Top Contributors? Like farming? Do we need this?

[GH5T]

I really used to like helping out in the community, but there have been some recent changes that I feel that has made this forum really hard to bear lately.

Do we really need top contributors on this forum? Sure, you are trying to provide some incentive to other users, but it is bringing toxicity and unnecessary competitiveness to this forum in which brings out a lack of useful responses, and lack of educated solutions. You’ll notice a lot of people either “have to be right” or try to prolong conversations that are really just extra words for a “like”.

I say we remove this so we can just be a normal community with a few ranks showing we are active like the “regular” ranks and such, but why so people need to know I got 100 likes this month? Lol.

[draked123]

I dont intend to be rude at all, and I hope it doesn’t come off that way. I feel like this is such a small thing, I don’t see the issue with it.

@GH5T

You’ll notice a lot of people either “have to be right”

These people will always exist unfortunately. I don’t think forum metrics is what drives them to be this way, more so just their personality.

Anecdotally, I’ve not really seen any direct affects on quality of posts. Some posts are good, some are spam. Before though, we had community moderators who were members of the community, actively monitoring and handling the forum. That is no longer the case, and so I think what you’re seeing is actually a result of less moderation.

[chris.williamson1996]

I mean we are all here by choice, you don’t have to be here nor do any of us. If getting to see who is active on the forums is an issue to you maybe try Facebook groups or similar that don’t show who’s active…it’s not hurting anyone by any means.

[jared.gibb]

Did someone ask for snarkieness??? Cause I’m right 99 percent plus one percent of the time.

[boston85719]

@jared.gibb

Cause I’m right 99 percent plus one percent of the time.

I agree, @jared.gibb is right 99% of the time, which I think by me agreeing that makes me right 100% of the time

@GH5T I will say this, I am often in that list of top contributors, and have been for years now, so obviously, waayyyy before that little side bar thing started to appear…being in that list IS NOT WHY I provide solutions or tips via the forum on a daily basis. I actually only found out there was the ability to see statistics like that about 3 or 4 months ago.

When I first got started on Bubble in March 2018, the Bubble forum was one of a handful of places to learn about Bubble. At the time there was maybe one youtube channel devoted to Bubble that provided some good videos for basic, beginner level stuff, but the hard stuff was advised via the forum, or from a small set of so called ‘experts’ offering their training services.

I was hitting a brick wall on a must have feature of my first app, and so I spent what for me at the time was a lot of money on training sessions, and, after 2 training sessions at $2/minute, the ‘expert’ stated that he didn’t think Bubble was able to do what I was in the training session for, which was a basic search and filter using an Advanced filter. At that time, Bubble was fully capable of performing that task.

I turned to the Bubble forum for help, because, quite honestly, the experience with the ‘expert’ and the brick wall I was hitting, was pushing very, very close to giving up on Bubble. Luckily, on the forum, one of the real OG Top Contributor, took the time to provide me the step by step instructions necessary to get it to work.

I’ve been paying it forward ever since, and will continue to do so, with or without the Top Contributor side-bar.

In my time providing tips and solutions on the forum, I also have had the chances to learn SO MUCH from others who have stepped into a thread and provided a better answer than mine, or provided guidance to me that I was wrong and the correct approach is what they laid out. I continue to learn something new everyday on the forum.

@GH5T

bringing toxicity and unnecessary competitiveness to this forum in which brings out a lack of useful responses, and lack of educated solutions

The majority of that is driven by those that find the forum as the main tool for promoting themselves and their services. I honestly do not feel that it is driven by a desire to be highlighted on a sidebar to the fourm that I believe most people scroll right past without even noticing it.

[artemzheg]

@GH5T

Do we really need top contributors on this forum? Sure, you are trying to provide some incentive to other users, but it is bringing toxicity and unnecessary competitiveness to this forum in which brings out a lack of useful responses, and lack of educated solutions. You’ll notice a lot of people either “have to be right” or try to prolong conversations that are really just extra words for a “like”.

Most of the times I occasionally look at top contributors section there are 3 types of users:

1. OGs including users who already posted in this thread. They are solution providers which contribute to the community a lot
2. Bubble staff and founders when something new is announced or postmortem on another one incident is published
3. Some users that wrote a popular reply in a thread posted by Bubble staff and founders

So I don’t really see any problem with this new section on the forum.

[georgecollier]

@boston85719

I turned to the Bubble forum for help, because, quite honestly, the experience with the ‘expert’ and the brick wall I was hitting, was pushing very, very close to giving up on Bubble. Luckily, on the forum, one of the real OG Top Contributor, took the time to provide me the step by step instructions necessary to get it to work.

I’ve been paying it forward ever since, and will continue to do so, with or without the Top Contributor side-bar.

Same here, I’m not an ‘OG’ - I only actually dedicated time to Bubble regularly from December 2022 and the only way I’ve gotten to where I am today is by 1. practice by doing 2. reading the forum 3. contributing to the forum to solve problems for others.

@boston85719

The majority of that is driven by those that find the forum as the main tool for promoting themselves and their services.

