Account penalties should be handled by humans, not a bot

KTFresh·Apr 8, 2019·98 votes·18,442 views

A bot should not have the power to suspend/ ban accounts. The information as to how the bot works is not transparent to my knowledge. What I do know is that my first ever penalty in the 6 years I have played league was a 2 week suspension for calling the 4 teammates flaming me "bad," as they were flaming me within the first five minutes of the game and they all died in their lanes and blamed me (I was jungle). I appealed the penalty immediately, and got a response about a week later, and the penalty got reduced to a 10 game chat restriction and losing all my honor.

My second penalty was received this past weekend. Three teammates were flaming each other and me, and I told them to "stfu and stop typing." I said nothing derogatory. I did not think much of the game, I said in all chat that the 3 teammates could use some reports for being toxic, and moved on to the next champion select. My account was perma banned.

I was appalled. I had no intention of hurting anyone or ruining the game for anyone. I was frustrated that they were more focused on typing than trying to win, and I expressed that in a fairly appropriate manner. No name calling, no spamming of pings or chat, no inting, just telling them to shut up and focus.

Once again, I immediately sent an appeal. This one with less willingness to be understanding and less patience. I also hopped onto twitter and messaged the Riot Games Support account, where I got to speak with "Tank." He was able to look up my situation and agreed both penalties were outliers and very harsh bans given the context and the fact I do not have a history of toxic/negative behavior.

Has the penalty bot system been adjusted in 2019 to be more sensitive and intense? If so, is this to address some mega terrible chat problem? If chat really is that much of a problem, then just disable the feature entirely. At this point, I have no idea what constitutes earning a penalty, or what level of penalty. This last situation somehow earned me a perma ban, yet I never thought I was deserving of ANY level of consequence given the context of the game. There are so many worse things I could have said or done to retaliate, yet I told them to shut up and play, and that earned a perma. I was told that my messages appeared "provocative." I would like to have "provocative" defined within the game then. I feel like so much within any given interaction could be classified as "provocative," and it is not fair to allow a bot to have god power to decide what trigger words/symbols deserve a penalty without context. Especially so quickly.

Allowing a bot to decide the fate of my account, so quickly and without thought, is unacceptable. These days I no longer have much time to play league anymore. Had this been an issue back when I played hours upon hours every day, losing access to my main account for periods of time may have not been an entirely huge issue in my eyes; just hop on a smurf account and play with friends! These days, the little time I get each month, I only desire to play on my main. The great majority of my in game communication is positive, encouraging, friendly, and game focused. It is hard not to say anything when teammates are allowing their characters to stand still or be in places they shouldn't because they are busy typing negative things. I suppose I need to speak to them like the children I work with in mental health; proper, elaborate, polite. Even though this is not an accurate representation of how their speech in chat and actions are affecting me. (Not to say it is not about losing control of my emotions and venting it out, it is simply me being truthful to myself and them as a value I hold.) The game is less enjoyable with a martyr mentality. I value standing up for myself and others, while maintaining a level head of course, yet the penalty system appears to not recognize neutral speech. I was informed it often looks for "passive negative." How?? What EXACTLY constitutes "passive negative"?? From what I gathered, just engaging in conversation with someone being toxic counts as "passive negative." That's insane.

This is so long Jesus Christ.

Riot I believe there are a few options/solutions here:

Disable chat across the board to avoid toxic communication within your game.
Remove the power of suspensions/bans from the penalty bot, it is not fair for people to suffer overly harsh penalties or lose access of their accounts for periods of time before a human even looks at the situation.
Bring back tribunal or create a team designated to WORK WITH a bot that has the ability to flag potential suspension/ban worthy behaviors.
Provide an option for people to completely disable chat on their accounts, to avoid getting baited into human interaction within the game and to treat the players they're playing with as bots to avoid potential trigger words/symbols that trigger an unwarranted penalty.

TLDR; I received my first penalties ever in 6 years within 2019, the first being a 2 week suspension, the second being a perma ban. Both penalties confirmed to be too harsh. I do not enjoy unjustly losing access to my account for no good reasons.

Also, I really enjoyed being honor level 5 last season. What a descent into hell I have made. I am the epitome of toxic behavior according to this bot.

EDIT * People appear to be focusing more on my situation and the circumstances of me presenting this discussion. The 3 Rioters I spoke with about both situations (Derp, Tank, and Skeletor) all confirmed the system over penalized my account given the context of the games and not having a history of negative behaviors. I would like the discussion to be more about the inconvenience of that problem.

Thanks, Kylie "KTFresh"

EDIT how can I post pics here?

EDIT * Here are conversations with the 3 Rioters

Derp on reducing first penalty https://imgur.com/a/SWT543Y Me starting a convo with the Riot Games Support Twitter account https://imgur.com/a/Coe8V4V Tank https://imgur.com/a/8vGUmal Tank confirming https://imgur.com/a/q6P5lZm Skeletor https://imgur.com/a/uQgBuDC My conclusion https://imgur.com/a/U52w8ZU

EDIT * After all the craziness of this situation was said and done, some great memes came out of a great weekend at LCS in St. Louis. Meeting up with so many of my online friends for the first time, all of who can vouch for my character within the game. Thanks for taking the time to read and discuss my post!

https://imgur.com/a/K8Be29Z

https://imgur.com/a/yDTiZpa

https://imgur.com/a/y2ZjY97

https://imgur.com/a/oYnnEbr

https://imgur.com/a/Oq8paIA

https://imgur.com/a/WDLT5Je

140 Comments

Timethief49Apr 8, 201924 votes

If you think your penalty was unjustified, feel free to post it here with the chatlogs to review, but dont be surprised if humans see it the same way the bot does. Also, context doesnt matter, there is not justifcation for toxicity. Tribunal was terribly slow and less concistant than the bot, also the bot was partially based on the tribunals results. Making the system human-reviewed is not doable, you´d need too many people to do so.

