SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
Moderating comment spam is a low priority for the moderators due to its sheer number. In this post, I will address this issue.
Now, there are three general types of comment spam. I shall rank them least to greatest in an order that is, in my opinion, their order of priority in terms of deletion.
1. Annoying, yet harmless comment spam. These comments tell you to follow a set of instructions to receive free items, robux, etc. However, following these directions would not harm your account or anyone else's account, and there would be no offsite link. These comments take up space, but deleting them isn't a huge priority.
2. Frightening/violent comment spam. These comments attempt to scare the reader with a made-up horror story, usually telling them that the only way to save themselves is to spam. These comments, primarily the violent ones, should be deleted, because they are not appropriate for Roblox.
3. Offsite link/scam comment spam. These comments contain an offsite link to a scam site. Users who are not aware of how to identify and avoid scam sites could end up losing their Roblox account by being tricked into entering in their Roblox login data into that scam site. These comments should be deleted as soon as possible.
How would we go about solving this problem? I propose a four-step, iterative solution.
I. Hire more payed adult moderators. This would enable the moderation staff to remove offensive spam comments more quickly.
II. Allow asset owners to delete its comments. For example, you would be allowed to delete your place's comments. If you created a T-Shirt, you would be allowed to delete its comments. You could delete the comments of anything you uploaded to the site. Asset owners could also select other users to be able to delete comments on a particular asset owned by them, or all of them.
III. Allow asset owners to have the option of requiring all incoming comments to pend review. This means that when you posted a comment on an owner's asset who enabled the comment review feature, your comment will not be displayed until the owner reads it. The owner could choose to approve or deny comments. Approved comments would then show up on the comments page. Denied comments would be removed from the pend review list. When denying a comment, the owner could check a box that would also report it to the Roblox moderators. However, that feature should only be used for serious offenses. Asset owners could also block certain users from commenting on one or all of their assets. When deleting a comment or denying a comment using the pend review system, the asset owner could select a radio button next to one of two choices: disallow that user from commenting on that particular asset, or disallow that user from commenting on all of your assets. He could also set an option on a settings page that would automatically disallow someone from either commenting on a particular asset or all of your assets when you delete or deny their comment. He could choose other Roblox users to have access to the comment review system for their assets. He would have access to a comprehensive permissions system, and would be able to allow other users to do one or more of the following: delete comments on their assets, use the pend review feature, and disallow users from commenting on particular assets or all assets by that owner.
IV. Hire volunteers who are 16 or older to be official comment moderators. These users would be able to delete any comment that was not written by a fellow Roblox Staff member on any asset. When deleting comments, they could check a box that would also report the comment. However, this should only be used for serious offenses, otherwise hiring comment moderators would not decrease the amount of work the payed moderators had to do. Any reports sent in by the act of comment moderators deleting comments would be marked as high priority, and therefore placed at the top of the abuse report list as opposed to the bottom. They could also disallow a user from posting new comments anywhere from one to fourteen days. However, they could not disallow a user from posting comments permanently. Please note that this would not be a ban; you would be able to use Roblox, just not post comments. If your comment posting privilege had been suspended, when you went to a comments page you would not be able to see any of the comments or post a new one, and you would see a reason why your comment posting privilege had been suspended. To start off, ten users would be hired as official comment moderators, and more would be hired as time went on. These users would have a comment moderator badge on their profile, and a moderator badge on the forums; however, they would not actually have moderation powers on the forums. Their usernames would also be added to the official staff list, under the heading "Volunteer Comment Moderators", which would be below the "Volunteer Forum Moderators" section. Moderating comments could be considered tedious by some, so comment moderators would automatically receive ten robux for every comment they deleted. However, to prevent power abuse, one super moderator would be given the job of reviewing all comment deletions made by comment moderators. Any unfair deletions that were accidents may result in ten robux being subtracted from that user's account balance for every unfair deletion. Deliberate unfair deletions would result in having your comment moderator powers removed, and being permanently banned. Please note that official comment moderators could not ban anyone, or do anything other than delete comments, and suspend someone's comment posting privilege anywhere from one day to fourteen days.
