After all, you can’t spell badge without bad.
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I’d like the badge idea, will separate the reals from the fakes.
I have to disagree with being part of the devforum not being an achievement. It’s not an achievement in the sense of an xbox achievement, sure, but anyone here has still achieved something: all of us have passed the requirements to be here. While those ‘requirements’ are not strict, they do have the intention of choosing users with development skills or with important positions in the ROBLOX community, which means users more likely to make R$ and more likely to have valuable accounts.
The nature of these forums, the secrecy and communication with ROBLOX administrators, make it very easy for users that are not part of these forums, especially kids, to assume that members have more power than normal users.
The two problems I see stemming from these two statements are:
- Targetting by scammers, due to the first statement
- Impersonation by scammers, due to the second statement
The problem with a mandatory badge is that it fixes #2, while contributing to #1.
I think informing users more about the devforums is one of the best options. Informing users as to how devforum members don’t have the power to ban warn, modify others’ games, assets, or groups, and cannot ban, deny or blacklist other forum members or potential forum members will probably do a lot to make make impersonators unsuccessful.
Other methods don’t solve the problem at its root. Even with mandatory badges, a scammer could say “my friend on the devforums will ban you.” The only way for users to feel safe is if they know that devforum members cannot do such things.
So, concerning the main topic/question, I am not for mandatory badges, as they take away members’ choice to keep their devforum status private and don’t solve the problem at its root.
Optional badges are a sort-of neat idea, I think, and I wouldn’t mind them, but it will likely counteract some information users are given: users are meant to believe that devforum members don’t have authority, but badges will make them think we do.
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The only problem I see with this are, thr whole reason for creating a badge would be to prove identity. If badges were optional nothing is to stop a non-DevForum member claiming to be in the forums yet chose to opt out of the badge scheme. Then we’re kind of back at the drawing board with the problem still occurring.
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Exactly. I don’t think they’re a solution. I think they’re only a sort-of neat idea just because badges can be a cool thing. All a scammer has to do is say “my devforum friend will blacklist/ban/delete/whatever you” and any sort of badge won’t work.
Edit: No method of verifying a user is a devforum member will work on its own because all a scammer has to do to get around that is say “my devforum friend”. Even with mandatory badges, if users are uninformed then the scammer can just say “I asked for it to be removed but I’m still a member.” Users need to know that devforum members have no extra privileges. That’s the only solution I see that will make most cases of scamming based on claiming to be a member/friend of a member/etc unsuccessful.
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That’s an approach that could work also. If people were made aware we have no form of administrative powers then maybe that could contribute to a solution, or may work all together.
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I agree. A large part of solving the probably would be to educate the users. The question that remains is what the best way to do that is. A sticky post in the public forum section would educate at least those who are interested in joining the forums, but those who don’t know how to get to that section would still be at risk of getting caught out by these schemes.
I disagree. Most scammers seem to be out for pure Robux value, and browser extensions such as Roblox+ conveniently display the accounts’ total value on their profile. I highly doubt that RBXDev members specifically would be a target. For example, I’ve rarely ever had anyone even attempt to scam me. It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a member here, but the last time someone tried was 3 years ago. My account isn’t high value, so they don’t even try. @DataSynchronized, on the other hand, whose account has a total value in the neighborhood of 700,000 R$, gets a few people trying to scam her every week. I don’t think there’s a correlation between being a member here and the likelihood of a scam attempt. Big developers of popular games will always be clear targets, as is anyone who has tons of highly valuable items in their inventory.
The ones who aren’t out for monetary value and want work done for free won’t be able to use such schemes on us because we’re a member here and any fake links or screenshots they send can be debunked by us at the click of a button.
On top of that, I’d expect that any members here would be less likely to fall for a scam scheme than other users.
While I agree that a badge isn’t necessarily the ideal solution to the given problem, it would eliminate the particular scheme I’ve outlined originally while presenting no additional risk to us. Those who abuse their possession of such a badge would just have it revoked instantly. Problem solved.
I fully agree with both these points.
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Quick review of this thread:
I AGREE!
NO I DISAGREE!
Quite funny imo.
Now for the cereal:
I don’t know what @VolcanoINC’s friend is doing where s/he can’t see devforum profiles, but I’ve logged into alternative accounts and have been able to view profile information just fine. Simply pasting a link of your devforum profile on your ROBLOX profile should suffice enough for anyone whose interested in verifying facts. As for the scammers and kids falling to them, there’s not much you can do. You can write any program to stop people from scamming, but you also take away freedoms from legitimate users. The only true way to prevent this problem is to 1) introduce human element into the judgement process or 2) introduce artificial super intelligence capable of scanning the site and using judgement to prevent the issue, and the latter isn’t very likely at this time.
