https://www.roblox.com/catalog/4619894887/Penguin-Hood
https://www.roblox.com/catalog/24112667/Telamons-Chicken-Suit
Cmon man, this just isn’t right.
(The hat at the top is UGC, and one on the bottom was made by ROBLOX.)
tbh, there are a lot of copies of different hats on ROBLOX that UGC made, it feels like some of these hats are lowering the limited’s (or the originial version of the hat) price/value down tremendously.
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I think this should be fine, because it is not an exact replica. If this is not allowed, then everyone will lose more and more freedom, because everyone makes new things. In my opinion it should be encouraged to use people’s ideas to create new original content.
You could compare this example with spacex’s rocket. Just because nasa also has rockets does not mean spacex is not allowed to create their own rocket. That would be a disaster if you ask me.
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I know this Has 0 Creativity but The Point Of It Is At Least He Made The Model & Texture I Know The Base Idea Belongs To Roblox But The Penguin One Is Different It’s Not Exactly like The Chicken One
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I understand roblox’s wish to keep the UGC catalog to a small group of users, but why isn’t anyone else getting a chance to make UGC content? The first round was with users roblox had worked with before, but some other users have been added, but a lot of content on the UGC catalog is lazy, uncreative, and just retextures of other accessories. If roblox wants to add a few new members every now and then, then why not open up applications and select a few users from there? This would give a chance to talented 3d modelers who haven’t had a chance in the spotlight but clearly deserve it.
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Exactly.
The current UGC program is literally just a close group of friends voting in their friends. They don’t care about “promoting” developers, it is all about giving their friends access.
The fact that they tried to hide the nomination process really speaks volumes about their double standards for wanting to help the community grow.
Like cammon now, how can members of the UGC program continue to use the blatant excuse that they are bound to a NDA agreement to not elaborate on the admission process while at least three members of the program have admitted to the public on twitter.com that there is a nomination system in reply tweets.
Is this supposed to be public knowledge that there is a closed community nomination system or not?
If it is, how come no one has publicly made a tweet about it?
Or do they just not care about NDA violations and only bring up this agreement whenever convenient.
The double standards are very real.
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Do I need to begin mentioning how much R$ (that was devex’d ofc) was made from these items just because they can do it with no competition?
Screw it, let's begin
Shadowed Head - aka “I took the default head model and put a gradient over it 
” 387,166 Sales, R$13,550,810 or USD$47,427.84
Cartoony Bunny Ears - wait I have seen this before 282,039 Sales, strong textR$9,871,365 or USD$34,549.78
Doodle Devil Wings & Doodle Angel Wings - “yea, i’ll just modify the roblox model and take the guts out of it to create it, sure” - Collectively made R$9,581,740 or USD$33,536.1
This just shows us how lack of competition makes this unfair to the modelers who have worked their asses off and still, are not friends with Developer Relations (saying this the guy who is trying to get their attention for a few months with no success, sad) can not get into the UGC programme where they can possibly earn hunderds of thousands of USD.
I will update this post every day with 1 more example of how messed up this system is…
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It was always rigged against us from the start. Sure, it made sense that they’d only allow in people who had previously worked with Roblox since these were trusted community members. But it is quite clear that they’ve move past the first wave recruitment stage and are now essentially making decisions based on blatant favoritism and selectivism.
Notice how only select individuals were informed of the supposed “nomination” process by UGC developers and how UGC developers are unwilling to openly divulge information about said admission process in the public?
Any time you openly ask a UGC developer about how admission works, they give you the cookie cutter excuse that “the program is in beta” “we got a NDA agreement” so they can’t say anything about it, despite there being hard evidence of them essentially letting their friends in on it all before the general public. If they’ve already done it on twitter, what makes you think that they have’t privately dm’d their friends on discord about it.
Either they lack the the professional ability to abide by a NDA agreement, or they purposefully withheld this information from the public and only chose to help their friends out. Either answer is not exactly a good one. It either shows that these developers are unprofessional or that they really have no intentions on helping the community grow and only want to help their friends make some money. The very fact that they tried to sneak out this information in obscure reply tweets is already damning enough evidence that something ain’t right.
