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#852

Admission is based on nominations made by pre-existing UGC program members. How would I know this? I’m friends with three people within the program and have designed countless hats which have been sold by Trus.
Unless you know any of the UGC devs who are willing to put your name on the document, you’ve got really slim chances of getting noticed.
The game was rigged from the start against smaller content creators who haven’t built up a large fanbase or networked with the big guys in the scene.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, admission into the UGC program for roblox’s outreach programs like their expansion into the Chinese market is based on merit and talent rather than connections. In order to get access to the program for Chinese Roblox, everyone is given a level playing field where they submit their models in for a contest.

Sources: https://forum.robloxdev.cn/t/topic/95

https://roblox.qq.com/designer/index.html…

I just find it funny how we are forced to network and essentially beg someone with connections to put us onto a document to be reviewed instead of going through a more open ended contest. Roblox clearly has the capabilities of hosting said contests, but we are forced to slog through this process they’ve created for us.

I’m a bit curious to why they have different standards for applying for UGC.

9 Likes
#853

I’m very excited for the day that you allow smaller developers/creators to make UGC items too (If that day will come), It’s an absolutely insane way to make absurd amounts of money incredibly easily, and it could help out developers a ton! :smile:

6 Likes
#854

When will UGC be available, for everyone or are there Requirements?
If It’s for everyone to use then where and how will we upload hats?
Is it a template for hats?
But so far Roblox, You’re doing good! Keep it up Roblox! :roblox:

8 Likes
#855

This is extremely helpful. I always wished for there to be a category for us to scroll through User Generated Content, instead of filling in the creator thing with a specific creator.
This is really helpful.

6 Likes
#856

This looks and sounds amazing.
I as a scripter, am also learning 3D modeling so I eventually can also release UGC content, I’ve kind of always wanted to make my own hats and listen to suggestions of people on what to make, something to keep me busy, and might be able to make people happy with some nice UGC creations that originally didn’t exist or users could only dream of wearing/having.

5 Likes
#857

You know any pre-existing UGC program members who can nominate me :c

5 Likes
#858

image

Here, let me twist my point towards you: You don’t care about what I’m saying, you angrily opposed UGC because it’s a scapegoat towards the price of your precious limiteds falling; when in reality there are a number of factors (including Roblox heavily neglecting limiteds)

My point is that just because there’s a limited tophat, it doesn’t mean someone can’t make an entirely different tophat; ditto fedoras, crowns, bandannas, shades (the ‘clockwork clones’ you provided are blatantly not lmao), headphones, or antlers.

Your arguments are deeply flawed and based on emotion rather than fact and logic.

19 Likes
#859

If this is actually the way Roblox is going about adding people to the program, why don’t they at least come out and actually confirm it? It should be noted that there hasn’t been any public information on the program since it’s announcement nearly a year ago, which is what has lead to widespread confusion throughout the community.

Also, as shown by this example, just because you are helping out another user that’s in the program does not mean you have a better chance at getting an invite. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a good idea to encourage users to try and do this when it ultimately ends up being circumstantial between the two users.

I just wish that Roblox would at least give us something, anything, when it comes to an official update on the UGC program.

This wouldn’t be nearly as huge of a problem if they wrote a blog post each month in regards to updates to the UGC program (something I suggested nearly 10 months ago), or at least had an actual staff member replying to comments of concerned/confused users here.

9 Likes
#860

Either my friends are pulling my leg, or this is the legitimately what they’ve been doing for adding people to the program.
I don’t think they are lying cause in the past, Roblox has relied on the inner circle nomination process for their other programs.

The original recruitment process for the Dev Forum in the early days was just like this. The first wave of people were trusted members picked by the staff. They eventually ended up with a nomination system where pre-existing members would end up making “nomination” threads for people who they wanted into the forum.

Want further evidence?
Check the friends of the UGC devs who weren’t apart of the 1st wave of people.
Guys like John and Capone are close to Trus and Ship Arc

1st/2nd batch of users were all people who have worked with Roblox in the past.

