Dealing with Toxic Chat

In light of the recent discussions around Dunkey's choice to stop playing League, I think it's the perfect time to address issues surrounding the chat. I want to start off by saying that I believe that Riot's attempt to police chat, while well intentioned, might be misguided and ultimately unnecessary, and I'll explain why that might be the case. Obviously, Riot wants their game to be appropriate for audiences of all ages, so having strict restrictions on chat help them ensure that the game is kid-friendly. Additionally, policing chat ensures that players who fall victim to cyber-bullying will not have any ground to sue Riot for facilitating it. These points, naturally, make a very strong case for some sort of intervention. That being said, I don't think toxic language ever needs to result in a ban; the punishment seems way out of proportion. Chat restriction seems to be a much more reasonable response to communication abuse, and maybe even muting players altogether. I've played a lot of games of league of legends and I very rarely find it necessary to use the chat at all. In fact, because pings are such an effective way to communicate with your team, I might go so far as to say that the chat provides little to no tactical advantage for a team (I'm, of course, referring to typing in a chat box here. Using verbal communication services like Ventrillo, Skype, or teamspeak provides an obvious tactical advantage). Assuming all players on a team are of approximately equal skill, they will easily be able to interpret pings and chat becomes totally unnecessary. That being said, I think that instead of banning a player for toxic chat, you could simply disable their chat altogether. I don't think it would put the player at a significant disadvantage in-game and it would entirely solve the toxicity problem. For players that are unable to get their behavior under control, Riot might even disable the player's ability to chat permanently on the account, or at least for a very long period of time. Now, while a player might respond to this by creating a new account, you could make the same argument for the banned account scenario, but in the muted scenario, because chat is ultimately unimportant, the player might not feel inclined to go through the effort of leveling an alternate account just so they can flame people again. Additionally, being muted for extended periods of time might break toxic players of the habit of communicating with teammates through chat altogether. The second point that I would like to make is that a great deal of time and effort could be saved by just letting players have more control over their own interactions. For instance, muting a teammate in-game ought to be very easy to do. I shouldn't even have to open menus to do it; I should be able to just click on their portrait or something. That way, if I'm the sort of player who gets offended easily, I don't need to be shielded by a chat filter and I can take the preservation of my peace of mind into my own hands. As a side-note, while I'm talking about the chat filter, Riot should also revisit which words are bleeped out. Did you know that "Hitler" cannot be said in league chat? I was very surprised by that, seeing as how he's a legitimate historical figure. I actually find that to be a disturbing sort of censorship, like it's an attempt to erase history or something. I know he's not a particularly popular guy, but is preventing any and all communication about him really necessary? But I digress... The other thing to consider would be to enter the game under the assumption that there will be no chat. That is to say that in order to communicate with the other players on your team through text, you should have to agree to join the teamchat, which you should be able to do at any point in the game, perhaps by checking a box somewhere. Joining the team chat would be a choice made by the player to open themselves up to communicating with the strangers on the team, thereby freeing Riot from any responsibility. There could be some sort of warning message when you click to join the chat, further relieving riot of any responsibility. That way, if you're a player (like me) who doesn't really feel it is necessary to write to my team at all, you will always be able to avoid toxicity. Further, that system would actually make the game much more kid-friendly by default because, while the messaging in chat is controlled to some degree, I don't think anyone would make the argument that the chat is kid-friendly all of the time. However, in the scenario that I posed, kids would have to take it upon themselves to expose themselves to the chat, whereas now they are exposed by default. I would like to go ahead and say, at this juncture, that I have never personally had my account banned or restricted in any way; I'm a team player and I try to be a positive force in the League community (I say this to suggest that my stance on this issue is not strongly biased by self-interest), but I still think that the way that chat is being controlled at the moment wants refinement. I hope some of the points that I've made warrant consideration.