Script Moderation — Q & A

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Why do we moderate script publications?

Our purpose is to maximize the value of Community Scripts for the benefit of TradingView users.

We have been curating our 100,000-strong Community Scripts since 2020. Each year, 50,000 new publications are submitted. Most of those are moderated because they do not comply with House Rules. It is paramount to preserve and nurture the usefulness of this huge repository used daily by millions of users speaking all languages. Both newcomers and seasoned traders should be able to rely on the indicators and strategies in our Community Scripts. Hence we need community rules to define appropriate criteria for script publications, and protect our users from scam and spam accounts that do not share our community values, misuse open-source scripts, or use script publications to self-promote or mislead other users.

Considerable efforts are deployed to make sure Community Scripts continue to play their critical role in the TradingView landscape. The continued value users find in our community depends on it. Well-documented, original and quality scripts benefit both authors, whose work gets more visibility, and users who get better tools. Script moderation makes sense because it improves the TradingView experience for anybody who values learning and sharing in our community. Nobody is exempt from script moderation; even Pine Wizards and PineCoders have had their scripts moderated when they do not comply with rules.

Note that we moderate publications — not people and, most of the time, not scripts. Most of the rules concern how scripts should be published and code reused, not the scripts themselves. While authors must check a box confirming they have read our rules before they publish, many authors do not read them and have little chance of getting their publication past moderation.

Having your script publication moderated is no reason to be personally offended; it's your publication that was moderated — not you. We understand that having your script publication moderated is not fun, but take it as a wake-up call rather than an insult. It's usually fairly simple to make a compliant publication and re-publish, once you are aware of rules. If you have questions about your moderation, simply reply to the message you receive upon moderation. We'll gladly help if we can, and you will get answers faster than if you go through TV support because you will be dealing with moderators directly, where support will most probably redirect you in any case.


Why do some authors have problems with moderation?

• They think that a paid account entitles them to the right to publish and dispenses them of following the rules. Publishing scripts is not a right; it is a privilege granted to authors who respect our community’s rules.
• They can no longer sell their unrealistic or copied scripts on TradingView.
• They refuse to take the time to prepare helpful publications for traders.
• They can no longer make a career on TV by poaching original open-source code to build a reputation.

These authors luckily make up an infinitesimal proportion of all authors, but some try to make much noise by demonizing script moderation anywhere they can. Except for the intentionally misleading authors, it should be straightforward for the authors of moderated scripts to comply with rules, as thousands of other authors routinely do.

We contact all moderated authors and share daily with countless authors from the international TV community. Our experience is that the overwhelming majority of authors think it is quite natural that we have rules, as any strong community must. They not only respect but encourage our work, even when we moderate their publications. As long as most authors continue to support our work, we’ll happily take flack from the few who don’t.


Moderator Bias

Some authors complain that script moderation is biased. They are right! We are not robots — and that’s a good thing for both authors and traders. The nuances (or biases, if you prefer) we use when enforcing Script Publishing rules, however, actually have more to do with the context of each script’s analysis than with who is doing the moderation. Script moderators spend lots of time discussing the best ways to handle the many different situations we encounter. When faced with problematic cases, we resolve them together and record our conclusions so we can handle future similar cases in the same manner.

We are a team that acts in unison, using a well-defined code of conduct. This code of conduct’s strength stems from the many exceptions it allows. For example, we do not analyze open-source, protected, and invite-only scripts using the same criteria. Even when analyzing open-source scripts, we use different criteria when they are published by authors who also sell access to invite-only scripts. We do not handle first publications the same way we do the 100th publication of an author. We do not handle the 8th violation of rules the same way we handle the first. We are more lenient with non-English speakers who write descriptions. These distinctions we make are clear biases, but they are voluntary and, we believe, necessary to achieve the best overall degree of fairness in the enforcement of rules. We believe that when dealing with creative work, adroitly used educated biases produce better outcomes than robotic and blind objectivity ever will.


Origins of the Script Publishing Rules

Users wrote most of House Rules; our Script Publishing rules and Vendor Requirements are no exception. TradingView founders approved the rules, of course, but they are community-driven. We are always open to new ideas and suggestions from community members. As our environment evolves, so should our rules. The same applies to how we enforce them. Many of the exceptions and refinements used in rule enforcement were also implemented after suggestions from authors.


Script publishing help and docs

• To find out how to publish scripts and for a discussion of all your options, see the Pine User Manual page on Script Publishing.
• Be sure you read and understand the TradingView Script Publishing House Rules, which you agree to abide by when you create an account and publish a script on the platform.
• These are Tips for Authors, which provide more information to help you ensure your publications respect our rules.
• Script Vendors are subject to more obligations because they sell access to their invite-only scripts. They should have a good understanding of our Vendor Requirements.
• This is a blog post on script moderation, and the same content in the Help Center.
• alexgrover has a very good publication on Making A Good Indicator Description.


Tips

• To prepare a publication and validate that it will turn out the way you expect, use a private script as a draft. Contrary to public scripts, you can edit their title and description, so they can be used to test things. Once your private publication is perfect, then you can just copy its tagged description in a new public script’s description. That’s how we work to prepare our publications.
• Once you publish a script to the Public Library you will not be able to delete it or change its description or title, nor make it private, nor change its publication mode (open-source, protected, invite-only). Plan accordingly.
• We only moderate public scripts, i.e., scripts published in the Public Library. If you do not wish to share your scripts with the community, simply use your private copy from your personal repo through the Pine Editor, or publish your script privately. Know, however, that if you publish private scripts, you may NOT share their url in any public content on TV.
• Before you publish a script, make sure you can’t find published scripts doing the same thing. Also, use your script for a while. Put it through its paces and understand its behavior. This will give you time to streamline the code and settings before you publish it, and help you provide more useful information in your script’s description.
• As Pine coders, we constitute a tiny percentage of TradingView users, yet we have an enormous impact on the community’s trading activities. We thus have a responsibility to provide the traders with useful, original, and robust tools.
• As much as we try, moderators cannot see everything. If you come across script publications that violate our rules, please report them using the "Report This Script" flag. You will not be able to send a message with your report, but we will see it and will ask for more information if we cannot determine why you reported the script. Your collaboration in this is an important facet of moderation, and we appreciate it very much.


Who are these PineCoders guys?

This publication explains who we are.


Use comments here if you have questions or comments on script moderation. If you have a private inquiry, send a message to the PineCoders account.