[09-23-2025] Community Modernization - Communications, Updates & Discussions

[Tarek_K]

Hi all,

as discussed in the previous topic here we wanted to start a new thread to keep everything sorted and clean, so it is easier to follow and helps transparency. 

Overall, you will find in this topic community identified issues or improvements asks listed, which can be provided either as a post through this topic, or through the feedback form (or both if you want, but then please be so kind as to indicate in the post that you also submitted the feedback form). If you are reporting things here in the thread please make sure to provide a clear description of the behavior or issue, with screenshots (full browser screen, please, as this is always better) or video to help understand what you see and why to be able to reproduce.

EDIT:  Adding here that as we work through some of these issues, and suggestions and post that they have been resolved or added, through the monthly Blog Posts from our Product Team (listed below), keep in mind that it is always a good practice to clear your cache / cookies from time to time, as not doing so may prevent things from working even after they have been "Fixed".  PSA.  Thank you! (8/15/25 - CGBenner)

In addition to that, you will find here the consecutive list of all blog posts linked when it comes to platform updates around the community! We also will keep editing this topic with new blog posts released for convenience having it all in one place 🙂 

Navigable list of community issues or improvements mentioned including status:

Listing of all the blog-post regarding updates to the community and modernization in order oldest to newest:

• Community Redesign - Updates Since Launch - 12/06/24
• Community Redesign – New Releases & Office Hours Recap For This Week. – 12/12/24
• Community Redesign – Final office hours for the year – 12/20/24
• Community Redesign – Modernizing the Autodesk Forums – 01/10/25
• Community Redesign - February Release - 02/11/25
• Community Redesign - Update on Progress for Reported Issues - 04/04/25
• Community Redesign - April Release: Industry Hubs are live! - 05/07/25
• Community Redesign - May Release: We´re making important behind-the-scenes updates to the Autodesk C...
• Community Redesign - May Release: Migration Updates and what to expect this week - 05/22/25
• Community Redesign - May Release: Final Migration Round and what to expect this week - 05/28/25
  
• Community Redesign - June Release: Upcoming Improvements to the Community Experience - 06/26/25
  
• Community Redesign - July Release: Autodesk Community Platform Updates - 7/17/25
• Community Redesign - August Release: Improvements to the Community Experience - 8/8/25
• Community Redesign - September Release: Updates to Community Experience - 08/29/2025
• Community Redesign - September Release: Faster Community Experience and a Sneak Peek at Customer Ins...

Additional Notes:

Also, people you will see engaging with you in this thread will be @CGBenner and myself @Tarek_K. So please feel free to add us if there is something super urgent or elements you want to highlight. We are also highly proficient community users, but don't have the ability to fix things on the fly (where we can we will. :D) but we make sure that internally all goes into the right venue, will be looked at and discussed so you will see elements mentioned in the update blog-posts and also in the updated list above. 

So, let´s keep this new thread a single source of truth for the discussion moving forward - all from the old topic you should see reflected in the list, which we regularly update. 

If you have questions, or you think I should add something to this post let me know! 🙂 Thanks a lot for your support, patience, understanding and working together! 

[Cadguru42]

You mean it takes over a month to fix something like that!?! Thanks for following up, but this is ridiculous. 

[kerry_w_brown]

Speaking of long term issues not resolved :

If I select a forum thread that has unread posts ( say 8 posts, with 5 unread ) I expect the first unread post in the topic will be shown.
This is NOT happening !

 

[Simon_Weel]

This one:

Every forum has this New to the xyz Forum? Never clicked it, until today. And it leads you to Community Central? That isn't of much help, is it? I thought it would list some helpful tips about the particular forum etc.

[Cadguru42]

Two things. 

1. It's been 29 days and still can't paste images into a reply.
2. Here is a post that has new, unread replies, but the post title is not bold. I almost scrolled past this thinking I had already read it because it's not bold until I realized I know I hadn't read it lately. I recall this was brought up many months ago during the ignored feedback era, but thought it was "fixed". Guess not. Any post that's got new replies in it should be bold, just like it had been for the past 20+ years and how almost all forums in the world work.
   

[Cadguru42]

It's been 39 days and I still can't paste images into replies. There have been other posts that I tried to help people with, but since I can't just paste images I don't have the time to save all images, use the Insert Photo button, select the saved images, add them, hit post, get an error and have to repeat the insert image multiple times before it sticks. 

[pball]

I've found that images can be pasted into the insert image feature. This is an extra step vs pasting directly into the post, but it's a lot faster than saving and inserting.

[a.laasW8M6T]

If you think 39 days is bad there's a .f3z file upload bug on the Fusion forum that's been around approx. 550 days now. Been reported multiple times but still not fixed.

Khoros claim to be a leading Forum solutions provider for many companies but its clear their software is terrible and their response time is awful

[ChrisRS]

Please, @a.laasW8M6T — as is our custom, The‑Platform‑Vendor‑That‑Must‑Not‑Be‑Named shall remain unnamed.

