Community Rating Scale

A way to determine how a community is doing

Community Rating Scale

The Community Rating Scale is a numerical scale from 0-100 used to determine a community in most aspects. It is meant to be used as a quick reference. The rating scale is not a scale of stability.

Quite obviously, the main downside to such a scale is that anything a community lacks would be ignored. A community with 75, for example, may in fact not have a good rules system.

While MainDab has taken the direction with its own rules in a more "extreme" way, attempting to keep rules at a minimum (i.e. no word filter, racism allowed, etc...) while keeping security high, the rating scale will not be taking such things into consideration. A certain set of rules, however, have to be implemented that all communities generally have as a baseline.

The scale, 0-100

Below are the thresholds for the scale:

Score
Detail

Less than 30

Failed community

30-40

Worrying score

40-50

The average score Roblox communities would normally get

50-60

A well managed Roblox community should get around this score, this should already be considered quite good

60-80

Considered highly stable

80+

It is very difficult for large communities to get 80+, only small communities (or communities with very good owners) are able to really achieve 80+

Section
Total score gained

A: Rules

20

B: Staff

20

C: Activity

10

D: Security

10

E: Events

10

F: Member Behaviour

30

Below are the different sections that a community will be rated against. Add up all the scores together to get the final result.

Section A: Rules (20)

Rules are an important part of most communities. While some communities can go completely overboard with rules and punishments, such situations are not being considered here and are instead indirectly considered in other sections (i.e. infighting commonly happens because of rules).

A1: Core Rules (5)

Fulfilled
Points

Yes

5 points

No

0 points - even if the community misses one of the rules below

The community rules need to at least have the minimum fulfilled:

  • The rules prohibits excess gore (i.e. beheading videos) and child sexual abuse material.

  • The rules prohibits animal abuse material.

  • The rules prohibits the spread of any dangerous and malicious software and links, regardless of the format/media it is sent in. At the very least, the sender must place an obvious warning that what they have sent is malicious.

Sensitive topics regarding pornography access to underage people, "grooming" and dating is left up to the discretion of the community staff. Commonly, there will be rules explicitly stating that any form of grooming or dating is prohibited. This is routinely broken in large community.

It is alright if the rules are copied and pasted over from another community, as long as the community managers know what they are adding in.

A2: Wording kept clear and not too broad (15)

Fulfilled
Points

Yes

15 points

To be Improved

10 points - there are still some wordings that need to be changed, but generally speaking the rules are clear enough

No

0 points - all the points below must be fulfilled

The way rules are worded must be kept clear, and what is considered a rule break has to be obvious. While there are obviously some different intepretations as what wording can mean, the rules must do its best to give the best accuracy regarding rules.

A good rule document would:

  • Never state "do not be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.", and instead be more precise "do not use racially offensive words, such as the "N-word", "chink", "albino"". It would be wise to split such things into seperate rules.

  • Never use "ecetera" like the previous example did, unless it is extemely obvious what "ecetra" means.

  • Not have large staff debates on the rules regarding whether someone has broken a rule. It is okay if there are debates that go on regarding the rules, but when it comes to moderation, what

  • Not have any existing "grey zones" within the rules. It is okay to have a "borderline okay" thing, but it is not okay when there are no clear lines being drawn.

Section B: Staff (20)

B1: Staff Count (5)

Fulfilled
Points

Excessive

0 points

Sufficient

5 points

Insufficient

3 points

Completely Insufficient

0 points

A community must have the right amount of staff. Excessive staff means additional infighting, possibly slowed decisions and even security risks. Insufficient staff means more staff are required, but the community is still functional. Completely insufficient means that the community is struggling due to a lack of staff members.

The intepretation can vary depending on community. However, for this document, we will use the following rule:

  • Communities less than 50 in size should have at most 3 staff.

  • A community 50-100 in size should have at least 3 staff and at most than 7.

  • For a community 100-1,300 in size, for every 300 members in a server, one new staff member is required. The community should have at most 10 staff.

  • For a community 1,100 - 20,000 in size, for every 2000 members, one new staff member may be required, depending on community conditions. The community should have at most 20 staff.

  • Beyond 20,000, this should be left up to the owner. At least 10 staff members including the owner should exist.

B2: Staff makeup (5)

Staff should not ooly solely act as moderators but should also have some other skills besides moderation (excluding games). Moderation is still a somewhat trivial task.

Fulfilled
Points

Very skilled

5 points | 81-100% staff skilled

Skilled

4 points | 60-80% staff skilled

Unskilled

3 points | 10-59% staff skilled

Completely Insufficient

0 points | <10% staff skilled

B3: Staff opinion (10)

It is not possible for anyone to be completely neutral and there will be instances where someone will moderate someone else based on feelings and prejudiced opinions. Even the way the rules are formatted can result in staff making their own judgement. MainDab does this too.

