That is also not a solution. That is a workaround.
We shouldn’t need to use workarounds to interact meaningfully with our communities.
Given the serious lack of (and dwindling) community options on Roblox itself, and the issues others have explained about banning Discord versus not banning platforms like Twitter and Facebook, the ban on Discord makes very little sense, and is harmful to the growth of communities around our games. Developers need connections to their communities to receive valuable feedback on what their players want, like, or dislike, and to share development efforts.
Other options instead of outright banning Discord should be explored.
Direct links aren’t allowed, indirect links are condoned. If you link to your twitter profile and there happens to be a discord.gg link in a (pinned) tweet and you don’t necessarily draw attention to this on Roblox (i.e. don’t mention Discord on Roblox), this is fine. What you suggest is not.
Discord is a great way to get feedback about your game and the best way to grow your user-base is by listening to feedback from your users.
Restricting communication is a temporary solution to a bigger issue.
Developers have NO way to communicate with their user base. Discord resolved that issue, so instead of having 100000+ pages of spam filled Free Robux comments on our games, we had the option to utilize our own tools and build a proper system via discord.
Discord needs to make a come back, or Roblox needs to get a better system in place.
The fact that we have to go off-site and make a discord server to get feedback from our game is ridiculous in the first place.
Honestly, I personally don’t see Discord being allowed until the following are changed:
Discord servers are able to be viewed without needing to login. This is so that Roblox moderation is able to see the server and determine if its bad or not. Not all Discord servers are suitable for younger audiences, especially with NSFW markable channels. (Sure you need to verify, but it’s still so easy to click yes, or someone else tell you to)
Roblox should work with Discord to perhaps add some sort of word filtering for users that is enabled by default, and can only be turned off via like some sort of verification or something maybe. It’s so easy to go into a server and swear, etc. Sure bots help, but not all servers use bots, or know how to set them up well enough. However, not sure if this is a good idea.
Think of it from Roblox’s view, they see nsfw channels, and tons of memes that are questionable, etc. They probably don’t see it as a very good place to link. I mean, I love discord and all, but i also don’t think its suitable for younger audiences.
Though on the other side of the argument, Twitter in my experience fails at moderation, i’ve had a few tweets that were reported, and never removed. Moderation obviously can view the twitter links that someone posts, so i think if discord allowed that as well, it’d probably sway roblox’s opinion quite a bit
yeah, but the difference between twitter and discord, is a mod can view twitter links without needing to login, discord you still have to make an account to view
Keep in mind reasons given by company PR aren’t necessarily the only or primary reasons behind a decision. Sometimes the biggest reasons can’t be mentioned due to legality, confidentiality, or just for PR purposes. If the given reasoning sounds fishy, then this might be why. I have no clue whether that’s the case or not with Discord, but it’s a possibility.
Regardless, I would hold off on passing judgement until we know more about this:
Indeed that it leaves large gaps of communications between Roblox users. Since the removal of the forums there’s no way to communicate across the world, leaving into local communications only. I really need those forums back, because I couldn’t view old posts that were made there before and that means I’m stuck in here in DevForums all day viewing topic to topic.
One of the many services that Discord provides to developers is the ability to notify the community of important updates and information regarding the game/community it’s make for. Currency this is something Roblox has failed to provide us. Group shouts are the closest thing to this, but they don’t give anyone a notification, and the only place they’re displayed aside from the group’s page is at the dead bottom of the homepage where no one ever goes. Putting (UPDATEE!!!) in your game title isn’t an acceptable option either, but sadly is one of the best options we have.
You’re completely right in saying it harms small developers, this is something I previously struggled with whilst getting to engage players in global events. Discord gives us the ability to do this with announcements, chatroom’s and so many other features which ROBLOX does not offer at this time.
However, I have heard that ROBLOX should be improving and adding group related features soon, we can all agree on how old the group page is right now and the lack of features it has.
I think it’s technically correct. You can’t call your Discord server organized without proper moderation. Those who don’t have that would be unorganized.
I’m a Server Moderator for the largest community-ran Roblox Discord (the one with 37k~ members) and I can assure you that we have proper moderation in-place as well as a bot that contains a white-list for sites you can link. As well as no user is able to post images directly in the general section. There’s even verification that helps protect against raids. Our moderators have had adequate training and we all know how to handle certain situations. Rule breakers are punished accordingly, too.
This in mind; not every server is going to be that way compared to this one, to each of their own differences. Nonetheless, servers do not last long without moderation unless it’s just a small group of friends.
Without Roblox, I wouldn’t be working for SyncAdmin (effectively giving me real life jobs) and I also wouldn’t have done my first DevEx this week. It’s been Discord who has given me a real chance to be a possible new job somewhere else or maybe here on Roblox.
Discord is not perfect but it does a great job. They openly accept feedback from the community though their channels and I think with time and proper feedback maybe Roblox can change your mind, turn an issue into a feature.
In terms of safety, all my reports are dealt with properly and quickly. Discord is 13+ service and should remain as such but 13+ players shouldn’t be restricted to these great tools.
Make it clear that they’re leaving Roblox and that they’re not afflicted with Roblox I don’t see an issue with it.
I will note that when servers are moderated correctly, they are very effective. Those who aren’t as effectively, eventually die out.
As an ex moderator for a larger server, appropriate moderation is key
If this was so people can move to Roblox’s new version, you’ve jumped too early
Complete and utter support. My 4,200 member server has been majorly affected and our growth has been stopped since the ban, there is no alternative to grow our safe community for users.
It’s even partnered (HiddenDevs | Roblox) so it has to pass with Discord’s ToS and guidelines, and it’s heavily moderated with bots + manual staff members and a loving community with hlepers.
Complete 100% support this. Discord has been a huge part of my Roblox developing experience for me, as its been used by me in order to contact both developers and fans alike in massive numbers. If discord were not around today, I doubt I would even be in the developer mainstream right now. All they have done by closing out discord on the Roblox website is, like berezaa said, harm the community as a whole.
Huge support on the post @berezaa: very well said. Hopefully some sort of change is made, but…who knows.
A lot of people are bringing up edge cases where developers have moderation teams and bots to keep the discord under control. These instances won’t be considered by Roblox however as this argument leaves out ALL the abusive discord’s that can be easily made by exploiters and people that want to take advantage of others. It’s nice and all to see that your discord’s are moderated but that does nothing for the argument that we should be allowed to post invite links again.