ABSURD CLAIM!!! <- misrepresenting one group or another

HalcyonDweller·Mar 14, 2018·7 votes·2,701 views

Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title. Wall of text disparaging and discrediting everyone who is considered a part of the group that supposedly holds the claim in the title.

Can we PLEASE get the idiotic posts like this out of the fucking boards? They're garbage; they incite arguments, they demean people who have genuinely held beliefs, and they discourage valuable discussion in favor of mud-slinging.

Posts like this hold absolutely no value, and they only serve to make the boards a worse place.

Example:

Title: ADC's are ranged!!! They're broken, nerf them

Body: Basically all the solo laners on the boards right now.... etc.

20 Comments

LothloranMar 14, 20182 votes

I main top and I don't care about ADCs at all. I don't want them nerfed.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

Precisely my point, the post I made an example of was falsely generalizing people such as yourself and then calling you out for opinions you don't even hold.

ModThe DjinnMar 15, 20182 votes

So part of the problem here is that, provided a post abides by the Universal Rules, players are allowed to express their displeasure or their beliefs or their frustration. We're exploring some solutions to see if we can help support both the community that wants to vent their frustration and the community that wants to delve into deep, meaningful discussions, but ultimately we do have both communities here.

Also, frankly, people give us a lot of hell for moderator discretion already, and this is not only moderator discretion but ALSO moderator discretion on a large scale, that drastically increases our workload (especially as we'd have to browse manually or have the report queue quadrupled). I'm not sure there's a feasible solution right now, unless the community in general is ready to fully get behind and be comfortable with moderators having the power to remove "unproductive" discussions at their discretion -- and I'm not sure that's something our moderation team could even realistically do at the moment without working ourselves into insanity.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

Okay, I understand, we definitely don't want you folks to go insane from working inefficiently or on out of scope stuff.

redniwediSMar 14, 20181 votes

The main issue with getting rid of posts like that is creating a set of rules that actually target them. Moderators don't typically remove stuff just because it's trash, they need a good reason for it.

If we tie such a rule to effort we have to decide what entails effort. It doesn't take much effort to rant about win rates after all, and mentioning different sets of win rates can make a post rather long, so post length is somewhat out of the question. It would cut down on spam posts that have their only content in the title, but this rule isn't just about getting rid of spam.

We could tie it to the disparaging going on, but then we will get smart asses using excuses like "sarcasm" and "satire" to thinly mask their posts. We then have to decide what counts as disparaging a group, and what is just repeating champion memes or talking about well earned stereotypes.

Cracking down on mud-slinging could be a good start, but then we have to decide where the line is drawn and how much of it is left up to interpretation for the moderators. Too thick of a line and heated yet productive arguments will get caught up by it, and if it's too thin the mods would have to decide on a case by case basis, which isn't particularly preferable for them in a lot of cases.

I would love to see posts and threads with such low effort or discussion value get removed, but we should start by coming up with the tools our moderators would need to get it done with minimal headache to them.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20183 votes

Okay, that was a lot but I'm following so far.

Part of me wants to suggest using concepts from "Automate the Boring Stuff" to set up a bot account that could browse and identify problematic content before such content even gets reported.

It could be taught with genetic algorithms and a sufficient sample size of posts already marked as being good or bad to teach it how to identify future bad posts and notify moderators.

ModThe DjinnMar 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}Part of me wants to suggest using concepts from "Automate the Boring Stuff" to set up a bot account that could browse and identify problematic content before such content even gets reported.

Blunt honestly here -- we don't really have the bandwidth to build or maintain something like this, let alone accurately.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

That's entirely fair. I wouldn't expect the moderators to do this. If it were done I would hope for it to be done with a separate volunteer group or Riot themselves (to keep the workload off you folks - as I understand that your time is limited).

ModThe DjinnMar 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

That's entirely fair. I wouldn't expect the moderators to do this. If it were done I would hope for it to be done with a separate volunteer group or Riot themselves (to keep the workload off you folks - as I understand that your time is limited).

I mean, we'd have to be fundamentally involved though, as we are part of most major board decisions, including what threads should and shouldn't be allowed. This is why it's ultimately work that would come back to us at some point no matter how you slice it.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

Would it be reasonable to set guidelines for how such a thing should work, so that the volunteers could work to that rather than make you moderators constantly check it? Or would setting guidelines be exactly the sort of extra work outside of actual moderating that you're worried about creating?

Separate question: Does Riot give you moderators tools that would allow you to easily view or pull large amounts of data from various actions taken in the past? If this were easy then it would be possible to simply use that data to teach the algorithms.

ModThe DjinnMar 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Would it be reasonable to set guidelines for how such a thing should work, so that the volunteers could work to that rather than make you moderators constantly check it? Or would setting guidelines be exactly the sort of extra work outside of actual moderating that you're worried about creating?

I can't see a scenario where we give people outside the volunteer team access to the board features needed to do this level of pruning. So we'd have to estimate the scope of the work, create guidelines, recruit new moderators, train them, discuss what should/shouldn't be allowed with the community, discuss removals that people have questions about (which would likely increase, as "not productive enough" is largely subjective) and manage to avoid burnout enough to keep the boards curated close enough to 24/7 that it's not an ultimately ineffective measure...and also be sure that we aren't alienating a large portion of the community with the new rules, as some players DON'T want deep gameplay discussions all the time.

As I've said, it's stuff we've been talking about, but I don't have any solid direction to share at the moment.

Separate question: Does Riot give you moderators tools that would allow you to easily view or pull large amounts of data from various actions taken in the past? If this were easy then it would be possible to simply use that data to teach the algorithms.

