The Differences Between Boards and the Forums

EMOFRATPARTY·10/13/2014, 10:15:46 PM·3 votes·727 views

Prior to reading this, realize that, yes, I am aware that these opinions do not necessarily reflect those of everyone else. However, I would like to think that I have created a thorough breakdown of the Board/Forums discussion. Your input is more than welcome.

Seriously, I come in peace. I'd like for us, the community as a whole, to have a serious discussion as to why the new Boards format is an improvement over the old GD forums. Remember, we're all on the same team.

Let's begin with the pros and cons:

[TL;DR: Read the Pros and Cons.]

#BOARDS

#FORUMS

|PROS|CONS| |- |1. Format familiarity. | 1. Basic overall presentation, same lack of customization for preference or accessibility. | |2. Large active user base. | 2. Slightly less controversial voting system (likes/dislikes rather than upvotes/downvotes). | || 3. Lack of separation between content. | || 4. Same lack of community moderation. | || 5. Arguably more visibility of controversial content. |

#A THOROUGH EXPLANATION

The old Forums followed the tried and true format of having a general series of discussion boards for a community. Many other games, whether they are small or large in scale, also follow this general idea.

Why is that the case?

A. They are usually easier to setup and maintain than creating more innovative (ergo riskier) platforms. B. There are a variety of turnkey solutions that can be more readily modified. C. Forums allow for the most basic need of community between a studio and a user -- communication (and beyond that, they can be hosted on the studio's own site rather than a social media network). D. Forums have been in place as multi-functional communication tools for decades, hence the familiarity.

Let’s tie this back with the pros and cons and how those relate to the idea behind community forums.

BOARDS, PRO #1: Accessible user experience.

The Boards offer an easy and modern UX. Pinned threads are distinctly separate from common posts, other topics are separated but still located in a single area, and posts can be sorted with a number of different filters. Functional text (i.e. links, filters, etc.) is distinct in appearance and some of the old functionality from the Forums are naturally integrated into the Boards (new comments, Riot posts, views, etc.).

BOARDS, PRO #2: Better curation of user-generated content.

The voting system gives Boards-goers the opportunity to see what the community believes is quality content. Although this notion will always be subjective, it still allows for the community to dictate and curate; good content has a more reasonable chance of being visible when it is reliant on the content itself rather than "bumping."

BOARDS, PRO #3: Streamlined presentation.

Jakob Nielsen proposed the idea of heuristics almost 20 years ago. Within this idea lies the foundation for much of what guides usability in software design -- aesthetic, flexibility, user control, consistency, and the like. The new Boards follow many of these ideas, from the color scheme and alignment of windows to consistency of formatting between pages. The design of the Boards allows for ease of use and doesn't outweigh it's functionality.

BOARDS, PRO #4: Personalized archiving.

In my opinion, this is one of the Boards' coolest features. Each user has their entire comment and post history saved, allowing users to explore each other's work in an accessible fashion. The feature opens up opportunities for users to revisit their own work, clean up their posting history, reference other work, and much more.

BOARDS, PRO #5: Extensive formatting options.

Embedding! Columns! Headers! While it may not be the most robust editor on the internet, the flexible formatting options of the Boards give users more control of how they communicate their content. Most important of all, the formatting options are very simple to use yet extremely powerful. Some will say that the Boards are too close to reddit in regards to formatting, but that is not a bad thing.

If the "?" at the top of post submissions isn't enough help for you, check out Sir ArmaMalum's Boards Formatting Guide.

BOARDS, CON #1: Lack of customization for preference or accessibility (e.g. colorblindness).

This is an overall problem that most forums don't solve, but a problem nonetheless: there is no customization for the Boards. Customization can be necessary; colorblindness, sight issues, and other physical ailments may prevent users from being able to use the Boards to the fullest extent. With options to alter text size, theme color, and more, the Boards would nullify at least part of that issue.

BOARDS, CON #2: Controversial voting system.

The voting system is a very, very, very touchy subject. I don't want to go far into a structural analysis of the system itself, especially considering there are more of those posts than I could possibly link here. However, the voting is not perfect. Some of the surface level issues include: lack of buffer time for displaying votes, the power of a downvote over an upvote (0 is a stronger number than many of us realize), ambiguous reasoning behind posts becoming "Hot," and likely more that I'd like to open up to discussion.

