Does this affect free models only?
if so then this is kinda understandable,
otherwise this update is extremely pointless, you’re just moderating things people aren’t even supposed to see in the first place
3 Likes
Just like some of the others, I would approve this if the safety review only applies to public code (i.e. free assets, open-source modules etc). Right now, I can’t say if this is a good or bad thing until Roblox clarifies what is possible to be reviewed.
4 Likes
This is the absolute WORST community engagement I have ever seen in my life Roblox! You first make the absolutely ridiculous decision to implement this system in general, let alone without asking or warning about the implementation of the system in advance. You then manage to make it worse, I didn’t even think that was possible! There has been 580 replies here, that is the most replies I’ve ever seen on the devforum by far, yet there has been NO attempt by Roblox employees to join the discussion.
7 Likes
I’m sure this will be buried under all of these replies, but it is worth a shot.
What do we (the users of this platform) benefit from this?
What is this team supposed to prevent?
What was the justification behind this process being considered?
What measures will be taken to protect our code?
A big concern from us developers is WHO will be able to review our code and how much will they be able to view? The whole script? Parts of it? and so on.
Will these be independent contractors that are remote or on-site staff? Will the people who have access to viewing our code be allowed to have a background as a developer or be known to have access to the community? This whole thing is built on trust, and we haven’t been told who we will have to trust with our code.
I feel as if there is plenty of information being lost in the translation and the post is very corporate written which I am going to be real with you, doesn’t fly very well with developers who more want a “human” level of response if that makes sense. I don’t have any issues with additional moderation if the justification is valid enough. Just that there are yet too many unanswered questions for me to personally be fully comfortable with this clarification.
Thank you.
14 Likes
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen. What does this achieve? Perhaps the developer will be offended by a word they themselves placed within their code.
Free models? Sure, that makes some sort of sense (albeit there are many issues, such as if said free model was a list of additional banned words or old code that was uploaded before this change). All code? That’s absolutely ludicrous.
I propose a new, somewhat unrelated change: gather a group of trusted, big developers and go through ideas with them before you start implementing them. This sort of stuff makes no sense. I’m sure that some developers would be willing to give feedback before changes are implemented.
3 Likes
After a period of great & / or neutral updates… I hear that Roblox has been moderating the community’s code?.. Isn’t closed-source applications / code meant to be “closed?” I get where this is coming from, “we want to protect the community from further harm.” However, I don’t agree with being able to moderate specially private keys used for API’s and such. Besides that, I’ve seen people getting terminated for having trying to filter out certain aspects of their game, (such as the chat, eg. inappropriate language bypasses). My point here is, when new Developers decide to use free models, they’ll be exposing themselves to an even greater risk of being targeted by Roblox Staff, and possibly flagged for review on what had previously been fairly harmless.
Here’s a series of questions that have come to my mind :
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How long has this been going on for?..
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Is this update planned to protect our Developers, or cause further harm?..
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Will free models be under review for periods of time?.. (Because there’s thousands of scripts that are free models, and I’m not sure if any staff team of any size will be able to go through all of them, just to protect those that decide to use one specific free model).
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Are Developers going to be receiving any warnings for anything that may seem “malicious” in their projects?.. Or will they just get flagged?..
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Will our code be guarded, or will we have to use obfuscate to hide our private keys in our projects?..
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Last, I don’t see how this would improve “community engagement.” Thus, I’d like to ask, how will this promote “community engagement” on this platform?..
That’s all that I’ve got to say on this, and I hope that Roblox Staff decide to investigate a solution to the dozens of problems that have been caused by this update. I also hope that our code won’t be the reason for termination, (eg. chat filtering). Thank you for reading this, and have a good day.
6 Likes
I think it would be funny if somehow Roblox would make an egg hunt game then get banned because of a single word in the script. They would kinda deserve it. It would show them why this sucks and roblox Should NOT be moderating our code. I agree with every post here that disagrees with roblox.
Here are some of my arguments that im sure most people if not everyone can agree with because roblox haven’t and ounce of common sense:
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No one but me and my developers could/should see my code so why moderate it? That’s like saying were gonna moderate your personal DM’s because I think that little Jimmy over at the Database control wouldn’t like what your saying on DisCurd.
