Moderation should communicate more meaningfully and take dates into account

[marcus760]

Expect this type of reply if you ever contact the moderation appeals team with facts.

And if you are wondering what the “previous information sent to you” was, it was this:

Which is the same exact information I got when I tried to login my account:

Again, more evidence that the moderation team needs to communicate more effectively, actually take things into consideration that they are damaging the community more than protecting it. It is just very frustrating that I, and anyone else has to experience this, and when told to make an appeal, they are greeted with terrible customer service.

I’d like to reiterate that this staff needs to actually look into the cases they are assigned. It is literally their job, and if it takes over 30 hours for one response, I expect my situation to be somewhat looked into instead of a dismissive repetition saying that I am banned for whatever I violated. I am extremely disappointed that a corporation and franchise of this prestige has this level quality of customer support. It makes me, as a player and a developer, feel very unwelcomed to this website. I’d like to point out that I dedicated many hours, hell I’ve been playing for almost 11 years, and to seem like the staff doesn’t even appreciate me, or even cares about what I have to say just really upsets me. I feel like I am just another person, my voice doesn’t matter, and no matter how much revenue I brought Roblox through my games (even though it wasn’t a lot), I still contributed in some way and I still brought smiles to many young players on this platform.

This is more than just a problem, this needs a serious reformation, and staff that work in this department need to be seriously re-evaluated or monitored closely. I recommend an overseer, that keeps track of all the emails that are being sent and all the conversations the appeals team take part in, to truly see what a mess this is. Again, this is constructive criticism, you can’t improve unless somebody is telling you you’re not good enough.

–Final Edit–
At this point in Roblox, I can estimate that almost all developers upload assets on an alternate account, because who knows what type of ridiculous penalty you may receive for something very innocent. Don’t believe me? Check the Moderation Review Request section on the forums.

[Scriptos]

Hi again, your nicely detailed post inspired me to completely edit the layout of my post. I also included quotes from you for suggestions at the bottom, since you worded it much better. Hope you don’t mind.

[marcus760]

Of course I don’t, I’m just glad I am not the only one going through this, I noticed if you looked through the Moderation Review Request, at least 30% of those request are “hate speech” bans for assets uploaded years ago. Hopefully our message is enough to actually make a difference and get a serious reform, because this is desperately needed.

[GeorgeOfAIITrades]

The problem with moderators is everything they say feels like a copy and paste. There is little to no human input in the words they give you. This is why I’ve always use Mod Review Request when I get flagged out for small text because I strive to know specifics. That being said, I’ve been asked in a DM on the DevForum that I instead start using appeals.

I.E. You keep posting the same mod review issue. We don’t wanna handle it anymore.

The problem I seek is that racecar decals have no text I consider small, but no one at the company ever wants to look an image for me and pinpoint how small too small is. So how the heck am I supposed to learn where the threshold is on an arbitrary rule like “small text?”

[TheKatorium (Katorium)]

I fully support this thread. I remember being in Roblox HQ the day they announced the new moderation feature and nearly every single person I knew in that room (who had a great understanding of the community) had a furious look on their face including myself. Yes, safety is important but it shouldn’t go as far as banning users for something as simple as uploading an image or word from years back you don’t even remember. I frankly too am frightened to see where the community is heading. To an extreme extent, Roblox’s attempt to keep the community safe could be the very things that destroys it. I do feel an overhaul of this system is needed if they plan to expand into 2020 where open communication and basic understanding of where to draw the line with moderation is.

[GeorgeOfAIITrades]

I will say, this current culture of taking something that isn’t that bad and turning it into something awful is what will kill us all. Look at Pepe the Frog. Pepe wasn’t bad. Then a few bad people used it bad, and it spread, and now Pepe in all contexts is considered “bad.”

Safety should be a large priority, especially after all the bad media cases we’ve had tarnishing us. That being said, there should be limits as to how far that safety shield goes.

