I am bringing this up because calling for change requires initiative. It’s clear to us all that in the Releases rules that advertising in the form of third-party services such as Discord and websites is not tolerated. Within the Releases rules, it also states that if you would like to contact a user, to do so via Direct Messages, but this is quite irrelevant considering I’m assuming most would just direct said user to their Discord in the first place for better support…
I understand why restricting advertisement is a good thing, however I think allowing Discord as a means of communication should be able to be advertised under strict guidelines. For instance, said Discord must not be a FiveM server. The Discord server must not be the only directed form of communication, but only linked as an alternative form of communication.
Since I also know how keen FiveM is on their TOS, servers in violation of any of the TOS cannot be advertised and are subject to be removed.
Currently there is a influx of paid resources on the forums and it’s clear that many people do not like this… I think what would help in order to alleviate this is by offering another form of being able to benefit from the community. Limit advertising the support Discord to free open-sourced resources. I think this would enable more developers to develop resources for free whilst also feeling like they get something out of it.
I wrote this post to gather others’ thoughts on this topic, so please let me know your honest thoughts on it. It’s also apparent to me that FiveM will not accept this, but I figured it was fair to at least get others in the community’s thoughts on it.
I believe FiveM should allow Discord server advertisements, it is a way to give back to their community of developers. Think about it, if FiveM stops giving reasons for developers to make resources and scripts and such. They would eventually lose a lot of uniqueness, and overtime a new platform could rise that would meet the average Developers needs. Meaning FiveM would slowly die down, they need to learn to cooperate with their members and developers, instead of making things more difficult for them.
One of the reasons I have stopped developing resources for the community is in fact because I get no benefits from it. Now, I’m not trying to be selfish (as I assume staff members will probably try to pit me as…), but I feel I’ve contributed quite a good amount of work to the community, but don’t get much in return… Due to this, I have stopped developing resources for the community since it really gains me no benefit besides a comment on the post “thank you”, “amazing”. Gratification can only go so far… I would be happy to release more content if it helped me to grow my Discord server, but sadly this is not the case…
I can develop resources to sell on Tebex, but this defeats my purpose of trying to stay open source for the most part whenever I develop something useful… Allow the benefit of advertising your Discord in return for developing free open-source resources, otherwise all the good developers will just turn to Tebex to monetize their work and many of the already unhappy users will leave the platform. The reception to paid resources has already been negative. I believe people have a right to sell their resources, but I think there should also be a change to allow this to be a little more fair sided. Allowing free open-source resources to advertise their Discord will bring more developers to develop free open-source resources if it means they can grow their brand.
I agree with this as it is difficult for people to get support and for creators to provide support on these forums. It is of course up to the creator if they would like to provide a discord link/ discord name but this should be allowed. It should be allowed in these releases as well considering that communities are allowed to advertise their discord in the server bazzar so why can creators not advertise their discord for support to their resources. They should not be allowed to post links to personal discords or discords that do not relate to their resources but I do not see an issue with allowing creators to provide a link to their support discords.
We wholeheartedly agree that Discord is a useful form of communication, even if just an alternative to existing methods. It’s not surprising many users seek out to more direct communication for help given the fast responses this may give. The issue here is that it’s nearly impossible to scope what is and what isn’t allowed as this would require a large amount of manual labor (in the form of additional checking of validity), on top of the work we do already. As such, it’s more efficient to be strict with clear guidelines. In any other scenario we would see users push the boundaries, and sneak advertisements in some other way.
That said, I value your opinion on this and understand your rationale. It’s not something we haven’t thought of before, and this was taken into careful consideration when writing the Releases rules. In light of the above statements, we won’t be making any changes to the rules, unless we find better fit in the future.
I 100% agree with this as I have a development Discord server and it’s so much easier to keep track of people and have community help pages where when I’m not available at that current time other can chime in and can help people out, in direct messages you simply cannot do this and it has to be you to respond. I was unaware that they had updated they’re advertising rules to reflect no Discord servers as I have not really posted any releases on here in a while but I would definitely be more open to do so in the future if something like this is more accepted and clear to the community.
Hello,
While I do wholeheartedly agree that it would be difficult to manage all the servers and ensure that everything that happens in them is within the ToS but this does raise some questions for me. The question being, why do you allow the members of the Server Bazzar section of the forums to post discord links? Also, use developers are much less likely to break these ToS as we create for your platform. I find it aggravating that the ToS are made to seemingly put us down as we create content for your platform and in return would simply like to be able to post a simple discord link so we can better communicate with the users of our content. Personally, I do not think that it makes sense that in the Server Bazzar anyone can post a link to their server for FiveM but the creators cannot post a link for support for their resource.
I appreciate that you actually have contributed to the thread as well as given a valid appropriate response. If I’m honest, I was expecting the thread to be closed/locked with no discussion allowed on the matter.
I’d appreciate if the thread is continued to stay open for further discussion on the topic.
In response to everything you say, I can understand the validity in being required to check all the Discord servers can be a huge workload. I don’t want to add to any of your labor, as I understand “time is money”. Due to this, I counter-suggest that instead of requiring to check the validity of each Discord, allow users to report a Discord in violation with proper proof. I understand this can also add labor to the process, but I feel as if this is a much more easier way to allow such to be advertised.