BOARDS, CON #3: Pinned content.

Besides the Universal Rules and Post of the Day, pinned posts are cycled relatively frequently. This isn't inherently bad, but if pinned content is important then users should have a way to find previously-pinned Boards posts, especially if it wasn't created by a Rioter (community posts generally have less visibility than Riot posts).

BOARDS, CON #4: Lack of community (non-Riot) moderation outside of voting and reporting.

Another controversial topic in the community is moderation. Most of what Riot does in terms of moderating takes place behind the scenes. This aligns with Riot's overall ideas regarding community and isn't inherently bad, especially given the frequent participation of Rioters in the Boards and the notification system for moderator actions.

However, there are numerous members of the community who have taken initiative to create good content, assert valid arguments against negative posts, and foster positive interactions between Boards users. Again, Riot's philosophies don't necessarily align with traditional community moderation, but it may be a huge boost for the community if the right users are involved.

FORUMS, PRO #1: Format familiarity.

The Forums followed many traditional elements of a typical forum: multiple threads, sticky posts, view and reply count, aesthetic and functionality, etc. Familiarity can be comforting and bridge the gap of accessibility; by being similar to other boards, the Forums were not overly difficult to use. When there are thousands if not millions of people interacting within that environment, the ability for them to use it becomes even more vital.

FORUMS, PRO #2: Large active user base.

There are a lot of people who interact within the League of Legends discussion environments. As the game grew, so did the usage of the Forums, therefore giving it an incredibly active and sizable group of users. This fostered a creative community and gave them multiple spaces to discuss things that were important to players, like tactics, community creations, feedback, and much more.

FORUMS, CON #1: Basic overall presentation, same lack of customization for preference or accessibility.

Essentially, this is the same problem that the Boards have except the presentation of the Forums is much more antiquated. This makes sense given the time they were developed, but it's a problem nonetheless.

FORUMS, CON #2: Slightly less controversial voting system (likes/dislikes rather than upvotes/downvotes).

One of the primary differences between the voting system of the Boards and the Forums is the reliance on "bumps" versus upvotes. For those of you who don't know, a "bump" is when a user (usually the original poster [or OP]) who will comment on their own post in order to boost its visibility. Bumps are not an effective forum concept as they do nothing to discourage spamming a thread. Upvotes at least put more power into the hands of the community to dictate whether or not a thread should be seen.

And, similar to the voting system, the Forums used a "like/dislike" feature in order to show approval for individual comments (including original posts themselves, although this did not affect sorting).

FORUMS, CON #3: Lack of separation between content.

Given the reliance on comment activity to promote thread positioning, the lack of visual separation between threads in a given board made it tough to decipher the importance or quality of a post. There was no thread sorting or indicator of a post's "quality." With content separated into categories within their own boards, the Boards offer much more flexibility than the Forums ever did in terms of content segregation.

FORUMS, CON #4: Same lack of community moderation.

Again, the overlying principles of Riot carry out here. Not necessarily a bad thing, but still something that the Boards and Forums alike have dealt with.

FORUMS, CON #5: Arguably more visibility of controversial content.

It would be impossible to deny that there has been a lot of controversy surrounding some of the posts that appeared in the Forums. Most recently, the "Lyte Smite" threads were a very hot topic, and the community did not always show its brightest side in discussions like those threads. Given the frequency of the problem, and perception of some of the users who participated in the Forums, it created a negative viewpoint and sort of dissonance between Boards and Forum users.

The psychology behind the ideas being described are not as important as the fact that those conversations were arguably more visible, mostly due to the fact that they were frequently discussed. The act of bumping promoted these posts (whether they were quality or not), something that voting actually solves on the current Boards.

#CONCLUSION

In conclusion, there are positives and negatives to both the Boards and the Forums. However, given the progression of Riot and advancement of both the game and the community, the Boards make more sense as a discussion platform. They are modern, encourage the delivery of quality content, and provide users a more nuanced way to interact with one another.

Whether you agree or disagree, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the matter. Thank you very much for reading!

[TL;DR: Read the Pros and Cons.]

The Differences Between Boards and the Forums

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