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This opens up the possibility of Roblox employees dealing your code so some unpleasant people for personal gain. Also, I wouldn’t want them editing my code because it could break my whole game!
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Why? Its my code!!! You said “Its your code”. Dont preach what you practice.
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I would NEVER trust ANYONE on the Roblox moderation team reviewing my code because of the countless ducks ups roblox has made with moderation in the past. Its so bad im surprised half the people who have posted on this thread haven’t been banned!
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This is useless and will probably not protect anyone. Just a useless waste of resources for moderation when it could go to somewhere useful, say, YOUR CHAT FILTER??.
Just why, I haven’t been on roblox for long and I swear to god this is the worst possible update in the entire world and it will always be that. I am so close to just halting all my development because of this update, I dont think you would want people to stop developing because IT LITERALLY FUNDS YOUR COMPANY!
To any roblox staff with an ounce of sense, please remove this update. This will ruin many developers and roblox itself.
Now, I know I had made a post saying to moderate it {For free models, not games} but I had realized it wouldn’t do much and considering this update, I am now against it and severely outraged.
4 Likes
Hilarious you have time to waste money and enforce developers’ code, yet not correctly ban scam ads or take time to review a suspicious looking ad. The only person who will be seeing code is either a developer, or an exploiter, and the exploiter is breaking ToS by doing so, if the game is uncopylocked, hell yeah, definitely moderate the game, but really, private games too?
Private information about the developer, such as API keys, etc, shouldn’t be moderated, but other users’ info should, with exceptions to what that information is. I am especially HIGHLY against anyone who is not hired by me to view MY code, roblox staff or not. The “specially trained team” has access to most likely download anything they want, which I am against. Team Create, I see a purpose for more enforced rules, but exceptions need to be in place there as well, this wasn’t a problem at all in the past, why is it just now becoming a problem?
And of course, the part that you just now tell us that you’ve been doing this lately? False positives are huge for roblox, it’s rare to have it NOT happen to you. You’re human moderators incorrectly flag/moderate tons of assets most likely in a hurry and then do not allow appeals for said mistake. When you are making it so your developers do not have trust in the platform, you made a mistake, and maybe you should attempt to fix it rather then let it stay there. It’s how you learn, doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.
7 Likes
Encoding strings and obfuscating code is one thing, you can take it further by employing the many evasive measures that malware developers use to get their code under the radar. I think I know the malicious actors that Roblox is trying to target but with this approach it seems pretty clear they are not going to win that arms race anytime soon.
As of now it looks like code is only reviewed upon a published change, how about code grabbed from a 3rd party? One could host some TOS-compliant code and get it through the review and then after the review is complete, the code can be then replaced with malicious code with no issues to the attacker. This was employed on the Google Chrome Store and is the reason why malicious extensions remained a problem for so long. Roblox would have to have to log and review every single HTTP request being sent in order to catch such violations.
Another age old tactic is the encode and obfuscate the malicious code and then delay the malicious actions to only occur when certain conditions are met - think date, or environment. That way manual code review would yield nothing and even running it would not expose the true malicious nature of the attacker.
There are just so many ways a malicious actor can get around these measures, I do not know why this review system was seen as feasible.
1 Like
I feel as though unless well-known developers start speaking out as a whole, we won’t see any response from Roblox soon.
Note that I have not read all 590+ replies, but we really need some big-name developers to help the community get a more thorough response from Roblox.
3 Likes
I would like to redirect some attention into Team Create and the Moderation system. I am aware that Roblox and other members of the development team highly recommend to only include people which you trust to cooperate with you in your games, however. What about the Tool Box? I am aware some developers still use this system, but not all developers check if the item is safe before using it. Does this mean that you could get moderated for a script which you did not wrote yourself? What about Roblox players which are just testing out Roblox Studio for some fun and use the Tool Box since it is easy and accessible for anyone to use. Will these players and the ones they are cooperating with get punished for trying something new … ?
