I’ve always known that they were monitoring it, but I didn’t know they were banning you for swear words or personal licensing in the code! Not cool, Roblox.
1 Like
Exploiters. Just exploiters, because apparently that exploiter is 9 and they should be protected from seeing vulgar language in a script that they shouldn’t be looking at in the first place.
3 Likes
Is anyone talking about the double standard they mentioned in the OP? Here’s roblox:
- Your code is your own, you own it
- If you use swear words we’ll cut off your access to it and perma ban your account because, well, it wasn’t really ever yours in the first place
Nice one roblox. Real nice.
Other thing to point out is that if you, God forbid, DO get caught lackin and roblox snipes you, there is literally no way at all to contact them and get a quick response so they can appeal it…
Swearers deserve jail time!!!
Also vote on my poll if u haven’t
4 Likes
Imagine allowing people behind a screen to moderate our code without permission, imagine having a front page game and you have some scripts with filters or say a bad word filter that kicks them if they bypass words and you get banned and your game is took down?
- Why am I supposed to trust this person and who are they?
- What if they go rogue and steal the scripts and possibly the game?
- How much power do they have within this update?
3 Likes
Same, Roblox is literally the only reason I was interested in programming and game developing in the first place, it would be really sad for me to have to use something else like Unity or UE4 to make games since Roblox is so simple to use.
To be entirely fair, even AAA - level games use swear words in the code… Unity projects and such do not use a chat filter, haha. If roblox is trying to set an industry-first, censored IDE then you know what
maybe all the unity devs were right and roblox is the laughing stock of game development!
i have plenty of questions… and i still can’t believe how roblox managed to come to this conclusion
how was such a thing even discussed?
what sparked them to make such change?
who are the secret FBI team scanning through my code?
2 Likes
Roblox, this has gone on too long. 4 days? 1000 replies? An angry mob of developers, who are the core and backbone of the platform? Why don’t you do something about this? We have so many questions that you could have easily given us answers for some of them. We need detailed answers. Why do you care about our private server side code?
Why are you doing this?
Nothing has sparked you to add more moderation. The moderation is already overloaded, and needs to be downsized, if I have anything to do with it. Please remove this terrible moderation addition. I see no benefits. Nobody can read my private code. It’s impossible.
Why aren’t you responding?
This “clarification” topic has sparked 1000 more questions than answers. Yet, you haven’t collected any of our questions and answered them. Is this deliberate ignorance of our questions?
Why do appeals not function?
Many users have been banned, and the appeals process is so bloated with non-developer appeals, that our appeals just get sent to a bot, or a staff member who doesn’t give a care about our concerns.
Please remove this terrible system and NEVER bring it back. Every other user on the DevForum is with me on this and we all hate it to the core.
2 Likes
wooot well hopefully 1000 replies in 4 days will get someone’s attention. Some part of me doubts it though, considering most of the time roblox corp has it’s ears sewn shut and no dev rel team members have even commented on this as far as I’ve seen.
If my code is my own, I have a right to request roblox not to look at it, and so I do and if moderation is taken against me I will sue, that simple.
I feel like this could be benefical due to it providing better game security and less rulebreaking some devs break the roblox tos so much!This might help reduce the drawbacks from devs stealing content and triyng to claim it was thier own but it wasnt etc.
Exactly, and Roblox is way more user friendly then any other game engine I have ever seen, if i were to go to something like Unity or UE4 I would have to learn how to make everything my self and that would already be very time consuming. Like, trying to learn how to make your own models, textures, sound effects, and/or having to learn an entirely new programming language from scratch. Trying to learn how to make everything your self and then trying to actually make that game with all your assets you created after 1-2 years, that will probably take another few more years because try making a game like DOOM or Call of Duty by your self, yeah it will take a while won’t it? I feel like this is the only update in forever that has actually badly affected Roblox developers.
Well, I guess I should state a few things about this now that its been a few days.
Before I say anything about this I need to say that I don’t support this change for various reasons, but it is within the Terms of Service for Roblox to do this, even if it is overall useless.
Players (and exploiters) do not see the script source while in game.
The scripts are already compiled during runtime, so players only ever load in something that doesn’t even represent your script. Even exploiters cannot see your original code. There is absoluty no use for spending moderation resources on scripts that are copylocked, as Roblox has an authentication system to prevent unauthorized access of copylocked objects that are saved online.