JamareeApr 8, 201918 votes

We actually did have a system where punishments were doled out by people, wanna know what happened?

When this community was given a chance to clean up the community, decide who they wanted to play with, actually do their part in dealing with trolls, feeders, afkers, a system that allowed context because you saw all sides of the logs, they ACTIVELY didn't use it. Even then, there was a section of people who just spammed punished to either troll or get the meager amount of IP it gave back then.

So yeah, while it would be nice for punishments to all go through peer review, we saw first hand that that can't and doesn't work.

TwitchInMyPantsApr 8, 20192 votes

{quoted}

We actually did have a system where punishments were doled out by people, wanna know what happened?

When this community was given a chance to clean up the community, decide who they wanted to play with, actually do their part in dealing with trolls, feeders, afkers, a system that allowed context because you saw all sides of the logs, they ACTIVELY didn't use it. Even then, there was a section of people who just spammed punished to either troll or get the meager amount of IP it gave back then.

So yeah, while it would be nice for punishments to all go through peer review, we saw first hand that that can't and doesn't work.

Burying a feature on a page that you can't even see without knowing about it or using a news link is a feature that isn't a feature that's well supported. You can't blame the community for something Riot failed to advertise outside of launch.

Not only that but there's efforts you can make to catch punish spammers. Use some cookies or something to detect page behavior to scan for bots, make sure the page is actually being observed rather than just left open to spam punish. There was no effort like that. Even if its an arms race vs scripts Riot didn't even try.

Tribunal failed because Riot failed it. The community had limited input and we rarely got to know if the punishes ever worked. New people didn't get injected into the Tribunal because they weren't aware of it unless they happened upon a youtube compilation on the tribunal.

I really hate this "Won't ever work because Tribunal failed" mentality because Riot didn't even try, Treeline and Dominion even got more support than Tribunal.

@OP Riot does have their employees look at chat logs/player behavior but given how much they have to review they often just maintain the original call of the bot. I'm ok with bots moderating the game as long as its properly supplemented by human input, but given the "We can't tell you why we banned you" mentality unless you used hate speech there's no way to hold player support accountible if they maintain false bans. That's the reason why the system fails in the ways that it does.

JamareeApr 8, 20197 votes

{quoted}

Burying a feature on a page that you can't even see without knowing about it or using a news link is a feature that isn't a feature that's well supported. You can't blame the community for something Riot failed to advertise outside of launch.

This community already complains about esports being functioned on the client, you really think this would have been different. Riot could have done more of course, but don't act like it is only their fault.

Not only that but there's efforts you can make to catch punish spammers. Use some cookies or something to detect page behavior to scan for bots, make sure the page is actually being observed rather than just left open to spam punish. There was no effort like that. Even if its an arms race vs scripts Riot didn't even try.

Why, so even LESS people can use it, and the punishments slowed even more?

Tribunal failed because Riot failed it. The community had limited input and we rarely got to know if the punishes ever worked. New people didn't get injected into the Tribunal because they weren't aware of it unless they happened upon a youtube compilation on the tribunal.

I really hate this "Won't ever work because Tribunal failed" mentality because Riot didn't even try, Treeline and Dominion even got more support than Tribunal.

Because it won't, if the precursor of such didn't even if Riot demanded people have to do 20 Tribunals cases before they could even play, or something along those lines, people here don't want to put in the work, they just want results and want to complain about the lack of results. Let's say Riot pushed forth all this effort, put a request to have people actively do the Tribunal and read it, do you honestly believe enough people here would care to actually do that?

TwitchInMyPantsApr 8, 20193 votes

{quoted}

This community already complains about esports being functioned on the client, you really think this would have been different. Riot could have done more of course, but don't act like it is only their fault.

Why, so even LESS people can use it, and the punishments slowed even more?

Because it won't, if the precursor of such didn't even if Riot demanded people have to do 20 Tribunals cases before they could even play, or something along those lines, people here don't want to put in the work, they just want results and want to complain about the lack of results. Let's say Riot pushed forth all this effort, put a request to have people actively do the Tribunal and read it, do you honestly believe enough people here would care to actually do that?

You don't need everyone using it, you needed more people using it. IP incentive is fine if not exploiting it, removing it was fine if it wasn't working.

If its slow then adding more people won't make it slower. Part of what slows it down is appealing false bans from punish spam. People literally couldn't find it anywhere. It doesn't even have to be a client tab, it wasn't even on the front page of League anywhere. You couldn't find it on the main website.

If a critical feature of your game system cannot be found without consulting an outside source then you've guaranteed a minority of people won't use it. There's a reason there's a big PLAY NOW button when you first enter the site, that's how you get the client. Its definitely a huge part Riot's fault. Even if you needed say 10% of the playerbase to make Tribunal work as a random estimate it's impossible to actually get that playerbase there unless you can find it.

It was in client and on the news page once and you were expected to find it from there. It was months before the IP was cut dropping incentive for a lot of players. Are you really surprised it dwindled after a year when it was impossible to know about as a casual player without someone telling you? This is like if they hid a champion on a secret link to unlock them or something asinine like that. That level of UI incompetence is something I expect from a government agency using the same UI since Windows XP was popular, not from a game company making billions of dollars.

Edit: Being blunt my main problem with what you're saying is that you spin a narrative that its the fault of the community, clearly not entirely but you appear to be attributing most of the blame on the community and not the company that designed the system. Every system that is used by millions of people will have exploits found in it. Its the job of engineers and UI designers to make solutions to these exploits and make their systems more efficient. If the system is slow and being exploited the solution isn't to nuke the system. Its to give it support and patch the exploits. Removing the IP bonus was simply a bandaid fix to a system with more issues than that.

JamareeApr 8, 20195 votes

{quoted}

You don't need everyone using it, you needed more people using it. IP incentive is fine if not exploiting it, removing it was fine if it wasn't working.