A counter-argument I can see with my reply is that an investigation would be done. Still, this does not secure a proper investigation. What if the player/developer cannnot or does not want to include themselfs and their time into resolving a problem which they did not create? From this current Roblox Announcement, I noticed this: “Fortunately, in the many months that this system has been in place, there has only been one incident of mistaken action against a game and developer, which was quickly resolved.” Good, good, one mistake and it was solved rapidly as they stated… what about the other cases? Is there any chance that we could get some info on what cases were positive on the infrigement of the Terms of Use and Roblox Community Rules? I cant imagine that the one mistake Roblox made was the only positive infrigement they found. So, what happened in the other cases? No personal data is required to explain them, just simple information on what has been done, and how to avoid it as I do not want nor need any time to be taken out of my hands from these troubles.
I did not create this reply in an attempt to make more interest on these topics for the Roblox developers to see, but for the Roblox staff instead. If these issues have been in the background for months as you implied, then why are we getting this info now? After months. Even with this announcement, we are given an incomplete report of what we, the developers, are exactly dealing with when the code gets moderated, and who moderates it.
We need full information on this topic before moving on.
Edit: I’m honestly not in any ‘side’ in this situation. It is just too notorious to see the feeling of infiltration with the lack of transparency coming from this Announcement, but I have to agree that we need security as Roblox grows and becomes a more user-relient server. Yet, being this untransparent and intrusive is not the best way to make a crowd happy. We still need more exact info about all of this and some updates on the way every script gets moderated. I am happy with the intention, but not with the execution.
2 Likes
This is illegal.
The basis in which you are searching someones privately owned code without a warrant for their arrest is utterly illegal. It states in the ToS that what you create on Roblox is your IP, therefor you have NO right to search my property without my given permission, unless explicitly stated by law enforcement. It would be one thing to ask developers to have their code reviewed THEN you can review it with their given permission.
Reviewing already made code that was under the original ToS that my creation on roblox is my IP while giving licenses for roblox to use it, not edit, alter or change it in anyway. This has MAJOR legal ramifications and I hope the legal team at Roblox was briefed about these implementations before you want to enforce this.
While, I agree discriminatory language should never be used anywhere on Roblox, you have no way to tell if a user is or is not using these discriminatory words in their code unless they have explicitly given you permission to do so.
16 Likes
Yes, that’s right, we are their guest in their home but what if the guests who makes the games and so the main flow of money to their house leave it then the flow of money would stop because the only who were doing the games left and then now the second guests (the normal players) who just wanted to play something as now there isn’t anything to play and spend money they also leave making the house go on a very, very bad moment. I think you know what happens when there’s no money left in a company
4 Likes
this is outrageous at the least. Shame on you roblox for adding this update. You had a good streak of updates then you ruin it. Please revert this update.
2 Likes
wow…
I’ve never seen so much hate on the DevForum before, like an hour ago i suggested a filter to identify inappropriate content…
But now I think it’s best to just scrap the program altogether…even though the “new” program has secretly been a thing since Mid-2019.
( Kinda creepy that they’ve secretly had everyone’s code for months. )
4 Likes
I am not a professional coder but what if a person in this moderation group quits and take code from let’s say jailbreak and use the code to make there own prison game. And uses all the scripts and causes the devs of Jail break to lose thousands of USD who is to blame?
Also these people could sell assets of these devs to others… Which in turn could put unworthy games on the front page, that stole code for adopt me, Jailbreak, meep city, etc.
5 Likes
I’m not sure about the legality of this, someone needs to ask a lawyer to read the Roblox ToS then give their advice on this situation.
Apparently we grant Roblox an irrevocable, non exclusive, etc license to the UGC we create per ToS but it doesn’t sound like this is 100% legal or illegal, more in the grey zone.
I expect this topic to receive well over a thousand replies by the end of the week.
7 Likes
What if a game has free models and a part/a script has innapropriate language in it? Would new developers that don’t check scripts be terminated?
It’d be more beneficial if you were to invest more moderation into decals/audios/games.
1 Like
Regardless, Roblox should give a response. I agree that big name developers speaking out will definitely accelerate the process, but this is the third most replied to thread in Announcements… and it’s been 4 days.
2 Likes