[Dogutsune (Dogu)]

I agree. I did some Nintendo models in past before the DMCA thingy became a reality.

I got 2 warnings already for it and it makex me anxious.
What if I lose my acc because of PAST?

Not to mention I don’t know WHAT is moderated.

[Scriptos]

Update in regards to recent policy action: PewDiePie

We wanted to provide some context on the situation with PewDiePie. Roblox is committed to providing a safe and civil platform for our players, including blocking memes that represent or are synonymous for behavior that falls outside of our community standards. In December, “pewdie” became one of these negative memes on Roblox. As such, we began blocking the creation of new usernames that incorporated the term “pewdie.” The legacy account that PewDiePie used in his livestream was incorrectly ban…

On the topic of communicating more meaningfully, I feel like this is relevant. Although the situation was solved for this specific user (PewDiePie), the explanation for the ban seemed to only be found on this dev forum post stating that the name was blocked due to “pewdie” becoming a negative meme.

This type of information would be useful to have in the above image, rather than simply stating “your username is inappropriate for Roblox.” An improvement in moderation communication would prevent miscommunication such as what happened with PewDiePie’s fans spreading malice towards Roblox due to not understanding the nature of the ban.

Edit: Also, if the name was banned due to becoming a negative meme, then either prevent accounts from being able to use newly censored words in the first place. Don’t just terminate accounts because something has become censored AFTER account creation. Give those accounts a free rename along with an explanation or something.

[berezaa (Bereza)]

Working with around moderation policies and enforcement is one of the biggest pain points of being a developer on Roblox. I’ll always support efforts to make policy and enforcement more consistent and transparent.

[shayner32 (shayne)]

Content moderators are outsourced. They are given instructions on what is okay, what is bad, and then they set off and deal with asset approval (youtube videos, meshes, decals, audio, etc) and reports (in-game, on the site, etc). They wouldn’t be able to easily deal with something like this - like this instance, as far as they know (and are told), the shirt was against the rules. They don’t know the history behind the logo, they don’t know what the logo even IS, they just know it’s against the rules and to moderate for it.

Developer relations should be here to deal with the more complex situations like this one.

[Scriptos]

Unless you’re referring to one of my later posts where I go into detail about the logo that got me banned, this request isn’t about the logo itself, it’s about the age of the assets that we’re being moderated for (the shirt was so old that I completely forgot it even existed) and how the moderation ticket is displayed to the user. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know the history behind the logo, or what the logo even is. The fact that the logo was uploaded some crazy amount of time ago (I assume that they can view the upload date) should be taken in consideration.

I’m saying that moderation should take dates into account (which can easily be included in the given instructions to outsourced content moderators). The point of bans are to teach you a lesson and to prevent you from uploading any more inappropriate content. I don’t think banning people for things that they uploaded 10 years ago will teach them much of anything, aside from the fact that the moderation system is terribly flawed.

I get that a lot of the moderators may be outsourced and are given instructions and currently are not able to easily deal with something like this. You’re explaining how the current moderation system works. That doesn’t mean that it’s any good, or that it can’t be vastly improved. For example, improve the instructions given to the outsourced content moderators and expand upon the amount of information that they’re able to view (such as the asset’s creation date, if for some reason they are currently unable to see that). And the moderator notes are almost completely meaningless in a lot of situations, as they completely fail to explain why the assets were moderated, so I’d love to see improvement there as well.

I feel that Roblox could vastly improve on their communication with outsourced content moderators in order to make this less of a hassle.

(Also, I’m not sure if you read, but I did try developer relations for my specific situation and it was no help at all.)

[shayner32 (shayne)]

Regardless of the date, something can still be breaking the rules. Yeah, obviously you shouldn’t get banned for something that was okay a while ago, but just because it WAS okay doesn’t mean you get a free pass for it to stay up.

[Scriptos]

@shayner32

but just because it WAS okay doesn’t mean you get a free pass for it to stay up.

