Appeals Team Incorrectly Restores Obviously TOS-Violating Catalog Items

The catalog item appeals team has consistently demonstrated severe incompetence by restoring blatantly rule-breaking items, some of which were manually deleted by engineers to specifically prevent appeals. This issue notably escalated after recent policy changes. Initially, moderators accepted all reports regarding copied/knockoff items for approximately two weeks, as detailed in (this bug report). However, since moderators began abruptly denying such reports, the Appeals team (which may even be the same staff members) have seemed to begin thinking these items are no longer against ToS themselves. This confusion and disregard extends far beyond copied items alone.

One prime example of this incompetence is the “Glass Head”. Engineers have confirmed internally that this asset no longer passes validation due to exploits, and they were actively working on removing it. It was successfully deleted following a user report, triggering half a million dollars’ worth of Robux in refunds, assuming the refund system operated timely. Astoundingly, the Appeals team inexplicably restored this asset, directly violating marketplace policies. This action restarted the cycle of exploitative profit-making and will inevitably lead to another costly deletion, potentially losing Roblox hundreds of thousands of dollars again. Restoring this asset after its overdue deletion illustrates absolute negligence.

Similarly egregious cases include “Korblox Pirate” and “Pirate Korblox”, clearly unauthorized copies of the popular Korblox leg. These items are openly violating TOS, yet moderators continue to incorrectly restore them, despite multiple deletions happening daily.

Furthermore, items like “Epic Face”, “Classic Pirate Hat”, and various others (:], ^_^, Err....) are exact replicas of iconic Roblox items. Thousands of identical items were correctly deleted in recent months, yet Appeals team members irrationally reinstated versions with tens of thousands of favorites. Remarkably, the primary creator behind these copied faces maintains their blue verification badge despite ongoing takedowns, actively profiting from continued abuse of Roblox’s moderation failures.

Even more concerning are items using exploits to simulate limited content, notably “Content Deleted” and “Content Deleted”. These particular assets, manually deleted by engineers explicitly to block appeals, invisibly modify avatar legs in violation of multiple Marketplace Policies and Community Standards. The Appeals team’s stubbornness and lack of understanding resulted in their inexplicable reinstatement, enabling exploitative profit and further financial loss for Roblox.

Additionally alarming is the asset “pretty funny why not buy it its pretty cheap”, openly mocking autism with insensitive text. Despite correct initial deletion, this deeply inappropriate asset was restored by the Appeals team, underscoring severe deficiencies in their judgment.

These highlighted examples represent only the most popular, high-profile cases with tens of thousands of favorites. Countless less-popular but equally problematic items containing explicit content, profanity, or harassment regularly evade moderation and appeals processes due to similar incompetency.

The negative impacts are extensive: significant financial losses for Roblox, widespread exploitation and disruption within the platform, and the rewarding of malicious actors profiting millions from deliberately harmful content. This reflects not merely isolated mistakes but profound systemic inadequacies within Roblox’s moderation and appeals training. Immediate corrective actions, including urgent retraining or disciplinary measures for involved Appeals team members, are essential to prevent further embarrassment and protect both users and Roblox’s reputation.

A private message is associated with this bug report

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I honestly thought moderators would link in some kind of internal note that this is a 1-to-1 copy of another item with the link to prevent this happening

But i guess this didn’t happen resulting in issues in this

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Unfortunately it seems like 99% of the time moderators are only using the same copy and pasted messages. The reason for this is there are simply too many things that need moderation compared to the number of moderation staff. It would be nice to see more personalized moderation messages or atleast moderators and creators having some sort of chain regarding an assets takedown/reupload with direct pointers to what is being violated.

That being said these linked items are clear violations of the TOS and should never have been unmoderated.

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Yeah. No internal “original item ID” is attached to the infractions of any of these items, so some appeals staff just carelessly restore them, it seems.