If these four steps are completed in order, I think that Roblox will be able to deal with comment spam much more effectively.
-SCS |
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To be fair, people should know spam is a waste of time doing, it's pointless and worthless.
You gain absouletly nothing from it and only increase your chances of being banned.
Roblox should look into finding a way to tell people spam isn't cool and find a way to make it look unappealing. Peope don't like doing stuff that looks offputting.
Though roblox should try to hire more moderators definetly.
Though i disagress with creators to delete comments, it'll ruin the whole point of comments which was unbiased feedback. People should consider adding feedback threads. And roblox should make a spefic 'Creator Feedback forum' |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@R3gebiscuit
"Roblox should look into finding a way to tell people spam isn't cool and find a way to make it look unappealing. Peope don't like doing stuff that looks offputting."
Perhaps the Roblox Developers could add a statement above the comments on every comment page stating that it is impossible to receive free robux, tickets, hats, etc by posting comment spam. They could also link to these three pages:
http://www.roblox.com/Help/Builderman.aspx?id=222130
http://www.roblox.com/Help/Builderman.aspx?id=222028
http://www.roblox.com/Help/Builderman.aspx?id=222067
"Though i disagress with creators to delete comments, it'll ruin the whole point of comments which was unbiased feedback."
I think the pros outweigh the cons in this situation. Plus, it is the owner's asset, so I think that he should have the right to be able to choose what kind of comments are on it.
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
Bump. |
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I agree with the comment thing that says spam doesn't work.
Support. |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@Tttt7858
Thank you. |
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"I. Hire more payed adult moderators"
You know comment spamming is reportable? I think from all the spam coutn for ROBLOX is incredibly high,so people are being constantly reported. I think this would already send ROBLOX a message,and they are going to deal with it in their own way by avoiding it,or hiring more people as you suggested. Personally it hasn't changed since i was gone,so i do not forsee change.
"II. Allow asset owners to delete its comments."
No,comments like "This shirt is bad" or "This model is infected,dont take it!" Would be deleted. It would give you a false idea about what the item really is about. A comment is a comment,basically your open voice on whatever you are commenting,it would eliminate the whole point of commenting if the owner had the ability to delete your post. Think of it this way. That's basically being able to change the amounts of Likes and Dislikes you get on your youtube videos.
"III. Allow asset owners to have the option of requiring all incoming comments to pend review."
Same reason as above,but this could be way too much work for the owner,popular places that have over millions of visits that get like 1,000 comments a day will be too many comments to handle for one owner of that place or product.
"IV. Hire volunteers who are 16 or older to be official comment moderators."
As you just previously said, unfair deletions will happen. Better to leave the job to the elders who are paid to do it anyway. It's better to leave people who moderate the game to people who actually have a job in ROBLOX. If you want to moderate ROBLOX,send in a job application to ensure your qualification. Also,the penalty of unfair removement is complete bogus. ROBLOX removing the amount of robux you have is interfering with your BC purchase. If i purchased BC,i'm paying REAL MONEY for the robux i get. If ROBLOX were to delete that money,they would be taking my REAL money away.
I'm giving this idea a Nope |
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I agree with what you said that ROBLOX should give people a reminder spam doesn't work,i like that a whole lot better than your OP |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@Wazakazam111
"You know comment spamming is reportable? I think from all the spam coutn for ROBLOX is incredibly high,so people are being constantly reported. I think this would already send ROBLOX a message,and they are going to deal with it in their own way by avoiding it,or hiring more people as you suggested. Personally it hasn't changed since i was gone,so i do not forsee change."
I have talked to two different staff members about this issue, both of which say that they don't moderate spam anywhere other than the forums because there's so much of it. They are hiring more moderators, but they're not revealing who they are to the community. They have the badges, but their usernames aren't being put on the official staff list.
