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(Follow up thread) Riot found my punishment for defending an enemy who was being bullied correct

mah1foo·3/12/2018, 6:01:48 PM·123 votes·18,336 views

Hey guys, mah1foo here again. I posted here earlier about Riot punishing me for defending an enemy who was being bullied (contains the full chat logs), and I've since received an update from the support. They found the punishment correct and didn't lift it or restore my honor level:

> Hey there, > > After the investigation we have concluded the fact that you were continuously spamming the chat throughout the game which can create a very disruptive game experience for the players witnessing the chat. > > For future reference, please do bear in mind that we only take into account what you say, as all players are responsible for their own behavior. You don't have to retaliate as you can just mute the toxic players and report them in the post game lobby where they will be audited by the system and punished. I can't comment on other players accounts as I can only discuss each account with its owner, but if you report toxic players they will be audited and issued a punishment if found guilty. > > In the future instead of getting into arguments with players even if you want to defend others its better to mute those players and report them in the post game lobby. > > If you have any other concerns don't hesitate to let me know. > > Player Support Specialist > "Surprise! I'm back"

Luckily for me this was just a chat restriction, but what makes it worrying is the fact that knowing how the 4-step punishment system works, this could've just as well been a permanent ban. The way I see it, talking too much can result into a permanent ban. Not only that, but their policies are what I wouldn't hesitate to call inhumane. They are encouraging me not to defend those who are being bullied, even after a further review from them.

Honestly, I have no words left, the system is legit broken. If they can punish anyone for whatever reason they want and just claim it was "spamming too much", what's the point anymore? And it saddens me that in no way did they acknowledge the fact that I did my best trying to help someone who was being bullied.

Just wanted to let you guys know that this wasn't a mistake, and the chat logs weren't the wrong ones like a few people assumed. Honestly, compared to this, I now wish the logs had been wrong.

Edit: Someone was kind enough to find the game from my history: https://i.imgur.com/h6f38fv.png

A lot of people were saying that it's because I was typing more than playing, but I believe the picture proves that I was doing quite a lot of playing. Most of my typing was done during me running from my own base to their side of the map, since that's where all the action was happening.

300 Comments

RiotRiot Tantram3/12/2018, 11:18:49 PM140 votes

I'd have given you a chat restriction if I was hand reviewing this case (which is what the system gave you).

The enemy top laner said 'open top' and gave you kills, which is not ok. The enemy team said to report top for giving up. Even if they got their attitude together and continued to play, of course a statement like that is going to tilt the team. Then you go on a tirade of chat (64 lines in game) .. and 42 lines in post-game where you stick around to call them morons and wish bans upon them.

Arguing with teammates/enemies is not the purpose of chat. I would have muted you after a few comments. It would have been impossible to coordinate with the team over your chatter.

I Eat Ąss3/12/2018, 6:09:02 PM52 votes

I'll get downvoted for this, but it isn't your job to defend people online and deal out your own form of justice.

If they can't handle the internet they can mute or get off. Flaming a person flaming is still flaming.

Bring on the downvotes

susilia3/12/2018, 6:10:49 PM44 votes

banned for spamming the chat? idk man, that seemed like a reasonable amount to me, i often send more messages than that to my teammates plus spamming means to: "send the same message indiscriminately to (large numbers of recipients) on the Internet." whichhh you obviously didn't do since your messages were all different i don't get how you got punished for this :/

RenekTonsOfDmg3/12/2018, 9:45:44 PM19 votes

Being Positive and a nice guy defending people having a bad game = spamming the chat

Riot 2k18

ValyrianBlade3/12/2018, 6:59:58 PM17 votes

The short point is people are babies, and riot is more concerned with not having people get their feelings hurt by words of simple disagreement (i.e. stating an opinion, or saying what you saw, without in any way saying anything directly offensive to someone) than people actively ruining their game.

Someone can int for 20 games straight and say stuff like "oops got caught again" and never see a punishment. Someone can say in that ONE game that the guy doing it is a loser with no life if he has to ruin a game for other people, and get banned.

Riot has just lost it on the punishment side. Since when does a witness in a court get prosecuted for pointing out what they saw or what they interpreted? That's basically what they're doing.

If they want to stop people talking too much, they should set a limit on number of messages you can send per game.

The simple truth is that NOTHING you said is against the rules. Riot is full of it to claim otherwise.

If I counted in chat, typing 1, 2, 3, ... One number per 20 seconds, I'd probably get a ban too. For what? Who am I hurting?

USING THEIR OWN ADVICE, ANYONE CAN MUTE MY SPAM AT ANY TIME, AND LITERALLY NO DAMAGE IS DONE BECAUSE I HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING OFFENSIVE.

You voiced a different opinion in an adult way, and got punished because of it. Protectionism is unreal.

warmcorntortilla3/12/2018, 11:41:20 PM17 votes

I guess I just don't understand how this breaks summoner code. Like, is it annoying? Yes. Is the top laner he was defending wrong? Sure. But this isn't spamming the chat, by any measure of the definition. It's frustrating to see Riot just mete out punishments to people for seemingly annoying-but-otherwise-not-specifically-bannable-offenses.

There is nothing in the summoner's code about annoyingly defending somebody on the enemy team. What if that was his strat? Why is psyching out the enemy team not an option?

If this is a punishable offense, then we need to be given clear guidelines on why, exactly, it's a punishable offense so we can, you know, avoid the behavior? It seems like any deviation from "gg wp" and directly strategic planning is punishable.

Why even have /all chat in ranked games? What could you POSSIBLY have to say to the enemy team whose purpose is not to tilt them? The only reasonable explanation is to communicate about things that don't specifically have anything to do with the game. If somebody is screaming racial/homophobic slurs or calling people idiots or morons or retards, telling them to kill themselves etc etc, that's bannable. Spamming your youtube/twitch link in chat is bannable.

Being annoying? Being aggressive? Talking a lot? How and why is that punishable? Like obviously OP was being obnoxious and annoying, but was what they were doing punishable? I mean, I just don't see under WHAT part of the summoner code it IS punishable under, at least not from what OP has shown us in screenshots and posted chat logs, which is all we have to go off of.

SUPERIORFlavor3/12/2018, 10:46:50 PM14 votes

I don't see how what you were doing was "Spamming the chat". Unless you're leaving something out, this punishment looks like a huge overreaction from Riot. You seemed to just be arguing with someone and are not even insulting them. How is arguing with someone a worthy offense for punishment? Where in the summoner's code is argument disallowed?

YerroFever3/12/2018, 6:33:47 PM8 votes

I've defended people against bullying in games before but I don't go nearly to the extent you do and I haven't been chat restricted for it.

I will tell people that say someone is inting that if they believe someone is inting, trying to argue it in chat is meaningless and to just drop it since the system is reported vs not reported, not 1 report vs 4 reports. I've also called people out on using hate speech and said that it's not appropriate to use that kind of language and they tend to just stop.

You can stand up to bullies without being as verbose as you were.

I would say that your log indicates arguing, which is toxic in and of itself, despite that you are arguing because you are trying to defend someone else. When you engage in arguing you are contributing to toxicity but in a different way.

You can stand up for people in game in a line or two and then be done with it because muting is a wonderful tool. You've done your due diligence in being a good samaratan by standing up for someone, but then you can mute them so that you aren't distracted by their toxic chat, nor distracting others with argumentative chat, and focus on playing the game.