If its slow then adding more people won't make it slower. Part of what slows it down is appealing false bans from punish spam. People literally couldn't find it anywhere. It doesn't even have to be a client tab, it wasn't even on the front page of League anywhere. You couldn't find it on the main website.

If a critical feature of your game system cannot be found without consulting an outside source then you've guaranteed a minority of people won't use it. There's a reason there's a big PLAY NOW button when you first enter the site, that's how you get the client. Its definitely a huge part Riot's fault. Even if you needed say 10% of the playerbase to make Tribunal work as a random estimate it's impossible to actually get that playerbase there unless you can find it.

This is the same community that gets pissy over having to do other game modes they don't enjoy even if there is gain to it, don't go act like enough people would use it even if there was a "Go to Tribunal here" button especially when there WAS a this leads to the Tribunal button.

That level of UI incompetence is something I expect from a government agency using the same UI since Windows XP was popular, not from a game company making billions of dollars.

Incredibly off topic, but did you know a decent chunk of the American government ONLY recently moved from Windows XP, to 2003.

Edit: Being blunt my main problem with what you're saying is that you spin a narrative that its the fault of the community, clearly not entirely but you appear to be attributing most of the blame on the community and not the company that designed the system. Every system that is used by millions of people will have exploits found in it. Its the job of engineers and UI designers to make solutions to these exploits and make their systems more efficient. If the system is slow and being exploited the solution isn't to nuke the system. Its to give it support and patch the exploits. Removing the IP bonus was simply a bandaid fix to a system with more issues than that.

And my point is that I truly don't believe that unless forced people would actively do it otherwise.

KuponyaApr 8, 20191 votes

{quoted}

We actually did have a system where punishments were doled out by people, wanna know what happened?

When this community was given a chance to clean up the community, decide who they wanted to play with, actually do their part in dealing with trolls, feeders, afkers, a system that allowed context because you saw all sides of the logs, they ACTIVELY didn't use it. Even then, there was a section of people who just spammed punished to either troll or get the meager amount of IP it gave back then.

So yeah, while it would be nice for punishments to all go through peer review, we saw first hand that that can't and doesn't work.

Or if you actually looked into it, the reason it was taken down was that the system became too accurate and only gave cases where punishment was already warranted a high percentage of the time. It became a waste of time and resources in having people judge cases that were blatantly guilty as opposed to innocents/mild.

Of course, there were angry trolls who did spam punish, but vocal minorities do not speak for the silent majority now do they?

JamareeApr 9, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Or if you actually looked into it, the reason it was taken down was that the system became too accurate and only gave cases where punishment was already warranted a high percentage of the time. It became a waste of time and resources in having people judge cases that were blatantly guilty as opposed to innocents/mild.

Of course, there were angry trolls who did spam punish, but vocal minorities do not speak for the silent majority now do they?

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/ltxrsBif-why-was-the-tribunal-removed?show=flat

I'm sorry what was that?

HotarµApr 8, 20197 votes

Disable chat across the board to avoid toxic communication within your game.

No, in-game chat is too vital and Riot would/should never remove it because a few people are toxic.

Remove the power of suspensions/bans from the penalty bot, it is not fair for people to suffer overly harsh penalties or lose access of their accounts for periods of time before a human even looks at the situation.

Bring back tribunal or create a team designated to WORK WITH a bot that has the ability to flag potential suspension/ban worthy behaviors.

It is fair and it's also the only realistic way to deal with the mountain of reports that Riot receives daily. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to maintain a team that would manage to keep up with the hundreds of thousands (or maybe even millions) of reports that are sent in daily?

_ A lot. _ Probably so much that it would bankrupt Riot.

With humans you also run the risk of human error, something that the system reduces heavily. Humans can also show bias while robots can't.

The first being a 2 week suspension, the second being a perma ban. Both penalties confirmed to be too harsh.

If your first suspension was a 2 week ban, that means it was for hate speech such as racism, homophobia, or inciting self-harm. You were warned that any further negativity would result in a permanent ban.

Definitely doesn't seem too harsh to me.

INoble KnightIApr 9, 20193 votes

{quoted}

No, in-game chat is too vital and Riot would/should never remove it because a few people are toxic.

It is fair and it's also the only realistic way to deal with the mountain of reports that Riot receives daily. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to maintain a team that would manage to keep up with the hundreds of thousands (or maybe even millions) of reports that are sent in daily?

_ A lot. _ Probably so much that it would bankrupt Riot.

With humans you also run the risk of human error, something that the system reduces heavily. Humans can also show bias while robots can't.

If your first suspension was a 2 week ban, that means it was for hate speech such as racism, homophobia, or inciting self-harm. You were warned that any further negativity would result in a permanent ban.

Definitely doesn't seem too harsh to me.

If 3 Rioters say it was to harsh then you're saying that the OP and all 3 Rioters are wrong. Who is more likely to be in the wrong, a bot or 4 people (3 of which are people working for RIOT)

HotarµApr 9, 20191 votes

If 3 Rioters say it was to harsh then you're saying that the OP and all 3 Rioters are wrong. Who is more likely to be in the wrong, a bot or 4 people (3 of which are people working for RIOT)

I sifted through every comment and the edit in the original post and unless I missed something (in which case please link it, because I genuinely couldn't find it) OP hasn't provided actual proof of this happening.

So 3 separate Rioters (not even Support staff, actual Rioters) all reviewed the situation, looked at the punishment, and all agreed it was unwarranted? And then they just didn't do anything about it? No talking to higher-ups, they didn't revert the punishment, and they didn't alter the system in any way? Plenty of people have said this just to gather community support in the past, so nah, I don't buy it.

Proof or it didn't happen, simple as that.

Edit: and when I say proof, I mean hard evidence in the form of screenshots.

And even if they did say something along those lines, it doesn't change the fact that OP had ample time to change his behavior and heed the warning he got that specifically said "Any continued negativity will result in a permanent suspension." In that case, yeah, it's a shitty situation, but it could have been avoided altogether.