Moderation is already poor.
When moderation on all other assets is already poorly handled, Roblox decided that it was a better course of action to put resources to moderate scripts which have never been an issue. Images and audio can take up to an hour to pass through the moderation process, and now Roblox has decided to add another black box moderation system on one of the most vital parts of their platform.
The automated system is poor.
Many developers have come out stating how their accounts have been deleted for having scripts that fixed issues with in-game bots that Roblox hasn’t even addressed. That’s like imprisoning a shop owner for having a security system.
Scripts can hold sensitive data, and this opens up an attack vector.
As someone who is certified by CompTIA as a cyber security specialist, it hurts to see a massive coorperation secretely add a system that could have major repurcussions to their service. Roblox has supposedly grown their moderation team by large numbers. The more people that have access to private code containing things like API keys and such, the more likely it is that one of these people could easily leak this private and sensitive information, either intentionally or not.
I don’t believe that this is all bad of a change, but for all scripts to be checked for moderation? That’s outrageous and a security risk. If Roblox wants to grow and allow for an environment of individual developers and small studios, they can’t act in a way that turns away more professional creators.
I hope that Roblox would release an official statement about why they added this change, and why they only announced it in a clarification. This clarifies nothing, and only makes developers confused, frustrated, and angry at these systems that only detract from the platform.
5 Likes
Developers have had their account deleted for false postives in the automated system. Supposedly, a team is supposed to review the code. Its obvious that an automated system shouldn’t be so heavily relied upon as seen in these cases, but that closed source code can contain sensitive and non-PID information, such as API keys.
Exactly, and the moderation team relies on it too much. There are privacy concerns with letting people view our code, but for all other assets the moderation team SHOULD review the content to see if it is actually breaking the ToS.
This is not good. Roblox bots and moderators looking into your code for no reason? It’s not going to contain anything bad or important like a Passport ID. Though, this is kind of smart. Scripts included with a virus (or the script name is “Vaccine”), can be taken down and flagged. This might help decrease viruses in free models, but is extremely annoying for programmers.
How about we keep the spam to a minimum and discussion on topic so staff (who yes, are getting the feedback) don’t have to sort through hundreds of replies of junk to find any useful and genuine feedback which isn’t “roblox sucks viva la revolution!” 
.
If you have anything meaningful to contribute, do it. If you don’t, like an existing post which does.
Is this definitely the case? Having it explicitly clarified whether just the script is sent for manual review or if it’s the entire place file would be great (not sure whether it’s just the script given the quote has “flagged code or assets”).
Is the moderation team able to discern between inappropriate content and genuine code? I have implemented a parser for a certain language which happens to be named something which would most likely be automatically detected.
Adding onto the above point, is the appeals team aware of this policy and trained to effectively deal with appeals sent regarding it, such as clearly communicating the issue with the developer without them having to jump through hoops?
Given the invasive nature of this policy and the possible impact it could have on my places or account, it’d be great to have some more clarification.
14 Likes
I have been doing offline mode in roblox studio for a few months.
But you won’t have much access to the toolbox or publishing features…
Guys don’t flood the thread. I understand flagging code is a meme and all but we’re making it very hard for staff to find useful replies. We’ve made our opinions clear on this update. (well more like a downdate.)
This thread is most likely gonna get locked because of the spam.
7 Likes
For all of those who are in negativity about this: I understand the annoyance/irritation that Roblox has withheld this information for over a month now, but as I have been seeing with the responses this is being handled very very poorly. It would be very appreciative if we can step back for a bit and make sure what we say won’t let our emotions get the best of us when typing. At this point at time, it seems like many people here are posting 1-2 line responses which are too vague and causing too much clutter in this 1,000 reply thread, which can lower down to at least 200-ish if people were treating responses more maturely.
2 Likes
TLDR; I love Roblox, don’t go down the wrong path, please work with us so we can work with you.