"No,comments like 'This shirt is bad' or 'This model is infected,dont take it!' Would be deleted. It would give you a false idea about what the item really is about. A comment is a comment,basically your open voice on whatever you are commenting,it would eliminate the whole point of commenting if the owner had the ability to delete your post. Think of it this way. That's basically being able to change the amounts of Likes and Dislikes you get on your youtube videos."
It's the owner's asset, he should have the right to determine what kind of comments should be displayed; I do agree with you about the infected models issue, though, I hadn't thought of that. However, I still think that the pros outweigh the cons in this situation. If these features were implemented, asset owners could prevent offsite links to scam sites being posted, that could cause may people to lose their accounts. I think that is more important than whether or not a comment warning about an infected model is displayed.
"Same reason as above,but this could be way too much work for the owner,popular places that have over millions of visits that get like 1,000 comments a day will be too many comments to handle for one owner of that place or product."
As I explained in my original post, the asset owner could invite as many other users as he wanted to be able to view the pending list for his asset's comments. Plus, you don't need to read the entirety of a comment in many situations to know whether or not you want to delete it. It could only take a second to notice an offsite link in a comment, and then deny it from being added to your asset's comments page. One person could possibly get through three hundred comments in ten minutes. That is almost one third of your estimation. If the asset owner had invited twenty of his friends to also manage his comments, it would be a breeze. Besides, this feature would be optional, so if you didn't want to do all of that work, you wouldn't have to. However, perhaps there could be an incentive to use this system, such as a robux reward or an item reward. The comment moderators would be the supplement for the situations in which someone decided not to use the review feature for their comments.
"As you just previously said, unfair deletions will happen. Better to leave the job to the elders who are paid to do it anyway. It's better to leave people who moderate the game to people who actually have a job in ROBLOX."
They have a lot of work to do, and currently there are too many spam comments for them to even try to deal with.
"Also,the penalty of unfair removement is complete bogus. ROBLOX removing the amount of robux you have is interfering with your BC purchase. If i purchased BC,i'm paying REAL MONEY for the robux i get. If ROBLOX were to delete that money,they would be taking my REAL money away."
It does not at all interfere with your BC purchase. You wouldn't have to be in BC to become a comments moderator. You would receive the reward for deleting comments, which is completely separate from your daily BC stipend. Only mature and responsible users who were 16 or older, so the likelihood of them abusing their powers is low. If they accidentally deleted a comment unfairly, they would have the 10 robux reward for that comment revoked. If they deliberately deleted a comment unfairly, they would have their comment moderator powers removed, and be permanently banned.
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gigabicJoin Date: 2010-09-06
Post Count: 4344 |
I support hiring mature people to moderate. |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@gigabic
Thank you for supporting my suggestion. |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@Thepiewarrior
Thanks. |
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"I have talked to two different staff members about this issue, both of which say that they don't moderate spam anywhere other than the forums because there's so much of it. They are hiring more moderators, but they're not revealing who they are to the community. They have the badges, but their usernames aren't being put on the official staff list."
So you suggested an idea that was already being implemented,lol. I thought it was reportable because i have been warned to stop spamming. So we can stop the debate on this subject now.
"It's the owner's asset, he should have the right to determine what kind of comments should be displayed; I do agree with you about the infected models issue, though, I hadn't thought of that. However, I still think that the pros outweigh the cons in this situation. If these features were implemented, asset owners could prevent offsite links to scam sites being posted, that could cause may people to lose their accounts. I think that is more important than whether or not a comment warning about an infected model is displayed."
Lol,no. Again,comments are open opinions,not censored opinions. There would be no point to comments if people could just make all of their items look good. That's like the government removing freedom of speech. You never took consideration into my analogy. People CANNOT edit their likes and dislikes and comments on youtube. So why be able to do that here? It's the owner's asset,but they do not own the rights to this game.