INoble KnightIApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I sifted through every comment and the edit in the original post and unless I missed something (in which case please link it, because I genuinely couldn't find it) OP hasn't provided actual proof of this happening.

So 3 separate Rioters (not even Support staff, actual Rioters) all reviewed the situation, looked at the punishment, and all agreed it was unwarranted? And then they just didn't do anything about it? No talking to higher-ups, they didn't revert the punishment, and they didn't alter the system in any way? Plenty of people have said this just to gather community support in the past, so nah, I don't buy it.

Proof or it didn't happen, simple as that.

Edit: and when I say proof, I mean hard evidence in the form of screenshots.

And even if they did say something along those lines, it doesn't change the fact that OP had ample time to change his behavior and heed the warning he got that specifically said "Any continued negativity will result in a permanent suspension." In that case, yeah, it's a shitty situation, but it could have been avoided altogether.

I mean if the OP is telling the truth then they didn't deserve either of those 2 punishments because they were way to harsh considering what was said. I mean does "stfu and stop typing" really sound like a bannable offense? Hell Even the first one was extremely harsh considering what little was said. Also I assume this account the OP is on is the account that was perma banned in the first place so I assume they have it back since they are posting with it. Could be wrong though.

HotarµApr 10, 20191 votes

I mean if the OP is telling the truth then they didn't deserve either of those 2 punishments because they were way to harsh considering what was said.

He said his first punishment was a 14-day ban. I'm going to quote Busty Demoness here because they summed it up nicely:

"If your first punishment was a 2 week suspension, then you clearly crossed a zero tolerance line. The big ones are death threats, encouraging self harm, and hate speech (including blatantly racist/sexist/homophobic terms). There is no other way for that punishment to be your first."

I mean does "stfu and stop typing" really sound like a bannable offense?

When he openly disregards his previous punishment that specifically said "Any continued negativity will result in a permanent suspension", yes.

Does it suck that he went from clean slate to 14-day to permanent ban? Sure, but he used racist, homophobic, or derogatory statements outside of the 'usual flame' that most people use. Special situation calls for special punishments/rules.

He brought it on himself.

Also I assume this account the OP is on is the account that was perma banned in the first place so I assume they have it back since they are posting with it. Could be wrong though.

Boards punishments and live-game punishments are separate. I could log in with my permanently banned account here and still have full use on the Boards.

LuciferApr 10, 20192 votes

{quoted}

He said his first punishment was a 14-day ban. I'm going to quote Busty Demoness here because they summed it up nicely:

"If your first punishment was a 2 week suspension, then you clearly crossed a zero tolerance line. The big ones are death threats, encouraging self harm, and hate speech (including blatantly racist/sexist/homophobic terms). There is no other way for that punishment to be your first."

When he openly disregards his previous punishment that specifically said "Any continued negativity will result in a permanent suspension", yes.

Does it suck that he went from clean slate to 14-day to permanent ban? Sure, but he used racist, homophobic, or derogatory statements outside of the 'usual flame' that most people use. Special situation calls for special punishments/rules.

He brought it on himself.

Boards punishments and live-game punishments are separate. I could log in with my permanently banned account here and still have full use on the Boards.

Coming in and accusing him of lying is pretty shitty. If needed, I will post the screenshot of the Rioter responding to me as proof the automated bot being hasty, but I think how you're responding to this situation is very white knight-ish for Riot when it could very well be an error in the chat filter or the bot being adjusted recently when it was fine before.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Coming in and accusing him of lying is pretty shitty. If needed, I will post the screenshot of the Rioter responding to me as proof the automated bot being hasty, but I think how you're responding to this situation is very white knight-ish for Riot when it could very well be an error in the chat filter or the bot being adjusted recently when it was fine before.

Yes some people have been very presumptuous hopping into this post. I did not post to start a shit storm or get some kind of clout or whatever. I was extremely frustrated, processed my thoughts and emotions, hashed this out in my appeal, and was recommended by Riot Skeletor to post on this forum. Pretty simple imo

HotarµApr 10, 20191 votes

Yes some people have been very presumptuous hopping into this post. I did not post to start a shit storm or get some kind of clout or whatever. I was extremely frustrated, processed my thoughts and emotions, hashed this out in my appeal, and was recommended by Riot Skeletor to post on this forum. Pretty simple imo

Said the same thing to Sourpatchkittens and I'll say it again to you:

I provided alternatives for both scenarios.

I didn't instantly discredit you and say "Well you just lied and didn't provide proof", I addressed both scenarios and explained why the punishment wasn't unjustified.

But yeah, when you make a claim like that, back it up and show the proof (up front) that people expect to see if you don't want people to call you out on it.

Now, you changed the situation by saying they reset your punishment to a 10 game chat restriction, so what I'm saying is going to change as well. Make a new (or edit this) post because it's very misdirected, provide evidence of the things you claim to have happened, and file a support ticket that specifically says your individual punishments were reset but your account status on the punishment ladder was not.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Said the same thing to Sourpatchkittens and I'll say it again to you:

I provided alternatives for both scenarios.

I didn't instantly discredit you and say "Well you just lied and didn't provide proof", I addressed both scenarios and explained why the punishment wasn't unjustified.

But yeah, when you make a claim like that, back it up and show the proof (up front) that people expect to see if you don't want people to call you out on it.

Now, you changed the situation by saying they reset your punishment to a 10 game chat restriction, so what I'm saying is going to change as well. Make a new (or edit this) post because it's very misdirected, provide evidence of the things you claim to have happened, and file a support ticket that specifically says your individual punishments were reset but your account status on the punishment ladder was not.

No I stand by my op, you need to read it more clearly. My point is allowing a system to penalize accounts unjustly is not fair, especially when appeals have to be responded by a human anyway for each mess up that could have been reviewed by a human to begin with, especially to people who only get special occasions to play and the wait for a human response and a correction is not fair.

