Not allowing closed source modules in community resources

Forum Help
#1

This is a bit of a follow on post to the diminishing quality of community resources since post approval was removed for it, my previous issues can be shown here and here.

So in the last day I believe i’ve seen two community resources, with the primary resource being a module called with require(123456789).

Now why is this such a pain?

Community resources are meant, as the name suggests, to be resourceful to the community. And there is no point releasing a module to the. community if people cannot read it, and therefor learn from it. In fact keeping the source hidden I feel defeats the entire purpose of the category.

This also caused a problem the other day in which one plugin had unintentionally malicious source code which ended up deleting half a map proving that the hiding of source code may actually be concealing malicious code.

I feel this is just another reason to prove the diminishing quality of community resources since it was moved of PA and also I feel it would be wise for it to be made explicitly against the category guidelines to conceal the source code of a resource.

I apologise in advanced, closed source modules have never been an area i’ve been interested enough to learn / research into and I in general don’t know half the terminology surrounding them. However I feel the point of my argument is obvious and if you have terminology nitpicks feel free to tell me in DMs rather then in replies.

I also recognise that you can review this modules via insert service, however my argument still stands that trying to conceal the source is against the point of the category.

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Community Resources and Community Tutorials should require PA
#2

It’s already against the rules to post closed-source resources.

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I do agree that ever since Post Approval was taken off of #resources, the quality has severely gone downhill. It was to the point where I had to mute the category so I wouldn’t see them. Eventually I unmuted it because some of my friends made tutorials/resources.

The code of the resource should be directly open source. Not indirect. No use of insert service like you mentioned or asset ID requires. Must be in the resource itself.

2 Likes
#3

At this point, when you release a closed source module, you end up not releasing it because closed source modules don’t run for other people anymore. The post above is the more important point though.

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#4

Despite this, the quality in community resources has declined so much recently that id say more then 50% of posts are breaking community guidelines, therefor by flagging too many posts for breaking the guidelines / forum rules we run the risk of getting a strike ourselves.

Therefor I feel my over riding point about this just being another reason community resource quality has diminished since the category got moved of PA.

#5

What gave you the impression that you’ll get a strike for legitimately flagging a large amount of posts? You won’t. If you think a post breaks violates the rules or doesn’t follow the guidelines, flag it. If you feel like a flag needs more explanation or context, use “something else” and the text field. DET will inform you if something shouldn’t be flagged long before you get a strike.

Unfortunately it’s currently infeasible to add resources back to PA. That’s a couple hundred extra requests a month to go through for a team already struggling to scale. Platform feedback is the primary concern of PA. Resources take a long time to review (review code, content, discuss if it’s substantial enough, etc).

About the Community Tutorials category and About the Community Resources category were both just updated to quantify more explicitly what is substantial enough and what is allowed for each category. We’re also discussing other potential changes to the categories, posting workflow, and devforum structure to help.

4 Likes
#6

Ive received a strike before for flagging too many topics and posts without any prior warning or request to stop flagging so many posts which I feel completely invalidates this point.

I think it would be worth considering closing off the creation of topics in this category from members, while I know for a fact when I was a member this would have been a heavy frustration, ive only ever had to make one resource post so while this could be a pain, it may cause less issues then it currently causes.

The fact that you accept PA goes through things such as if a resource is substantial enough proves that without PA there is a serious risk that posts which are not substantial enough will slip through into the category.

Unfortunately its been bought up many times before, that the majority of people do not follow the formats / requirements in these posts when posting, with the majority of dev forum members having not even read these topics, if this issue could be addressed then I feel that could definitely be a solution.

2 Likes
#7

Yes. Seeing what is being posted today just means that, if putting post approval back on #resources is infeasible, just lock topic creation on members like in #discussion

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#8

The only problem with it, and the only reason why I don’t like that solution is that it discriminates members to be theoretical worse developers then regulars, a mindset I really despise.

There are a lot of really talented members who have really good quality resources to release, its just they are the minority unfortunately, However I still don’t think its really fair to entirely close of the category to them, because of the mistakes of others.

1 Like
#9

agreed

It happened with #discussion, so what makes locking #resources any different? There were members who had some good discussions to start, but now all of them can’t until they’re regular. The same will happen with the latter. The skilled members probably have some good resources to show, but now they can’t until they are a regular.

