The IFS is terrible

At some point in time Riot changed over from the tribunal to the automated system or IFS as it is commonly known. The reasons were clearly stated and I am not sure if the player base bought into it, but it is not like they had any choice. Since this change we have all heard the same stories over and over. Both in person and here on the boards. The general feeling is that the real hardcore trolls get away with it while those negatively affected react using the chat feature in the client. And then BOOM, ban hammer arrives. And the trolls get away free and clear for the most part.Remember the Korean player with 1000+ losses and 0 wins on TK? And 1000 wins and 0 losses on Yi? How many months were players posting about it on the boards before something was done? Remember the Bronze 5 Teemo with 2000+ games with a 100% win rate, and 2000+ games on Heimer with a 0% win rate? Two seasons before action was taken, Thousands of games and tens of thousands of players personally affected.

So,the system:

1. The IFS is very similar to an email spam filter, in that it scores language and compares the score of a chat log against a threshold

2. A nonzero number of reports causes this scan to be run. 1 report is as good as 9.

3. There are zero tolerance words that, if found twice in a game, result in an instant ban

4. Riot Support is actually VMC Consulting, and they aren’t Rioters. They’re two states away from Rioters.

There are groups that bait ban for fun. Riot has done nothing about them https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/rR9lx6NO-someone-baited-me-into-saying https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/OAgH66LG-please-ban-this-you-must-act-riot Someone baited me into saying %%%% %%%% A guy baited me into saying %%%% %%%% please unban :[

There's another big flaw in the system but talking about it results in a ban.

I am hoping to produce a change in the system, one that would improve the experience for everyone. instead of a band aid for one certain behavior which is what Tantram is doing here.

What could Riot do about it?"

They could start by introducing a thing like CS:GOs "Overwatch" where players are given a game to review. The Overwatch lets the CS:GO community regulate itself by allowing qualified and experienced members of the community (‘investigators‘) to review reports of disruptive behavior, determine whether those reports are valid, and apply temporary bans if appropriate.

Get rid of the contractors

Riot’s behavior support staff were all contractors.It explains why the platitudes differ between agents, and even present conflicts. For example, if you report toxic behavior, some agents will tell you that they’ll “take care of it”, but can’t tell you what they did, and others will outright admit they can’t do anything.

Introduce a warning. A warning? But we’ve never done those before! A warning is the single biggest thing you can do to increase visibility of the system, allows for reform without making a player feel targeted or personally slighted, and provides a gentle reminder to reformed players of where they need to be.

Right now, the Instant Feedback System focuses too heavily on negative chat, and not the things that create negative chat. And confusing as it may sound, this includes negative chat. The IFS relies on punishing things that are easy for a spam filter to pick up on, and things that won’t cause false positives. That means that while zero-tolerance behavior can be handled in as few as one game, it can take months for a passive aggressive troll to start seeing punishments. The “minor” negativity leads to the zero-tolerance behavior, and both ruin games.

With the heavy focus on the low-hanging-fruit, and the exclusive focus on chat, the Instant Feedback System also leaves itself vulnerable for abuse. There are no automated systems that detect trolling, only negative chat, intentional feeding, and AFK/leaving. While a human can look at game replays and report comments, this only happens for the most egregious cases, to people who have been reported, by many players, in every game, for months. (Like that one player with 511 reports in a month. https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/jFwTE8Oj-playing-off-meta-in-ranked-int-feeding-ban)

Players who troll the game by banning hovered champions, taking the wrong lane, or other “non-sportsmanlike” behavior cause the negative chat that the IFS targets. Because of this discrepancy, it’s entirely possible for somebody to troll games with the sole and exclusive purpose of goading others into saying things that would get them banned. As long as this sort of troll doesn’t use chat, he would be able to duck under the radar indefinitely, and would never be caught by a hotrodded email spam filter

Here's a discord link if anyone wants to discuss the IFS closely: <removed by moderation>