HotarµApr 10, 20192 votes

No I stand by my op, you need to read it more clearly. My point is allowing a system to penalize accounts unjustly is not fair, especially when appeals have to be responded by a human anyway for each mess up that could have been reviewed by a human to begin with...

I read the entire thing before I made my first comment, bud.

I disagree.

Every system has it's errors, but the efficiency and consistent results of the IFS make it much more beneficial than a team of humans. Now, before you accuse me of not reading your post or misinterpreting it, I understand you think the final punishment should be administered by a human.

While this is more realistic, it's still subject to the same pitfalls as our current system. Bots can make mistakes along the way, humans show bias, humans have working hours and/or the cost of living + working, etc.

especially to people who only get special occasions to play and the wait for a human response and a correction is not fair.

You know what else wouldn't be fair? Getting a permanent ban and then having to wait 4+ weeks to get a response back from Riot Support. Your suggestion doesn't do anything to cut down on that wait time, in fact it does the exact opposite.

A team of support agents reviewing tickets and punishments manually for every single person that gets permanently banned would take infinitely longer than a bot finalizing punishments with humans responding to a few who choose to file support tickets.

HotarµApr 10, 20191 votes

Coming in and accusing him of lying is pretty shitty.

Except I provided alternatives for both scenarios. I gave responses to if what he was saying was true and if it wasn't true.

You know what else is shitty? Claiming that 3 employees agreed that something was unjust, then not providing proof of it when asked.

If needed, I will post the screenshot of the Rioter responding to me as proof the automated bot being hasty,

Your situation isn't the same as his, those screenshots aren't going to do anything for me.

Edit: And even if the bot was hasty, do you wish that wasn't the case? We get a ton of people that already complain that inters/feeders/trolls/afkers don't get punished enough, so you want to make it more lenient?

but I think how you're responding to this situation is very white knight-ish for Riot

Don't really care how you perceive me. I get variations of that same comment every day on the Boards.

"You're just a Riot employee", "you're just a white knight", and/or "look at the little Riot fanboy over here" all because I choose to not blindly believe everything I come across and want to actually, you know, think and discuss things.

when it could very well be an error in the chat filter or the bot being adjusted recently when it was fine before.

It very well could be, you're right. If it was an error, they should definitely overturn OP's punishment. It's only fair.

However, he's giving me different answers atm (now saying he's got the screenshots, that Riot reset his punishments to a 10 game chat restriction, and more) so there's clearly more to this situation.

LuciferApr 10, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Except I provided alternatives for both scenarios. I gave responses to if what he was saying was true and if it wasn't true.

You know what else is shitty? Claiming that 3 employees agreed that something was unjust, then not providing proof of it when asked.

Your situation isn't the same as his, those screenshots aren't going to do anything for me.

Edit: And even if the bot was hasty, do you wish that wasn't the case? We get a ton of people that already complain that inters/feeders/trolls/afkers don't get punished enough, so you want to make it more lenient?

Don't really care how you perceive me. I get variations of that same comment every day on the Boards.

"You're just a Riot employee", "you're just a white knight", and/or "look at the little Riot fanboy over here" all because I choose to not blindly believe everything I come across and want to actually, you know, think and discuss things.

It very well could be, you're right. If it was an error, they should definitely overturn OP's punishment. It's only fair.

However, he's giving me different answers atm (now saying he's got the screenshots, that Riot reset his punishments to a 10 game chat restriction, and more) so there's clearly more to this situation.

Of course I think the bot being hasty is a problem or I wouldn't be posting here. I don't think it's a good player experience at all for a bot to 14 day ban multiple people for tame, first offenses. OP provided screenshots of his experience and I can provide mine as well. I think this is pretty open and shut that the bot isn't working as intended. It's likely the word filter got altered.

KTFreshApr 10, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Of course I think the bot being hasty is a problem or I wouldn't be posting here. I don't think it's a good player experience at all for a bot to 14 day ban multiple people for tame, first offenses. OP provided screenshots of his experience and I can provide mine as well. I think this is pretty open and shut that the bot isn't working as intended. It's likely the word filter got altered.

Agreed. Thank you for your input here! Sorry you had a similar experience

Busty DemonessApr 8, 20197 votes

If your first punishment was a 2 week suspension, then you clearly crossed a zero tolerance line. The big ones are death threats, encouraging self harm, and hate speech (including blatantly racist/sexist/homophobic terms). There is no other way for that punishment to be your first.

After the 14 day suspension, you're on thin ice to the point any punishable log, such as the one you linked, warrants a permanent ban. Thin Ice lasts for dozens of games. I'd say 100 of no toxicity and you won't be immediately punished for a mildly toxic log (just a guess, I don't know the exact system).

So I'm 100% inclined to call bullshit on "my punishments were too harsh".

KTFreshApr 8, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Busty Demoness,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=3Thzlgw2,comment-id=000e,timestamp=2019-04-08T22:09:27.832+0000)

If your first punishment was a 2 week suspension, then you clearly crossed a zero tolerance line. The big ones are death threats, encouraging self harm, and hate speech (including blatantly racist/sexist/homophobic terms). There is no other way for that punishment to be your first.

After the 14 day suspension, you're on thin ice to the point any punishable log, such as the one you linked, warrants a permanent ban. Thin Ice lasts for dozens of games. I'd say 100 of no toxicity and you won't be immediately punished for a mildly toxic log (just a guess, I don't know the exact system).

So I'm 100% inclined to call bullshit on "my punishments were too harsh".

I never incited violence nor used derogatory terms. I spoke with 3 Rioters about both penalties. All agreed both were over steps of the system.

Busty DemonessApr 8, 20193 votes

{quoted}

I never incited violence nor used derogatory terms. I spoke with 3 Rioters about both penalties. All agreed both were over steps of the system.

Again, I'm calling bullshit.

