Is this... Is this normal moderator behavior?

Well, first, there's no "accent". This is text communication.

Second, the intent does not matter so much as the result. As an example, if I tell you "kys", but say nothing else, and you interpret that as "kill yourself", it doesn't matter if I meant "knit your sweater". You interpreted it as something else, and that's my fault for not using words, phrases, and tone that is agreed upon.

Maybe I am not making this clear.

Let's put it this way...since we're going to resort to making a case out of this...

Babygirl Yuumi: if only the rest 3 of our team actually spoke english and helped out bot but noooo

When you read that line, what's your first thought? Most people would immediately think "this person is infuriated and is blaming people for ruining the game simply because they don't speak English." Would you disagree?

You have three people accusing someone of being racist, and you see this line. You saw a few lines back that the same person was making a case over not being able to understand them, and that these players were already taking offense to the case being made. You saw the language/racism argument throughout the entire game, and you notice that at this point, that entire game is pretty much completely disrupted.

If you were an unbiased judge, you would have to agree that all the stipulations to trip the alarm are technically there. Then there's the game two the OP of that thread mentioned and never shown, and I'd bet $20 in RP that the racial insults against them as enemies were much more unregulated than when OP was still trying to work with them. I say that "working with them" part loosely, as I hardly think any of them were truly playing game 1, more than they were playing the chat war.

Don't get me wrong, those three were scumbags who should have been punished for milking the issue across multiple games and just being generally negative to the OP. Imo, I think both sides of that should've been punished for their behavior. I'm not Riot though...

But I digress. Point is, the case that the specialist was attempting to make (while most certainly worded just as fluently as the OP's words in their game) was not incorrect. It was pointed, and wildly unpopular...but upon going over it all myself, I'd have to say he was not necessarily discriminatory. I will say without restraint, however, that it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black to give a lecture on word choice with equally poor word choice.

I looked through the thread. Rujitra is always to the point - but he never goes into insult territory. Just because you disagree with what someone says or if they don't sugarcoat their words, it doesn't mean that they've broken any board rules. The reason the specialists on PB have those tags is because they've proven themselves to be knowledgeable about player behavior and are respectful to boards members. They've been appointed by the boards staff. It's not up to you to publicly hold another boards member accountable - and again, specialists are boards members, not staff.

Again - just because you don't like what you hear from someone, doesn't mean they've done something wrong. If you have an issue, take it to the boards Discord and moderator will speak to you personally.

So, let me first say that I was tired when commenting on that thread. I did not get my comments across properly. I was guilty of the same offense that I was accusing the OP of (failure to consider my audience and adapt my speech and communication to the audience). Further, I did get heated in that thread. No doubt about it.

That being said, I stand by my claims - and reiterate that they are only my opinion. Asking someone "do you speak English" in a negative way, when there is no mandate for them to do so, makes it seem like English is the "superior language". In fact, people have been kicked out of public places for such things in the past - albeit they usually go much farther. Regardless, it was my opinion that the OP was punished as their communications were not in the realm of "can we find some common ground and communicate", but they came across to me as "you need to speak English [so we can communicate]". Regardless of the intent, the messages came across this way, and quite frankly, if they could speak English, I think they would've been.

There's really no reason for someone to ask someone else to speak their language - you can't control others and while a brief "I'm sorry, I don't speak that language" is okay, attempting to convince them to change their language crosses a line. Is it discriminatory? Maybe the OP's messages didn't rise to that level. That being said, I think the tone was definitely a "English is the only acceptable language here" - especially the messages towards the end of the game. Sarcasm is not a positive thing unless it is absolutely clear you are joking. The OP was either sarcastically saying "if only", or the OP was being negative - kinda like the "sigh" on the internet. That is what pushed it over the line for me to consider it unacceptable. I understand that others may disagree, however the point of the Player Behavior boards is primarily to assist players in understanding punishments. If Riot deemed such behavior unacceptable, then Riot deemed it unacceptable, and a couple hundred people on the boards aren't going to change that.

Furthermore, from myself monitoring that thread, I suspect that there was outside influence outside that of a natural boards response to the thread. It is almost unheard of for a thread to get as many votes in the first couple hours of its existence as that thread did. This is one thing that led me to be a little more aggressive in my comments as I felt I was having to defend my points against multiple individuals who, quite frankly, were only there to "troll" (by disliking my comments because a friend told them to), and not to actually discuss. No, that does not make me getting heated acceptable. Again, I'm sorry. It was not a shining moment for me, and I accept that.

On to your question, the "opinions" of a person do not mean they are fit or unfit for a position generally. A moderator can have an opinion on the rules - but so long as they enforce the rules, there is nothing wrong with them disagreeing with them. Furthermore, a specialist, to my understanding, is someone who displays the ability to evaluate player's concerns and respond to them based in current Riot policies/procedures (as they're publicly known, given we don't have any sort of internal access).

A specialist is not some sort of "Riot apologist" - in fact you'll find cases I've both disagreed with Riot and called them out on decisions I disagree with. Furthermore, to my knowledge, there is nothing prohibiting me from offering my personal opinion on threads, even though I have a specialist tag. I firmly believe, and still do after reviewing that thread now, that the OP was out of line and their behavior rose to a point that it constituted unacceptable "languagist" behavior. Discrimination? Probably not. However, it was negative and it was based in the fact someone was not speaking English. I do not find such behavior okay - no matter how mild it is. I believe everyone should respect one another and do everything possible to accept others - especially when others are not doing anything wrong. I feel the OP was at a bare minimum disrespectful to their teammates who were not speaking English, and that's what fed my opinion.

I accept that people may disagree with my opinion. I accept that I handled that thread poorly. However, I don't think it detracts from my ability to provide answers to other players who are confused about punishment systems in League. Sometimes, I may get it wrong, either in how I respond or what I say. I have willingly opened myself up to criticism from both the moderation team who oversees this "specialist" program, as well as the community. I have truly taken comments to heart that were telling me I was wrong - even when they were not the nicest. I refuse to change my opinion as I still feel it is based in the facts of the case, but I accept that many people disagree with my analysis, and that's okay.

As a final note, I have always told the moderation team that they are free to remove my specialist tag if they feel I do not deserve it or if I am detrimental to the mission of the boards by having it. I said this when they first offered me the tag - I don't care. I am not a "hat collector" (a common internet phrase). I don't care if I have a tag or not. I do care about helping people understand their punishments and how to be better, less toxic players. This comes from having had multiple of my friends end up getting punished, with a few getting permanently banned, and not wanting to see that happen to others, because it does suck, and toxicity does lose games. That's my goal, and I'm truly sorry that the way I carried myself in this thread did nothing to help meet that goal.

I'll also be posting this as a reply to the main thread so the OP can see it as a reply in his/her notifications - to the OP, I will not be editing this comment as honestly I feel I've covered everything I have to say and feel you deserve to see the full response to the concerns. To everyone, I'm sorry, and I hope you'll take the time to look past my heated, and sometimes hostile comments to attempt to see it from my point of view.

Thanks all who read this.