7 Likes
#861

Want further proof of the nomination process?
Full thread :Please add a UGC application process - #8 by AshCr4ft

Check out what Dev Forum Member “CaptainJadeAndFlames” has to say

The nomination process is very real.
In the thread, they’ve mentioned multiple developers mentioning on twitter confirming that there is a nomination process.

Multiple tweets made by UGC devs continue to reference a “nomination” process.
I have the literal screenshots from my conversations with trus further confirming this. If you want to continue ignoring the blatant evidence of the nomination process, go ahead.

The entire process was rigged from the start.

Anyone who didn’t religiously follow the UGC devs on twitter would have never seen those tweets referring to the nomination process. Be real, do you honestly think that UGC devs are gonna nominate everyone who begs them to be nominated for UGC?

The entire process of admission reeks with favoritism and nepotism.
Unless you are buddy buddy with any of the developers, good luck getting your name onto that document.

9 Likes
#862

Hmm… Yeah, as I said, I was prepared to be proven wrong, and I think to an extent I have been. However, 26k was still significantly more than the Denizen, from my own understanding (yes, my full knowledge of trading non-existent hats has come from reading through this thread so there’s a good chance I’m wrong). So, though my initial thought that this was purely on the veblen affect might be wrong, if I’ve got it right that the denizen was much less, I think it shows that to a degree, demand for the fedora is there because of it’s crazy price.

On a separate note, I’m curious about why there was another larger dip in that graph later, do you have a hypothesis for it/ is there a way I can find those graphs?

Edit: If large dips like these are often, it shows we have a correlation, not causation between the value of expensive hats and this announcement, meaning I will stick to my original thesis of it being a Veblen good.

6 Likes
#863

Now hold on, if you’re gonna drag me into this thread I’d ask you don’t jump to conclusions. As far as I’ve seen, just because you get a fair amount of support from those in the program doesn’t mean it’s an easy path to getting in. I’ve gotten a fair amount of support sent my way, and here I am still not able to upload UGC.

You also seem to exclude my mention of the #RobloxUGC tag, which implies to people in this thread that the system is solely based on nominations. As far as I know this is more setup to gather info on people who have the skills to create good items, rather than one founded upon connections. It’s a system which needs work to let us come to Roblox via applications rather than vice versa, but I don’t see anything which would leave me to believe it’s rigged.

4 Likes
#864

So there is nothing off about the nominations process being mentioned only three times on twitter and never brought up again?

I dunno man
I feel like that information was left buried for a reason.
The fact that there is virtual radio silence about that topic really says something.
That and the fact that Artoru mentioned in the other thread that they are bound by NDA to not mention specific things.

Put two and two together
what do you think is the forbidden knowledge

4 Likes
#866

I just think that there is something morally wrong with the fact that this information was essentially kept hidden from the public since it was only referenced like what 3 times on twitter.

All three tweets were super obscure so no one realistically would have caught wind of it.

Not sure how you think a closed community nominations couldn’t possibly be rigged, cause it can easily be manipulated in many ways.

1.People will obviously vote in their friends first.
This ends up forming a voting bloc that heavily dictates who gets in or not. As more people from one friend group are added, they become a larger part of the voting pool and can easily turn the tide in a nomination

2.You basically need to be on good terms with the UGC devs
Soured up a relation with a UGC dev in the pass and they still hate you for it?
Don’t think for a second that they won’t try to veto your nomination.

3.Market Control
Say for instance your niche as a UGC developer is churning out items that pander to the otaku fandom. Would you like more competition appearing on the market and drawing away your customers/occupying ideas?

A smart entrepreneur would obviously veto any candidate who could threaten their market for maximum profit.

But hey hey hey
people would never do that right?

It makes 0 sense why roblox would refuse to do a contest for UGC like what they’ve done for chinese roblox.

Instead, we gotta go through this nomination process

Also, your little #twitter hashtag statement can also be heavily rigged.
Thanks to the twitter algorithm, smaller developers are once again handicapped in this regards.