If any Rioter thought that it was an unfair escalation, they would have reduced it manually. Customer Support isn't a bunch of Rioters either.

You won't show logs of said chat or support ticket either because you don't have them. And I firmly believe you don't have them because they don't exist.

As far as I'm concerned, you're just bullshitting the vote system, your case and the arguments for a punishment system that favors toxic behavior.

KTFreshApr 8, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Busty Demoness,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=3Thzlgw2,comment-id=000e00000000,timestamp=2019-04-08T23:23:32.482+0000)

Again, I'm calling bullshit.

If any Rioter thought that it was an unfair escalation, they would have reduced it manually. Customer Support isn't a bunch of Rioters either.

You won't show logs of said chat or support ticket either because you don't have them. And I firmly believe you don't have them because they don't exist.

As far as I'm concerned, you're just bullshitting the vote system, your case and the arguments for a punishment system that favors toxic behavior.

Ok! Have a nice day

AeroWaffleApr 8, 20196 votes

I received my first penalties ever in 6 years within 2019, the first being a 2 week suspension, the second being a perma ban. Both penalties confirmed to be too harsh. I do not enjoy unjustly losing access to my account for no good reasons.

Confirmed by whom?

Kiwi InkApr 9, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Confirmed by whom?

Reading the post does wonders for gaining information, you should try it

MorbysApr 9, 20195 votes

The bots are REALLY bad, and don't take into consideration how bad you're getting flamed before you try and stick up for yourself. The current environment promotes bullying. All you can do is mute these kids and hope they get their just desserts.

Quality ContentApr 8, 20193 votes

They have to use bots to police a playerbase of this size. The influx of reports they get is too high for just humans to sort through.

BeersteinApr 8, 20193 votes

All I know is if I haven't been banned yet, RIot is pretty leniant.

SammyDayspringApr 10, 20193 votes

It is impossible for humans to monitor a game of this size.
It is not Riot's responsibility to babysit players whose parents failed to raise them with the social skills to interact with other people.
There is an appeals process. The bots will never be perfect. They are a necessary evil since some players can't control their own behavior.

Silly NeekoApr 8, 20192 votes

I would like to see chat logs.

But.... I do understand the point of wanting that final punishment to be done by a human, rather than a robot (as long as it wouldnt be warrented due to racial or homophobic problems....). It would still take a small team of people quite a bit of time to get through them all..... but depending on the size it could be doable and not be too expensive.

For literally everything else BEFORE the permaban the bot works just fine still.

KTFreshApr 8, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Silly Neeko,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=3Thzlgw2,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2019-04-08T16:08:51.838+0000)

I would like to see chat logs.

But.... I do understand the point of wanting that final punishment to be done by a human, rather than a robot (as long as it wouldnt be warrented due to racial or homophobic problems....). It would still take a small team of people quite a bit of time to get through them all..... but depending on the size it could be doable and not be too expensive.

For literally everything else BEFORE the permaban the bot works just fine still.

Here is chat log.

Pre Game Lobby: KTFresh: ahri kat irelia zoe KTFresh: zil KTFresh: ori KTFresh: syn KTFresh: mm KTFresh: ahri is fine KTFresh: kat KTFresh: idc

In Game: KTFresh: didnt matter at that point KTFresh: jesus KTFresh: before bind KTFresh: right KTFresh: use before bind KTFresh: i didnt feed him :^) KTFresh: ok! KTFresh: one gank would have swung mid for me KTFresh: i dont duo KTFresh: all of ya shut up KTFresh: idc KTFresh: stfu KTFresh: u can waste time typing KTFresh: idc KTFresh: muting all KTFresh: team player? KTFresh: youre flaming LOL KTFresh: no KTFresh: i havent been KTFresh: real flame telling ppl to stop typing amirite KTFresh: while u call everyone bad KTFresh: XD KTFresh: right KTFresh: im flaming KTFresh: to what KTFresh: being told to stop typing KTFresh: imma just type KTFresh: have fun KTFresh: typing is prio [All]KTFresh: gg [All]KTFresh: report everyone but ez tbh [All]KTFresh: toxic KTFresh: yall so conerned about duos KTFresh: when yall duo [All]KTFresh: LOL

Once again, I get I am not exactly polite here. I honestly thought it was funny one accused me of being toxic amidst the things they were saying. Sucks seeing only one side.

RAT IN GAME UwU Apr 8, 20192 votes

if everyone who got banned didn't do essentially the same thing they probably would have to use humans but it's just the same immature children doing the same shit on repeat with very few cases of hacking, or other issues

14daysuspensionkApr 8, 20192 votes

So you're saying bots aren't human? OMG RACIST.

KTFreshApr 8, 20192 votes

{quoted}

So you're saying bots aren't human? OMG RACIST.

I apprecaite this lol

actualytryndawinApr 10, 20192 votes

what you dont realize is that while disabling chat outright or even just giving people a chat disabled as their penalty is an amazing idea but would lose riot a truckload of money. its a very simple formula: ban accounts. people make more accounts. riot can tell their stockholders they have a bigger playerbase and stock price increase. also those people who spent money on their banned acct might also spend money on their new acct. riot get rich. community more toxic. more banned accts. repeat the cycle.

riot is not going to do anything positive about toxicity it would lose them money. its up to us to stop the endless cycle of seemingly random bans(ive said things a million times worse than what you claim WITHOUT a ban). you can disable your chat all together or just ignore it.

on a side note i just got a chat restriction for flaming and telling people i was going to report them for using an ai script(very obvious one that just kept suiciding to jg camps) and i guarantee they are still doing it without riot even batting an eye.

Ambient SnowApr 10, 20192 votes

Honestly , I agree with the OP, but I would also say riot needs to have a Better Definition of what is TOXIC and what is Frustration.

I'm a firm believer that this is a competitive game, and in these types of games, people can get frustrated and upset when losing.

