Clarification on code flagged for safety review

Guess Developers aren’t humans if you won’t let us appeal the content in our own games.

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That’s beyond true, dealing with appeals is tiring.

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Either way, looks like I have a lot of things to do tonight.

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While understandable, to a degree, this feels very invasive.

I can see this causing many developers, be they new or not, to become paranoid about their accounts being deleted. The system in place is oddly both specific and wildly vague. Personally I feel this could discourage many from developing.

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I am completely for this. This will prevent a lot of inappropriate pop-ups and such. Thanks ROBLOX!

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To an extent, but it’s also a bit invasive. If our content is not reported as it’s not offending anyone why would it need to be reviewed?

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It is invasive, but just don’t put unnecessary information in your scripts then you’ll be fine. I get there are some things that are necessary that ROBLOX shouldn’t have to see, but I feel it’s better moderated then left alone.

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It’s not just about putting unnecessary information in our scripts, my main concern is my places back from 2012 that has god knows what in it. I’m now tasked to go republish all of them with nothing in it.

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Do you know if there’s any quicker way to remove older games rather than going in and deleting everything, because I’m pretty sure archiving it just makes it so it isn’t visible to you but it’s still published.

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Was the game you got terminated for public, or private?

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No. They will terminate you for a comment above the code with your name in it. Or because you have put a bad variable. Or over a name of a function. Anything can get you terminated tomorrow. And yet nobody, except for the developer, can see that stuff. Do you really agree with something that can get people terminated even if nobody can see it?

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I’m just very confused if it’s only for public games or private games, I wish they would explain.

We’re all still waiting for an update on this. It has been 3 days since this frightening update has been released, and not a single staff member has made even a small comment on this whole situation.

Some things I think we all want clarified are:

  • Is this for private places, or just public places?

  • Is this only for models, or games as well?

  • How will the author of inappropriate code be determined in a Team Create place? If it can’t be determined, how will one be punished? Will the owner of the place be punished? It is not his fault for someone else writing bad code.

  • Can we not put licenses with our full name above our code? Really? I am having to remove this from every game now, I have already started. I do not want to be terminated. This really sucks.

  • Does this include comments, or just code that might actually function in a harmful way?

  • Are we grand-fathered in, so to speak, if we broke these rules before they were introduced to the public via this post?

  • Is the only moderation action that will be given to us upon the breaking of these rules is a termination? Why? Normal users in games would get a warning for bypassing the filter, and if we swear or include personal information, we are terminated? Even swearing on the DevForum only gives you a small suspension.

  • Why do I trust some “specially-trained individuals”? Do you have heavy NDAs (non-disclosure-agreements) with this third-party? Will our data be leaked, including methods of solving problems, IP, and API keys, among other trade secrets of our games?

  • Do you believe that our games are OUR intellectual property, or property of Roblox Corporation?

  • If you choose to keep the system, will you include a specialized appeals email with contact to the “specially-trained individuals” who are reviewing our code? Maybe they will have more insight than the general support staff which can not comprehend code. Will you delete our account permanently after 30 days after being terminated?

  • Is there any other information that is being withheld from us?

  • Will Roblox make any changes to the current system after hearing our concerns? Will it be removed altogether? Please update us on this!

There are probably a thousand other reasons this system is nonfunctional, but Roblox, PLEASE don’t lose the trust of your developers. Developers, the centerpiece of the platform, are threatening to leave the platform and cease to develop games, yet you haven’t moved a muscle or done a single thing. We need ACTUAL clarification, unlike this post which clarifies nothing, yet makes everything more perplexing. We need clarification, and we need it now! Our code is our code, if nobody else can see it, neither should you, and you shouldn’t care what is in it, if nobody else can see it. I’m not considering leaving the platform, don’t make me and other developers start!

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Even putting the game under review is a huge step in taking action against developers… Imagine if AdoptMe with it’s 250k+ concurrent players was put under review. They’d be losing thousands of dollars by having it closed even 1 day. That would be absolutely ridiculous.

Not to mention, roblox lacks any tools whatsoever to have moderation actions taken against them appealed in a timely fashion. This is one of the BIGGEST points of PURE HATRED I have towards the platform. From a game development standpoint, roblox allows you to get a lot of things done. From an ethical “everyone’s human” standpoint, roblox is incredibly unforgiving, and the only amount of forgiveness they have is an imperfect moderation system that allows assets to exist for some time before a moderator finds it. Do most kids even read code anyways??

so who actually wants this kind of moderation on the platform? (Note: This poll is anonymous.)

  • I strongly agree there SHOULD be moderation of private code to protect children, even if it means other humans read our personal code
  • I agree that there should be moderation of private code, but having other humans read the code to determine if it’s kid-friendly is a step too far, and using bots is too risky for false-positives.
  • I disagree; private code should not be moderated unless some aspect of that code becomes public, whether the programmer’s intention or not.
  • I strongly disagree; code is the property of whoever wrote it and as the author they should be free to code how they find effective and acceptable - after all they’re the only ones reading it anyways.

0 voters

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For those saying that Roblox is waiting a while to release an update on the post, let’s remember that this was posted on a Friday and the employees (DevRel and other decision makers) have been off during the weekend…

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Roblox has said “in the many months”

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So if there are swear words in your scripts, then you are in risk of moderation action?

If so, then im gonna have to make some changes to mine. I tend to put some unallowed words in my scripts but only in the form of comments. Am i still safe from this?

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That’s what seems to be what’s happening “or been happening” But roblox hasn’t elaborated very much on it, but if I were you I’d make some changes.

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Outputs from scripts aren’t popups.

You should remove those comments. With such lack of tranparency, I think you will get immediately terminated.

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You see, the issue is the vast majority of people that want to do this already can, and wouldn’t get flagged by this policy. Mostly because the UI already exists.

You just need to add a UI containing inappropriate content and add it to the StarterGui, or have it become visible after a while from a script. No innapropriate content is in either of the situations as code. In the first case, you don’t have a script at all, and in the second, it only changes the Visible property of a UI and, therefore, has no innapropriate content in it.

My biggest concern with this policy is not the termination thing everyone is mainly concerned about, but rather the fact of how bypassable this is. If this is so bypassable (which it is), there are most likely much better solutions to the problem.

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