1 Like
#10

Discussion is really, at least in my opinion, a more visible #help-and-feedback:game-design-support in fact, if worded correctly any discussion category topic could fit into game design support.

just to be clear im not encouraging using the categories for the same purpose, but as ive discussed before, game design support is just a more general discussion category for members

Also I would consider it different to community resources given that discussion is about discussing solutions to problems and therefor isn’t really discriminated to high low ability developers, since problems scale with difficulty.

True, but I still have the argument that I feel its unjustified to say to someone, you cant post your resources because the person next to you didn’t post a very good resource.

1 Like
#11

Are you sure your strike was for that? We don’t have anything against flagging to prevent bad posts, but we do if you flag wrongly and do that en masse. I flag a large quantity of posts on a daily basis and have not received any such strike. I don’t think DET would be unappreciative of you helping keep the forums clean, resourceful and productive.

You can follow up with Developer Engagement if you’d like to discuss that point or with one of us privately to continue this conversation. This isn’t on topic but I wanted to quickly address that.

3 Likes
#12

Your strike was most likely for a different reason. If you think it wasn’t, politely follow up with DET.

Yes, without PA it means low quality resources and resources which don’t follow the rules can slip in. Like I mentioned though, platform feedback is the primary concern of PA. It’s infeasible to currently add resources back to PA because it can’t scale. The guidelines were changed to clarify what is substantial enough as a resource, and other potential changes are being discussed on how different parts of the devforum can scale better.

We can discuss closing the category off to Regulars only as well, but I don’t think blocking Members from basically every category is an ideal solution. Maybe it’d be better to focus on educating users over restricting their access. There’s a lot to take into consideration and a lot of people discuss it.

If they don’t follow the category guidelines or rules, make sure you flag them.

1 Like
#13

Although I do feel like this thread has deviated a little from the original topic, I’d like to add that there have been people warned for using the flag mechanism excessively/unnecessarily.

As an example, I recall of a period in which people were using the flag system not because the post itself was rule breaking, but simply because they deemed such post (or even their author) “low quality”; these people were warned.

It may be that your strike wasn’t necessarily for using the flag feature multiple times or using it maliciously, but for other rule associated with the flagging mechanism or even a misunderstanding from the moderation side; either way, I believe it wouldn’t hurt to reach DET about it. :smile:

2 Likes
#14

It is important to remember that the community resources category was intended to be a trusted open library where new and experienced Roblox developers would be able to find useful, trustworthy and free material. If there is a trend which shows this is is not currently happening, then I’m sure that this is being actively discussed behind the curtains by the forum Leaders.

  • It may seem easy to assign PA to #resources, but let’s keep in mind that the forum is growing at an unprecedented rate and such method will not be scalable in a near future. Equally, restricting access to the category also limits the users who could contribute with significant content for the platform.

In the end there is no easy solution a problem of this magnitude, which is why this must be further explored by the community and its leaders. Meanwhile, what we can do is flag posts which break the guidelines and, when appropriate and in a helpful way, advise the authors on how they can improve their topic or explain how it can be changed so it does not go against the rules. (pls no minimod)

On another note, when reading the category-specific guidelines for #resources, something caught my eye:

Things you could post a Community Resources thread about:

  • Plugins you wish to showcase.

In my perception, the word “showcase” would indicate something which should be on the Cool Creations category. It can lead users to believe that they are able to simply show off their plugins, without the need to open-source it or even explain how it works. Something like “Free open-sourced plugins you wish to share” would be more straightforward, specially for new users.

#16

Added “Free” in front of the sentence.

2 Likes
#17

A possible solution could be to make it so there’s a “soft promotion”. E.g. after you’ve gone through post approval once or twice, or made a certain number of posts, you unlock further categories that are locked off to very new members.

This keeps platform feedback clean (as only regulars, which takes a lot of good posts to earn) clutter free, while still keeping less important categories more clutter-free than they would be if practically everyone could post.

Technically, how could this be acomplished:
It goes without denying that Discourse’s trust level system isn’t very expandable. You could possibly be added to a group or awarded a badge (trust levels do both) that will unlock access to further categories. Also worth noting that groups are already used by the forum to lock categories based on trust level, or to make a category exclusive to a subset of users or opt-in (i.e. international categories).

1 Like
#18

But uh… this is basically what already happens?

Currently the main requirement for regular as far as im concerned is regular, and successful use of post approval.

#19

I’m talking about a ‘mini-trust level’ in between regular and member, but with a much lower threshold (e.g. use PA twice, compared to $x times which is for regular), allowing categories like resources to have a degree of limitation, while still keeping platform feedback the priority.