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You indeed are right, I expect this comment to be removed out of the sheer embarrassment of the staff/TC who are reading this, but…
This happens in so many other cases where the front-page guys basically control Roblox. For example, the promotion to Regular system… It is so flawed I can not even imagine, I have made countless of enemies for going against them and since they are the ones who “control” Roblox, I and many other people are left out.
THIS IS NOT THE ONLY CASE, THERE ARE MANY MORE THAT I JUST CAN’T BEGIN TO EXPLAIN, We are talking about a massive scale issue in here that should very well be addressed by Roblox, they are being intentionally vague about all of this and it is troubling for everyone who does not have a Roblox staff in their contacts list.
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I mean seriously… A youtuber legit copied a design and just put a gold colour on it. I am sorry but we have people who legit work hours, then youtubers who copy and upload for money. I mean…
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Imagine correlating one’s own inability to use a forum properly to a conspiracy of keeping people out of a particular forum rank. 
Do you even realise people get ranked up to Regular on this forum super regularly.
Regular is so easy to obtain and is automated. Please don’t compare it to an invite-only program like UGC which only has like 30-50 members (which is the amount of new Regulars every month or so, by the way) that earn insane amounts of money. It’s a completely different situation.
Let’s also stop with claiming TC is anything more than a fancy forum title. Top Contributor means absolutely nothing apart from “hey, your posts get a lot of attention”, in case you weren’t clear. Top Contributor do not affect anything about the forum, they have no say in forum policies, they don’t have a direct line to forum staff just for being Top Contributor, etc.
The latest responses to this topic are putting the emphasis completely in the wrong place.
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I’m honestly glad that a lot of people are finally starting to wake up to the awful truth that sits infront of them about the nature of the program.
I’m ashamed to say that I too was blinded by the prospects of getting into the program. I guess the last straw for me was seeing how many people were negatively impacted from the blatant lack of transparency and favoritism.
My journey started around the time the program began back in august last year when I started to help my friend Trus design various hats to upload for the UGC program.
(Note there are a few more ie the chinese new year collection not on the list). After helping him accumulate a vast amount of bread off of these sales, I was eventually told by him about the nominations process. I felt honored to have been given this information at first, I felt as if my hard work had finally payed off. He had always told me about wanting to give back to those who had helped him.
But then, I began to realize the full picture and the ramifications of a system built up on essentially favoritism and selectivism. I didn’t think too much of it at first, since it felt like a gesture done out of good faith until I started to hear whispers from other users that other developers in the program had essentially also given out this information to select individuals. This suspicion was further confirmed by the discovery of the three obscure tweets and the various friendlist/group connections between newly admitted members.
I started to get a feeling that something shady was going on behind the scenes when developers like Artoru began to openly state that they were under a NDA agreement to not be able to disclose any admission information while other developers had already divulged the process and admitted to the existence of a nomination discord channel. This discontinuity was already a sure fire sign that something was going on and I didn’t like it. The existence of this double standard on the spread of vital information didn’t sit well with me.
After the incident with the Forbidden Shark and the flamethrower, I had begun to lose faith in the program. Users have had been banned if not terminated outright in the past for similar violations on the platform, but nothing happened.
The discovery of the outreach competition in China was honestly what hit me the hardest. I was glad to see that Roblox was taking the more open and fair approach to getting new members into the program. You see, from where I come from in the People’s Republic of China; we got a thing called the “Gao Kao” which is essentially a standardized test that everyone takes for college/university admissions. It offered a level playing field for people to prove their worth. It measured one’s worth through one’s ability instead of through connections and favoritism by offering an open ended competition. The discovery of such a contest led me to question why we weren’t doing this type of open ended contest here for admission instead of relying on essentially favoritism. Roblox has already hosted MULTIPLE contests for UGC across their multiple outreach programs, why haven’t they given us this type of fair opportunity?
I eventually came to the conclusion that if any change was to be made to this obviously rigged system (as explained in my previous post), we would have to first voice our discontent.