A counter-argument to your point of adding onto the top of the work you already do, are any of the paid resources via tebex even checked? Considering the resources are paid, you cannot see the code, so you have no idea what the script is really doing when someone purchases it (especially if said user has no idea about any malicious code)… I could be wrong and maybe you guys do have a system in place for this, but as far as I’m aware you don’t, so to counter the argument on adding on top of the work already done, don’t check Discords either?..
I am not trying to start an argument here in any way, so I just want to make sure that is established. I would just like to have a discussion and get a better understanding overall.
In the end, I appreciate that you have taken the time to respond to this thread! Thanks.
If you guys want to do what’s best for your community then you have to listen to your community. It not like we are asking to promote another GTA modification.
Of course the ToS were never made to put our users down. Quite the contrary, we’re a quickly growing platform that comes with all the growing pains as well, and seek to find the most workable solutions. We strive to protect our users from malicious content, while regulating unwanted advertisements and allowing as much as realistically possible at the same time. This process doesn’t stop, we continuously work to improve ourselves on this subject. We definitely do not want to make developers feel unwelcome, so I’ll be taking your feedback into consideration.
Of course! Happy to provide our perspective. But remember that we want the topic to stay civil. These subjects do tend to turn out into a bit of a flame war at times, and I’ll be locking the topic if that happens. As long as we’re having an open and polite discussion, everything is fine.
That already happens in many cases. The flag system helps us a great deal. I don’t think this changes the issues involved as such.
It’s a fair bit harder to require validation for paid resources, you are absolutely right about that. However that also makes it quite different from Discord. While Discord can be seen as advertisements, resources require a different kind of approach. On the note of Tebex; we’ve got some great plans ahead that will help greatly in this regard, but there’s not too much I can disclose about that just yet. Let’s stick with Discord on the discussion here
Similarly, it’s not like we’re not listening. Of course we take this feedback into consideration. We also ask our users to hear our perspective and understand the necessities when changing existing rules. There is no reason for us not to amend on the rules if we see fit.
I really do appreciate that you’ll be taking the feedback into consideration. I think most developers on here would agree that asking for a Discord advertisement is not too rash of an idea. Most here are trying to develop themselves a brand. I can understand not wanting FiveM Discord servers posted all around, but this also is a FiveM forums. I think a Discord advertisement for developers releases is not too much to ask and at least a complimentary in gift in return for contributing to the community. I think most would agree if you asked most developers on this platform, that they do not feel valued nor respected by any of the team. Opinions will vary, but I would assume most are not in favor of feeling valued…
I will always remain civil! If someone does post something of that matter, I will flag the post for deletion, as I do not want this to turn into any of that sort at all.
This is a huge huge flaw… I made a post in relation to this topic as I think this really needs some clarification, so people on these forums who are young don’t go downloading RATs on their mother/father’s computers… I understand it’d be a huge task to check every file, but not taking responsibility in letting people know to be cautious around these monetization stores is very disheartening especially as a developer myself.
And so will most responses be most likely. I can’t say much more on the subject than I already have.
Sorry, perhaps I should have clarified that resource validation is merely a different process than Discord validation, we do in fact have the necessary measures in place. This counts for any resource, not just paid ones.
I appreciate you taking your time to respond here. I’ll let you get back to moderating duties. I’m interested to hear what more of the community has to say about this (including the staff team; I just ask that they don’t close the thread so long as it stays rational). Thank you!
From what I’ve heard, there was no measure in place for checking resources posted on the Tebex marketplace. If there is, that’s fantastic, however others have mentioned to me they noticed no such system of sort. Nevertheless, I’ll await a response on the other thread for better clarification. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
While I understand how a discord can benefit some users with “faster response”, I feel like using GitX’s issue tracker and PullRequests system should be a lot more encouraged. In my case for example, I run a server full-time, being the lead developer for it (Not project manager, though. I can’t stay organized!!) and I try to run on an open-source theorem. For me, having to track down issues on a whim reported by (no offence intended) a non-english speaker who is still learning how to install MySQLYog and save config files is a MASSIVE distraction already from within my server - let alone adding a whole NEW discord for those not in my server!
Same goes for new features. Yes, adding an [insert feature here] would be really nice, and even cool, but it doesn’t fit my community so I can’t allocate precious time to build it out. That said - if you PR that feature and respective configuration within developer-convention guidelines, you’ll get credit, the feature you want, and maybe feel warm and fuzzy inside.
There’s my dollar. You can keep the other 98 cents
I want to chime in a little perspective from a moderator point of view.
The forum is a place of discussion. This means that to be able to keep an open discussion on problems with a resource it should be encouraged to report this on the forum. That way a user who is interested in a release is able to gauge whether a release is up to their quality standards or not. Of course, a Github issue tracker or Discord for support is very helpful as well.
However, in regards to Discord links in releases, we have seen in the past that many users use it as a way to get users in to their Discord where they then advertise illegal services (such as advertising an illegal gameserver provider they “partner” with), sell keys, sell developer services and so on.
Monetization through Tebex is new, especially when it comes to allowing paid releases on the forum. This means that at the current state, it’s too early to start allowing Discord links as well. I feel that users should first learn about the new monetization rules and apply them. I think that in Q2 of next year or so we can reassess the Discord rule and make any changes if necessary.
