For context, minimodding on the forum was first addressed with this thread back in 2020, and a rule was introduced as a result. However, I’ve recently seen an uprise in users minimodding, specifically in Bug Reports. I think this important rule has been forgotten and needs to be reinforced. I’ve included the relevant ones below.
I’ve seen users call out reports for being duplicates and lacking information. The weird thing here is that usually mods close the report but fail to acknowledge the minimodding. I’ve also seen debates on reports about whether an issue is a bug or not. Regardless of experience, users shouldn’t be allowed to do these things; It’s the engineers’ or OP’s place. Of course, trying to help the OP and making suggestions is ok but telling the OP what to do without being staff is not. I won’t include examples here in order to not call out users.
If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my and others’ experience on the forum by reducing minimodding. Minimodding is destructive by implicitly impersonating staff and discouraging users from posting. It can also cause reports to be closed that aren’t necessarily duplicates and/or have helpful information. This is very disruptive to the bug reporting process. Engineers and staff are competent enough to handle reports themselves.
Recent note by the OP:
As of 5/20/25, a private message is associated with this feature request
I haven’t seen anyone impersonating staff, let alone implying they’re on the mod team, so I’m curious what made you say that was an issue.
Additionally, I think people tend to prefer to also call out users opposed to only reporting and moving on, because a lot of the time (especially in Development Discussion) there is a noticeable lack of moderation with lots of rule breaking posts staying up for several hours, even days on end (if not forever) which sets a very bad example for others (something something broken window theory) so openly pointing out that users are breaking rules and showing which ones in particular would let other users know what is wrong and why they shouldn’t do it.
Just don’t tell people to actually read the rules, I got told that was encouraging bad practices…
I’m aware of the common misuse of Development Discussion, but it’s still not very productive to repeatedly post about the rules on threads that misuse it. Doing this is technically spam, so you’re breaking the rules yourself (please refer to the thread that I included for context). If a user doesn’t read the pinned guidelines for a category intentionally by choice, they’re going to probably break the rules anyway and might not even care. Just flag and move on because staff are the only ones who actually can do anything about it. The problem isn’t occasionally pointing out the rules; The problem is when it happens on a regular basis. When it’s reoccurring, it can make it seem that one has actual authority. This might trick some users into thinking they’re actually staff. Also, some users mimic the behavior that they observe and might start minimodding themselves because they think that it’s ok. I usually don’t discuss topics like this, so trust me that I have my reasons. Over the past week, I’ve experienced a situation that made me realize how much this behavior can spiral out of control through things like excessive censorship, and I found it to be disturbing. One purpose of this feature request is to protect new users, especially new bug reporters, from potentially falling victim to the negative consequences of this behavior.
Somewhat of a sensational post, next to none of these “mini-modders” actually claim to have any special power over these users. At worst, they might flaunt their ability to flag you over it, which is a nuisance to anyone without a stick up their ass. Oftentimes, and I would say more commonly across categories, users use minimodding as an alternative to flagging (or at least an alternative to threatening to flag the user). Nor do I think this can be shown to have any significant effect on users willingness to make posts.
I do agree, however, that both general minimodding and especially this “stick-up-the-ass” mentality need to be punished more often. Unfortunately there isn’t and never has been a team large and active enough to put much focus onto these issues. Moreover, in the old ruleset, minimodding was cited as generally being worthy of a feedback message, nothing more.
You also note that mods will often close a bug report but not take down examples of minimodding in the post. It’s been a pretty common trend for years that the mods don’t indiscriminately take action on users in a thread that was already offending and has been closed.
If I had any say, I would make a feature that notifies someone leaving a reply that includes phrases like “wrong category,” “duplicate” or “flagged” to DM the user instead, in a popup similar to the ones that warn you about necro’ing threads. Would it solve the issue? No. but at least it would make it a little more clear.
Aren’t you kind of mini-modding the mini-modders by making this post about mini-modding?
Doesn’t this mean I’m also mini-modding you for making this post about mini-modding, which is mini-modding the mini-modders for mini-modding?