"As I explained in my original post, the asset owner could invite as many other users as he wanted to be able to view the pending list for his asset's comments. Plus, you don't need to read the entirety of a comment in many situations to know whether or not you want to delete it. It could only take a second to notice an offsite link in a comment, and then deny it from being added to your asset's comments page. One person could possibly get through three hundred comments in ten minutes. That is almost one third of your estimation. If the asset owner had invited twenty of his friends to also manage his comments, it would be a breeze. Besides, this feature would be optional, so if you didn't want to do all of that work, you wouldn't have to. However, perhaps there could be an incentive to use this system, such as a robux reward or an item reward. The comment moderators would be the supplement for the situations in which someone decided not to use the review feature for their comments."
You'd really enjoy your stay on ROBLOX deleting messages every second? My estimate could be easily false because you could be getting comments Every Second. A player inviting other players to review comments does not ensure they will work to their full potential,or work at all. Your kind of repeating your suggestion twice. This is basically just giving you the privelage to delete comments,you could easily just read a comment on the comment page and delete it. So it ties down to my first point again,comments shouldn't exsist if you can't comment what you want to comment.
"It does not at all interfere with your BC purchase. You wouldn't have to be in BC to become a comments moderator. You would receive the reward for deleting comments, which is completely separate from your daily BC stipend. Only mature and responsible users who were 16 or older, so the likelihood of them abusing their powers is low. If they accidentally deleted a comment unfairly, they would have the 10 robux reward for that comment revoked. If they deliberately deleted a comment unfairly, they would have their comment moderator powers removed, and be permanently banned."
I never said the qualification to become a comment moderator was you had to be BC. I'm saying if they revoked your robux for making a bad decision on deleting someones comment,they are taking the money away from you. You PURCHASED the robux, so they SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TAKE IT AWAY. They would only select mature and responsible users? First of all,there's no efficient way of getting someones age through the internet guaranteed,so that's why i suggested you need to send in a job application and actually apply for a job in ROBLOX. Just because somone is mature doesn't mean they can't abuse their power. So this goes back to my point, leave it to the professionals who are hired to do actually do the work,even if there's too much spam to do the work. |
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Also permanately banning someone for deleting a comment unfairly is complete non sensical. That's way too harsh of a punishment. Take away their powers,that's it. It's not our fault if ROBLOX would entrust 16 year olds to moderate a part of their site. |
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@Waza, Do understand that the moderators have a lot on their hands, this idea would help the community as a whole. Think it through.
~Thepiewarrior |
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I am,but just giving the community the privelage to do whatever they want to the comments isn't the right way to adress the issue. |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
"So you suggested an idea that was already being implemented,lol. I thought it was reportable because i have been warned to stop spamming. So we can stop the debate on this subject now."
I was simply signifying the fact that hiring new moderators is only the first step on the road to fixing this problem. But, yes, I digress.
"Lol,no. Again,comments are open opinions,not censored opinions. There would be no point to comments if people could just make all of their items look good. That's like the government removing freedom of speech. You never took consideration into my analogy. People CANNOT edit their likes and dislikes and comments on youtube. So why be able to do that here? It's the owner's asset,but they do not own the rights to this game."
They are exactly that: opinions. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, each individual person can decide whether or not they like an asset. I wouldn't care whether or not other users who commented liked the asset, I would decide for myself. Perhaps a compromise would be to actually instate a likes and dislikes system for assets. This way, comment spam would be reduced, but asset owners would not be able to censor whether or not someone liked their asset.
"You'd really enjoy your stay on ROBLOX deleting messages every second? My estimate could be easily false because you could be getting comments Every Second. A player inviting other players to review comments does not ensure they will work to their full potential,or work at all. Your kind of repeating your suggestion twice. This is basically just giving you the privelage to delete comments,you could easily just read a comment on the comment page and delete it. So it ties down to my first point again,comments shouldn't exsist if you can't comment what you want to comment."
You wouldn't be sitting there deleting messages every second. Even if you only had one person to help you, and if each of you worked for only one hour each day on the comments, the appropriate comments could be added to the comments page at a reasonable rate. Sort of how it usually doesn't take the Roblox moderators more than one hour to approve an image, despite the fact that there are probably thousands of them uploaded each day; it doesn't take long at all to determine whether or not an image is appropriate. The same applies to spam comments. The structure of spam comments is fairly constant and therefore easily recognizable without having to read its entirety.