This is a Esport game, players want to play competitive and like any sport when you start to lose you get frustrated not only with yourself but your team members as well. And Riot needs to stop Bullshitting themselves and realize that this game is pretty trolly and frustrating and their ranking system is FAR from perfect on giving 50/50 Game chances between smurfs, and trolls and trolling smurfs, and so on .

So yes people will say stuff like DUDE you suck or UGH I hate this player all he's doing is feeding. and so on because yes its frustrating and people need to vent, and how do you not expect people to vent in a game when most the communication is via Typing in ALL chat or Chat.

But with that said.

Riot needs to understand and have a more unified definition of what TOXIC behavior is because frustration venting is WAAAAAY different then some one Being toxic and telling some one to Kill themselves, or Insert Racist remark here. or dropping off Swear words at some one or hoping they die or some thing.

ModPeriscopeApr 11, 20192 votes

That's unfortunate that you had bans where such actions weren't indicated. What did your chat logs say? Did the Riot Support offer any reason as to why you had escalated punishments?

SchoenbergApr 8, 20191 votes

Keep the animated system, it's already nearly as good as any human is going to be, but does it much, MUCH quicker. Yours was a fluke and I would not be surprised at all if the system bans correctly 90-95% of the time, and those who do know that they were unjustly punished can take it to the forums/support. The majority of the ones that I see on the forums are complaining about COMPLETELY fair bans versus unjust punishments.

That having been said, there's always room for improvement, and riot's system is far from being an exception. Humans just aren't the answer. Wayyy, wayyyyy too much effort. You'd need hundreds for each region and reports would likely pile up over Christmas break when all the toxic kiddies are out of school. Riot does not need to pour money into maintaining that type of job, they need to improve their system.

"Disable chat across the board to avoid toxic communication within your game." No. All-chat is admittedly almost never used for anything good, but it still adds a social aspect to the game that I doubt Riot would be willing to remove, no matter how beneficial. That and I believe there's a way to disable it if you feel you can't control yourself.

"Remove the power of suspensions/bans from the penalty bot, it is not fair for people to suffer overly harsh penalties or lose access of their accounts for periods of time before a human even looks at the situation." This would require TONS of effort, effort which is probably best spent elsewhere. The bot is sufficient in most cases and keep in mind that humans DO have different takes on situations, too. There would still be some amount of false bans.

"Bring back tribunal or create a team designated to WORK WITH a bot that has the ability to flag potential suspension/ban worthy behaviors." This is interesting.

"Provide an option for people to completely disable chat on their accounts, to avoid getting baited into human interaction within the game and to treat the players they're playing with as bots to avoid potential trigger words/symbols that trigger an unwarranted penalty." If you can't control yourself and stop yourself from flaming the trolls, work on self-control. You're going to meet people like that in real life and if you can't control yourself you're going to get fired/other bad shit. That aside, the option would not hurt at all and it probably shouldn't take much effort to implement at all.

KTFreshApr 9, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Keep the animated system, it's already nearly as good as any human is going to be, but does it much, MUCH quicker. Yours was a fluke and I would not be surprised at all if the system bans correctly 90-95% of the time, and those who do know that they were unjustly punished can take it to the forums/support. The majority of the ones that I see on the forums are complaining about COMPLETELY fair bans versus unjust punishments.

That having been said, there's always room for improvement, and riot's system is far from being an exception. Humans just aren't the answer. Wayyy, wayyyyy too much effort. You'd need hundreds for each region and reports would likely pile up over Christmas break when all the toxic kiddies are out of school. Riot does not need to pour money into maintaining that type of job, they need to improve their system.

"Disable chat across the board to avoid toxic communication within your game." No. All-chat is admittedly almost never used for anything good, but it still adds a social aspect to the game that I doubt Riot would be willing to remove, no matter how beneficial. That and I believe there's a way to disable it if you feel you can't control yourself.

"Remove the power of suspensions/bans from the penalty bot, it is not fair for people to suffer overly harsh penalties or lose access of their accounts for periods of time before a human even looks at the situation." This would require TONS of effort, effort which is probably best spent elsewhere. The bot is sufficient in most cases and keep in mind that humans DO have different takes on situations, too. There would still be some amount of false bans.

"Bring back tribunal or create a team designated to WORK WITH a bot that has the ability to flag potential suspension/ban worthy behaviors." This is interesting.

"Provide an option for people to completely disable chat on their accounts, to avoid getting baited into human interaction within the game and to treat the players they're playing with as bots to avoid potential trigger words/symbols that trigger an unwarranted penalty." If you can't control yourself and stop yourself from flaming the trolls, work on self-control. You're going to meet people like that in real life and if you can't control yourself you're going to get fired/other bad shit. That aside, the option would not hurt at all and it probably shouldn't take much effort to implement at all.

It is not about a self control problem. The point I made with that is that if I feel that the chat moderation penalty system is compromised enough and that I may face similar issues in the future with a risk I do not want to take, then I would appreciate the option to disable chat in the client settings so I don't have to manually do it every game, as it feels as though my account is under unnecessary scrutiny from their system. This is a product of distrust in the system, and a product of not wanting to be over penalized for a third time.

Also the point of discussion starts here. Maybe the system is beginning to have problems, and this post may be referenced in the future, as more people contribute their own experience with this issue. Who knows tho! Maybe it is a complete fluke

SchoenbergApr 9, 20191 votes

{quoted}

It is not about a self control problem. The point I made with that is that if I feel that the chat moderation penalty system is compromised enough and that I may face similar issues in the future with a risk I do not want to take, then I would appreciate the option to disable chat in the client settings so I don't have to manually do it every game, as it feels as though my account is under unnecessary scrutiny from their system. This is a product of distrust in the system, and a product of not wanting to be over penalized for a third time.

