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A clearer definition of toxicity

A Cynical Asian··4 votes·3,008 views

Hello everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion regarding the working definition of toxicity the advisors and members of the community have regarding toxicity.

I don't agree with all of Riot's policies and think they need to be relaxed, but I am thankful for forcing... I mean, helping.... me become a much mellower player in chat who usually avoids being rude at all or keeps it to, like, one vaguely negative statement if the person is playing awfully or simply some analytical criticism of their gameplay (i.e. "Your positioning is bad" rather than "Ur bad"). Makes LoL a lot more casual, which is nice and seemed to make me nicer even in other games.

But I'm not here about me. I recently saw a permaban thread where the advisor did seem to be in the wrong, but his stance did confuse me a bit regarding toxicity and bad language. I know, and I think multiple people including advisors have confirmed, that hate speech in ANY context is grounds for a ban.

What I'm confused about is profanity. If the aforementioned OP of the permaban thread I just read is being anywhere near truthful, he really wasn't being toxic in my opinion. A person genuinely acting like a moron can be called such. Both IRL and in game, calling someone an idiot for making a genuine mistake isn't cool for the most part. That's clear. But I'd say it's acceptable for most people if you call, say, a delusional customer at some fast food restaurant, well, delusional. Given that profanity is usually allowed in a sportsmanlike context (i.e. "Yo, that was a fking great play my guy"), wouldn't it be fine to rebuff a toxic player while using insulting words? I know the word "toxic" is overused by toxic players when flaming, etc., and an advisor did include "toxic" in a list of words that indicated toxicity in the aforementioned OP's chat logs. But no matter how I think about it, I think most people would say it's OK to tell a genuinely toxic player that they're toxic. To me, that's calling out bad behavior, not "hitting back".

Insulting words aside, I am also a bit confused about calling out bad behavior using "toxic" language. I try to avoid telling players that they're bad at all costs (I'm sorry, I'll rarely get frustrated and make perhaps one comment if I see a bad player. I try my best not to though.). However, I will call out rude players (i.e. ADC is taking an absolute dump on the support in team chat) and tell them, almost verbatim, to "ADC, stop being toxic". Or, I don't know, "ADC, just fking zip it idiot, that's not cool". Maybe "stop being a toxic pos". Insert profanity in the previous examples, and it'll be pretty similar to what I'll say to badly behaving players, in order of increasing severity. I don't think I've ever "flamed" someone back for being toxic per se, but I think I have spoken rather severely occasionally when defending poorly performing players. Where does that leave me? I'm a bit confused now. Maybe what I'm doing IS flaming back. Hell, I'm starting to have trouble understanding what flaming even IS.

As a case study, when the other team's Hecarim started emote BMing, I later called him a POS in all chat. Didn't escalate my insults past that and only made negative comments about the BMing like two times. Not enough in my opinion to even come close to targeted harassment. How do I stand on the Rito scale of morality? I'm lost.

Also, what's Rito's stance on dubious chat? I was really getting annoyed by Hecarim emote BMing (I'm sorry, but if Rito wants to foster a sportsmanlike community, "gg ez" and emote taunting really need to prioritized higher as harassing behavior), so when we were losing and a teammate asked to surrender in team chat, I replied by saying "we should try to win, I want to stomp my boot on Hecarim's face." I restrained myself from saying "I genuinely hope that Hecarim just dies irl" because that's just wrong. But when I said the stomping part, I guess I did subconsciously and unintentionally make my statement a bit violent. But I truly mean this when I say that when I used the word stomping, I meant the steamrolling-in-video-games definition. Now, say a teammate was disturbed by my language and decided to report me. Where would I stand? Banned? I realized after sending my message in the chat that "Oof, it was a bad idea to send that. People could easily interpret my comment as being violent, even though I meant to say that we should absolutely blow the other team out of the water and win in order to get revenge on Hecarim for BMing". Even if I didn't get reported for this, how would I stand on the ban-mater? Would I be able to explain my genuine mistake to an advisor if I ever had to appeal a permaban?

Sorry, I'm tired, so what I wrote might be very wonky. I hope you guys understand my point without it having become long-winded. If I somehow get banned because I admitted to some dubious behavior I displayed in my previous game, let it be Tantram that sends me to the depths of hell.

