The Roblox Forums were used for posting and socializing with other people in a text-based format. The main forums housed different sub-forums that had different purposes. Users were encouraged to read all pinned threads (threads that were located and stayed at the very top of each subforum), before making their first post. All content in the Roblox forums were subjected to Roblox's Terms of Use. A team of moderators ensured that forum content remained appropriate for Roblox's audience, though certain moderators were criticized by many forumers.
Notable History
In January 2013, the forum section was revamped. This resulted in the moving and merging of many less popular forums. In October 2013 the forums' layout was changed into an iOS 7-based theme.
On June 4th, 2017, at 5:58 PM PST, all the ROBLOX sub-forums were shut down temporarily due to major forum raids. These raids were lead by QuackityHQ, who had around 174,000 YouTube subscribers at the time. Many players were surprised at how the moderators took action for this forum raid, as they did not implement closing down the forums during similar DominusTrex bot raids. Some people believe the temporary shutdown was issued by a new moderator, OldBaronMondo, who was not around during the Trex raids. During other forums raids, Roblox changed the minimum account age for someone to post. In some instances, it was as short as a 2-year account age minimum, while during other raids it was set so that nobody could post.
On July 14th, 2017 Roblox announced that the many of the sub forums would be merging together. The new sub forums would include: Roblox News & Discussion, Clans & Guilds, Let's Make a Deal, Game Design and Scripts. Two major forums not included in this update were Roblox Talk and Off Topic, two popular off-topic sub forums; this caused outcry from some members of the Roblox community.
On December 4, 2017, the forums immediately became read-only. A stickied thread announced Roblox's decision to close the forums and encouraged users to utilize alternate methods of communication such as groups or the Developers Forum. The forums were completely removed December 11, 2017. In the thread, they explained:[1]
As the community continues to grow and evolve, our vision is to create an environment where everyone is welcome to share their passion for Roblox. The current structure for our Forums does not allow us to maintain the high standards that we feel are so important for nurturing a constructive and positive environment.
RobloxStaff
Roblox Forum Sub-forums
The following are descriptions of each of the Roblox subforums and the associated categories they are nestled under:
Roblox
All Things Roblox (ATR) |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 1,000,000 |
| Post count: approximately 7,000,000 |
|
The first sub-forum on the Roblox forums page, All Things Roblox was a forum where members discuss things about Roblox. Some common threads and discussions include Roblox updates and ideas. The forum replaced Roblox Talk (RT) as the default forum for conversation about Roblox because many users felt that most RT threads had nothing to do with Roblox. Roblox Talk is the most strictest sub-forum, it is no longer available and was replaced by Roblox News and Discussion. |
Help (Technical Support and Account Issues) |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 200,000 |
| Post count: approximately 1,000,000 |
| The purpose of this sub-forum is for users to be in contact with the moderators, administrators, or knowledgeable players when they have issues regarding their accounts or playing ROBLOX. . |
[Suggestions and Ideas |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 400,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 4,000,000 |
| Suggestions and Ideas was created so that players could suggest new Roblox features, for either games or the website itself. A good portion of the ideas shared in S&I are related to updates and changes that ROBLOX makes, and reverting them, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
BLOXFaires and Roblox Events |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 25,000 |
| Post count: approximately 600,000 |
| This forum was created to allow users to discuss real-life ROBLOX events. ROBLOX Contests was merged into this subform. This is the least used subforum, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
Club Houses
Roblox Talk |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 5,000,000 |
| Post count: approximately 35,000,000 |
|
ROBLOX Talk was originally the first forum on the ROBLOX Forums page. RT is one of the most popular forums, behind Off Topic and Let's Make a Deal. ROBLOX Talk was originally known as General Discussion, but that name is no longer in use because of the fact that many users believed that it broadened the topic of discussion too much. When ATR was created, this forum was moved to Club Houses because of the fact that many of the posts within RT had little to nothing to do with ROBLOX. The Admins had planned to change the name to Random Talk with the relocation of the forum; this did not occur due to the negative reaction from the ROBLOX Talk community, it has been replaced by Roblox News and Discussion and no longer exists |
Off Topic |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 5,000,000 |
| Post count: approximately 36,000,000 |
| Off Topic is the forum for discussion about anything unrelated to ROBLOX. Users can post random (but still moderated) things. A common theme is 'make a story with these characters' or something weird happening to the original poster. OT is now removed. |
Clans & Guilds
|
| Thread count: Approximately 2,500,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 21,000,000 |
| Clans and Guilds (C&G) was the fourth most popular forum on ROBLOX, with over 23 million total posts. In this sub-forum, members discuss the group feature and the happenings within famous groups on Roblox. Big wars between large modern military-themed groups, known as Ro-Wars, are often discussed. Because of the controversy and heavily opinionated members that participate in the wars, flame wars often break out as a result of these discussions. Another major topic is the various technology that is created by various war groups. This technology includes new bases, new weaponry and other scripting at these bases, and other group related places. A good amount of people that post in the Clans & Guilds forum often post to try to encourage other players to join their groups. Selling groups is also common, despite the fact that it breaks ROBLOX's Terms of Service. C&G is often criticized for a good amount of posts not having anything to do with groups or the happenings within them. Many posts are in relation to other C&Gers. It is also called c7g and cng. One of the major scandals in the community, Lordvade's crime, was discussed heavily here.[citation needed] |