Your tweets will be pushed to the top of a hashtag based on how many people interact with your tweets.

If you are a new developer, or don’t bot likes/retweets, or don’t have anyone endorse your tweets.

Your #UGC tweets will be buried and virtually unseen.

9 Likes
#867

I just don’t feel it’d be best to assume. Are the nominations a system where the popularity of a specific user is what determines if they get in, or if it’s just information on someone which is added alongside whoever Roblox finds?

If you’re sorting by popularity, sure, but there are other ways to dig through tweets tagged #RobloxUGC. You can sort by the latest and see every tweet in sequential order, or use a third party client which can gather all of the tweets. Roblox has had contests on Twitter in the past where they needed to gather all the entries replying to a tweet, and mixed in was a fair amount of “wacky entries” replying with images unrelated to the contest.

Not denying that things could be better, just not sure I can agree unless there’s something more concrete for me to trust.

5 Likes
#868

Just saw this on the most recent UGC thread, which seems to be gaining more attention than this thread currently

This right here is exactly what I feared. ROBLOX basically signing these creators to NDAs so that they can control what they can/cant say about the program.

This seems to be a reoccurring trend when it comes to ROBLOX releasing just about anything nowadays, they put out minimal information and when under criticism, they just shelter in and act like everything is perfectly fine when it clearly isn’t.

Want an example of this not pertaining to UGC? Take a look at the mess that’s currently the first building contest in years in which people have asked very legitimate questions and have gotten zero answers.

I mean heck, they didn’t even care to reply to the most recent topic pertaining to UGC, in which members that have worked with UGC creators, Community Sages, and UGC creators themselves have all replied with some sort of criticism.

It’s honestly a complete joke at this point. I’ve come to expect nothing from a company that I once dreamed of working for, and I find that extremely sad. I really hope they realize they are driving away more users than they are bringing in by doing this.

6 Likes
#869

It just makes 0 sense why they won’t do an open ended contest like what they did for Chinese Roblox.

They clearly don’t lack the resources since they are currently hosting a new studio only build contest.

But nah, instead we gotta use the alternative method which only benefits
1.people with connections
2.popular people

If what you say is true and that they rely on twitter hashtags in addition to a nomination, then popularity and connections definitely plays a huge part in boosting your content to the top.

This is honestly just a replay of the dev forum nominations which ended up with guys nominating their friends and blocking off guys they didn’t like/thought were competition.

The evidence is pretty concrete already imo.
Developers have mentioned a nominations process and the existence of a nominations channel on some discord server.

This is further backed up by the scarce amount of information that exists and the fact that guys in the program are saying they are bound by NDA to not give out further details. Notice how there is a virtual radio silence on the topic of nominations and how only select people knew about it?

Put 2 and 2 together and you’ll realize they are specifically referring to a nomination process.

4 Likes
#870

Before you panic too much, the reason we signed an NDA is because the program is constantly changing, so anything we could say that’s definitive one week could be changed the next week. It’s still a beta program. Confusing, contradictory, and inconsistent information is worse than a “wait for us to provide more info” as far as Roblox is concerned.

Just wanted to provide some nuance. I still want more devs in the UGC program, as I stated in that post.

12 Likes
#871

This was probably the most depressing turn of events but to essentially recap what we managed to unearth today, we found out that admission into the UGC program is absurdly biased towards less famous developers with minimal connections. (I will elaborate more on this later in the flaws section).

Admission Process

1.Nominations from a secret channel on their private discord server

2.You #UGC twitter posts.

Nominations

As seen in this tweet, UGC Dev “DieSoft” tweets out that they are looking for candidates for the private UGC nomination channel on their exclusive discord.

DieSoft further confirms the existence of a nomination channel.

Trus also mentions the existence of a nomination process

What I find funny is the fact that this information for a nomination process was never publicly announced, but rather directed at certain users. Twitter works in a away where tweets to replies rarely show up on a person’s timeline unless they are heavily interacted with, as opposed to normal tweets which show up normally on the timeline.