So, to sum it up, there needs to be a better system than simply depending on “Report Abuse”, however any attempts to implement such idea would cause disadvantages to our freedom to do unless someone is able to create life on a computer (which may happen sooner or later!). Leave it alone as is, and just paste your RBXDev profile on ROBLOX, and point out the “new user”/“member” difference.
Non-members have the rank of “new user”, which can mislead other non-members into believing that person is an actual member.
How about report abuse actually working
Working or not, the first part of the system (the important part) is getting the report submitted. After that is a different situation. I can assure you, if the information was there, something would happen about it. However, most of the time the information is never received, and even if it is, it probably isn’t enough.
I believe there is a page on here which describes the permissions. Maybe it was Badges? I’m not positive … however, if I find it, I’ll edit it into this post.
The whole reason this is an issue is because non-members aren’t doing (and shouldn’t have to) thorough research on who’s a RBXDev member or not, and you’re suggesting they do even more research?
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I’m suggesting we do our best to provide them the research. Will it fix the problem? Absolutely not. Can it be considered a solution? Probably not. However, the likelyhood of us getting a dedicated “RBXDeveloper” badge or anything of the sort is slim. If someone wants to go through the troubles of creating a custom Players List which scrapes this website to see if someone is an actual member or not, be my guest (I’m thinking of doing something like that, but not doing it right now).
My suggestion is to put something like this in all of our profiles:
Official member of ROBLOX Developer Forums!
http://devforum.roblox.com/users/reinitialized/
IFAWIKIEDITORISHEREPLEASEMAKEAWIKIPAGEEXPLAININGDEVFORUMPERMISSIONS
hi im rein this is my profile yayIf a wiki editor is around, do they mind creating a Wiki Page explaining the Trust Levels on ROBLOX Developer Forums? It should point out how to tell, what each trust level means, and should make it EASIER to identify an actual DevForum member.
On top of all of that, is this an official solution? NO, and I don’t expect it to be. However, if anyone else has any better idea than discussing the implementation of a RBXDev badge, feel free to slap my face with words.
Rename “new user” to “guest” or “visitor”
Now there’s no longer any need for a word wall of explaining and researching to do since the rank names are self-explanatory.
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The problem that remains is that this solution is still somewhat obscure. Yes, they can check the profiles, but as this and many examples show, they don’t even know this is possible. In the end, this isn’t much different than some text or a special icon shown on our ROBLOX profiles, except that it isn’t nearly as obvious. Yes, they can check, but they don’t know how, and that’s where part of the problem lies.
In addition to that, there’s still the problem that many users believe that being in RBXDev grants some form of authority.
Well, if it’s a problem in-game, do something similar to what Miner’s Heaven does. Although it only checks the RBXDev group, it still verifies they’re a member by showing it in the chat. Of course, that only works in games you control or have influence in, and not everyone will be on board with that idea.
I know you and DataSync are working on a project called SyncAdmin. Make a plugin which identifies who’s in RBXDev or not. Does it solve everything? No, but at least it helps for those who use your project.
Look, I understand all my solutions aren’t “real” solutions, but they help. Until someone can come with a better solution, or we get “RBXDev” badges or whatever, we can only try to do our best. Apologizes if it’s not the exact response you’re looking for. :Q
Yeah, it wasn’t meant as a solution to that. It was meant as a solution for an unfriendly wiki page explaining what the rank on someone’s dev profile meant.
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mate apply4elite noobs of robloxia, yo
This suggestion is something that probably would come up some day as it seems fair to some people we should have a badge to prove we’re not fake, I believe some also see it as some reward but I don’t believe that’s a good enough point.
About what the intern said, that it will ruin the whole concept of RBXDev I do not agree with at all. I’m not for the idea to have a badge but it won’t ruin anything, it will probably make people wanting to become RBXDev more. I’m neutral in this since I don’t see any reason to have a badge, but I don’t see any reason why not.
That’s true, but I don’t believe we’re that inactive. We make some kind of progress and that’s what matters.
A badge would make more people for sure to join, but if that is what really want is another question.
This group goes after quality and not quantity of members.
I want to bring this topic back up again.
I still feel as if there should be a badge saying that you are an RBXDev member, as it stops impersonation.
I’ll even make the badge if it comes down to that.
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