Do not ban users!

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

The post was edited to clear up some things:

First of all, by the title “do not ban users!” I am explicitly referring to uploading assets. Assets that are obviously inappropriate can still ban someone, but not random assets that every now and then a developer would upload for their game which the bot might pick it up as inappropriate.

At least you can check the space in between assets upload, if there are subsequent uploads of sexual images or something that breaks Roblox’s rules then it can give a warning, if this continues right away you can ban them. Not that I uploaded an image on January and now on March which both the bots think are inappropriate and just right away banned me…

Original Post:

Personal Problem: (Not needed for a staff member to read)

Yesterday, at 9:37 PM (EST) I got banned for one day, for uploading an image which the system thinks was “sexual content”, yet it was an official emoji of a Woman Fairy from Facebook:
image

Which then I turned white to change the property ImageColor3 in studio:
Fairy 2

Have in mind that I sent an appeal right away after I saw it and I am not making this post to seek any sort of attention, rather than to make a feature request for this issue not to happen anymore.

:red_circle: I feel that no users should be banned for uploading an asset that the system considers to be “inappropriate,” a warning can be more than enough or a simple notification to let them know that the asset was not approved for certain reasons. As far as I know, actual people do not check these assets, and it feels wrong to let a bot make assumptions and ban users.

I also was in Studio while the asset was under review, and when I was testing my game, I saw nothing loading in, and the output was full of errors. I had no idea of the issue until I opened another Roblox Studio and saw that I got logged out because my account was moderated. Then I check the website, and I see this ban surprise me! :smiley: (That said I am requesting a notification to be received in Studio at least in the middle of the screen as well)

:orange_circle: Isn’t denying an asset more than enough? Why drop warnings and bans on people’s accounts? (If any staff member disagrees with this let me know why)

:green_circle: If this issue is resolved, it would improve my development as I wouldn’t waste time at all, my Dev-Ex requests wouldn’t get affected, and will make people less scared when uploading assets. My entire Sunday is going to waste because I can’t develop using my main account (focasds), and I need access to edit my games.

For those who like to correct: (Not needed for a staff member to read)

The post focuses on the main issue which is just the bot banning users which do not feel right as this one is not smart enough to decide whether or not the asset can be used for malicious intent like a human being does.

In this post I am placing all my discontent with this as I have received a warning for uploading an iron armor from my game which the bot thinks to be skin color, which is sexual content again. Yesterday I got banned for a Fairy.

Thank you.

(Not sure if there is any related post to this since the search engine in the Dev-Forum is a bit of a pain as the first results are announcements and nothing related to what I searched for)

75 Likes
#2

I strongly agree with this feature request. It’s gotten to the point where uploading an asset is risking your account.

I’ve also heard somewhere else that actual moderators take action, but that really seems far-fetched and doesn’t seem to be the case when moderation is this strict. It would be nice if it detected this before the asset was uploaded so it wasn’t uploaded in the first place.

I haven’t personally experienced this particular issue (I’ve gotten warned before, but not banned), but I’ve gotten messages in my inbox saying that the asset was removed for “Other”. This doesn’t explain anything, so how can we expect to not get moderated if we don’t know what kinds of things are moderated in the first place? I strongly agree with this:

Additionally, since us developers actually make up the content of Roblox, we should be expected to add uploaded online content to our games without it getting moderated. We make up Roblox’s revenue, and we should be allowed to upload assets without worrying about our accounts. In many other platforms, we can upload and actually go to sleep every night without nightmares about our accounts being compromised.

Although slightly unrelated, but we can’t preview an asset before uploading it, which causes way too many slightly adjusted image assets and meshes. This overloads moderation, causing poorer work to be done for moderation, which could possibly be the root cause of these bans.

Another slightly unrelated thing to point out is that moderation is incorrectly targeting the group owner for inserted models when it should really target the person who inserted it:
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/game-deleted-due-to-toxic-developer-adding-backdoor-what-should-i-do/1912383
This might sound crazy, but maybe roblox could just… delete the asset on the marketplace and the one in the game? And maybe they could ban the user who inserted it rather than the group holder.

