roblox is honestly just very inconsistent abt game banning n’ stuff.
you could get banned for a day from an old game you forgot abt, while a year later you get a warning from another that has been automatically deleted.
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That kind of thing is common with moderation on other platforms where they won’t tell you specifically what has been banned has to be the most frustrating bit. That’s why I label Roblox’s moderation, and moderation across the internet in general, as “Kafkaesque”. That is a word I think more people should get to know and use more frequently.
It should be a requirement for all platforms to specifically show what item has broken the rules and when and where it occurred. The person being accused should not have to figure it out themselves.
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Seems familiar to a vest I made 7 years ago then renamed ‘tactical vest’. Immediate 7 day ban.
I got my account terminated for owning a Civil War game with a few million visits. No battle flags or anything, it was just a fighting game. No warning or anything; instantly terminated lol. They refused to speak to me about it after I appealed.
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I actually sent you a message way back then asking for advice about Roblox’s tolerance to civil war content! After that is when I changed the subject of my own game to no longer be about the civil war, since I was worried I’d get terminated too. Looks like I got a slap on the wrist anyway.
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I also think moderation needs to be fixed, see these 2 stories
My story
I got once a warning only bcz i put a youtube link for some roblox music i heard.
I only have a photo from my phone, that’s why i don’t have a image/video about that, but luckily it’s only a warning, but i think roblox can stop banning people for chatting youtube links.
Youtuber story
Also i have a moderation issue i wanna say: Recently a youtuber got IP BANNED!!! Only bcz from a shirt that she uploaded years ago, when they were too younger and she didn’t knowed about copyright (reason of the ban.) Instead of an IP Ban by DMCA Report, they could only give a warning or 1 to 7 day ban.
Yes, this kind of of moderation message needs to stop. It doesn’t cite anything you’ve done wrong.
What might happen is that in your Personal Messages, Roblox may have listed the item or items moderated but won’t allow you to see it until after the ban is over. That is if they listed it in a personal message.
This leaves up a situation where you have no idea what caused the ban to occur and the appeals process only allows you one chance to to appeal. In a way Roblox is tricking you into denying your appeal when you have zero information to work on.
This is a direct example of how Roblox Moderation is “Kafkaesque”, very similar to the book “The Trial”
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I agree. Roblox moderation should be fixed. I just got banned for one day just for posting group shout that was counted as scamming:
As you can see theres nothing regarding to scam. Theres only about congratulations for reaching 10k members in group and gamepasses discount.
I tried to appeal it, but they rejected it:
I don’t know but they really can’t check if group shout fits with the reality before doing any moderation action?
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One of my groups ‘Kingdom of Spain’, in December of 2023, was falsely locked by Roblox on the assumption that it was promoting “Fascism”, specifically “Falangism and Francoism” even though my group has nothing to do with those ideologies. I had no communication servers. I wasn’t particularly active with the group.
Anyone was welcome to join, up to 170 people did.
Granted I believe this comes from a misunderstanding.
Three little words I think may have tripped the algorithm in the moderation.
I got an extension that allows me to see locked groups so I can take a look at the ranks and description of the group.
The description is modeled from a Wikipedia page information panel that’s found on the right-hand side for all the countries in the world.
It lists the Capital City, Language, National Anthem, Form of Government etc.
In the Government type category it had “Constitutional Monarchy, Theocracy” and a rank called “Grand Inquisitor”
This was definitely a mistake on my part and wasn’t careful enough. It does not reference Spain’s history from the 1930s to 1970s, but they’re not words that inspire inclusivity.
I just wish that Roblox would give another chance and just did what they used to do and just make the description and/or rank “Content Deleted”.
It was a nice group to have because it was an authentic ‘Name Snipe’ group, as in that my ‘Kingdom of Spain’ was the original group with that name. All other groups that wanted to have that name had to use extra lettering, acronyms, or fake letters.
I was banned for saying, “Stop joking about 9/11”, as well as answering “Yes”, in Spanish in Roblox chat, I think what was a bit worse was when I appealed the first time, it was refused, but when I appealed the second time, it was finally taken into account and my account was unbanned. I guess, I’m happy someone in the appeals team took me seriously. However I’m disappointed of the fact that my account was banned just because of trying to stop others from making jokes about a terrorist tragedy, they mistakenly banned me for that(I presume the moderation who gave me a ban was a bot) and if it weren’t for someone in the appeals that finally took my issue seriously, I wouldn’t have been unbanned. Plus you’ll notice in the following, how is this connected to terrorism or extremism to anything in what I said?!
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I suppose I am reviving this topic to point out my second brilliant experience with moderation on Roblox. Since this is so egregious and “only” a 1 day ban (despite not having any prior moderation history), I am assuming the appeal will be successful. Still, it is rather ridiculous. It’s been nearly five years since my old account was wrongly terminated and I still have to sleep with one eye open about any innocent asset I upload on a non-alternate account.
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how the hell is that discriminatory? someone get a staff member over here this is not ok.
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That is the kafkaesque system Roblox employs. It’s so evidently not supervised by real humans.
When they locked my group they just made a broad statement about my group rather than citing any single word or asset in particular.