In May 2025, venture‑capital group IgniteTech acquired The‑Platform‑Vendor‑That‑Must‑Not‑Be‑Named. By later in 2025, most of the existing leadership and staff were released — a very high percentage, consistent with IgniteTech’s usual post‑acquisition pattern.

A more engagement‑oriented, AI‑forward successor — The‑Disney‑Princess‑That‑Must‑Not‑Be‑Named — has been announced. Very little information has been shared so far. I’m sure it will be engaging, in the way new platforms are always engaging in their early presentations.

The Bibbity‑Boppity‑Boo / Peer‑Support balance remains unknown.

I doubt I’m the only one who noticed.

[a.laasW8M6T]

That's Got to suck for Autodesk to invest so much time and effort into upgrading the forum only to have the provider effectively gutted for more AI Slop

Maybe they should have just developed and maintained the Forum themselves(which is what I originally had assumed they did).

I imagine it would be a massive effort to migrate to a new provider when they've only just done that.

[Cadguru42]

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@a.laasW8M6T wrote:

That's Got to suck for Autodesk to invest so much time and effort into upgrading the forum only to have the provider effectively gutted for more AI Slop

Maybe they should have just developed and maintained the Forum themselves(which is what I originally had assumed they did).

I imagine it would be a massive effort to migrate to a new provider when they've only just done that.

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The fact that a software developer, that is investing tens of millions of dollars into the cloud and AI (slop), can't develop their own online forum speaks volumes about how far Autodesk has fallen. Nothing about this "upgraded experience" of the forums has improved over the previous iteration. Maybe the team that used to handle the forums was moved over to the Autodesk Renaming Group since Autodesk tends to rename their products about every three years. Autodesk Docs is now Forma Document Management Essentials. BIM 360 is Autodesk Construction Cloud. Before that it was Autodesk 360. I'm sure making paragraphs for software names is a good way to spend millions of dollars and developers time instead of fixing bugs or making a working forum. 

[Cadguru42]

Another example of how absurd the forums are "working". Here's a screenshot showing a post in bold with 7 unread replies. Except, I'm the last one to make a reply so I obviously have been to the thread so there should be no unread replies and the post shouldn't be bolded as if it's new.

[kerry_w_brown]

The 'latest post' issue isn't just for foruns ; it applies to this thread discussion also. 

Surely I'm not the only one noticing this non-conformance and embuggerance ?

[MiWolff]

Right now users can only mark answers as solutions if they get one on one of the other revit forums. They are probably supposed to mark them as solutions when they get answers no matter these are actual solutions (best), provide a work-around (mostly okayish), are in the negative when revit simply cannot do what is requested (sad but ok). The idea is to offer some kind of rainbow to mark a level of sophistication.

Writing this down, I remember posting some sort of traffic light proposal. If it is around somewhere, its wording must be very different from what I wrote today. There was no appropriate suggestion though. My apologies.

[kerry_w_brown]

Marking a users response as negative when they advise that the product "can't do that"  sounds a bit like killing the messenger to me.

We all know that having a post marked as a solution is not necessarily an indication that the post is 'the best' or in fact actually correct. . . . Caveat emptor.

[ChrisRS]

You forgot Buzzsaw (launched in 1999). Most people did — it faded from view pretty quickly after release.

[ChrisRS]

The Platform‑Vendor‑That‑Shall‑Not‑Be‑Named was engaged by Autodesk around 2012. That vendor has always been a Customer Engagement and Marketing company. The gamification layer — badges, ranks, points, missions, challenges — was part of their engagement suite, designed to increase user activity. Peer support was secondary; engagement metrics were primary. The current emphasis on graphics and AI fits that same engagement‑marketing model.

In my view, the purpose of a support forum is to increase engagement with the software, not with the online community itself.

I’m also unclear about the goals of the “forum modernization” effort that began about two years ago. My impression is that Autodesk staff assigned to the project are now stuck waiting for the vendor’s reorganization and the promised new platform — but that’s only a guess, because Autodesk hasn’t communicated much about it.

We can hope things start moving again soon, but it would be naïve to assume the direction will necessarily align with the support‑first priorities many of us would prefer.

[ChrisRS]

Personally, I really dislike the huge green, over‑committed ACCEPTED SOLUTION bubble. The older, understated green circle with the white checkmark communicated the same thing without overwhelming the row.

I also understand why the term “Accepted Solution” exists. It’s an SEO driver — it helps search engines surface threads that contain some form of resolution. Even if the term is often inaccurate, it serves a technical purpose.

