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The "RANT" board doesn't address problems but could exacerbate ones we already have.

Quepha·3/5/2019, 10:53:53 PM·7 votes·7,501 views

Most ranters don't think they're ranting, so they aren't going to have the self-awareness to click on the rant board and admit that their thread is stupid. It can only be another GD/Meme board for ironic "rants" and meta commentary.

Even if it worked as intended, the idea of a containment board has pretty much already been disproven on other websites (reddit, 4chan, etc.) as the existence of the board still makes it a part of the whole site's culture, creates a space for those bad attitudes to breed, and the users go to other boards and spread that same mentality. /pol/ as a containment board made all of 4chan get steadily worse in the long run even if turning it off made 4chan immediately worse in the short run.

Riot should address problems with the boards ("discussion mode" is wothless for actually having a discussion because reddit was never designed for discussion, search is so feature-limited that it is functionally useless) and their reddit presence (all discussion in a single sub whether it's esports, patch notes, twitch e-celebs, fanart, memes, or gameplay discussion so only around 5 conversations can happen at a single time and if you aren't one of the first 10 commenters your voice is completely lost) and this fails to address anything.

The post at the top of "RANT" about rules for the board will also end up being pointless. The "RANT" board was created for users to put up the worst posts they can think of, there's no way they'll suddenly develop the self control to not throw in hate speech, personal attacks, and death threats when they would already do that on posts they actually thought were good.

This is basically the "Prisoner's island" of posting except there's still a bridge from the toxic island to where all the "good" people are supposed to be.

18 Comments

RiotKeyru3/5/2019, 11:48:46 PM4 votes

I think you have some good points here but I'd like to counter some of them as well.

Riot should address problems with the boards ("discussion mode" is wothless for actually having a discussion because reddit was never designed for discussion, search is so feature-limited that it is functionally useless) and their reddit presence (all discussion in a single sub whether it's esports, patch notes, twitch e-celebs, fanart, memes, or gameplay discussion so only around 5 conversations can happen at a single time and if you aren't one of the first 10 commenters your voice is completely lost) and this fails to address anything.

I actually don't think Discussion mode is worthless at all. It depends on how it is used. The way it is currently setup to default show Best instead of New first does hinder some aspects of conversation in terms of an echo chamber since whoever gets upvoted will continue and anyone in the bottom won't get seen unless you sort by New. Discussion view does help in continuing a conversation with one person and if anyone wanted to join in to see where it's at, gives them clarity and ease of being included or in the know right on the spot.

In the opposite side, Chronological view has its own issues where if you are an early contributor you can quickly get removed from the conversation because of how fast it can move. And, if you try to talk to one individual person, it gets hard to keep talking with them AND track where the community is moving the conversation towards. In that too, you can type a long thoughtful response but end up being passed by because no one will see it and thus come to the same issue of being lost.

Search feature is kinda bad, I do agree there.

The post at the top of "RANT" about rules for the board will also end up being pointless. The "RANT" board was created for users to put up the worst posts they can think of, there's no way they'll suddenly develop the self control to not throw in hate speech, personal attacks, and death threats when they would already do that on posts they actually thought were good.

This is basically the "Prisoner's island" of posting except there's still a bridge from the toxic island to where all the "good" people are supposed to be.

My gut says that this is far from "Prisoner's Island" but I could totally be wrong. We're not trying to promote or encourage the type of behavior but if a post is low-effort and we're moderating that from Gameplay, this I think would be a good solution moving forward if we tailor it in a way that allows discussions to still be had in the rant board space. Whether it is to agree, disagree, or talk thoughtfully about it. Sometimes players themselves just want to be heard in some form but it drowns out a lot of other places.

We're testing a few things here and there to see how they work and we've seen this type of post be successful before when we created a RANT thread tailored to the Start of Season last year. If it doesn't work, we can always revert back and take learnings from there to adapt more to how we can make something that works in the future.

Thanks again for sharing your feedback and I'm always reading/listening!

HopeStartsWithU3/6/2019, 2:23:46 AM2 votes

You know what the actual problem of the RANT board is? That people posting on Gameplay don't think they are ranting. They are dead serious about their opinions and how Riot should handle stuff. The shitposting at Gameplay won't become less. It's pretty much the same as flamers thinking they don't actually flame, or that they have the right to do so. The RANT board is completely useless.

Hexs Fortune3/6/2019, 3:06:30 AM1 votes

It's a nice place to blow off some steam after a stressful game.

RisksShweky3/7/2019, 6:22:09 PM1 votes

I just look at the Rant board as another way for Riot to clearly ignore and not look at what players have issues with

Farqad43/7/2019, 7:39:44 PM1 votes

If riot doesn't want to see it don't post there. Now if they are moving our stuff there to ignore it then I have a problem. Sad if a huge company like riot wants to hide from players criticisms. Yes some people are jerks but a lot of times rants aren't even rants its just people label everything they disagree with as hate speech when a lot of "ranters" are holding companies accountable. Free speech is free, if they direcly harshly break a rule remove it but dont put every single complaint there just bc people disagree.

hotarse3/6/2019, 2:26:32 AM1 votes

RANT is pure riot reactive and punitive. Riot loves being both. Rather than looking at the cause of the problem, they try to band-aid it. They even balance the game this way. Now we have a glut of BS in the game like scuttle crab and weird ass jungle camps that convoluted and dumb, all because they thought they thought they could use a band-aid to solve a problem rather than find the cause.

The cause for toxicity in game is often brought on by game design choices that turn the game into a stompy snowbally shitfest that's no fun for anyone.

Then when people complain about it or criticize these decisions on the boards because of the shit game, rather than fix the game, riot just tries to censor those people a la RANT board.

They thought there'd be enough fanbois to upvote the "love riot" posts and downvote the "hate riot" posts, but as the game got progressively worse, so has the pressure, and the vitriol increased. So it's not wonder this problem arose. And it's not because "people are shit" like some rioters might have you believe.

It's because the game is shit and riot says and does nothing about it. Worse, they'll say something then not do it.

So yeah. League of [Removed by Moderation] 2019.

At least the kids are still peer-pressured into playing your dumb game.

SUPERSATANA3/6/2019, 12:56:36 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Most ranters don't think they're ranting, so they aren't going to have the self-awareness to click on the rant board and admit that their thread is stupid. It can only be another GD/Meme board for ironic "rants" and meta commentary.

That's the biggest problem imo. My solution is still the same, still very simple: punish the ones that insult Riot and/or the game. Criticism is totally ok ofc, but stuff like "this game is garbage, Riot is shit" and so on shouldn't be allowed, I find baffling that is still permitted. NOTHING good EVER come from post like those, they are insulting, they lessen the credibility of the boards and so on.