As a Roblox user and developer, it is ridiculous to have bots ruining your assets, the catalog, and comments.
First of all, some things in this post have been suggested before; this is a synthesis of all ideas I’ve found and come up with regarding a captcha system on the site. Captcha doesn’t depend solely on text distortions to separate humans from machines. Rather it uses advanced risk analysis techniques, considering the user’s entire engagement with the captcha instead of just whether or not it can click a box.
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Uploading Assets
Currently, it is quite simple for a bot to upload an asset to the site because there’s no system to detect whether or not the asset has been uploaded before, or a rate at which the asset can be uploaded. For example, if I were to upload a new suit I had been designing, probably two minutes later if I search it up in the catalog there would be hundreds of the exact asset I had created and uploaded. These may all be uploaded to one group or to multiple; the problem with this is that since there’s so many identical versions uploaded by other sources of this singular shirt than players are more likely to buy one from someone who is not the original asset creator (me!). This draws profit and stops the spread of WOM advertising. -
Sending Messages
If you’re like me, and keep your messages open (mainly because of how incompetent people are being unable to comprehend that to message you they’re required to follow you), then you probably get a lot of these…
If I wanted to join your group I would. I don’t need an invitation in my messages that sits there and collects dust.
Adding a captcha to sending messages would cut down on spam messages being sent, clogging up player’s inboxes, and taking up extra room on the Roblox servers. -
Buying Items
Currently if a new item is released on the catalog, people have bots sitting there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ready to buy it. This cuts down majorly on the amount of players who really want the hat who get it from initial sale rather than in the resale phase of the item (if it even goes limited). Adding a captcha would allow for more users to have an actual chance at obtaining the limited legitimately.
This would also be implemented for normal hats that are placed on sale (not just ones from Roblox). For example if I put my Pink Sparketime Fedora on sale for $5,000 Robux (or even just a lower price than the normal floor) then a bot will most certainly get it rather than a player who happens to be looking at the page when you change it.
Are you really going to tell me that Ms. lolimpact is a real player who was created one month ago, never had builders club, and buys a $10,000 limited within the first two seconds of it coming out and then they magically disappear from her inventory two minutes later?
I doubt it.
Off the topic of captchas for a moment
In the case that a captcha doesn’t get implemented for all asset uploads, can we AT LEAST get it so that items cannot be uploaded twice! The exact same system that is used for banned assets could be used. For example if I upload a group logo and the filter system rejects it, that exact image is banned from being uploaded on the Roblox site. It’s stored somewhere and anytime a new logo is uploaded it cross-checks is against every single pixel in every single image ever uploaded to Roblox. Why can’t we do this exact thing for assets? If I upload a shirt than a bot copies it and tries to upload it, than it should be cross checked against all other assets ever uploaded and if it has a match: DENIED
Happy Captchaing!
Index
WOM - “Word of Mouth”, refers to advertising. (Bullet 1)
Captcha - Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart
Resources
Site Wide Captcha
Captcha When Buying Limiteds
Max Clothing Items Per Account
Captcha to Upload Assets
Duplicate Clothing Filter
Recaptcha by Google