So I chose to cut off my ties with my former friends in the program after a serious of unsavory actions enacted during and after the shark debacle and forfeit my position on the nominations. If I had not decided to do this, I’d essentially be supporting a corrupt system which has been proven to be biased and rigged against smaller developers. I’d much rather go down as a martyr then stay silent and watch this unfold. That’s what a real developer would do if they truly cared about the community at large.
Unlike certain developers who only mouth off about wanting to “help developers” and “be inclusive” for a good public image, I am more than willing to sacrifice my progress if it means addressing the flaws in this broken system. I’d much rather start at the bottom with my fellow developers instead of getting boosted to the top and partaking in a rigged game.
UGC started out with the intentions to promote developers and give modelers a chance at making the big bucks on the platform. In my opinion, it has just devolved into a tight group of friends helping out their friends get in on the action. I get that people want to help out their friends in life, but this is just ridiculous based on everything that has happened.
The sheer amount of contradictory statements and the deliberate selective distribution of information regarding admission into the program really speaks volumes about the intent of certain people in the program. Add on the fact that virtually no developers in the program have spoken out about the inherent flaws with using a twitter hashtag and a user nomination/debate channel which handicaps smaller developers who don’t have a vast web of connections and fans and you can assume that they don’t have the intentions on really being inclusive. Yall are great and talented people, but this just ain’t right.
It is all a big club and you ain’t apart of it.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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I think people are forgetting what the post initially stated. To quote the FAQ section of the first post made by @coefficients:
Q: When will new waves of developers be given access to this feature? How are the developers chosen?
A: We will be adding more developers in small waves throughout the rest of 2019 and 2020. For the initial group, we chose developers who we have worked with in the past who also have experience with 3D modeling. The criteria for future developers given access is an ongoing discussion.
As stated here, throughout 2019 and 2020, there will be a limited amount of users accepted into the program. Future developers and the way they get accepted along with what they need to be accepted is still under way. I think this was overlooked during the controversy. I was even reassured by a Developer Relations staff member that a way to open up UGC to others is being worked on. These things take time, and I think people are just a bit too eager to get involved. Because, hey, this can be life changing! And yes, I do believe that Roblox is not doing anything wrong here, although they could have handled the certain aspects a little bit better.
For starters, Roblox should have been transparent from the very start. They shouldn’t have kept this nomination process (which in itself is not inherently bad from what I mentioned above) a secret. Transparency is key, especially when you’re trying to reach out to thousands of small creators about a new program that can turn their life around.
Secondly, I believe that YouTubers and influencers should not be able to participate in this program unless they have definitive proof that they made the models themselves. The 20 or 30 dollars that these people pay artists to create models that make them thousands is not okay, and Roblox NEEDS to make this a rule.
TL;DR
Roblox’s nominations process is completely okay. They never lied to us or told us they were doing something but then did the opposite. They just haven’t been upfront about it, which isn’t a good thing of course. BUT, it isn’t terrible either. I think with time, Roblox will be more open about this program, but only time will tell. That’s my two cents on the recent controversy. 
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That quote is great, but it only explains that they chose people who they’ve worked with for the first group.
We are way past the first group now considering they’ve moved onto a nomination system which was supposed to remain a secret or something. We didn’t overlook that quote, that quotation is simply no longer exactly “valid” as we are no longer in phase 1. Nominations =/=handpicked
The overall lack of transparency, UGC developers giving out conflicting information, UGC developers giving exclusive information to friends, and ultimately having a nomination system that favors popularity over talent is the issue at hand. I’ve already pointed out the glaring concerns of de-facto market control, favortism, and the formation of voting blocs (which mind you did occur back when they had nominations for the dev forum). History is doomed to repeat itself due to those who are unwilling to listen and accept their mistakes.
They preach fondly of wanting to be inclusive and wanting to support developers, but everything that has occurred so far proves otherwise. This obviously could have been handled a lot better if Roblox or any staff member was more upfront about the situation.
But instead, we have drip fed information that was only granted to select friends of UGC developers and conflicting information being thrown around by other developers to stem the amount of potential applicants. The very fact that this occurred has already proven my point that they are playing the favorites game when deciding for nominating. Ask a developer about the process and they hit you with that “Muh NDA” excuse, as seen in this thread with artorus response.