Let's Make a Deal |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 5,000,000 |
| Post count: approximately 38,000,000 |
| Let's Make a Deal (LMaD) is the most popular forum out of all of the Roblox Forums. This sub-forum was created in order for players to sell their Limited and Limited-U items to other players. LMaD was released synchronously with the release of Limited and Limited-U items (hats, faces, and gear). In LMaD, players negotiate trades and prices with other players in order to sell their Limited and Limited-U items for the best deal possible. Groups are also sold in the Let's Make a Deal Forum, despite the fact that selling groups breaks Roblox's Terms of Service. This sub-forum spiked in popularity with the release of the Trading System. Like C&G and RT, LMaD is sometimes ridiculed for the fact that a lot of posts have nothing to do with trading. |
Game Creation and Development
Game Marketing |
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|
| Thread count: approximately 30,000 |
| Post count: approximately 210,000 |
| This forum is designed for players to advertise their games and to discuss advertising techniques. |
Game Design |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 90,000 |
| Post count: approximately 500,000 |
| In this sub-forum, users share ideas about games. They also discuss many popular games on Roblox, as well as share feedback to the creators of those games. Several famous game developers also discuss updates and listed to feedback about their games. |
Scripters |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 173,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 1,000,000 |
| Any scripting topic that is not a question is discussed here. |
Entertainment
Video Game Central = |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 150,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 1,000,000 |
| A sub-forum where players can discuss their favorite video or computer games that are not ROBLOX-related, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
Video Creations with ROBLOX |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 24,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 200,000 |
| This sub-form is dedicated to discussing ROBLOX videos and Twitch streams, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
RoSports |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 600,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 3,300,000 |
| This sub-forum is dedicated to conversations about sports-related topics and events. This forum was previously named Sports Fans (SF), it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
Pop Culture |
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|
| Thread count:Approximately 130,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 1,300,000 |
| Players discuss various movies, television shows, and books within this sub-forum, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. |
Role-Playing |
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|
| Thread count: Approximately 180,000 |
| Post count: Approximately 8,400,000 |
| This sub-forum is for players to participate in text-based role-playing games, or to start their own. It often gets raided by C&G due to false believes regarding frowned-upon vampire roleplays, it no longer exists as part of the 2017 forum upgrade. However, you can still reply to RP threads. A user called deadkickman posted about this and was banned for it. |
Removed sub-forums
Over the years, a number of forums have been removed. If you try to post on a thread on a deleted forum, the reply will not be posted. There used to a be secret forum, using the ID number 34, but anyone who posted on it got banned by MrDoomBringer[citation needed]. Some sub-forums have been removed through various forum updates.
Some sub-forums that have been removed are the following:
- Look What I Made
- ROBLOX Global
- Language Center
- Global Chat
- Forum Games
- All Things ROBLOX (merged)
- Suggestions & Ideas (merged)
- Off Topic
- ROBLOX Talk (merged)
- Game Marketing (merged)
- Video Creations with ROBLOX
- Video Game Central
- Pop-Culture (Movies/TV/Books)
- Role Playing
- BLOXFaires and ROBLOX Events (merged)
- General Discussion
- Test Site News
- Hi, I'm New
- Rate my ROBLOXian
- ROBLOXiwood
- Music (Music Fans/Music Talk)
- World Wide Chat
Temporary restrictions
May 2017 1.9-year restriction
On May 1, 2017, QuackityHQ (a well-known YouTube user) was doing a stream on Twitch. He raided the ROBLOX sub-forums by instructing his viewers to spam on it. After viewing the stream, the ROBLOX admins decided to take action. Shortly after, ROBLOX shut down the site in an attempt to end the raids. ROBLOX then implemented a new rule that users who joined for less than 700 days (approximately 2 years) will not be allowed to reply to any threads, which quickly receives backlash and criticism from the community. However, they still have access to all of the forums and can read the threads made by any ROBLOX users. In the end, the update was only temporary and it was removed within a day. Since this incident, all accounts are required to fill out a CAPTCHA (a backronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") before posting, in an attempt to prevent spambots from spamming the forums.
June 2017 13.7-year restriction
On June 4, 2017, however, Quackity raided the forums once again, barring all users from posting by imposing a 120,000-hour limit (or 13⅔ years). At the time, Quackity had around 174,000 subscribers. On the same day, at 5:58 PM PST, all ROBLOX subforums were temporarily shut down due to major forum raids. It was quite a surprise that the moderators took action against this, since they did not do anything as serious when the forums were experiencing DominusTrex bot raids. Some users believe the shutdown was issued by a new moderator who wasn't around during the Trex raids, OldBaronMondo. This limit was removed the next day after once again receiving heavy backlash from the community.
