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.
• 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?
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.
"Nobody is exempt from script moderation; even Pine Wizards" So unfair, me who wanted to post pantsu patterns detectors xD
On a serious note it baffles me how users can complain about the moderation team, volunteers aiming to make Tradingview a better place, the main role of moderators is actually to make sure users won't get banned/moderated, its also a preventive role, they are not snipers hidden in the shadows enjoying banning users, also reading rules is not that hard...but i guess some peoples prefer adding more work to the moderators.
Kudos to the moderation team, shame on those not respecting the rules and complaining afterwards.
astropark
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thank you! you are amazing and I've found your help very important to me, thanks again!
Trendbeat
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I have concerns that current scheme of things is more prone to exploits from unsuspecting memebers than ever.
My 2 biggest concerns that are 2 things being touted as great advancements in latest TV blog post.
IMO they are everything but that. 2 steps back.
1. No Marketplace that would enforce vetting of paid indicators as well as be source of income for Trading view as a company and vetting agents and community.
- Solution - Bring back the Marketplace and ban selling over 3rd party payment processors to protect authors giving free code and new platform users as well as earning them a cut from sales.
2. Ability to share private scripts exempt from moderation and with hidden code will be used by copyright infringement actors to sell their indicators on the platform freely.
- Solution - unmoderated scripts must be free code and/or have lifetime access that cant be taken away by author.
Its a very strange direction this platform is turning to.
Wild west.
MVPMC
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@Trendbeat, I just want to add to your solutions :) .
3. Thousands of scripts to moderate, and only a hand-full of mods. & Poor sorting options and inability to spotlight valuable scripts.
- Solution - Peer review options for scripts that go beyond a like, these parameters could assist the mods to find "bad content", and the search functions to serve us hidden gems.
Trendbeat
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@MVPMC,
I agree.
An organized Marketplace, which I only found out few days theybhad before but was abandoned they solves the "not getting paid" part and creates jobs.
In a way TV is moving backwards.
The missed opportunities to use their position in the industry for increased profits are to obvious
PineCoders
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@MVPMC, Good point. Most of our efforts in establishing a robust script moderation practice on TV were focused on first gaining control over the inflow of new publications. That has been functional for the last 5 months now. Next, we will be directing our energies towards cleaning up past publications. We are talking about massive amounts of scripts here, and will most probably only be able to achieve this with the help of automated solutions and community involvement.
Your point also mentions increasing the visibility of good quality scripts. We are on it. The "liking" system already produces one type of evaluation. Popularity is very nice, but it does not always correlate with value. In order to improve the Public Library's usability, we are planning to:
a) Create new categories that will be attributed to scripts by moderators, somewhat like Editors Choices of a few different types.
b) Add new categories available to all authors, so users can better focus their searches.
c) Improve script-searching features.
d) Continue to publish our Best-of-The-Month series here.
Canundo
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@PineCoders, does TV or mods ever delete private unpublished scripts, maybe when they are a copy of another public open source script through "Make a copy" and the original is against the rules or breaks some copyright? I just wonder how far moderation or TV goes and if backing up everything would be needed to be sure to not lose any ideas saved.
PineCoders
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@Canundo, Hi, We can't delete private scripts. We can't even see them, so they are really private. Your scripts are saved through your Pine Editor's private repo, even if they are not published privately. It is always, however, a good idea to keep backups of your scripts offline.
PineCoders
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@Trendbeat, Thanks for your comments. Appreciate. Both points you bring forward were important decisions and the subject of many discussions and much debate )
1. The MarketPlace:
a) Pulling revenue from indie sales is not part of TradingView's current revenue model.
b) Some indicators in the MarketPlace were using JavaScript, which constituted an unfair advantage to Pine-only vendors.
c) Whenever they can, TV founders have always tried to encourage openness—and less restrictions rather than more. TV tries to supply a platform, tools and an environment where individual or corporate creativity can flourish, as long as is doesn't jeopardize the community and its core values of learning and sharing. The Marketplace's concept did not fit well with those prerogatives.
d) TV has decided to continue to allow vendors to propose their wares freely through invite-only scripts, but with script moderation now analyzing ALL script publications, unscrupulous vendors will have a really hard time continuing to sell their misleading scripts publicly. We are counting on the gradual filtering out of these undesirable players to progressively clean the invite-only landscape. The work has already begun, and revenue loss by unsavory vendors is the main reason for dissatisfaction with script moderation. So that sort of discontent, we'll take anytime.
2. Private scripts
a) Private ideas have been around for a while and work quite well, so private scripts were a concept who's time had come.
b) We debated whether private invite-only scripts were to be allowed and in the end chose to give them a try, in the usual spirit of allowing more rather than less options.
c) There is a definite possibility that private invite-only scripts will be—or are—used by vendors who would otherwise have their scripts moderated. We knew this of course. Our gamble was to give them a chance and see what happens. If there is evidence they do more harm than good, we will reevaluate.
d) If we were to impose lifetime availability of private scripts, that would entail authors could no longer delete them, which is one of their main advantages.
So all in all, our hope is that the impact of those decisions and our on-going moderation efforts will lead to a public TV environment that can be better trusted by traders, in-line with TV's core values. As for the private script world and what traders do outside of TV's controlled environment, we don't think it's right to impose on TV the burden of policing that space. After all, as one co-founder said, private is private (even moderators don't have access to private scripts, btw). If, however, it turns out that private invite-only scripts are more harmful than good, we are prepared to eliminate them.
Trendbeat
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@PineCoders,
Thank you for addressing my concerns in so much detail.
It is interesting and comforting to see how all aspects were considered.
Points c) and d) are a risk as you say, but now I understand they were a calculated one and time will show how it works out.
On a serious note it baffles me how users can complain about the moderation team, volunteers aiming to make Tradingview a better place, the main role of moderators is actually to make sure users won't get banned/moderated, its also a preventive role, they are not snipers hidden in the shadows enjoying banning users, also reading rules is not that hard...but i guess some peoples prefer adding more work to the moderators.
Kudos to the moderation team, shame on those not respecting the rules and complaining afterwards.