14 Comments

Ekitaih2 votes

I understand what you’re getting at here. I also know who you are referring to. I’ll simply say this: Toxicity is truly a person by person basis. One person that you call a “moron” might just laugh it off and not report you. Someone else might find it disrespectful and report you. As far as rules for Riot, they are quite ambiguous. There is no clear definition, as you say. But it’s not about making mistakes. It’s about having a pattern. Say you call someone a “f**king moron” for 30/35 of your games, vs someone who only did it for 1/35 of their games. The one who did it 30/35 of his games would have a harsher punishment. Out of fear of name shaming, I will not say the person’s name in the other thread. However I will say this, he’s had several warnings. Permabanning is used as a last resort option. He was given ample opportunity to change his ways, but instead he continued on his path of bullying. Using “moron” and “delusional” was only a couple of his many issues. Arguing in game chat is most times seen as a negative environment and as we all know, that is a reportable offense. It’s not conducive of a positive game and can be very distracting to other players. Blaming team mates (something he also did) is also seen as negativity and griefing. Ultimately you just have to be a decent human being and apply the “just walk away” rule. Mute, report, and move on. Ever heard of “The better man walks away”? Apply that to League chat and you won’t have any problems.

kaling 2322 votes

I mean agree with these statements above, nothing you said was false expect the part where you say "As far as rules for Riot, they are quite ambiguous" is where i disagree, i posted something older about my punishment(Which i posted the link to the forum they will remove as they have already) and the punishments were not "Ambiguous" as you say.

Reason i was punished was from 2 games =10 chat penalty; which i will admit, i was aggressive in the chat, to say toxic is a very bold statement. 1 game = 25 chat pealty; from one game where Mid/Jg were argu non-stop and as i defend each other by saying "Your as bad as the "jg'er"" as the mid laner talks trash, which in reality was TRUE~ he was as bad as the jg'er, but the point i am coming across from is that we were placed in the same game which means we are basic elo, to call someone skill level = equal, in this case mid claims jungle is bad and terrible at this game, all i said is in regular enough was, Well we are in the same game, so basically your at the same skill level, so calling him bad just means your telling yourself you are bad. but i used a shortcut and said "ur as bad" which is basically the same concept.... 1 game= 14 day suspension : this one is tuffy, in all honestly i do believe i was no toxic and just making some passive aggressive statements that we obviously not toxic or Bad intentions.

So once again i do disagree because this whole process from 10chat-14 day Ban legit took me 1 week to obtain, once again i have no idea how this discussion was fully enforced but once riot decides it wont help, they wont help.

Ekitaih2 votes

[{quoted}](name=kaling 232,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=Eyp2U5MI,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2018-05-15T16:16:43.491+0000)

I mean agree with these statements above, nothing you said was false expect the part where you say "As far as rules for Riot, they are quite ambiguous" is where i disagree, i posted something older about my punishment(Which i posted the link to the forum they will remove as they have already) and the punishments were not "Ambiguous" as you say.

Reason i was punished was from 2 games =10 chat penalty; which i will admit, i was aggressive in the chat, to say toxic is a very bold statement. 1 game = 25 chat pealty; from one game where Mid/Jg were argu non-stop and as i defend each other by saying "Your as bad as the "jg'er"" as the mid laner talks trash, which in reality was TRUE~ he was as bad as the jg'er, but the point i am coming across from is that we were placed in the same game which means we are basic elo, to call someone skill level = equal, in this case mid claims jungle is bad and terrible at this game, all i said is in regular enough was, Well we are in the same game, so basically your at the same skill level, so calling him bad just means your telling yourself you are bad. but i used a shortcut and said "ur as bad" which is basically the same concept.... 1 game= 14 day suspension : this one is tuffy, in all honestly i do believe i was no toxic and just making some passive aggressive statements that we obviously not toxic or Bad intentions.

So once again i do disagree because this whole process from 10chat-14 day Ban legit took me 1 week to obtain, once again i have no idea how this discussion was fully enforced but once riot decides it wont help, they wont help.

I didn't say the punishments were ambiguous. I said the rules for punishments are ambiguous. Which, they are. Everyone knows the progression of punishments. That's not what's in question here. It is absolutely ambiguous as to what you can or cannot say in chat except for "trigger words." The only clear rule is "Don't be a jerk." What defines jerk in game is up to the other players, because if he isn't reported then nothing will ever happen. So no, there is not clear rule to what defines toxicity in game. It IS ambiguous.

kaling 2321 votes

I am sorry^ you are correct. i did indeed misspoke and all these statements are correct, but how can we fix it is the real question

Ekitaih2 votes

[{quoted}](name=kaling 232,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=Eyp2U5MI,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2018-05-15T20:34:59.198+0000)

I am sorry^ you are correct. i did indeed misspoke and all these statements are correct, but how can we fix it is the real question

Can't really. Not without adding more trigger words that would be too much and too easy to get banned. The system now is honestly fine. There isn't a huge number of people getting banned. It's actually quite low. It just seems high because the boards are so saturated with people complaining about it. Nobody comes on here and is like "Gosh, I didn't get banned." So it's easy to think that the system is too harsh. But in reality, it isn't harsh. It's just people going too far like making several posts about it.