How much mini-modding would a mini-mod mod if a mini-mod could mod mini-mod?
All very valid questions.
Jokes aside, just because someone informs a user they posted in the wrong category does not mean they are “impersonating staff”. The badge on a staff members profile is very clear in show who is and is not a staff member.
Minimodding is an act that has been uprising a lot lately in the forum where a forum user tries enforce something without themselves having the authorities as they are not a moderator or a staff.
From what I have seen in the replies, I think the perspectives are mixed… Telling people what category the OP should post is fine. And it is true, as you are suggesting and trying to help others. However, what @Proven_Right is trying to say is that obligating the OP to do things is different. And you can differ by both approaches and tones.
Before this feature request was made, it was stated by a Roblox employee that the forum user shouldn’t define what is a “dupe” (short term for “duplicate”). It should be OP’s and engineers’ responsibility:
I have seen some engineers doing this and they are doing the correct thing. I understand that it is not all of them that does, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be also reinforced internally for their policies too.
This rule is no longer present and was removed in the new rules update IIRC.
Total exaggeration here. Nobody is impersonating staff whatsoever.
Is there an instance of this happening? Normally people provide proof before saying a bug report is a duplicate. Also, doesn’t this help engineers prevent triaging the same issue multiple times?
Fair, but the final decision is ultimately up to the engineers. These users help them identify that there is a similar post and judge it themself. Devforum search isn’t perfect.
These rules are still valid and pinned as described by this announcement.
I elaborated upon this in another post. This point is more implicit. Please also refer to the thread that I included for context.
Please refer to Juan’s post above for this.
In general, there isn’t much valid justification for minimodding. If it’s against the rules, then it shouldn’t be allowed. Please read this whole thread and references because I think it’ll help clear up some of your confusion.
Also, where there does it state that the old rules still apply? That defeats the entire purpose of creating a new post when they could just reword the old rules in the original post.
In-fact, this states that they were removed and you should follow the ones that overlap with the Community Standards instead, which I don’t think has anything relating to minimodding.
Moderators using old rules was also stated to be a policy issue aswell.
It’s irrelevant where it’s posted, and as said above some of these posts help inform/advise moderators. (Such as linking a post you believe to be a duplicate.)
The new rules are largely a cleaning up of the old rules; it would be quite convoluted to clean up a thread of dozens of replies, so they simply made a new post.
The language is different, much more brief and vague, but the concepts are the same. Minimodding was considered a form of spam. Spam is still against the rules. Therefore, minimodding is most likely still against the rules. If not? This IS a bug report, after all. The idea is for action to be taken.
I’m aware of this, but I don’t remember seeing anyone saying “This post is a duplicate. Flagged.” in the first place. From what I’ve seen they respectfully state that the post is a duplicate and link to the original post for engineers to decide what to do.
It’s definitely a common problem across the forum. I’m not going to go scouring for examples so you can believe me or not. It doesn’t change my point, or OPs point. Nobody is referring to linking duped topics or similar posts for engineers.
I think most of you are missing the point of this request. I’m not against small things like trying to help the OP by suggesting them to move a topic to another category, elaborate upon the title, etc. The problem is when a user is being overbearing, imposing, and interfering with others’ threads. I’m mainly referring to the situation with Bug Reports. Mods are currently locking a lot of reports before engineers are able to review them. Now, I’m not sure if a user or group of users are working together to trick mods (or are working with a few mods too) to take these reports down with malicious intent. This is my main concern of what should probably be investigated. I’m going to wait for a staff response here. If they say it’s an invalid concern, that’s ok.
I don’t see any harm in people asking for more info on the bug or duplicates. On the contrary, it would help mods and engineers by them already having the info they need. Also, if you don’t mind, could you show me a singular case in which bad intent is visible?
Also, as far as you saying minimodding is leading to the topics being locked, that’s not exactly the reason. Through what you’re calling minimodding, more info is being brought out. Topics begin getting locked when they get flagged, not when people just only reply asking for more info or stating this was a duplicate.