Twitter Hashtags

Again from the same post, DieSoft states that they are monitoring the hashtags related to roblox UGC.

And now, onto the inherent flaws with the design of this admission process

Flaws

You’d think that Roblox would have learned about the flaws of a closed community nomination process from their previous dev forum nominations but I digress.

Room for Bias

It is pretty obvious that pre-existing UGC members are going to nominate their friends first. Don’t think this won’t happen? Look at the newest UGC devs like Capone and John, they are close friends with 1st wave UGC members. Voting in your friends was quite common place back when the Dev forum had the nomination process.

There is more evidence beyond simple friend list coincidences.
Every tweet that references the nomination process was a “reply” instead of a normal tweet.

Reply tweets are scarcely ever displayed on a person’s profile or another person’s timeline due to how twitter works unless they are heavily interacted with. This greatly limited the exposure of this information. Anyone who didn’t religiously stalk the developers would have never known of this process.

Notice how no developer has publicly announced the nomination process?
They’ve purposefully tried to keep it on the down low and have only informed select individuals whom they are friends with via reply tweets or discord dms. This was of course done to give these select people a better chance as they wouldn’t have to compete with a deluge of applicants

This eventually forms a voting blocc made up of your close friends which can easily turn the tide in a vote for nominating new members in. This can easily be weaponized to block off other users or fast track people in due to sheer weight in numbers.

Market Control

Say for instance your niche as a UGC developer is churning out items that pander to the otaku fandom. Would you like more competition appearing on the market and drawing away your customers/occupying ideas?

A smart entrepreneur would obviously veto any candidate who could threaten their market for maximum profit.

But hey hey hey
people would never do that right?

Emphasis on Connections over Talent

In order to be put onto the nomination list/channel, you need to have your tweets be seen and have connections with the right kind of people who are willing to put your name and portfolio onto the nominations channel.

Due to how Twitter’s algorithm works, if you have a small or non-existent follower-base on twitter, your tweets will be buried at the bottom and never be seen. You can increase your odds of having your tweet be seen by

1.Having some big twitter user retweet you
2.Botting for likes and dislikes
3.Promoting tweets using cash on twitter

If you don’t have a large fanbase, have someone endorse you, or spend real world money on twitter, you are out of luck for being seen. This is a severe handicap to newer developers who haven’t built up a fanbase or networked with any of the big wigs.

You basically need to be on good terms with the UGC devs

Soured up a relation with a UGC dev in the pass and they still hate you for it?
Don’t think for a second that they won’t try to veto your nomination.

tl;dr

You basically need to either be super popular on twitter in order to have your tweets be seen at the top of the ugc hashtag, or essentially brown nose your way into having someone in the program endorse and nominate you.

It was rigged from the start against smaller developers
A lot of developers in the program preach about wanting to be inclusive and all that jazz to appear amicable and that they are standing with us in solidarity.

But I’m gonna be real with you.
The fact that the information of the nomination process was essentially only given to a select few people really speaks volumes into how much these developers really care about “inclusion”.

23 Likes
#872

This still doesn’t change the fact that Roblox hasn’t said a single thing publicly about the program (at least, in English from what I can now see) since announcing it’s existence at RDC last year.

This is an awful strategy for creating a public image for the program, not much more I can say. Not to mention you are still calling this a ‘Beta Program’ when users from other countries (Particularly China) have received emails basically pandering to the fact that users can make ‘hundreds of thousands off a single virtual item!’. It’s rather clear Roblox is attempting to grab as much cash from the program that they can rather than releasing to the public.

It’s one thing for the members of the program to be signed to NDAs, it’s another when those users signed to NDAs are still giving out more information about the program than Roblox itself. Something fundamentally has to be changed about the way Roblox addresses its vast majority of users, because the current way of not saying anything at all (not just in this instance either, as I already stated in my last post) clearly isn’t working.

7 Likes