Text Filtering - What needs to be filtered and what does not have to

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
1

Hi! I will just get to the point. I will list “things” and you just tell should I filter it or not and why.

Server Names

Friendly name that is assigned to every game instance. They are shown to the player whenever he/she opens the menu. They are stored in an external database that is controlled by us.
Now there is a problem. If I need to filter it, how? What player ID use? The ID of the first one (Server name is assigned at server start)? If yes, how can I get it? By game.Players:FindFirstChildWhichIsA("Player").UserId ?

Warn reason

It is entered by our moderators in-game in our admin panel or directly in the database. (which is also controlled by us) Because data can be changed in the database, I think they should be filtered in the process of GUI (which will contain these reasons) creation but I would like not to allow mods to enter reasons that will show up as You have been warned because blah blah blah...######...blah blah blah so I want to give them error (and not “send” warn) when text will be filtered…that means that I need to filter it two times! (I think I just answered myself)

Gear names

Admins can add whitelisted (Toolbox items that get checked if they do not have backdoor) gears to their backpack. In the admin panel, they see lists of their names. I don’t think It should be filtered because 1. It is only visible by admins 2. Names are just tool name (visible in explorer) and if you add it to the player, he/she will see it and you do not need to filter it (or Roblox does it automatically).

Ok. I think this is all…ufff.
Thanks for helping!

2

To answer your question, anything that one player can type that can be visible to other players must ALWAYS be filtered, regardless of how many people will see it. If it’s something that only that player will see then filtering isn’t necessary.

You could have dynamic filtering where the server filters the text based off of the player who’s gonna see it (But this only works if the server is sending something to the client). If the server itself is displaying something that a player created, then you must filter it for everyone appropriately.

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3

So…gear names are not typed by player, warn names are so they needs to but what with server names? Should I filter it everytime player gonna see it (it will be always the same)?

4

Gear names (I believe) in studio aren’t affected by text filtering but Roblox will moderate your game or account if anything is named inappropriately.

If by “server names” you mean lobbies that player’s created then you can have the server filter it one time and leave it [TextFilterResult | Roblox Creator Documentation] (unless it’s edited later on).

5

No, they are not created/named by players. They are randomly assigned to every game instance (not lobby) by our external server.

6

I’d recommend still filtering it (just to be on the safe side).

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7

Ya, but idk what PlayerID to use?

8

Since there’s no really no correct way to do this because there isn’t a particular user, I’d just say use this:

Basically:
Client (Ask for text) → Server (Filters the text based off of the client) → Returns the text back to the client → Client (displays text).

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