There seems to be some confusion about calling for reports.

Ulanopo · 2017-05-10T23:33:22.069Z

Some people have been spreading the meme that it is not possible to be punished for report begging, so I am repeating this post from last month. Since then, we have confirmed that this is how the system works. When Riot NaKyle made this post, what he or she was trying to say is that asking for reports is not always harassment and it does not always lead to punishment. **THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT REPORT BEGGING IS OKAY.** Let’s look at some examples, all of which assume that the quoted statement is pretty much everything the person was reported for: _**“Report Ahri for no skin”** The IFS is able to detect that this is a joke. The report would be ignored. **“Reported.”** If it isn’t repeated, this isn’t all that toxic and the IFS would assign it a minimal value. It’s highly unlikely to trigger a punishment, though it does sometimes appear as the only toxicity in a match from a Reform Card. Regardless, you still shouldn’t do this because it is still toxic. No good can come of it. **“Report Ahri for feeding.”** This is more toxic because it targets a specific person (the IFS has been trained to understand when you’re making a joke about yourself) and makes an accusation against them. Doing this puts you at more risk of receiving a punishment because it’s much more likely to cause conflict and team breakdown. Keep in mind that we have recently had it confirmed that every report triggers a review by the IFS, so even a request this benign is unnecessary. **“Report Ahri for noob/unskilled/etc.”** Much the same as the previous, but worse. Personal insults make this a bad idea. **“Report Ahri. Report Ahri. Report Ahri. Report Ahri. Report Ahri. Report Ahri. Report Ahri…”** This is harassment and the IFS treats it as such. This is a great way to earn a timeout. _“%^$#! Ahri needs to stop feeding”_ Just to be clear, there is never a justification for racial, ethnic, sexist, homophobic or similar slurs. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if the player is on autopilot from the Nexus to an enemy tower, this sort of behavior is never tolerated and is likely to trigger an escalated ban. So, there you go.

Jo0oMay 11, 20171 votes

I'm sorry, that came across as a bit personal. You're clearly doing your own best. I'm just a bit annoyed by Riot as a whole in these kinds of matters.

ModUlanopoMay 11, 20171 votes

It's all good.

ChønklordMay 11, 20172 votes

What I can do, however, is make sure that what information we have is disseminated as best I can manage.

Then make sure you also allow yourself to say "I / We don't know the full answer to that" when you actually don't know the full answer, and stop trying to ~~use your personal interpretation~~ stretch the available information of an issue, when the source itself is not clear enough to provide definitive, actionable answers.

ModUlanopoMay 11, 20176 votes

You can stop insulting my integrity now. I have been more than transparent in explaining the limits of my knowledge and understanding. Your unwillingness to accept anything that doesn't come from a Rioter in language that precisely matches your exacting requirements does not change that in the least.

ChønklordMay 11, 20173 votes

That's quite the strawman you have there.

No, I am not / was not insulting your integrity; I am questioning your ability to _provide factual, evidence based knowledge _ based off content publicly available to everyone. The content which is still under contest for clarity, as evidenced by the multitude of other individuals that have posted their (mis)understandings of said content.

So, unless you have back-channels that allow you direct communication with Riot employees that I'm not aware of, without Tantram or another Rioter directly coming here and adding further insight to his original comment (ironically, it created more questions than it answered), there is simply no way for anyone to know the additional specifics on how "report calls" are handled, beyond the simplistic answer of "don't use it as harassment / with other toxicity towards innocent players" provided by Tantram.

I can question your decision making without insulting your integrity; the two are not mutually exclusive. You may feel as though your integrity is insulted, but that's wholly your internal perception and not at all what my posts are about.

ModUlanopoMay 11, 20174 votes

So, unless you have back-channels that allow you direct communication with Riot employees that I'm not aware of

So, wait, you think the Arbiters were just created without any sort of support and I'm just kind of making stuff up?

I have had daily contact with Keyru since before the PB&M came into being. Hell, Keyru and I were Skype "friends" waaaaay back in the TBI days. I verified much of the Knowledge Base though contacts with Player Support.

All of the Arbiters are also in the Discord with Player Support. Our access only increased since we received mod powers.

I'm going to bed now, as I can't even.

ChønklordMay 11, 20172 votes

That's great!

So you can 100% confirm then that what Rioter Tantram meant is that saying something like "report xx please" more than once in a single game is negative and could lead to penalties;

And that saying "report xx for int/troll/toxic/whatever" under the sincere belief that player is doing it -- even if the system disagrees -- is not punishable / a negative against the player asking for those reports, correct?

You have already verified that was the intended meaning of his post with him directly?

ModUlanopoMay 11, 20174 votes

No, I cannot 100% confirm those things because they are things Riot will never 100% confirm. That's partly because of people who pore over every word in every post looking for hidden meaning to justify their preconceptions and partly because the behavior systems do not deal in the Manichean absolutes you're looking for.

I can tell you, as confirmed by Player Support, that report begging is almost always seen as toxic by the IFS, by which I mean it counts, even if it does not trigger a suspension (a distinction I feel you are missing) and that report begging is always discouraged because it's unnecessary, especially with 1 report = 1 review.

I also have no specific knowledge regarding a "sincere belief" affecting the IFS determination. Player Behavior and Player Support are two different departments and they don't always talk to each other the way one would hope (as evidenced by not informing anyone that report weight was no longer a thing). I do know players do put in support tickets asking for a review with regard to report begging and their suspensions are sometimes reduced as a result, though this is exceptionally rare. That isn't a function of the IFS. It's a function of human review.

