I can’t tell you how many times I have done a commission for someone on here and ended up being cheated out of my time and/or money. A function that would greatly benefit many developers would be a badge on a user’s profile that show they are a Trusted Developer. This idea was taken from an art website called FurAffinity, where artists have this badge on their profile to show that they are a trusted artist.
So how would this sort of function be able to work on this website? Well, it would be pretty simple: A developer could apply to have this badge. I would say a minimum requirement of 10 positive references (People that a developer has worked with) should be included in the application process. If it is clearly seen that developer has done a lot of good work for people, they should be entitled to have this badge on their profile.
A common concern I noticed when asking people about this idea is that this may harm starting developers. However, seeing how FurAffinity operates with this function, it seems that artists with this badge are a lot more high-quality with their works and charge more for their services, while starting artists tend to not charge as much. This practice is already in effect on the DevForum without the badge, so having this badge system set in place, I feel, would not effect starting devs based on the performance seen on FurAffinity.
This is just a brief idea on how we could have a positive reputation system on the DevForums. For many of us, getting commissions is our primary way to earn our income. Whenever someone we work for either decides they don’t need us anymore, or just decides to not pay us, it wastes a lot of our time and resources that we could’ve used to actually work for someone who would actually be a good person to work for.
What do you guys think? I feel this idea could definitely be expanded upon and I would really love to see it be implemented into the DevForum someday soon.
Thank you all for reading and have a wonderful day!
Well, people who already have a regular rank are as known as trusted developers I think. There are limited amount of players who has the regular rank in this forum. Everybody trusts regular rank players. So, any more ranks in this forum will make it uncomfortable.
This won’t work. That is kind of why you should do a “background check” on people you work for to see if they have a history of scamming. “Trusted” is subjective, and the developer forum is not based on hiring. Recruiters are a niche group on the developer forum and thus a badge would not be added.
Being a regular does not mean Roblox moderators trusts you personally or that you are less likely to scam. Regular means you are trusted with making a decent post without it needing to go through post approval. Besides, the Member → Regular promotion is automated.
If there ever becomes a trusted developer badge, it will likely make people want to have someone over another person that could be harmless, when something like this happens, it’s basically people having their job get took over by someone else that is considered ‘trusted’. In my opinion, nobody is trusted on the developer forum because you never know what they will do.
There has been a million ideas like this, all are good and plausible but the main argument against them is it is always possible to cheat the system then people will blame the forum if they get scammed by someone with the badge.
I feel like this badge may increase the reputation for those who have it and decrease it for those who don’t. Employers might have the badge as a requisite for the position, and also retract new devs from trying to become commissioners.
This is sort of a thing. If you have regular rank and above on devforum that would mean you are trusted. On the other hand, if someone steals your work, you could report them
On the other other hand, this is a good suggestion, just might not work.
I feel like this badge might mess up some starting developers.Developers trying to get commissions who don’t have the badge will have a harder time.Some people can still cheat the system.
I think this will just create more diversity between developers on this platform, even the seperation between Members and Regulars does that, we all know that Top Contributor who we hate because they do not deserve it… so adding a “Trusted” role will multiply it.
I do not feel like this would change anything in the slightest. It would only give people the thought that somebody is trusted when they really couldn’t be. It’s like thinking all Moderator’s on games will be nice to the community just because they have that rank. Meanwhile, they could be treating you unfairly or be looking down on you the whole time.
I do not agree with @GoldyyDev though. I’m just a Member and I have no “hate” towards anyone with a higher rank than me. If they were active enough and posted enough, then they do deserve to be where they are at.
At the end of the day, you should always do background checks on whoever is hiring you, or whoever you are hiring.
There is no such thing as a trusted developer, it is only someone at that moment who did not have the intent to scam or deceive you.
The amount of constant work to vet people for a program and continue to vet people, I don’t believe it is a valuable enough put that kind of resources to such a concept; if the program failed, it would prove disaster for much more than the person who caused the original issue.
I would also like to make the following uber clear - By someone being a regular, they are not trustworthy by default; only that they have been on the DevForums for quite some time or are active. That’s it.
In fact there was a recent incident in which Roblox Developer Relation had to adjust their Twitter bio to say
Empowering Roblox developers and creators to bring their imagination to life. This is the official Roblox DevRel Team Twitter.
Follows are not endorsements.
Specifically that last line, “Follows are not endorsements” after one ‘developer’ was considered trustworthy by the mere fact they was followed by @RobloxDevRel, which made them seem trusted.
Please see the below image in which this issue occurred.
I’ve censored all usernames and any details not relevant to this; DO NOT CONTACT anyone in this tweet; I disavow anyone who does, it is not acceptable and I do not condone harassment.
I really like how you brought up some good counter-points here, and looking at things through this perspective has definitely changed my mind on the subject matter. It would be pretty risky to implement.
I feel it’s also very important to, indeed, spread awareness of DevRel follows not being endorsements. Perhaps a better idea than making a Trusted Developer badge would be to specifically target those who do scam or underpay developers and having Roblox and/or DevForum staff deal with that user who did something wrong directly. I would like to see a better report system set in place in the future than what we have to work with today.
There’s room to suggest that’s something they could do better but for now an updated bio is enough for now.
It’s not a bad idea, just becomes an issue of resources. Plus Roblox kind of doesn’t want to get involved with it and you can see that with their Terms of Use.
On the DevForums, no. On Roblox itself, yea.
Roblox does need to relook at moderation but that’s best handled in a separate topic which I expect there are many of.
