Reminder Regarding Permissible Links

Viewing of alcohol/tabacco isn’t illegal for minors – only consumption. A better example would have been adult websites. Either way, I imagine Roblox is protected legally in regards to COPPA/etc – COPPA applies to Twitter/etc as well, and they don’t pursue this level of site safety. I imagine this is about Roblox’s image and not anything legal.

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Have there been any cases of Discord servers directly related to a Roblox game being in the news/having bad publicity because of an incident? I’d like to argue that the level of moderation involvement in some Roblox game affiliated Discord servers rival that of Roblox’s moderation team itself (Sorry, but this is my opinion).

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There is well over 200k ROBLOX users on Discord (Probably closer to a million) who love the platform, use it daily, and love the interaction they get with their favourite game devs, etc.

Why handicap the users and punish the developers from being able to actually interact with our community in a safe, chill environment, this enforcement is honestly a bit too much, I understand at the end of the day we have no say in this at all, but it’s still unfair.

On twitter, NSFW is out there for anyone to see, without an account, even on YouTube, and Facebook, the whole debate about it’s “easier” to see harmful content is ridiculous, and the whole thing about a report feature, I know most of us first hand know how well Twitter’s report features work. (And incase you don’t, they don’t work that well at all).

This is really limiting our options as developers and restricting us from building strong communities. And honestly, if you look at it from a different perspective, this is anti-consumer, and it greatly affects the rate of growth of some development communities. I feel like something behind the scenes happened relating to Discord (possibly Roblox reaching out for something, and Discord not agreeing) for this to be enforced as harshly as it is, Skype, which in my opinion is far worse, was never policed this badly. I just feel like this is unjust and we aren’t really being told the full truth as to why.

And if it’s strictly because Discord doesn’t have a way to report things, that’s false. You can report specific messages by emailing the Message ID to them, and they have a built-in Report button in the works.

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I couldn’t agree more Robloxian Mountaineering uses it on the daily to talk with our fans, hear their suggestions/ideas. I can’t see why this change is required as for all larger Roblox Discords they have a Moderation teams and a set of rules all users must follow.

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A while back the “Roblox” Discord changed ownership to clarify that it was unofficial. I imagine the issue of Discord has been going on for a while and we’re just now seeing the effects. As far as I’m aware, there has not been any bad press about Discord, but good companies take action preemptively.

You’re right that community moderation is better equipped than moderation for the entire site – delegation has always been key for success – but community moderation is not guaranteed. A parent converted upon hearing there’s a team of professionals reviewing content on the site may not have made the same decision for teenagers policing themselves. Regardless of the image Roblox pursues though, the posts here are correct that taking away Discord hamstrings communities.

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Another thing that needs to be touched on, is moderating old post, and giving moderation actions for that.

That is extremely unfair, you are moderating users for old post prior to certain rules being in-placed? That’s too much, ruining a person moderation history because they said something years ago prior to these rules being enforced/existing. All this seems to be is Roblox targeting Discord, and wanting it completely banned from every aspect of the site.

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It seems like there must be another way for those us that have Discord Rules/Moderators that go alongside Roblox rules should be allowed to post our Discord link. If there was some kind of a approval process similar to that of the DevForum, I could see the larger groups and creators would have a far stronger community.

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They do need to get the discord links off their site so unfortunately it does require moderation action. But I dont feel like they should be banning people for it, just make it be a warning

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I must also add in that Roblox’s excuse of Discord not having a moderation team is invalid as there are job opportunities out for working as a trust/safety specialist. (https://gyazo.com/1c6cbd1edbc7c00e420aad31587616bc)

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Does this mean that any reference to something like your Discord username or group will be blocked, even if not a direct link and just the Name#0000 part, because it can be extrapolated to be from it if you already know what it would look like?

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That’s still not acceptable moderation. It’s things that happened prior to the rules. No official moderation actions (warnings are official, and go on your record), should be issued for this kind of stuff. Removing it is fine.

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I also just wanted to add on that Discord does have a Terms Of Service and will take action against your Discord if you violate their terms of service. (https://discordapp.com/guidelines)

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Well my thinking is that that would be too radical for roblox

It was always against the rules to post links to Discord whether obscured or not. This post introduces no new rules, it is just a reminder of the rules that are already in place, and explains why links to Discord and similar services cannot be allowed.

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So linking people to my twitter profile so they can follow me is okay, but linking people to my twitter profile is not okay if I have a link to my discord server?

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I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really speaking specifically on the discord issue, but more so how they’ve been issuing warnings all around for stuff that’s 4+ years old. I might’ve let a bit more inner rage about the current issues slip out than intended.

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It’s fine unless they’re going to ban all of their front page games.

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An approval process wouldn’t have much success. Even if a Discord server is okay upon review, a month from now the community moderators maybe aren’t as active and inappropriate content becomes rampant. It wouldn’t be feasible to approve a Discord server without realtime moderation from the staff, which in turn isn’t feasible either.

We might have success with limiting Discord links to 13+ users (which is already done to Facebook on profiles).

If this is concerning Roblox’s image rather than compliance for legal reasons, it may be why Discord’s moderation was deemed inadequate. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are all big names – parents use these sites themselves and are comfortable with them. Discord is relatively new, and isn’t as well-understood.

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I can imagine linking to your Twitter or Twitter posts will be fine as long as you don’t have a (pinned) post with a link to your Discord/other non-approved service and then linking to that directly.

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Better go ban Phantom Forces and the entirety of the SyLiS development team.


https://twitter.com/stylis_studios

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