Also the point of discussion starts here. Maybe the system is beginning to have problems, and this post may be referenced in the future, as more people contribute their own experience with this issue. Who knows tho! Maybe it is a complete fluke

Don’t flame them. It is a self-control issue which comes about due to frustration, which is understandable. Lots of folks still do it and I used to.
You can still make a good post criticizing/critiquing their system. Their system IS quite poopy and in need of improvement, as you have said.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Don’t flame them. It is a self-control issue which comes about due to frustration, which is understandable. Lots of folks still do it and I used to.

You can still make a good post criticizing/critiquing their system. Their system IS quite poopy and in need of improvement, as you have said.

Is telling team to stfu stop typing flame?

SchoenbergApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Is telling team to stfu stop typing flame?

What is it supposed to accomplish? Is you TELLING the flamer stfu stop typing going to make them stop flaming?

You tell me.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

What is it supposed to accomplish? Is you TELLING the flamer stfu stop typing going to make them stop flaming?

You tell me.

You didn't answer my question tho. I am not worried about the reaction of the player in the game at this point. My concern is what constitutes "flame" to avoid a power hungry ban bot. If you feel that "stfu stop typing" is flame, then just say it.

It is interesting to see the spectrum of what people considers toxic. To me stfu stop typing is simply direct and no bs tolerance. I don't feel like I need to plead and beg my team with cute emojis and whatever to make myself seem less aggressive or angry lol. I don't like wasting time typing if that says anything

Even then apparently my ":^)" comes off as passive aggressive lmao

SchoenbergApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

You didn't answer my question tho. I am not worried about the reaction of the player in the game at this point. My concern is what constitutes "flame" to avoid a power hungry ban bot. If you feel that "stfu stop typing" is flame, then just say it.

It is interesting to see the spectrum of what people considers toxic. To me stfu stop typing is simply direct and no bs tolerance. I don't feel like I need to plead and beg my team with cute emojis and whatever to make myself seem less aggressive or angry lol. I don't like wasting time typing if that says anything

Is it flame? Yes. Stop taking things literally.

Is it BAD BAD flame? No.

So, with your authority and 0 tolerance no bs, 'stfu stop typing' is going to make the flamer stop typing? I've chatted with flamers and gotten them to stop before, and what MIGHT make them stop is different for every single one. Has 'stfu stop typing' ever been a good way to get them to stop? No, no it hasn't. In fact, it's asking for more flame in literally every single case.

Edit: I finally took the time to go through your chat logs and read the responses to them. People have already told you why you were punished.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Is it flame? Yes, Jerald. Stop taking things literally. It just isn't the worst of the worst flame, Jerald. I didn't say that anywhere.

So, with your authority and 0 tolerance no bs 'stfu stop typing' going to make the flamer stop typing? I've chatted with flamers and gotten them to stop before, and what MIGHT make them stop is different from every single one. Has 'stfu stop typing' ever been a good way to get them to stop? No, no it hasn't. In fact, it's just asking for more flame in literally every single case.

For sure there are many ways to get people to stop flaming. Interestingly enough, on one of my accounts I tested a "worst tilter" theory. If a teammate began to tilt and/or flame, I would fake rage in chat, saying things like "FF GAME OVER" or "GG NEXT." Simple things, not derogatory or name calling or anything. I found with enough CAPS messages like that, by showing I was the most "tilted" the others would stop typing and playing, as I reflected their feelings for them. Once they stopped typing, I stopped typing that stupid crap, and we all played, and most games ended in victory. Most of these games were those silly ones where a teammate dies early to a jungle gank and begins to feel hopeless and just starts tilting. It is a weird thing, but weird things work sometimes. My intent has never been to make people feel bad in any of those situations, more of a reverse psychology thing, but no doubt I prolly could have gotten punished for any of those games if the system decided it was toxic behavior. That account never received a penalty, but maybe today it would.

God I sound whack, I know this.

SchoenbergApr 10, 20192 votes

{quoted}

For sure there are many ways to get people to stop flaming. Interestingly enough, on one of my accounts I tested a "worst tilter" theory. If a teammate began to tilt and/or flame, I would fake rage in chat, saying things like "FF GAME OVER" or "GG NEXT." Simple things, not derogatory or name calling or anything. I found with enough CAPS messages like that, by showing I was the most "tilted" the others would stop typing and playing, as I reflected their feelings for them. Once they stopped typing, I stopped typing that stupid crap, and we all played, and most games ended in victory. Most of these games were those silly ones where a teammate dies early to a jungle gank and begins to feel hopeless and just starts tilting. It is a weird thing, but weird things work sometimes. My intent has never been to make people feel bad in any of those situations, more of a reverse psychology thing, but no doubt I prolly could have gotten punished for any of those games if the system decided it was toxic behavior. That account never received a penalty, but maybe today it would.

God I sound whack, I know this.

Stop lying. If you do, at least make it less obvious.

You aren't showing that you're the most tilted in the game when you do that.

That's passive aggressive, Friend. They know that you're saying those things because of their playing. And '99.9999%' of people aren't some sort of masochist, so they aren't going to feel inspired when you do that.

Sorry, psychology is something I've been studying as a hobby on and off my entire life. That's not how reverse psychology works. That's you throwing around a term and hoping I don't know what it is.

No.

Just no.

Anyhow, we're done here.

Don't like liars.

KTFreshApr 10, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Stop lying. If you do, at least make it less obvious.

You aren't showing that you're the most tilted in the game when you do that.

That's passive aggressive, Friend. They know that you're saying those things because of their playing. And '99.9999%' of people aren't some sort of masochist, so they aren't going to feel inspired when you do that.

Sorry, psychology is something I've been studying as a hobby on and off my entire life. That's not how reverse psychology works. That's you throwing around terms and hoping that I don't know what it is.

No.

Just no.

Anyhow, we're done here.

Don't like liars.

Aw I'm not lying. But that's ok if you don't trust me. I have my degree in in psych :^) Have a nice day!

SchoenbergApr 10, 20192 votes