As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to use the forum because people continuously make irrelevant and, for the most part, stupid posts on the forum continuously.
What’s even worse is when it happens in the case scenario when moderators aren’t online the forum, allowing the user to continuously post over and over again until finally recognized by staff hours later.
There have been many topics addressing this issue, even one that got acknowledged by Roblox staff. However, permanent methods will take time to implement and think about since a lot of the ideas brought up have flaws that can make the system unfair or challenging to use.
That’s why I feel that there should be a harsh but temporary solution to this ongoing problem.
Today, a user has been making several posts that are either off-topic, insulting, or just troll posts. None of the moderators have been online, so this user has been flooding #development-discussion with brain cell-killing posts for the past hour…and staff still have not acknowledged it.
There should be a system implemented where if a user’s post gets flagged, they can’t post until their flagged post gets acknowledged by staff. Once it gets acknowledged, they can go back to posting. It may be harsh, but after seeing this user spam posts for the past hour with nothing stopping them, I feel that such a feature should be added as a temporary solution to at least reduce the clutter of spam posts before a more widespread and permanent solution is decided upon and added.
I’d really love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this because I want to look at it from everyone’s perspective.
A slight modification to your idea is to have a record of their flags, and only punish those with multiple flagged posts close-together. Otherwise, novice users may get tangled in this and be completely confused as to why they cannot post.
Also, their ability to message anyone shall be taken away as well in that “suspension” period because it’d be pretty bad if their trolling, offensive language, etc. is redirected to a personal level. Though, unfortunately, IDK if this can be done without a core change to the Discourse system.
Honestly irrelevant and troll topics are getting out of hand. Your idea is pretty good, but it’s a little rough. Maybe like a suspension based on what they posted? (Troll posts would get a longer suspension than someone who used the incorrect category) It would be a good thing toward the DevForum.
They can do this by making posts flagged as spam and inappropriate yield a longer suspension than posts marked as off-topic.
Novice users often read the rules and guidelines and if there is a rule like this, they would understand why they are unable to post. This is not a huge concern.
How do you mitigate against abuse from a group of people deliberately flagging a developer? Proactive protections should be provided, even if reactive measures exist.
Should this feature request take development resources from other ideas like above? I would say no. Automatic unlisting makes sense for now.
In the few months of my experience on the forum, I haven’t seen the flagging system weaponized by users who have personal distress over someone, so I didn’t consider it. However, if I must, then deciding whether or not to bring this punishment upon a user could be based on the time they’ve had the “Member” role. Assuming that most spammed posts are either from trolls on recently created alts or new users, it could decrease the likelihood of targeted flags.
On top of that, do what @TheCarbyneUniverse said and use the record of flags system:
In the years I’ve been here, I’ve seen strikes given out for malicious flagging, it’s rare but does occur.
The idea of mutliple flags together helps but I don’t think actually solves it. What stops a group of 5? 10? people just going to a users last 5 posts anf flagging them all?
This just feels like tape to a larger problem that over threads have attempted to look at, I don’t think this idea should get the development time required.
The concept is right, but think for example to those people whose posts are flagged several times by visitors who didn’t even read rules and guidelines, or to users who flag others’ posts because of rivalry or because of arguments that they had. I completely agree with the idea, but I think that this would be confusing and unmanageable.