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My old account got wrongfully/randomly terminated in 2019 and the part where they put the reason was straight up left blank lol. You really can’t make this stuff up.
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That Practice of not citing anything has to stop.
If they can’t point to a specific thing instead of a broad generalization, the ban is null and void
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They waited until exactly 20 minutes after the ban expired to respond telling me it was “correct” and that they won’t be fixing it. Every time I deal with appeals, I leave feeling incredibly naive, and as if cold water was splashed on my face. I don’t know why I always assume “this time I’ll get it fixed!” when it seems like they always reject appeals, even egregious ones. I wish Roblox would allow Americans apply to be moderators/appeals people, I would gladly apply to do my part in fixing this system.
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That is insane. Downright insane. The most tame and basic thing imaginable somehow interpreted as hateful and discriminatory.
2+2=fish, I guess.
People can write dystopian horror novels that centers on internet moderation and how absolutely warped it is.
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A couple years back my account was also wrongfully terminated (but thankfully it was appealed 31 days later). I kept asking support over and over what I specifically did wrong but kept receiving canned responses such as:
“We’re sorry but we’re unable to provide you with any further information or response regarding this inquiry. We encourage you to review the previous information sent to you as we have provided you with all that we can at this time. However, if you need further assistance with a different matter, please don’t hesitate to let us know.”
These answers are completely unacceptable. They offer nothing of value and give you zero closure. Keeping in mind that the part where I am “encouraged to review previous information” is a real slap in the face when the previous email stated that my appeal was already denied so I should stop emailing them even though all I did was ask what I specifically got banned for. It’s beyond ridiculous. I never did end up getting an answer. But given that it was appealed several weeks later, I suppose we know what the answer was.
The whole process was an awful experience and I don’t wish it on anyone. PLEASE fix your moderation and support system Roblox.
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I’m glad that this thread from 6 years ago with 1311 likes and 278 responses (at the time of writing) is still relevant.
Roblox asks us to put trust in them when we develop on their platform; why can they not do the same for us?
Clearly, this is something I needed to receive a temporary ban for. Important enough to lock me out of the platform, but not important enough to tell me where I did something wrong so I can ensure it doesn’t happen again?
I’m registered with DevEx. I’m ID verified. I’ve been on the platform for over a decade and a half. I’m a daily developer and I contribute the majority of my time to this platform, so why am I being treated like a criminal where Roblox’s automated moderation system is the judge, jury and executioner? Posting a link (that I have no recollection of and can’t verify because they’ve refused to provide any information) warrants a ban?
I understand this is a huge platform and I understand that moderation is not a simple task by any means. However, the length of time this thread has existed and the sheer quantity of interaction from all different kinds of developers proves that this is a serious issue and it’s one that is still prevalent to this day. How are we supposed to create on this platform with confidence when Roblox is willing to dole out inflated punishments, without warning, to absolutely anyone regardless of any external factors?
Every interaction I have had with Roblox moderation and support is a complete and utter joke. I am not exaggerating. My previous experience with moderation is when Roblox deleted the Elite Builders of Robloxia group which I’m the owner of and that currently hosts the official Egg Hunt 2017 experience.
Oh, why did they do this, you ask?
The moderation system detected a link in our group description. A link to a devforum bulletin board thread (which if you read my ban message from today, is an explicity stated allowed link.) However, for reasons still unknown to me, this lead to the link being tagged; which would be an appropriate response if the link was actually disallowed (as opposed to a temporary ban.) Then, a few days later, the moderator took another pass. It decided that the group description was “spam” (because of the hashtags that they put there!) and as a result they locked (read: deleted) the group permanently. It took several weeks and multiple support attempts to get this decision reverted. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof.
Note the “Reviewed” date in this image.
Here’s the first response I got from support, weeks later:
Glad I waited over two weeks for that one.
It took them five more days to finally revert the action. An action that was completely unjustified, handled improperly and not compensated for in any other way aside from saying “oopsie!”.
They claim that this moderation action would not negatively affect my account in the future, but then why did I receive a worse punishment for the exact same offense this time around? Last time they just censored it, but that won’t work this time? The inconsistency of punishments, lack of transparency in the moderation process and absence of clear channels for developers to get in contact with Roblox about developer specific moderation actions are deeply concerning.
I’m not one for fearmongering and yet to be honest with you, I’m scared. This isn’t as simple as something like being banned on Twitter; this is a very significant source of income for me. I’m proud to call this platform my home but how can I continue to feel that way with the constant threat of punishment for doing absolutely nothing wrong and with little to no reassurance that the systems Roblox has put in place to prevent or remedy these issues can actually carry out their purpose? Hell, the reason I’m even posting this here in the first place is because of the lack of forums or channels to express this through.
This is a serious issue. Developers often talk big and scary about changes on the platform they don’t like or overly exaggerate their discontent about issues that aren’t as big as they seem. This is not one of those cases. This is something that affects every user on the platform and the consequences are disproportionately devastating to developers.
If this continues as it has been, this will be what actually pushes developers off of the platform. I stay because I have no choice, but I worry that soon Roblox will make that choice for me.
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