I’m writing this today as I’ve just seen an ad for a free robux generator on the ROBLOX website. Naturally I reported both the ad and the game as an attempt to safeguard more gullable members. But it got me thinking.
Unless you are reporting someone with regard to DMCA claims or things of that nature, you receive no feedback, conformation or updates when using the website’s “Report” buttons. Halfway through writing the reason for the report, I honestly thought “What’s the point?”. It’s not as though a human or even automated message will let me know if the game was taken down, if my help was appreciated etc.
In the past this has in fact driven me away from reporting content violations and the public perception is that it does nothing.
What I propose is a very very simple solution that services such as Instagram implement;
Reports should receive an automated message stating something along the lines of;
Thank you for your report on “Game/Player name etc”, it will be reviewed by our human moderation team at the next available opportunity
If the outcome is that it’s not as fault/violation
Although we reviewed "Game/Player name " content for any breaches, none were found. Thank you for notifiying us
If the outcome leads in the termination or sanctioning of their account I’d simply like to know My report did something, maybe something like this;
Thank you for letting us know “Game/Player name” was in violation of our community guidelines, we have issued “Account Suspension, Account Termination, Written warning” to them.
I think this will greatly increase the frequency of valid reports as people will understand that they are listened too and ROBLOX (more specifically the moderation team) care about making the platform a safer place for all.
Although a great idea for a response from reports, the punishment that has been issued shouldn’t ever be shown to the user that reported. Some users may try to show-off with the punishments that their reports have been given.
One thing that really frustrates me about the Discord Trust & Safety policy is the lack of feedback on whether any action was taken.
Nevertheless, I must unequivocally agree with Toadiant, we must not let the reporter know what action was taken in specific. We should however notify them when a report is opened and closed.
I was about to suggest this, so I’d like to bring this back up. Showing players updates on their reports could not only give players more confidence that their reports are reviewed, but could also be used to inform players who abuse the report system (knowingly or unknowingly).
I did a quick mock-up of what it could look like - a message that shows up when you log in:
As a Roblox user I don’t know if my reports are being acknowledged at all.
Twitter does this perfectly, and Roblox should take inspiration from Twitter. I reported an account for impersonation, and Twitter let me know my report was acknowledged.
Many users feel discouraged to report as they think their report will be lost. This also allows for more transparency between moderators and users, and will improve the experience as there is more confidence in using reports.
