Reduce Mini-modding on the DevForums

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#1

At this time, there is a noticeable amount of “mini-modding”, the act of impersonation of moderation staff/people with the actual appropriate power to handle the issue, or otherwise giving such impression to any reasonable onlooker, exists throughout the DevForums and realistically should be minimised or removed completely.

To be clear, you should be able to reasonably and privately tell a user that they may be violating the rules and you should point to them; but you cannot publicly just tell them and act as if you have any actual power above any other user.

For me, that is using the flagging system (that’s what it’s designed for) and let the people with actual power do the work. That is not your job and you should not spend your time and effort to do so, I do not believe that would lead to promotion and if was the case I would strongly recommend the removal of such criteria.

The issue is that people point to things but are wrong about it, because they are not the people who deal with this kind of thing. For example, pointing to the Roblox Terms of Use as a reason not to do investment posts when it is purely a DevForum rule. Or inadvertently violating the rules themselves by repeating that they have violated the rules, even though they are creating spam; to quote the summary of the DevForum rules, which say

Every reply must be meaningful, contributive, and on-topic. Do not re-post what others have already said

This is mainly an issue in places like #collaboration:recruitment, which the about post says

How should I reply to recruitment topics?

Please do not start lengthy discussions in this category. You should only reply to topics when you are interested in the opportunity being offered. If you want to have longer conversations or discussions with the poster of the topic, please do it through private messages.

so violating twiceward, not really the best outlook in that regard.

Random side note: No, Top Contributors are not forum staff, they are not exempt, they just do better posts than others. The “I know what I’m talking about” stick, even if that’s wrong.

TL: DR: Mini modding is an issue and should be minimised, these people are actually violating the rules themselves but this should be more clear. Don’t publicly reply, use the flag system.

33 Likes
Roblox should add Request Category Change for topics
The abuse of flagging needs to stop
Can we ensure Community resources/tutorials are of a good quality
#4

Mind sharing some examples (edited) to give us some insight more clearly on what you mean. While mini-modding may be a broad term not all of us may understand :slight_smile:

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#5

I have to admit that I sometimes slip with the public and private. Perhaps I should reconsider that till next time. Must be my mindless activity again. I keep forgetting that the flag system exists.

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#6

What I also noticed is that those who point out that someone is breaking the rules, they almost never do the actual reporting especially in the #collaboration:recruitment sub-category. Whenever I report posts with 10 other people saying that it’s against the forum rules, 1/20 posts I flag don’t get temporarily hidden.

4 Likes
#7

I used a definition to clearly define what I mean, in case you missed it was

But for an example, sure.

User 1 creates a recruitment thread, they are asking for an investor.
User 2 responds that that is not allowed
User 3 responds that it is against the Roblox Terms of Services
User 4 responds with again that it’s against the rules
User 5 (A moderator) locks and unlists the thread and further deals with user 1 directly. (Possibly dealing with the other users)

In this example, user 1 while at fault. Users 2, 3 and 4, are mini modding and violating the recruitment rules; while user 3 and 4 are also violating the spam rule.
Users 2, 3 and 4 should had flagged the post causing it to be hidden, one of them may have directly given a respectful and private heads up about this. Now the moderation is not dealing with 4 users, they are dealing with just one.

5 Likes
#8

I don’t necessarily see this as an issue unless the mini modder is attacking the OP. Sometimes posts that get posted in say, scripting support instead of game design support (just happened recently), I will sometimes leave a quick feedback publicly saying “hey this is the wrong category” but also while actually answering the question. Once the post is correctly moved I will edit out the part saying it’s in the wrong category

1 Like
#9

There may be some reason to do so publicly but privately works best privately, in terms of telling about the rules; you should focus on answering the question directly, your method is better but maybe not the best; but as I said

It’s what I suspect people are doing, trying to get a promotion. There is a place to helpful but your priority should be on the appropriate people; a concept that’s not limited to here, for example when people “expose” people for illegal activities with minors rather than reporting it, but that’s out of scope.

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#10

I feel #collaboration:recruitment is already a just a big problem on the forum due to the fact there will always be complaints about things. I feel the best approach is just to disable replies there and have everything handled through flags / DMs

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#11

While may being true, #collaboration is only an example (even if it’s a more major example). I’m looking at this across the entire of the forums rather than a specific category.

I would advice suggesting that in it’s own post with all the reasons you believe it to be a problem and refer to my post as you find required.

3 Likes
#12

I feel like users often mistake helping with being awfully obnoxious.

While helping new users is absolutely acceptable, attempting to mini-mod or inadvertently calling others out is not and will make you look like a douche. It’s fine to say “Hey @User, I don’t think your post belongs in this category - the correct one would be #category”.

However, saying “Your post is wrong. Do not post this here” is as wrong as anything the OP could have done. This isn’t helpful, it is just plain obnoxious and ruins everyone’s experience. The Developer Forum is, above all, a place for mutual growth - not for any kind of self-praise or aggressive acts towards less experience users.

It’s not cool either to repeat something said before. Saying the same thing over and over again can be understood as public humiliation, which isn’t something anyone would like to go through.

Additionally, if you see someone deliberately acting against the ToS or Forum rules, you should simply flag it. Replying to the post or sending it to other people will just attract more attention towards it, which will most likely eventually escalate into an unnecessary argument.

tl:dr: If you feel like an user is not following the guidelines, instead of unleashing your rage onto them, be understanding and put yourself at their place: what would you like to hear if you made a mistake?

