PB Rule Idea

rujitra·Dec 27, 2018·2 votes·3,411 views

Opinions that are contrary to current punishment systems should be prohibited on threads where someone got a punishment valid under the current rules.

What this would mean is that if someone posts about their punishment/confused as to why they are punished, the following type of comments would be prohibited:

I don't think you should've been punished/that's not toxic.
Riot's systems are wrong/bad
This is technically against the rules but you did nothing wrong.

And the like.

This would better help the Player Behavior board serve one of its' purposes - to assist people in understanding their punishments. Discussion about whether the systems are working right, whether policy should change, and the like are more than valid - but having those discussions when someone is confused about their punishment detracts from the ability to successfully help a player understand their punishment. Of course this prohibition would extend very narrowly only to threads by players inquiring about "why is this log punishable" or similar - threads such as "why is X behavior punishable" when they are not a player inquiring about their specific logs would not be affected by this.

Rationale: Threads that are players complaining about their punishment are best served by explaining why they were punished under the current system. It is not important to these players whether the system is valid or not - because that will not change their punishment. Discussions about systems are great, but until changes are made, the rules apply as they are written or understood now - which is what players who are punished should be helped to understand during threads about their punishment.

15 Comments

ModUlanopoDec 27, 20183 votes

Hey Rujitra,

I get what you're going for here, but I think it's ultimately not a good idea.

On some level, people have to be allowed to be wrong on the internet. People say stupid things all the time. Some of that is "good stupid" because it forces us to refine our arguments and can sometimes lead to change.
Blanket bans on dissent are also problematic from a free expression perspective. Not only would this policy create the impression we're forcing people to toe the party line with regard to responses, it would also have a chilling effect on questions. No one's going to ask if there can be only one answer.
The two main purposes of the Player Behavior board are the passing of information, which can be done dispassionately and objectively, and giving people an opportunity to talk about what happened to them and where they go from here, which is rather the opposite. There must always be room for confusion and disagreement, else a FAQ would do.

Speaking of FAQ's. I wrote the original FAQ on behavior systems. I did it mostly so I would have ready, consistent responses to genuine questions. It wasn't until later that it became a semi-official resource, which actually wasn't something I wanted. The first time I was asked if the thread could be pinned, I said no. Another person, someone no longer with Riot, pinned it anyhow. That thread was part of the inspiration for the Arbiters Program, which later became Volunteer Moderation, so I guess it worked out all right in the end, but it definitely wasn't something I wanted at the time.

The upshot of this is that I've changed since I wrote that. Current me would never bother with a FAQ. That's mostly because Keyru convinced me that there's a better way to reach people and that's being open and connecting with them. It's often difficult and I frequently fail, but I think that's more than made up for with the good we've done over the years. We wouldn't have been capable of that had we closed ourselves to new ideas and new perspectives.

The people you're attempting to address will always be around. It's the nature of the internet and of people in general. As frustrating as they can be, they do serve a purpose in the ecology of the board.

rujitraDec 27, 20181 votes

I completely agree that people should be able to be wrong. However, does it really serve the players who are legitimately not understanding their punishment if people are allowed to be wrong? Again, this would be applied extremely narrowly so as to not prohibit legitimate discussion over the validity of the rules/system.

Players who post saying "Why is this punishable" are not served well at all if the responses they get are "I don't agree this is punishable" or "This isn't toxic". While those are perfectly valid opinions, they don't help the player - and instead they may in fact encourage the player that the "problem isn't me, but Riot" - which doesn't serve them well in preventing further punishments nor does it serve the community well in preventing toxicity.

Again, this isn't a blanket ban on dissent - people would still be able to identify why someone was punished and encourage them if they disagree to post another thread about the system. Further, if an OP questions why the policy is the case, people would be able to voice their opinion on the policy. My suggestion mainly applies to first or low level comments which are responses to "Why was I punished" with comments such as "Th policy sucks" or "This isn't toxic, because Riot's snowflakes" or "because Riot caters to people who can't mute".

ModArticus43Dec 27, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Hey! I’ll chime in here to drop my two cents.

Personally, I don’t see a problem with the narrow scope you provided in your last paragraph. Howver, this is honestly something of a “needs better moderation” clarity as opposed to a “needs additional rule” issue.

If someone replies to a thread as “this system is dumb, you shouldn’t be banned for that”, I would call that a low quality/low effort post, and we already have a rule in place covering exactly that. There’s two lines of thought that diverge here: a) the precedent of how we interpet that rule in general, and b) how zealously do we apply that interpretation to PB.

We’ve typically interpreted the low effort rule as the “shit post” rule. Pretty straightforward. In terms of enforcement, we’ve been pretty lax about how we apply that rule (I.e., a bit more so in PB, a lot less in GD).

Gameplay+ changed the game.

Ever since I joined the team we’ve discussed how to make PB less of a whining ground and more of the teaching environment you’ve hinted at a couple of times. Stricter enforcement of existing rules was always something on everyone’s lips (especially former Arbiters like Ulanopo who are the historic PB attendant experts). With Gameplay+ we now have a hyper regimented and strictly enforced section of the Boards where posted content is at a high level - I think people like you and others are realizing this same concept can be applied elsewhere.

So, I agree with where your train of thought is beginning. But, like Ulanopo, I think adding a new rule prohibiting certain speech isn’t the correct destination. However, I think this is a good time for us to start considering if this community is interested in something like a PB+ or if simply tightening the reins on how we enforce our existing rules (which are nearly all-inclusive) would help.