I do get a lot of users from the forum, but I don’t have a specific strategy to ‘must rank first on leaderboard every week!’. Any work I do get from the forum comes from the ‘How To Hire A Bubble Developer’ post, or any replies I’ve made directly to said user in the forum. That forum post is the single most valuable thing I’ve written here (for me)… I never post a link to my services in replies like many do, I just contribute a lot and contribute what I think is value → get likes. It’s just how it is.

That said, my most liked reply is this:

Looking for a cofounder

looking for a cofounder. must be willing to be a team member. not looking for a freelancer!! email izimhamvu@gmail.com for more info [IMG_3089]

It is what it is. I don’t think anyone really competes for likes. There are definitely people who contribute solely for their agency (ehem, ‘we can certainly find that right developer for you on our developer marketplace!’ on every job post), but if they’re providing value, contributing constructively, and not shoving their services down people’s throats, how could you blame them and there isn’t really a problem with it.

@artemzheg

1. Some users that wrote a popular reply in a thread posted by Bubble staff and founders

This is another one. I tell Bubble when Bubble’s shit and when it’s not and that’s often in high visibility threads.

I only ‘like’ high-value posts, and I’m sure everyone else is the same. If something’s a waste of space it doesn’t get liked

[salemmo409]

I think that georgecollier’s topic about how to hire a developer was what inspired putting it there. I’m not one of the active contributors here and I don’t intend to be one of them in the near future, meaning that this sidebar does not affect me. However, I didn’t like it. I just feel that the forum is more natural without it.

[jobs]

I think people who do bubble as their full time job end up on the forums whether we like it or not…

What do the power-users want? More likes? - Nah.
An improving product is what makes us happy.

[chris.williamson1996]

@jobs

What do the power-users want? More likes? - Nah.
An improving product is what makes us happy.

This^

A lot of the toxicity we see doesn’t tend to be between community members for no reason, although rare when it does happen it tends to start due unethical or misleading events or members looking to take advantage of fellow developers time. In all I’d say the community is phenomenal with each other.

I think the majority of toxicity seen tends to be when the platform makes decisions that are overwhelmingly negative in the communities eyes and as not fun as those conversations are they are needed. Especially when bubbles growth model pretty heavily relies on agencies and community members.

@mikeloc and the forum support team does such a great job at regulating the forums and knowing when to step in. Thanks to them we only see a small fraction of the chaos.

[alexcooney5]

Off-topic, but this absolutely cracks me up every time I see it.

@georgecollier

That said, my most liked reply is this:

[ihsanzainal84]

I read almost every new post in this forum. Don’t think there has been a day for the last few years that I haven’t lurked the forums. I pay attention to the different users and how they contribute (or not) to the community.

Has the toxicity gone up? Yes but that’s mostly because of the influx of new users or not so new users riding on the wave of a thread gone wrong.

Doesn’t help that moderators like Nigel and Mikeloc are not active anymore.

[mac2]

@ihsanzainal84

Mikeloc are not active anymore.

where did that beast go?

@mikeloc miss you

[GH5T]

Was gone for an event so wasn’t able to respond right away. Seems I started a little fire haha. Here we go:

@draked123

I dont intend to be rude at all, and I hope it doesn’t come off that way. I feel like this is such a small thing, I don’t see the issue with it.

You’re not being rude, just upfront, which is fine. I made this post to blabber, not to bring a huge debacle into the community hehe. This post was not toward any of you guys for that matter, as I can’t say that all the replies or posts are “spam” or “spammy”. Just some.

For the contributor’s thing, I just got a big head. I have seen in some communities it just brings unnecessary competitiveness to the environment, so I just wanted to express how I felt a little bit because of previous histories.

@boston85719

The majority of that is driven by those that find the forum as the main tool for promoting themselves and their services.

Yes. I even do this myself, as most of my clients have been through word of mouth or by helping them throughout the forum, so I completely agree with you on this.

@artemzheg

OGs including users who already posted in this thread. They are solution providers which contribute to the community a lot

This is also a valuable point. Going back to what @boston85719 had said, follows the same principal.

@georgecollier

That said, my most liked reply is this:

Okay, now this is a classic. I never have seen this before and I think it’s hilarious as well. I now am going to keep this in my pocket as one of the most notorious replies on this forum haha.

@jobs

I think people who do bubble as their full time job end up on the forums whether we like it or not…

Kind of me. I am basically a full-time web developer (not just with Bubble), so I agree with you here as well.

@chris.williamson1996

I think the majority of toxicity seen tends to be when the platform makes decisions that are overwhelmingly negative in the communities eyes and as not fun as those conversations are they are needed. Especially when bubbles growth model pretty heavily relies on agencies and community members.

I think most of the toxicity is coming from those who think there is no moderation, or those who don’t utilize this platform as source of income.

@ihsanzainal84

years that I haven’t lurked the forums. I pay attention to the different users and how they contribute (or not) to the community.

You are right. The original OG moderators are no longer with us as much. FYI they were never paid. So that’s likely why we barely see em’ now-a-days.

All in all, I guess I have a tendency to make stupid rant posts sometimes and for that, I am sorry haha. I’ll try to keep my opinions to myself from now on

[georgecollier]

@GH5T

For the contributor’s thing, I just got a big head. I have seen in some communities it just brings unnecessary competitiveness to the environment, so I just wanted to express how I felt a little bit because of previous histories.

I think what you’re trying to say is you don’t want this place to become Stack Overflow