"I never said the qualification to become a comment moderator was you had to be BC. I'm saying if they revoked your robux for making a bad decision on deleting someones comment,they are taking the money away from you. You PURCHASED the robux, so they SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TAKE IT AWAY."
You did not purchase the robux you received from deleting someone's comment. If you purchased robux, that was a separate transaction, a separate time, a separate situation.
"They would only select mature and responsible users? First of all,there's no efficient way of getting someones age through the internet guaranteed,so that's why i suggested you need to send in a job application and actually apply for a job in ROBLOX."
If they could almost always guarantee that their forum moderators were over 14 back in 2009, they should be able to do the same for comment moderators now.
"Just because somone is mature doesn't mean they can't abuse their power."
If they were mature, it would be a lot less likely that they would abuse their power. Situations of power abuse would probably arise from immaturity, such as disliking a user. Mature users would not let that get in the way of their comment moderation.
"So this goes back to my point, leave it to the professionals who are hired to do actually do the work,even if there's too much spam to do the work."
If there is too much work for them to do, how can we leave them to it? |
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@SCS, Could not agree more. |
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SCSForum ModeratorJoin Date: 2008-06-24
Post Count: 10075 |
@Thepiewarrior
Thanks. |
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"They are exactly that: opinions. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, each individual person can decide whether or not they like an asset. I wouldn't care whether or not other users who commented liked the asset, I would decide for myself. Perhaps a compromise would be to actually instate a likes and dislikes system for assets. This way, comment spam would be reduced, but asset owners would not be able to censor whether or not someone liked their asset."
Which is my point,they would only be opinions the owner wanted to hear. Then there would be no point in opinions in the first place. Might as well remove the comment page. I agree with the likes and dislikes.
"You wouldn't be sitting there deleting messages every second. Even if you only had one person to help you, and if each of you worked for only one hour each day on the comments, the appropriate comments could be added to the comments page at a reasonable rate. Sort of how it usually doesn't take the Roblox moderators more than one hour to approve an image, despite the fact that there are probably thousands of them uploaded each day; it doesn't take long at all to determine whether or not an image is appropriate. The same applies to spam comments. The structure of spam comments is fairly constant and therefore easily recognizable without having to read its entirety."
They are paid to do it,their pay motivates them to do it. They don't enjoy it im pretty sure. If you really want to spend an hour of your time on ROBLOX deleting messages,rather than playing (this is a game,you should spend most of your time playing). Also you forget a lot of them are kids in the first place. You really think a 8 yr old is going to delete comments for an hour,or a play a virtual game?
"You did not purchase the robux you received from deleting someone's comment. If you purchased robux, that was a separate transaction, a separate time, a separate situation."
It's still money,doesn't matter what situation it came from. I can't go to your house and take a dollar out of your pocket because you gave me "an unfair comment" even if you earned that dollar from a separate transaction,a separate time,and a separate situation |
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"If they were mature, it would be a lot less likely that they would abuse their power. Situations of power abuse would probably arise from immaturity, such as disliking a user. Mature users would not let that get in the way of their comment moderation."
Your getting immaturity mixed in with a lot of things. As people get power,it is natural feeling you are stronger than others,influencing you to do more things with your power in general.
"If there's too much work to be done,how can we leave them do it?"
We don't,this isn't the only solution to the problem. I'd rather go with Telamons 1 tix = 1 comment solution he suggested awhile ago. That'd stop much more spam while keeping ROBLOX safe |
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@Waza, If they earn (virtual) money from doing their job as moderators, I believe it would be fair for them to lose it doing the opposite. |
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Well i'm off for awhile done with this disussion for a lil bit. |
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Lol,they actually earn money for deleting comments? That's so unfair to the community. That's basically saying only mature and old enough people on ROBLOX get extra currency. This is a big no-no. |
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