In practice, though, “Accepted Solution” is really just a discussion‑stopper — more like Porky Pig’s “That’s all, folks” at the end of a cartoon than a guarantee of correctness. Under that umbrella, an Accepted Solution can mean many different things:

• This is the solution.
• This is a workaround.
• It doesn’t work the way you think it does.
• It doesn’t work the way the documentation says it does.
• Here’s an alternate function that gets you close enough.
• Here’s a Goldbergian workaround that’s slower than doing it manually.
• It’s broken. I filed an Idea for a fix the month my son was born; he’s in third grade now.

From a user’s perspective, anything that stops the time‑waste is valuable — whether it’s a real fix, a workaround, or simply someone saying “it doesn’t work, stop burning hours on it.” The person who posts that is often the real hero.

What’s missing is any indication of which kind of “Accepted Solution” you’re looking at. When browsing or searching, it’s disappointing to click into a thread only to discover that the Accepted Solution isn’t a solution at all.

[kerry_w_brown]

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@ChrisRS wrote:

Personally, I really dislike the huge green, over‑committed ACCEPTED SOLUTION bubble. The older, understated green circle with the white checkmark communicated the same thing without overwhelming the row.

<  snip >

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Yes, As I view the forums the 'in your face' design of the ACCEPTED SOLUTION bubble has a distracting effect. What is important is the new and threads and posts. 

[credit to Pink Floyd]
Is there anybody out there ?

PS: I'm still waiting for
< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next >  at the top of the page 

and for the post editor to open in full view instead of just showing a couple lines.
and wasted white space being removed
and ... the other stuff that has been an issue for 18 odd months.

and that bloody big banner across the forum pages becomes more annoying every visit.

[ChrisRS]

Once Upon a Dream: Thoughts on Accepted Solutions, AI, and Forum Clarity

Once upon a dream, the forum modernization effort really did seem to be making a sincere attempt to look magical. The effort must have been exhausting, because it now appears to be enjoying a long, leisurely slumber. I suspect that someday the Disney‑Princess‑Who‑Shall‑Not‑Be‑Named will peek out from under the sheets and resume the story.

Until that time, I genuinely do not know whether forum suggestions and observations are still being accepted or tracked. In case they are, here are several observations and one recommendation.

Observation 1 — Accepted Solutions do provide value, even when they aren’t solutions

Flagging a reply as an Accepted Solution is beneficial to future users. The category covers a wide range of situations, many of which are not true solutions.

Even a non‑solution like “Don’t waste your time” can save someone from reading 40 replies. That has real value.

I’m willing to suspend disbelief for entertainment and fiction, but I prefer not to do so in technical support. Clearer categorization would help.

Observation 2 — AI is becoming central to support, and metadata quality matters

Autodesk product development — like much of the software industry — is incorporating AI into tools, workflows, and support systems. The‑Vendor‑That‑Must‑Not‑Be‑Named has stated very clearly that AI‑generated answers are their future mode of operation.

If AI is going to be the first responder, then the quality of the data it learns from becomes critically important. Right now, that data is… uneven.

Observation 3 — GIGO still applies, and AI cannot fully filter it out

“Garbage In, Garbage Out” remains painfully relevant.

AI cannot reliably filter:

• outdated information

• contradictory information

• irrelevant information

• incorrect information

• mis‑tagged Accepted Solutions

I use AI regularly, and I often get:

• outdated workflows

• irrelevant suggestions

• incorrect claims

• confident “Yes, you can do that!” answers followed by a list of non‑solutions

• and sometimes even a “No, you can’t” buried inside the same response

When I say “That does not work,” I often get the polite but unhelpful: “You are right to push back.”

That’s not support — that’s a shrug.

Observation 4 — Accepted Solutions carry disproportionate weight in SEO and AI ranking

Accepted Solutions get high SEO ranking and are heavily weighted by AI systems.

When AI values garbage, AI becomes less useful.

If a non‑solution is marked as an Accepted Solution, AI will confidently repeat it as truth. This is not theoretical — it is already happening.

Recommendation — Add nuance to Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions should be limited to:

• true solutions

• reasonable workarounds

• alternate approaches that actually solve the problem

Exploding, losing, or corrupting dynamic intelligent objects is not an acceptable workaround. A somewhat Goldbergian workaround is marginally acceptable — but only if it actually works.

To preserve clarity for users (and for future AI systems), Autodesk should introduce a parallel category:

Identified Limitation

This would be:

• honest

• clear

• technically accurate

• a meaningful discussion terminator

• and a way to filter non‑solutions out of the Accepted Solution category

It would benefit:

• current users

• future users

• search accuracy

• and AI systems that rely on metadata to determine what is true

Closing

Once upon a dream, modernization looked magical. Right now, it feels like the Disney‑Princess‑Who‑Shall‑Not‑Be‑Named is still enjoying her nap. Even so, small improvements have been happening during nap time, and adding clearer Accepted Solution categories to the modernization wish list seems like a practical step forward — one that helps users, helps moderators, and helps the future AI systems that will rely on this forum’s knowledge.

Composed with Copilot assitance