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Combating Toxicity: Self policing

crobemeister·9/17/2015, 6:34:29 AM·6 votes·1,292 views
http://www.zybez.net/img/staff/Rogie/modchat.png

We all know that toxicity, trolling and just general douchebaggery are huge problems in this game. Riot does all they can with the current reporting system and the limited staff they have. Lets face it though, millions of player play this game and it is a monumental task i'm sure to deal with all of that. The automated report handling system is of course, imperfect and is often the focus of a lot of the hate. So i propose borrowing from another game that also has a large and immature player base: Runescape.

I used to be a Player Moderator in Runescape. For those that don't know, Runescape is a brower based MMO. Player Moderators are Player volunteers hand selected by the Developers to help police the community in game. They are marked by a silver crown with a "M" next to their names. Player Moderators are granted the ability to Mute (Chat Restrict) Players on the spot for up to 48 hours. They're reports are give priority and are handled swiftly. Basically they are an extension of the Code of Conduct and are right on the front lines dealing with the community directly. This relieves stress on the developers and provides a visible presence in game and results the players can see first hand.

You may be thinking, this sounds like a terrible idea. How can we be sure it won't be abused? In Runescape, to become a Player Moderator, you must be recognized as an upstanding, respectful and helpful player by a Developer. Meaning it is very difficult for there to be an abuse of the system. Other Player Moderators may make recommendations for new Player Moderators, but it is not guaranteed. No imagine applying this system to League Of Legends and I think it could help alleviate the problem we see every day. Now the community can see first hand action being taken against the toxic player. Toxic players will have to think twice about their actions for fear that a Player Moderator will be in their game. I think a lot of the hate and frustration is that players are just not seeing the actions being taken by Riot. Having an in game presence could help with this a lot.

TLDR; Toxicity sucks. Report system sucks. Let us self police with proven responsible players hand selected by Riot.

Anyway, what is the communities thoughts on this? Would you like to see a system similar to this implemented? What would you change to help make the system more effective?

1 Comments

acidxrain9/17/2015, 8:39:54 AM1 votes

TL;DR at bottom.

I couldn't disagree with this idea more than I do now. In the past two weeks, I have been reported over twelve times, ranging from "Negative Attitude" for saying "gg" 20 minutes into a game when the other team was 20+ kills to our 3, beating on our nexus turrets, to "Other reasons" like going 21/0 on Udyr in a ranked game. I have also been reported for /ff'ing when I'm absolutely sure we've lost a game, and two votes don't allow us to surrender and I ask "Why?" (In all cases we have never come back and won the game nor has my attitude changed despite the failed surrender).

The problem I see is that the moment one gets offended by your surrender vote, or your early call of "gg". It's an instant gratification to them to feel you were the problem; the main reason your team lost.

In every report case that has been made about me, I have never been warned, suspended or punished for my behavior. That's because, while I do walk the thin line at times,_ I am not being toxic_.

Simply put, I do not trust putting my fate into this community's hands. In addition, I like knowing my boundaries, and with real people in control, those boundaries change every game. What offends one does not offend another. If my moral compass doesn't lie in sync with another person's, it's a punishment I'll get. In a highly over-exaggerated example, what if there is context in the chat to hunting and killing animal and there just-so-happened to be a Vegan "moderator" in my game? I know that example is super far-fetched, but even if no cases could relate to my example, I would always trust a machine over a person.

I am not interested in this. This is what the last system did, and it was poor. In my opinion, one of the reasons this type of system did not work was because Riot ended up getting many cases in the Tribunal which players were punished for reasons that did not warrant a punishment. IE: a player gets extremely upset because another player said their score was 0/12. The 0/12 player now feels that the other player is speaking negatively, and now that player has a report for the Tribunal. Players get on the Tribunal, and scroll through cases and are in different moods, have different opinions, and the player gets banned. The player then submits a report to Riot, Riot look into the case and find that there really is no infraction justifying a punishment.

With the system you're asking for, these potential false-positives all come back. This causes Riot (and players who aren't breaking the rules) time and effort on something that could be prevented via a filter on a chat bot, or teaching specific player behavior actions (intentionally feeding) to said bot.

That is not to say the entire idea should be scratched. On the contrary, actually. In many cases of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, players get to review demos of cheaters and bots and decide the fate of their fellow players. I would dare say that this system works extremely well for identifying feeders, cheaters and bots of all kinds, ranging from de-ranking bots to aim-assist/wallhacking, etc. This method is highly accurate and there are extremely low false-positives accumulated from this method because the community is given one, and only one task, and that's to identify someone using cheats or deliberately griefing a game. It's extremely obvious (more-so in League of Legends) when a player is attempting to throw a game purposely to lose. Reviewers see this, and after so many votes to punish the player are accrued, the player gets punished. I don't have a problem with this system at all for League of Legends.

However, Riot claim that they have a system that identifies these cases properly, and I wholeheartedly trust their judgement and their words. That's the deal-breaker for me. That's the nail in the coffin for this idea. I trust machines pulling data that already exists (and it only exists because a player made it exist) and punishing players on those terms far more than humans. Machines vote unbiased, without any conscience of reality and context. That means that when a machine punishes you for saying something that is, in fact, punishable, the punishment is 99.9% justified because it lacks all the aforementioned qualities. It also means that the words typed were that severe that, when used in any context, it is 100% not acceptable/allowed.

I'm out of breath here, but I'm sure you understand my stance on this properly now, and perhaps you may (or may not, and that's okay, too!) agree with what I've said.

TL;DR: I trust a machine's view of a punishable action far more than any human. Machines don't have feelings, a moral compass or a bad day. The less time Riot spends on fixing human errors, the more time they have to work with the extremely small false-positives, resulting in a faster-working Riot, and better customer satisfaction.