the forums and people here who generously help others have been invaluable to me for developing with Construct.

To your question, maybe someone(s) could cull the the most relevant questions, then group them by similarity, then order them by pertinence, then re-post them for answers? Dunno ...

But you're right, there are gaps in the docs that the forums really do fill, especially for people like me who sometimes need a hand-holding every once in a while with what can often times be to an expert a super simple issue (e.g. order of events).

Necroposting doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Most of those questions are not relevant anymore to people who asked them. And all these old posts will be littering the first page..

I suggest making tutorials, it's a great way to help the Construct community!

Yeah, maybe tutorials would be a better place to lump summed knowledge, rather than asking someone to piece together tidbits from forum posts. The tricky part would be to identify the gaps in the docs and forums that people are posting about repeatedly that then need to be made into tutorials.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect every single thread to get a reply. I think that's pretty standard across all forums on the web.

It's just not always possible or reasonable to help someone. Often people post threads where it's nearly impossible to help. For example if they post with little more information than "my project doesn't work, please help", what can anyone say to that? You could try to help anyway, but it shifts all of the burden of work on to whoever tries to help. It's kind of lazy from the poster since they haven't bothered to provide any useful information or read our guidelines on how to best get help, forcing whoever tries to help to take them through that guide step-by-step, which is all extra work on top of actually helping. It's in their own interest to provide good information anyway, since it makes it more likely their problem can be solved.

It's like your car breaking down, phoning up a mechanic, just saying "my car's broken, fix it", then hanging up. If it's a quiet day they might phone you back and ask a long list of questions to try to figure out what's going on. If it's a busy day they might just shrug and leave you to figure out that you need to be more helpful yourself next time.

So I wouldn't trouble yourself with trying to reply to every single thread - even just new ones. I think it's totally unrealistic. I used to try myself back when the forums were quieter, but it was pretty hopeless even then, and now the volume is so high that I only step in where I think I can quickly provide something useful based on the information already provided.

I'm going to try and post more on the forums.

I've been able to find the answer to pretty much every problem I've had with construct searching google for : construct 3 how to XYZ

There's normally 3 threads at least on what I need. :)

I'll try to answer at least one of those posts every day. I'm not an expert though but will do my best. :)