@marcus760

• Roblox staff could’ve simply [content deleted] the name, and warned my account that names like this are inappropriate and not acceptable on this platform.
• Roblox staff could’ve deleted the shirt all together, and warned me about the name.

I’m not saying that it should stay up. If something becomes inappropriate, it SHOULDN’T stay up. But that doesn’t mean that people should be banned for it, either. Just moderate the asset, tell me that something I uploaded 8 years ago was moderated, and move on. A ban on the persons account is unnecessary.

[marcus760]

I’d like to follow up that because of this it affected my dev ex eligibility. Which extremely sucks considering I was banned for hate speech however my uploaded content had nothing that offended a race, ethnicity, religion, or a sexual orientation. I really hope a staff looks into this because this is really affecting affecting me

[berezaa (Bereza)]

This sucks to hear. From my experience, the moderation team is somewhat secretive and sometimes hands out hate speech moderation like candy. I was actually banned for 3 days for Hate Speech while I was interning at Roblox because I uploaded the official Roblox helmet of the Washington Redskins during the NFL event. Hope this can get sorted out for you

[marcus760]

Yeah man this is just flat out bull. I literally been done wrong and given bans that don’t even reflect my actions and now because of the moderation team failure to give out bans that are accurate to what I’ve done, the dev ex team thinks I’m some racist bigot who spreads hate speech which in fact I did nothing of the sort. Not to mention I was moderated for an innocent hockey jersey that was uploaded 4 years ago. I emailed roblox and they tell me basically, “yeah we can’t do anything because it’s unfair if we change your time frame to devex but come back in April and MAYBE we can reconsider your eligibility”. I’m really going to just quit the platform as a whole because I just feel so unwelcomed here. I try, I really try to do my best to NOT break the rules, and my ban record since 2017 has been nothing but bans I got from uploaded assets that was previously accepted on roblox. I’m very hurt about this since roblox was my main source of income. But I guess it is what it is. I really pray this gets looked into or something does take action and correct these unjust bans or at least correct the misrepresentation of bans. I have been a loyal player on roblox for over 10 years and to have it end like this is just a shame.

[Dapale]

This is honestly absolutely ridiculous… I really hope something is done to help you, because it makes me sick that someone on a “development platform” is even in this position. I do not believe that Roblox’s main goal is to even help DEVELOPERS… They ignore the problems with their over-the-top faulty moderation system and all the problems it causes their developers and their users alike . I really hope for the best in your case, and I hope it all gets resolved

[obbers]

i just got hit by one of these so i’ll bump this thread so that the issue can hopefully receive some attention.

i was suspended for 3 days because of a t-shirt that i uploaded over 5 years ago. frankly, i had completely forgotten about that shirt’s existence, and it obviously passed through moderation when it was uploaded, but the real zinger here is that i didn’t even receive a warning prior to my suspension.

it should not be the case that someone can be suspended (or worse) just because roblox changes its interpretation of the rules and decides to go after old content which is no longer allowed. i should have been warned, or otherwise contacted. i would have gladly complied and deleted the item in question. instead, i have to wait out a ban and hope that this doesn’t affect my devex standing.

some change in moderation practice has to be made. users (and especially developers who make games as their source of income) should not have to be paranoid about uploading assets out of fear of retroactive moderation.

[Dogutsune (Dogu)]

I got a ban today for content I made 4-5 years ago.

There’s still similar model I made roaming around, so I fear I can get another ban and termination. I might have few with the reference to it.

I think ban was related to unfortunate event that has happened recently, even though there’s a visible YEAR GAP.

[Spathi]

I agree with this completely. I find it ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS that people are being punished for things that they’ve created in the past that were originally not against any rules, this is not how this should be handled and I think it’s wrong. Roblox has all rights to remove the assets but it’s nowhere near right to punish the person especially since at the time there was nothing wrong. No one should be receiving any form of moderation because of an old asset that broke no rules. I can not stress this enough.