I'm not really willing to discuss exactly what tools we do/don't have (I'm not sure where my ability to share that information ends, and feel like being on the safe side here), save to say that the idea of building an algorithmic system to watch over the boards is not happening. I can say that confidently enough that I think discussion of it is unwarranted at this point.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=6heBIhQc,discussion-id=lIG70Qfo,comment-id=0001000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-03-15T16:56:56.613+0000)

I can't see a scenario where we give people outside the volunteer team access to the board features needed to do this level of pruning. So we'd have to estimate the scope of the work, create guidelines, recruit new moderators, train them, discuss what should/shouldn't be allowed with the community, discuss removals that people have questions about (which would likely increase, as "not productive enough" is largely subjective) and manage to avoid burnout enough to keep the boards curated close enough to 24/7 that it's not an ultimately ineffective measure...and also be sure that we aren't alienating a large portion of the community with the new rules, as some players DON'T want deep gameplay discussions all the time.

As I've said, it's stuff we've been talking about, but I don't have any solid direction to share at the moment.

I'm not really willing to discuss exactly what tools we do/don't have (I'm not sure where my ability to share that information ends, and feel like being on the safe side here), save to say that the idea of building an algorithmic system to watch over the boards is not happening. I can say that confidently enough that I think discussion of it is unwarranted at this point.

Okay, understood. I'll drop the discussion of an automated system for now. And I respect your limitations on sharing info, I don't mean to overstep or to ask you to overstep. I was simply trying to find solutions.

NocturnalSheildMar 15, 20181 votes

Bah i say remove all rules.

We need more posts not less.

I remember back in the forum days when you could click a thread on the front page read it for 2 minutes click back and the entire front page would of changed due to how many posts were being created.

I could go from cat memes to ezreal balance to politics to a wah is me ive been banned post to tips for fixing cars in like 5 minutes. And it was glorious.

If a thread looks low effort just dont click it. You arent REQUIRED to read literally everything

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

Too many threads means that valuable threads don't get the attention they deserve, due to being ousted by the proliferation of other posts.

ModThe DjinnMar 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Too many threads means that valuable threads don't get the attention they deserve, due to being ousted by the proliferation of other posts.

Here's my question: who determines what has value? This is why it's tricky. Where's the line between "ADCs are OP" and a careful analysis of ADC strengths and weaknesses? What if the latter has an obviously skewed perspective aimed at proving ADCs are objectively overpowered, and is wrong in some of its statements? What if the former starts a discussion? Where do we stop pruning?

50% devil's advocate, 50% legitimate question here.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=6heBIhQc,discussion-id=lIG70Qfo,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2018-03-15T16:40:10.342+0000)

Here's my question: who determines what has value? This is why it's tricky. Where's the line between "ADCs are OP" and a careful analysis of ADC strengths and weaknesses? What if the latter has an obviously skewed perspective aimed at proving ADCs are objectively overpowered, and is wrong in some of its statements? What if the former starts a discussion? Where do we stop pruning?

50% devil's advocate, 50% legitimate question here.

Right, "who decides" should not be any one person or persons of a similar mindset.

But I think that it is fair to ask that demeaning or dismissive generalizations should not be allowed. Basically posts or comments which focus on the "other" group instead of on the actual topic of discussion.

Case in point, the example I quoted; "ABSURD opinion <- basically everyone of x group right now" - in my opinion, should not be allowed. Same for statements referencing "Riot fanboys" to apply a dismissive and demeaning set of attributes to them.

My reasoning for this: Not only does it not encourage productive discussion, but it also creates a more divisive environment where labels are used to demean and dismiss any person holding differing opinions that could be even remotely connected to the group the label applies to.

NocturnalSheildMar 15, 20181 votes

Ah but it also means more people. I mean cmon the new boards have to be 100th of what it used to be.

Some hours we only have 5-10 new threads an hour.

It used to like 5-10 thread every 5 minutes.

We just lost shit tons of people with all the new rules.

With more people equals more chances threads gey found so it evens out.

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

I'd be in favor of that so long as there are useful and effective views for filtering through all of that content. Perhaps having sub-boards or more megathreads to consolidate different types of content. For that to work though the moderators would end up having to put more work into catching threads placed in the wrong sub-boards, which would be a lot more work with more users.

That said, if it could be made easier for mods to deal with that I bet it would work / be okay. The problem is that the boards site doesn't support that right now. Mods can't (and not even the original poster can) move a post, so they just have to ban it and force the player to make a new one, which just further bogs down the process.

LauchmelderMar 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Example:

Title: ADC's are ranged!!! They're broken, nerf them

Body: Basically all the solo laners on the boards right now.... etc.

Alright, I will start:

ADCs deal too much damage without being gated by cooldowns. This makes them the most valuable asset in your team most of the time.

"The team" has to protect it's most valuable asset (most of the times it's gonna be the ADC, see above).

My complaint? As an AP carry or carry top I don't want to be a bitch to anyone. I want the choice between helping my ADC by peeling for him OR ignoring him and winning the fight myself (with the rest of the team obviously).

I don't have that choice right now, so I want this to be fixed. That is not unreasonable, is it?

HalcyonDwellerMar 15, 20181 votes

Not unreasonable in the least. This was perfect and I would much rather see this as a post than the drivel that I usually see people write.

My complaint was that people use attacks of character (ad hominem) such as "ABSURD opinion <- basically everyone of x group right now"

You didn't make this mistake, and you also made very reasonable explanations for why ADCs are problematic in your opinion. I would even be inclined to agree with you. So yeah, your comment here is a perfect example of what we should see more of.