I place ladders, and noone does anything about it. Building never commences or happens (Alpha 4 release).
Anyone else having this problem? I see screenshots with ladders built.
Also Doodads doesn’t always get placed either when they are part of the normal building process.
I can confirm the doodads not being placed, having witnessed it once in my own testing. Even when I built them ahead of time the villagers would not place them in the house. I believe the scaffolding may be blocking the “pathing” to the placement, but that’s just a theory.
In regards to the ladders, in all of my testing I haven’t had a single issue with them not building the ladders. That is, so long as you have the resources (wood) to build the ladder. I did, however, have a couple of “failed builds” because I started the ladder (like an idiot) on a rock outcropping which the villagers couldn’t climb to access it.
I don’t know if this has changed in recent releases, but it used to be the case at least that you can only build ladders going upward, not down from where your villager is located. Could it be that this is still the case, and you were trying to build a ladder going down?
I think i found it out.Did you check the height? I did not and turns out you have to make the ladder as long as the hole.They immediately ran to make a ladder,whewii was getting worried about the starving people inside 