Regardless, there still must be some way to judge on how staff moderate.

Fulfilled
Points

Totally unbiased

10 points - this should be considered impossible

Mostly unbiased

8 points

Mixed

5 points - moderative decisions, even large ones, are sometimes based on opinion, but general moderation is done in a fair manner

Completely biased

0 points -even small moderation is done unfairly

There is a strong link between how a staff would moderate and to how well written the rule is. A rule that is not written would very likely have staff acting according to their own opinions.

Section C: Activity (10)

C1: Message activity (10)

Fulfilled
Points

Active anytime

10 points

Mostly active

8 points

Mixed

5 points - chat is still active and people do chat, but things are not always going on

Leaning to inactivity

3 points - 4 points if this is instead due to timezone bias

Inactive

0 points - usually characterised with 10-15 messages per day in chat channels

Section D: Security (10)

D1: Security (10)

Fulfilled
Points

Heavy anti-raid used

0 points

Armed Forces

10 points

Simple verification

6 points

No verification

0 points

All communities need some form of security.

  • The lowest form of security is no verification at all. Members can freely join without any verification being done.

  • Simple verification is better than none. It can be as simple as reacting to an emoji or using a Roblox verification bot.

  • Heavy anti-raid tools that attempts to "keep alts out" will result in 0 points.

  • Armed Forces means that the community has some sort of internal "army group". This can range from fighting game clans themselves automatically getting 10 points to a "defence force". A community with an armed force do not need verification.

Section E: Events (10)

E1: Events (10)

Fulfilled
Points

Very often

10 points

Often

7 points

Sometimes

4 points

Never

0 points

Communities often need events to keep everyone happy.

  • Very often - Twice a week or more, consistently for at least a month

  • Often - Once a week, consistently for at least a month

  • Sometimes - Less than once a week but at least once a month

  • Never - Nothing at all

Events can be anything, some examples include:

  • Gamenights

  • Giveaways

  • Tournaments

Section F: Member behaviour (30)

This is likely the more touchy part of rating a community and everyone has wildly different perspectives on a community and the people there.

Giving numerical values as a sign of how members behave in a community may actually seem like an improper thing to do, given we are simply quantifying behaviour instead of properly addressing real conditions.

However, for the purposes of the the Community Rating Scale, there still must be some quantifyable way regardless to base member opinion upon. The scale will attempt to set very clear requirements out. While the score may still be based on judgement, the scale will try be wary of such things.

F1: "Toxicity" (10)

Toxicity is measured based on the number of "mean moments" within a chat. While there are clear small friend groups within a server and people taking sides, the amount of "mean moments" between sides should be kept to a minimum.

We will ignore server size and activity in regards to toxicity.

Fulfilled
Mean moments / day
Points

Not toxic

0-2

10 points

A bit

3-5

6 points

Very

6-8

2 points

All the time

9+

0 points

Mean moments per day (mean moments / day) is measured by the amount of such "mean moments" in the chat within a 24 hours frame. It can be hard to calculuate and can be based upon personal judgement. But as a quick guideline:

  • If the chat is nice most of the time but certain incidents (sometimes even very large) happen, then the server should not be considered toxic.

  • If the chat is sometimes not very nice towards each other, but such things do not often remain the main point of a conversation, the community is a bit toxic.

  • A community that is clearly very toxic will be made obvious to new members instantly.

F2: New member hostility (5)

This is a measurement of how hostile a community is to a new member.

Fulfilled
Points

Never

5 points

Sometimes

2 points

Always

0 points

The definition of "sometimes" and "always" can be different from person to person. But to set the definition clearly:

  • "Sometimes" means that new members are sometimes harassed, whether that would be from members not really liking them to staff members asking them to look at a rule that has not been made immediately obvious to them.

  • "Always" means new members are generally not welcomed and are often seen as a "nobody". Ignoring them also falls under this category.

Note that communities often do have their own biases too.

F3: Subcommunities (5)

Communities that are often large will have subcommunities within them. What becomes an issue is when official subcommunities (often split into different channels) start becoming hostile to each other.

Fulfilled
Points

Never hostile

5 points

Sometimes

2 points

Always

0 points

F4: Major incidents (10)

Communities will have experienced major incidents before. How incidents are handled are very subjective, but generally the community must be statisfied with such incidents.

Take all major incidents that have happened in a server and then decide:

Fulfilled
Points

Always well handled

10 points - most people agrees with the approach

Could be better

7 points - people agree with the approach but there are still some concerns or some disagreements

Poor handling

4 points - there are clearly two sides to the arguement on how the incident was handled

Badly handled

0 points - the community is unhappy with the approach taken

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