Hello. I have been on the Roblox platform since well… June, 2008. You probably don’t see me around much because I usually mind my own business, and I don’t speak up publicly about much of anything really. I tend to keep things private. I feel like I have the right to say something about this in a truthful manner. I am only going to keep this to one post, so excuse me if I go a bit off topic here. This comes from the heart though…
Roblox… please reconsider. I love this platform, and as you can see from all the other comments we all love your platform. Lots of us have put our blood, sweat, and tears to bring joy to the users that come to visit your website, to play our games on your servers. We don’t want to work against you; in fact it’s the opposite, we want to help grow your business because we all know how much this platform benefits not only us, but the millions of people who come to enjoy it as well. This platform has been a blessing to say the least. Think of how many lives you have impacted because this was created. All the new businesses made, all the new hope it gave people, it truly has brought imagination to another level.
Unfortunately, as the years go by it has always been on the back of my mind can I trust this company? Do I want to continue my endeavors on this platform? Can I legitimately jump face first into this market, with the trust that Roblox has my back?
These questions should sound familiar for creators on other platforms (which shall not be named.) It’s the same sort of situation though. You have to wonder what is going on in the background, what else are they not telling us? If were making Roblox money there should be enough transparency between the people who put in the time to make the content using their platform, and the company who puts in the time to make the platform for the creators to make content.
We’re suppose to be a team. Great teams don’t hide things from each other. They communicate with one another, they are truthful, they have leadership, they express their feelings with one another. I think the developer side of things has done a brilliant job of this. I feel like we have been fair to this point. We have always sucked it up when there was an update we disliked. This though…
This is another level. Why have you been looking at our information without asking for our permission first?
Imagine you’re on a sports team, while in school. Your coach comes along and tells the principle that he wants to see the teachers use a specific system to go through all the homework of every student on the team to find anything that violates the coaches “rules”. The teachers agree. That’s too much work for them to look through, so they hire a whole bunch of people to help go through all the homework from every student on the team. One of the people hired appears to have found something violating the rules. It’s eight sentences on your 10,000 word essay. You thought you were writing the essay for the teacher to grade, you didn’t know that it would be wrong to use your sports teams performance from two seasons ago as an example on a paper about physiology . Not to mention that this essay was written last year. It was a slip up. Can you even call it one though? It was an essay from a year ago after all. The teacher gives the paper to the coach, shows the coach the eight sentences that violate the “rules” and then proceeds to cut you from the team the next day. As time goes by more teammates start to wonder why students are slowly getting cut from the team. It gets to the point where outrage starts to form. The coach finally speaks up about it six months later. Informs the entire team that he has checked over their homework from the past few years to see if it violates the rules, and that their teammates have been cut from the team because of it.
Can you imagine how those students would feel with that coach? That is not a good relationship at all. It’s scary even. It creates fear. This would destroy the team internally. Future scholarships gone because of one coaches actions. He tried to go too far to protect the image of his team by digging into their personal information without asking.
I get that we agreed to the “Terms of Use” and “Roblox Community Rules”, but at what point do you change the information to the point it goes too far. That we end up agreeing to something that could be borderline illegal? What if we end up agreeing to something that violates our human rights?
This is LUA programming, it’s not something to take lightly. There is some very personal information in these scripts. There is information that some of us have worked tirelessly to put together. Were we suppose to have a clue that Roblox would budge in with a magnifying glass looking over all the work we do everyday?
This is a stressful time! Waking up to the news that somebody has been potentially looking over my scripts for who knows how much time. It’s not okay. Please take it from someone who has been there from nearly the beginning. Great platforms listen, work, and cooperate with the users, while maintaining a sustainable pace for profit in the process. They don’t mistreat, misjudge, tell lies, hide information, sell personal information, do things without asking first, and most certainly they don’t walk the line of what is legal and illegal. I am not claiming that Roblox does all of this. All companies do however… make mistakes.
The one saving grace about this is they could at any moment, apologize. It might not bring everyone back, but apologizing could really help in a situation like this. What they did was disrespectful to developers.
I do want to believe that this is it. I don’t want to see another situation like this where the developers are left scratching their heads wondering why they did things without our consent. Even something as simple as taking some of the top veteran developers and holding meetings with them could go a long way in the decision making process. It would help prevent outrage like this in the future. I want to believe this is nothing more than a mistake. Not another one of those platforms taking things too far to the point where the creators and the business separate from one another. Please think it over again Roblox! 
Thank you for reading this!
-Love, Bananacb
19 Likes