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I admit, ROBLOX's moderation team is severely lacking, particularly in the inappropriate username department. Within the past day, two users with severely inappropriate names went into a roleplaying game I normally visit. The names were obviously violating the ROBLOX regulations, and with these names still unbanned, everyone in the community can still see them, including younger children.
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The solution, though, is fairly simple. This idea is based off one of the first online games I played, Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK).
In VMK, users were allowed to create their own names for their characters, but, unlike ROBLOX, the user was given a temporary name (ex: Guest1337) until the moderation team approved of the requested names.
If the name was approved my the moderation team, the user will have it as its character name beginning at his/her next log-in. If the name was not approved, the user will receive a prompt at the next log-in explaining that the name he/she requested was not approved and then asking him/her to suggest another character name.
To speed up the process for people who do not want to go through the approval process, VMK also created a simple naming system, a basic algorithm, where, in random order, pre-approved usernames are created using approved words in an adjective-adjective-noun name format. The result is something such as LittleGreenPrincess, where, as it was pre-approved by the moderation team, the user will not have to wait for his/her name to get approved.
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But how can this be applied to ROBLOX? It is fairly simple.
When a user is prompted to create a username, a small prompt will explain that, if the user goes ahead and creates a custom username, the user's character name will be a temporary name. The user can make it easier on him/herself by selecting a pre-approved name explained in the previous section. Unlike VMK, in order to accommodate for a larger player base, ROBLOX's pre-approved names will include four 0-9 digits at the end of the noun.
There is one thing to note, if a user's custom username gets denied, though the character name has to be changed, the user name that you log in with will be the same.
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Let us see how it will be implemented into ROBLOX.
I am a new user preparing to join ROBLOX. I want a custom username, so I place that in as my username. When I enter a game, as the username will need to be approved, my name will be "NewPlayer_1001". My name gets approved, and the next time I log in, the name the community will see is the custom username I requested.
BadPlayer1337 also is a new user, but he creates an inappropriate name for his username. The community will not see this name, as it still is being approved by ROBLOX, but once ROBlOX denies the name, BadPlayer1337 will have to either choose a pre-approved name or create a new custom name. But, there is one difference. When BadPlayer1337 logs into ROBLOX, he will have to use the username he originally signed up with, but the name the community will see will be different.
LazyUser just wants a username fast. When prompted to choose a username, he decided to choose from a list of pre-approved names. He chose LazyScaryBrick2114. When this user goes into a game, the community will see the pre-approved name.
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As you can see, this idea is fairly simple, possibly too simple for ROBLOX, but it will assist in making ROBLOX appeal to younger children and their families. The administrators do not want possible paying members leaving because of parents finding inappropriate usernames in the community, and with this suggestion, inappropriate will possibly become a thing of the past. |