A Cynical Asian1 votes

{quoted}

I understand what you’re getting at here. I also know who you are referring to. I’ll simply say this: Toxicity is truly a person by person basis. One person that you call a “moron” might just laugh it off and not report you. Someone else might find it disrespectful and report you. As far as rules for Riot, they are quite ambiguous. There is no clear definition, as you say. But it’s not about making mistakes. It’s about having a pattern. Say you call someone a “f**king moron” for 30/35 of your games, vs someone who only did it for 1/35 of their games. The one who did it 30/35 of his games would have a harsher punishment. Out of fear of name shaming, I will not say the person’s name in the other thread. However I will say this, he’s had several warnings. Permabanning is used as a last resort option. He was given ample opportunity to change his ways, but instead he continued on his path of bullying. Using “moron” and “delusional” was only a couple of his many issues. Arguing in game chat is most times seen as a negative environment and as we all know, that is a reportable offense. It’s not conducive of a positive game and can be very distracting to other players. Blaming team mates (something he also did) is also seen as negativity and griefing. Ultimately you just have to be a decent human being and apply the “just walk away” rule. Mute, report, and move on. Ever heard of “The better man walks away”? Apply that to League chat and you won’t have any problems.

Great reply. I didn't read the entire thread, so the OP in question might have hidden some of his other transgressions. However, the advisor's replies regarding the more ambiguous parts of OP's argument were admittedly slightly worrying for me. I hope I'm not deluded when I say I've almost completely reformed since my instant 2-week ban, but I do like to put it how I see it. When I see an asshole truly being an asshole, I tell said asshole to shut it. And not always so kindly.

Of course, I won't be resorting to hate speech.

Ekitaih1 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Cynical Asian,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=Eyp2U5MI,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2018-05-17T07:40:17.256+0000)

Great reply. I didn't read the entire thread, so the OP in question might have hidden some of his other transgressions. However, the advisor's replies regarding the more ambiguous parts of OP's argument were admittedly slightly worrying for me. I hope I'm not deluded when I say I've almost completely reformed since my instant 2-week ban, but I do like to put it how I see it. When I see an asshole truly being an asshole, I tell said asshole to shut it. And not always so kindly.

Of course, I won't be resorting to hate speech.

I feel it. Not trying to kill anyone's freedom to say what they want, but you should at least take responsibility for what you said. That's the main point. People try to make it seem like it's impossible to get around the ban feature because they were simply "defending them self" but it's not that hard mute them if they're bothering you. I just think that if you want to argue over a game, while in the game, then you should accept the consequences of said actions.

Tempname27593022 votes

ez fix: dont chat

kaling 2321 votes

not ez fix...... once again freedom of speech lol, i dont believe Riot owns the internet...

Tempname27593024 votes

riot owns everything related to riot. this includes the right to ban any1 for any reason.

Ekitaih2 votes

[{quoted}](name=kaling 232,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=Eyp2U5MI,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2018-05-15T20:35:21.493+0000)

not ez fix...... once again freedom of speech lol, i dont believe Riot owns the internet...

Riot owns the accounts that you make, though. So they are free to police you. It's like a job. You have a dress code. If you just walk in one day and say "Screw the dress code" you can't get mad if you get fired.

SangreDeNoche1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Chode on ur face,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=Eyp2U5MI,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-05-15T19:24:36.537+0000)

ez fix: dont chat

ez fix then, don't have a chat feature.

SangreDeNoche1 votes

Also, riot outright lies about how reports work. They've been on record saying "it's number of games reported, not number of reports" but literally every time I've ever been punished, which was for the longest time once every 2-3 years it was when I got multiple 4 man premades in my norms who were toxic and shifted all blame onto the odd man out (me, who was not in their 4-man group.) That's how it started this year too but with them "cracking down" on toxic players by making it a grind to undo parol I've been hard pressed to get my honor level back. They said they would reset everyone at one point but after making sure that happened I logged off for 3 days and came back to my honor level sunk back to before the reset. Fuck me, right? lol

Ekitaih1 votes

{quoted}

Also, riot outright lies about how reports work. They've been on record saying "it's number of games reported, not number of reports" but literally every time I've ever been punished, which was for the longest time once every 2-3 years it was when I got multiple 4 man premades in my norms who were toxic and shifted all blame onto the odd man out (me, who was not in their 4-man group.) That's how it started this year too but with them "cracking down" on toxic players by making it a grind to undo parol I've been hard pressed to get my honor level back. They said they would reset everyone at one point but after making sure that happened I logged off for 3 days and came back to my honor level sunk back to before the reset. Fuck me, right? lol

Hasty generalization. What you see in your own world are not the only instances and cannot be used as fact. It wouldn't make any sense. But, if I'm not mistaken, it's impossible to tell who has reported you because they don't show who has reported in your "reform card." Which means that you very easily could have been reported by 1 person on several different occasions because they don't punish based on one game (unless you were extremely toxic and/or used hate speech). Just because that's the way you perceive it doesn't make it fact.

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