1 Like
#13

I agree with the OP. While I am guilty of doing such mini-modding in the past, I have significantly reduced if not completely stopped doing the act.

Just for additional information, you can easily inform the person by pressing the reply button and selecting the reply mode.

image

Select new message
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And the person will be informed privately with the response you made.

9 Likes
#15

Honestly the only problem with DMs here that I have is that most of the times people don’t acknowledge them and just report for harassment. Happened a few times to me and it’s quite annoying.

2 Likes
#16

I don’t feel this will solve the issue. Yes, you can bring up concerns privately, but the odds are theses still won’t have any effect, and will spill over into private arguments. I can only theorize(someone can tell me if I’m wrong) that the moderation team doesn’t believe that private channel disagreements are worth bothering with because they aren’t a public display. The only thing, in my opinion, that this would accomplish is pushing the issue into private channels.

The real problem is a lack of quality posts(Speaking directly about #collaboration:recruitment). If the overall quality of threads were increased, there would be far less reason for people to mini-mod the forum. I’ve already posted my beliefs on how to solve this issue in another post about adding post-approval to recruitment topics, which was strongly shot down by community representatives.

It is my firm belief that we need to deal with the cause of the mini-modding to adequately address it. Flagging is the most effective(current) method of taking down posts that don’t fit the guidelines, but I will always remain convinced that preventing those posts from being public in the first place would be far better in the long term.

#18

I think there’s a psychological aspect here too. Folks who go around “mini-modding” (I am guilty of this) aren’t a single type of people. Believe it or not, there are people on the forum who would rather warn the user instead of flagging the post, in an effort to avoid any moderation on the post and user in question. Especially for newcomers, foreign language users, and others who are not as familiar with the forum rules (this is another issue, there’s already a topic about it), there should be more leeway, especially since many folks here have admitted to being a “mini-mod” at some point or another. I would even argue that most mini-mods are in this boat. It is more out of good intention, not forum moderator RPG.

With that in mind, I agree that it should be dealt with in DMs, rather than in the public post. That is something that I have started doing more often. I would like to note, however, that it isn’t clear how often or when people actually use DMs here on the forum. It took me a while to send my first DM since it seemed to feel “overboard”, considering I don’t receive DMs at all. I don’t know how all new members on the forum feel about this, but to me it just seemed like something you would do on a professional or acquaintance basis. Perhaps discobot can tell users not to be afraid to DM others if they have any questions or comments.

1 Like
#19

Actually, I have a idea: disable comments on recruitment posts and force them all into private messages. Solves all problems instantly.

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#20

The problem is that whatever thread you make gets buried in a few hours by others…especially in categories like Art Design Support or Recruitment, without replies it’d be more harder to find people looking for work since there’s no other way to bump a topic.

As for OP, no solution is really offered about the mini-modding.

Unless you want players to get flagged just for criticism…which can be abused…there’s really no way for anyone to reduce mini-modding unless replying in some categories is removed. Which is silly honestly.

Why even allow more players to join the DevForum if more categories are gonna limit commenting?

Plus, i personally find peaceful mini-modding methods better than flagging as that’s a more better option in my eyes, it’s not right for someone unaware of a certain guideline to get in trouble with mods.

I myself don’t use the flag option unless it’s something serious, it’s abused enough as it is.

Mini-modding may seem annoying to Roblox veterans like us, but we have to take in the fact that there’s a newer generation of developers on the DevForums now…some are young or new to Roblox even.

Forcing restrictions and convincing more people to flag them will just depress and demotivate them, it’s better if we just spread awareness into the fact that DMs are useful for solving some problems and leave it at that.

1 Like
#22

This issue has been formally resolved. New rule implemented for this change

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/official-rules-of-the-roblox-developer-forum/46429/55

20 Likes
#23

I can understand that this is already solved but I have had prier issues with this and still has not changed for me.

Now why this is a issue is, this has happened a lot and I feel like every error I make in a thread I make or something that is rather biased, there seems to be a lot of “Mini-modding”

Now my issue with this is, when I make a post let’s say in Forum Feedback and The old Post Approval system, I would always get negative feedback especially from Regulars.

The problem was that Regulars felt like they had the power to tell a “Member” that either that your post isn’t good why do you have it up or something less targeted like, A Regular makes a post and another one adds on making it feel like us members are targeted and this hasn’t stopped.

This seems to have be fixed but this is still happening as we speak.

4 Likes
#24

There is always going to be “mini-modding” on every internet forum you visit. It can’t be “removed completely” or stopped because that is just like trying to completely get rid of bullying - somebdoy is always going to think they are more authoritive that somebody else.

I agree with the flagging system though.

3 Likes
#25

@atackstack The goal of this thread is to minimise mini modding as it was an issue at the time of posting. The reason I bumped the post was to update that a new rule which clearly was aimed at mini modders.

DET has made it clear that it’s against the rules and any such cases of mini modding as clearly defined in rule 3.1 can and should be flagged. It’ll be up to DET to deal with the matter as they see fit.

As @Music_Jaxx says,

It is up to the community to flag those posts and they should continue to do so where possible, while seeking alternate solutions to handle the root problems. The new rule will not remove all cases, nor solve all problems. That isn’t what I expected when I created the post and continue to do so now. It is about minimising the issue.

There are plenty of threads elsewhere in #forum-feedback which look at those issues in more detail and further discussion.

For this thread today, the issue has been more readily resolved with tools for DET and the community to use to minimise the issue. If you think that there is more to be done, find a thread and add to the discussion there or create a new post.

9 Likes