Are we playing by cartoon rules now where legal jurisdictions only come into play when it suits the narrative?
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The program is invite only because it is still in beta, they are slowly expanding it and, in the end, will have the program open to the public.
It may be using a referral system currently and I personally don’t mind that; modellers are more likely to know other modellers and notice people posting high quality concepts than the avatar team.
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Are you off your box?
Roblox doesn’t have “favourites”, it’s a random algorithm based on random data. If Roblox had “favourites” then we would have bigger problems on our hands… They are meant to remain neutral…
I don’t see how someone’s join date or position can influence the algorithms??? Or even their friends???
what
you know there’s a reason for that right?
so people who make posts can’t destroy the category with posts like yours…
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Well, you’re onto me
David Bazooka told me to keep it a secret, he made me sign 8,352,724 NDAs just to see one fifth of his master evil vision for the future of UGC on Roblox, without any of the other admins knowing, totally favourited. Your post is a clinical example of why members won’t get access to anything remotely fun on this forum.
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At this point, the thread has just devolved into people pointing fingers at one another and making up blatant accusations.
I think now is a good time to recap on the real issues at hand.
Problems with UGC
1.Spotty enforcement of the supposed NDA agreement
-information was leaked out onto twitter as early as August of 2019 (literally at the start of the program).
-Confirmation of a “nominations channel”'s existence which allowed open banter was also leaked out onto twitter
2.Developers giving out conflicting information about the admission process
Some people gave out information, while others like Artoru said nothing because of the NDA agreement put in place.
3.Lack of transparency between the company and developers
-literally 0 public announcements of a nomination system being put in place
-all information had to be scourged up from twitter or through close friends
Problems with the Admission System
Twitter Hashtag Roundup
-Twitter algorithm favours popular and larger accounts. Their posts will be put at the top of the hashtag. Smaller account= no chance, enjoy being buried.
-Twitter can easily be manipulated by botting or buying promoted tweets
Nomination System
-Requires connections to pre-existing members. Aren’t friends with anyone? Tough luck.
-No real way to hold anyone accountable for a nomination. You’ll never know if they followed through or not.
Handicapping Smaller Developers
-Both the twitter hashtag roundup and nomination system favor players who have connections and popularity vs talent.
-No connections = No Nomination
-No large follower count or large user retweeting= No tweet traction/buried in the hashtag
Concerns
-Closed community nominations encourage favouritism. Who wouldn’t want to help their friends first?
People have already gone out of their way to violate NDA and only inform certain people (their friends) about the nominations system.
-Voting Bloc formation. More friends=more voting power simple as that
-Defacto market control. When the salesperson is able to determine who can partake in a free market, they are essentially able to set up a monopoly and block off competitors.
-Open nominations channel. If you can banter like Diesoft, chances are people are gonna take the opportunity to shoot down a nomination.
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Favoritism, my favorite.
There was a reason why the roblox removed the old process forum, it had some major flaws, like the first word I said; favoritism.
This blocks other talented creators, who can provide so much if allowed in on top of the already well made UGC team, but like most things, building the entire nomination process on, what is essentially a group of friends brings the flaw of bias.
There is a bias towards other people who are apart of your friend group, I’m also guilty of doing this, so is everyone else, it’s normal to do this. But this is a problem that roblox could’ve found a solution to, especially at this time when it was planned for release in 2017 (from what I know.) This bias creates a wall that quite frankly, quite a bit of creators cannot get over, due to the current UGC creators having a monopoly, and the rest of us creators just can’t be apart of that do the the favoritism of friends, and people who don’t threaten their market share severely.
tl;dr - it’s rigged for the creators already in, us creators who don’t have ties to UGC creators don’t have a chance in this “nomination process.”
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Yeah, it is already apparent that there is undeniable evidence of favourtism.
Look no further than the fact that developers in the program gave essentially two sets of answers depending on who asked them about the admission process.
The proof is already out there that certain developers gave their followers and friends insider information while leaving the rest of us high and dry.
How can a platform that champions inclusion allow for this type of behavior?
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Roblox really needs to respond to the controversy in this thread. If they don’t, it sure says a whole lot about them.
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