The rules
If a new rule has been introduced, a moderator will pin a new thread to let you know about it. What this means is that their post is stuck to the top of the forum and doesn't go down like regular posts. Pinned posts tend to stay there for a few weeks, so it's probably a good idea to read it.
First time on an internet forum? They're easy to get around.
From the Main Page click on a forum that interests you. Whichever one you choose looks like the one right here.
- This is the New Thread button. Click it to start a new thread! Simple! Fill in a meaningful title and whatever message you want to talk about. Hit post to say what you want to say.
- These are Pinned Posts. They're made by Moderators and Admins, and will stay at the top of the forums. It's a good idea to read them and do what they say.
- This is a thread. Click on it to read it.
- This is a thread with several pages on it. Click on the number to go to that page.
Reading threads is simple. One person creates the thread, and then people post replies to it. You can reply too! Just hit Post Reply at the bottom of a post, and you can contribute to the discussion.
Advanced buttons
You may have noticed the little bar of buttons in the top right. Here they are, in case you missed them.
- Home
- This will bring you right back to the main page from wherever you are.
- Search
- This is useful for find posts you want to talk about before making a new thread. However, some features that are part of the search page are currently broken. This search is discrete and cannot be accessed through the search box on the top bar.
- MyForums
- This lists the last 25 threads that you posted in and the threads you are watching. The newer threads are at the top. This will also show any threads you are currently tracking in a separate box at the top of the page.
Community
2013henry (now Volleybot) currently has the highest post count out of any user, with over 131,000 posts. A list of every user with 50K+ post count could be found here, but due to the deletion of the forums it is now unavailable. As of now, Volleybot has quit ROBLOX but often checks the site.
Players make t-shirts that are about popular forum topics, such as RT and LMaD, the most popular. An example of one is here.
Unlike the "comment section" on ROBLOX, the forum has less spam in it compared to the "comment section" due to it being more moderated.
Trolling
Many people in the forum are known as "trolls", people who often deliberately make fun of people or aggravate them on the fourms for no specific reasons. An example of a troll post can be: "You are a noob, you suck.".
One of the most infamous of these was a terminated 2009 user who was known most often as ‘heartstrings’. This user had made over 100 alternate accounts utilising a VPN over 8 years to continue flamebaiting the forums after the ROBLOX Staff had to poison-ban her from the website because she was so dedicated to upsetting users on the forums. Heartstrings has always taken small breaks and returned to the forums on alternate accounts to continue her tradition of flamebaiting, only coming to an end when the forums were removed.
A large number of forumers tended to be slightly gullible, falling for bait. Bait is when you create a sarcastic forum, wanting to make players talk about it. For instance, on July 29, 2016, a link to an article claiming that magnetic pole shifts on that day would end the world was posted, and some forums dissolved into havoc. ATR got a few posts about it, and one person on S&I suggested that all accounts should be deleted prior to the end. However, OT had a mix of countdowns, end of the world parties, and religious wars. Although the forums did have a 13+ requirement, many younger users obviously lie about their age to get past these restrictions and is partly responsible for this.
Forum Raid
Many users in the forums would tend to start a forum raid usually when the ROBLOX Admins were asleep. A forum raid is the activity of gaining a bunch of users from a sub forum and command them to spam hate or unneeded threads in another sub forum.
Signatures
Some forum users use signatures, which are also used to express the player. There is also ROBLOX+, a Google Chrome extension (working on Opera as well) that can automatically place a signature in your posts. The ROBLOX staff allows this, but have certain restrictions on them such as making them consist of one line only.
Closure
The error message that appears when trying to access the forums after December 11th, 2017.
On December 4th, 2017 an admin named RobloxStaff made a post on Roblox News & Discussion announcing the closure of the public forums, due to the moderators being unable to moderate them easily[citation needed]. In the post however it does state:
"This coming year, we'll be investigating options to re-build forums that better serve you, our community, and our goals in providing a safe and constructive environment".[2]
On December 11th, the forums officially were temporarily closed down and the button on the sidebar to access them was removed. Trying to access the forums using the link brings up an error message telling forum users to consider other methods to the forums. It is currently unknown when the forums will reopen.
ROBLOX was hit with heavy criticism from all parts of the forum community. Such things existed as people with 100k+ forum posts being outraged that all their precious time and memories have been taken from them, and some were confused on why certain subforums that actually had an effect on the community as a whole (such as Let’s Make A Deal and Game Design) were shut down without any immediate alternatives being provided. The vast majority also laughed at ROBLOX for having the gall to suggest Groups as a viable alternative.
Forum gallery
See also
References
- ↑ RobloxStaff. (2017). Important Announcement Regarding Closure of Forum. Retrieved from https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=228429979
- ↑ https://forum.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=228429979