I’d also add that a lot of people who come to PB aren’t looking for an explanation, they’re looking for affirmation that they were wrongly punished. Gameplay+ works because there’s a lot of detail in gameplay. PB systems have some complexity, but ultimately if you use racial slurs or cuss some person out in your game it’s pretty apparent where the problem lies. Additionally, the available solutions are finite and at the end of the day we can give all the advice and wisdom in the world, but we can’t control the keyboard in game.

rujitraDec 27, 20181 votes

I don't know that PB+ would be useful because the people posting the threads may not post them on PB+ - yes PB+ may provide better discussion but if players are coming to the boards and already sometimes post in gameplay, GD, discuss the boards, etc. I see no reason to believe they'd post in PB+.

I think that moderating "low effort" or "off topic" rules more strictly on threads where people are solely asking why they were punished is fine - without a new rule. I think that off topic should include people who are discussing their own opinions as to if it should be against the rules or not. In a post about "Why was I punished", the only on topic posts are those which identify the rules violated and perhaps explain why those rules are in place. Discussion of whether they should be the rules or not is not on topic unless the OP initiates it.

ModUlanopoDec 27, 20182 votes

I think that moderating "low effort" or "off topic" rules more strictly on threads where people are solely asking why they were punished is fine - without a new rule.

The problem from a moderation perspective is that you're expecting people to understand the difference between it being okay to make an "I think Riot's behavior systems are wrong" thread, which is absolutely something we need to support, versus it being wrong to make a similar comment in response to someone else. That's a specific rule that would be confusing to a lot of people and would overload the moderation team.

rujitraDec 27, 20181 votes

I think with a good enough explanation in the deletion message, this would be a non-issue. For example:

Hey, we've removed your comment for being off topic. While you're more than welcome to discuss and opine about the validity of Riot's policies, when players come to the board to question why they received a punishment it is important that they are afforded the opportunity to understand why their behavior was not in line with the policy as it is now. While policies may and do change, punishments are based on the policy it is now - whether we all agree with it or not.

You could include the standard "this is not a warning" message or whatever you do if you want to give people some leeway - but I do think that upon repeated offenses (which would only affect the "regulars" and not regular players) punishment would help the board.

ModThe DjinnDec 27, 20183 votes

There is still the issue of moderation overload to consider though. Those comments would need to be reported, identified, removed, and explained, and we'd have to deal with people contesting those removals as well. When we enact policies, we also have to be realistic about whether or not we have the moderator power to reliably enforce them.

rujitraDec 27, 20181 votes

I am sure that you guys who look at a lot of things have a better view than me, but my personal opinion is that this is not a large enough issue to drastically increase workload - especially because as I've said it seems to be a few "regular" people posting this and once they realize that it is being moderated and against the rules, it will be virtually effortless to enforce (because there will only be the odd random comment thereafter).

rujitraDec 28, 20181 votes

You know, thinking more about this I think separating the board into two: "Behavior" and "Punishment Help" would be a good idea. Punishment Help could be moderated strictly for posts that are not directly helping players understand their punishment, and just like Riot Support, players who wish to debate the systems can be directed to Behavior after they are no longer confused about the rules as they are now. Thoughts?

ModUlanopoDec 28, 20181 votes

It's something we've discussed, but we're very leery of creating more boards bloat.

rujitraDec 28, 20181 votes

I'm not sure how hard changes are to make - to be honest and I'm not trying to be mean a lot of reasoning behind not doing this has been "more work" or "more bloat" or things that are easily reversed if it goes wrong - but maybe I'm wrong and it's a lot of work to make something like this happen.

It could be next to behavior like gameplay plus is to gameplay, tho - that way it's not really more bloat.

ModUlanopoDec 28, 20181 votes

I'm not sure how hard changes are to make - to be honest and I'm not trying to be mean a lot of reasoning behind not doing this has been "more work" or "more bloat" or things that are easily reversed if it goes wrong - but maybe I'm wrong and it's a lot of work to make something like this happen.

That's because sustainability has been a consistent problem over the past year. It's something we absolutely need to work on.

HotarµDec 27, 20182 votes

I agree with this but I'd like to suggest that saying something is potentially undeserving of a certain punishment tier should be permitted.

On the last post I commented on, the OP had a pretty heinous chat log — but not one that would normally warrant a 14 day ban so I commented objectively on it. I also recommended he file a support ticket.

In situations where there may be a potential error or there may be grounds for dispute, we should mention that if it may help the OP. Mistakes do happen with automated systems.

rujitraDec 27, 20182 votes

Oh definitely. I'm not saying things such as the following should be prohibited:

This is punishable, but I don't think the system was correct in it being escalated
The system seems to have errored, as I don't see anything punishable in your logs.

The alternative comments such as below would be prohibited:

This is punishable, but I don't think the rules are correct.
I don't see anything punishable in your logs (even though there are things punishable easily identified).

Comments made in good faith that simply missed something in the logs wouldn't be punished - nor would comments of people thinking escalation was/was not appropriate because they missed something. The point of this idea is to prohibit posters who go to the PB boards simply to disagree with completely legitimate punishments.

HotarµDec 27, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Oh definitely. I'm not saying things such as the following should be prohibited:

This is punishable, but I don't think the system was correct in it being escalated

The system seems to have errored, as I don't see anything punishable in your logs.

The alternative comments such as below would be prohibited:

This is punishable, but I don't think the rules are correct.

I don't see anything punishable in your logs (even though there are things punishable easily identified).

Comments made in good faith that simply missed something in the logs wouldn't be punished - nor would comments of people thinking escalation was/was not appropriate because they missed something. The point of this idea is to prohibit posters who go to the PB boards simply to disagree with completely legitimate punishments.

Great! I just misunderstood a bit when you used this as an example:

"I don't think you should've been punished/that's not toxic."

That's my bad, though. Good job on staying transparent and trying to improve the boards, we all really appreciate it! I think you summed up everything perfectly.

take my updoot