TL;DR I strongly agree with this feature request and the statements that come with it. A lot of moderation issues are preventing us from uploading perfectly fine content on Roblox.

20 Likes
#3

I don’t think getting rid of bans for asset upload is the right thing to do, but it should be much more understanding / lax than it currently is. By all means ban users uploading obviously inappropriate things like porn, shocking images, real world people, etc. but Roblox should never be outright banning developers for uploading one-shot things that can be construed as accidents (e.g. single-color characters for “nudity”, copyrighted imagery, small text, etc).

Anything that could be considered an accident should be backed by some kind of strike system before pulling the trigger on even a single day ban. Blocking the image should be sufficient for the vast majority of moderated images, the majority of actual developers are NEVER trying to evade platform rules and should not be punished for accidents. A single day is 24 hours of productivity for someone and may be the difference between releasing an event on time, or disappointing thousands of players and causing significant damage to ratings, earnings, etc.

29 Likes
#4

I am fully on your side, but I don’t think it is just possible.

People are creative, mainly the one’s trying to bypass the filter and by just denying it they can get around it by throwing the assets (while doing small tweaks to color, saturation, …) at a filter and hoping it will get through. And let’s be real having a game of cat and mouse, except the cat, is a soulless algorithm and the mouse is a determined internet user is not a great thing especially if there is no punishment.

However, I have a possible solution.
Roblox could add Group/Universe-only Images that wouldn’t ban you and only slow you down when uploading a lot of filtered content and then have a separate Image upload that will upload to the toolbox.

1 Like
#5

Users should definitely be banned for uploading inappropriate assets, if a moderation bot catches it once and just blocks it doesn’t mean it will the next time too, making the chances of inappropriate content getting through higher.

Moderation for appropriate assets that get incorrectly banned should definitely be revised as I believe it is quite unfair that developers need to fear moderation risking their accounts by uploading assets needed for their games.

1 Like
#6

I agree. It’s better for users to get a warning after uploading a content deemed inappropriate by the system instead of banning them. Banning users who uploaded “inappropriate” content will make uploading an asset riskier.

#7

Ban users, but don’t ban users for uploading audio or images (unless absolutely blatantly inappropiate). If that’s what you mean, then I agree. I hate uploading audio or images because the chances of getting a warning is RNG.

4 Likes
#8

Audio uploads have been flawed for quite some time. A lot of music composing softwares have options to insert pre-recorded tracks, but if you upload this to Roblox, chances are it’ll be denied. I have personal experience with this twice, and both times the appeal has been denied (“we’ll fix it”, “we can’t help you because it was a copyright violation”), and it makes uploading assets to Roblox much harder.

1 Like
#9

Only thing is that if someone was to upload something very very very very very against the ToS, they should know they can’t, so simply denying it wouldn’t be a good lesson

But other than that I 100% agree with your point!

#10

You mean in Studio?
Please no
Please no
I can already see how many accounts will get banned, imagine you put a part in the wrong place:
BANNED

#11

so you’re saying you’ll upload your whole game as a free model and make it public?

I meant if you distribute it on the marketplace, not the game.

2 Likes
#12

I thought with:

You meant to detect in in-Studio

#13

When uploading the asset, yes. Not before the uploading process.

#14

I think they mean that studio will tell you if it’s not allowed, instead of uploading it and getting a warning.

#15

Depends, it would have to be pretty hidden but not too much, and a toggle to turn it off would all be good

#16

I’ve gotten so many false bans for uploading decals and it risks my account everytime, lucky i got the moderation removed each time

1 Like
#17

Or, better yet, employ actual humans for moderation to decrease the number of false terminations for harmless assets flagged by bots as malicious.

4 Likes
#18

yeah, I feel that the bots shouldnt be able to ban users. they should only send it to human mods to review it and take action.

2 Likes
#19

Agreed, got banned a few times for innocent decals.

Made me delay my updates, agreements, etc, and risked my account.

1 Like
#20

Just to clarify, I have previously recieved a message from a Roblox administrator stating that bots can only flag assets for removal and can’t actually impose moderations on accounts. Whether or not this is true is a different story although you still shouldn’t just assume ‘bots are the issue!’

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1 Like