Part of the problem here is that Riot strongly dislikes making statements to the effect of "doing X will never result in a ban". There are a couple reasons for this. It's system mapping, for one thing. That's where people try to game the system to be as toxic as possible without getting punished.

Another reason is that a Reform Card is often a mixed bag of cause and effect. Riot wants punished players to reflect on their chat logs. If someone's chat contains harassment, racial slurs and report begging, those are all things the player needs to address. The racial slurs are the most problematic and least tolerated, but that doesn't mean the other factors can be ignored. Helping provide perspective on this is a large part of the reason the Player Behavior board exists.

If there were a popup in the client explaining how report begging is considered toxic, it would constitute a form of priming. Lyte mentioned in one of the MIT talks how the loading screen messages were deliberate attempts at priming. Some of the messages resulted in an increase in toxicity, as did at least one of the colors. Adding "Don't report beg" to the loading screen would probably be a bad idea.

Having that messaging delivered though some other in-client mechanism would involve development resources, something Riot is highly loathe to spend unless they see a substantial return on investment. Consider that we don't have the ability to move threads between boards for precisely that reason. Right or wrong, they believe in-client popups would only affect a small segment of the player base. Given the demographics as we understand them, it's hard to dispute their position.

I guess my question to you would have to be: if you were pitching improvements to notification and messaging with regard to report begging to the bigwigs at Riot, how would you do it?

EDIT:

You have already verified that was the intended meaning of his post with him directly?

To be perfectly clear, no, I have not. I have significantly more contact with Player Support than Player Behavior and I lack the authority to demand answers to my questions from everyone at Riot.

ChønklordMay 11, 20171 votes

That's partly because of people who pore over every word in every post looking for hidden meaning to justify their preconceptions and partly because the behavior systems do not deal in the Manichean absolutes you're looking for.

We're not talking about absolutes, we're talking about two _important questions concerning the way the IFS works when it comes to players calling for reports.

I've outlined my primary questions multiple times, and you seem to always skirt them with strawman rebuttals like this one.

that report begging is almost always seen as toxic by the IFS, by which I mean it counts, even if it does not trigger a suspension (a distinction I feel you are missing) and that report begging is always discouraged because it's unnecessary, especially with 1 report = 1 review.

It's hard to "discourage" an action like report calling, when a Riot employee makes a whopper of a post saying "we don't punish for report calling", and then another Riot employee has to come in to "clarify" the previous employee's original post, but only just barely adds any additional clarity, and in the process creates even more additional mysteries surrounding the reporting system. Oh and by the by, the second Riot employee makes this "clarifying post" as a comment embedded within a thread on a different post that isn't related to the first one. Not a new post, not a stickied post, and _still nothing to be seen regarding updates to the knowledge base regarding the reporting system and "report calling".

I also have no specific knowledge regarding a "sincere belief" affecting the IFS determination. Player Behavior and Player Support are two different departments and they don't always talk to each other the way one would hope (as evidenced by not informing anyone that report weight was no longer a thing).

OK so we're slightly making some progress on mutual understanding here.

You "dont know the answer" to the question of:

"If a player calls for reports on another player, with the genuine belief that the other player is committing an infraction of the summoner's code (feeding/toxicity/etc), and they are then counter-reported, will the player calling for reports have any likelihood of being falsely being punished?"

So we both agree that aspect of penalties regarding report calling is unanswered/vague/not clear. Good.

Part of the problem here is that Riot strongly dislikes making statements to the effect of "doing X will never result in a ban".

I'm not trying to get Riot to make a detailed specific list of "doing this particular thing this particular way is wrong, and this other way is ok";

What I am trying to do however, is make sure Riot _is doing, at the very least, is following the spirit of the statements they have already made about report calling, and providing just a little more additional clarity by answering **the specific, previously mentioned question(s). It's not Manichean to request that Riot provide some further understanding of that particular issue.

Are you not in the least bit concerned or curious about:

If a player says "report xx" more than once in a single game, does that count as a negative?
If a player calls for reports on another (innocent) player -- without toxicity and without verbal abuse -- and is then counter-reported, is that player liable to be unfairly punished by the IFS?
If report calling is almost always considered harassment (because you only need 1 report to flag someone), but Riot allows some "wiggle room" by not instantly punishing players (although you're saying that even just asking for reports is still a negative 'ping' on that player's record, regardless of the context, and I beg to differ, see more below), then why would Riot muddy the waters so to speak, by stating to the effect of "it's sometimes ok to ask for reports as long as it's not used as harassment"?

Wouldn't a better path/option be to state that "report calling shouldn't be done because you only need one report to flag someone, therefore it's more likely that if you are asking for reports it will be considered harassment, so just don't do it"?

And wouldn't it be better for Riot to clearly state the "1 report = flag" update/functionality somewhere prevalent where almost all of the community can see, such as in the game client itself or somewhere similarly highly visible? The forums do not count and reddit does not count; Riot has stated several times we are just a "small percentage of the community", and this is evidenced by the large influx of players and existing forum goers who still have no clue about the reporting process. People still think there's a Tribunal, for fucks' sake.

Quoting Tantram on another comment he made in a second, separate thread buried within a completely different, third post. This was actually directed specifically to you, if I recall correctly:

It was an attempt at providing some clarity to the nuance.

Saying, 'Remember to report the graves for constantly telling our top laner to kill themself', is not punishable. Saying, 'Report our top laner for feeding', which they were just having a bad game, is punishable.

He doesn't say "Remember to report the graves for ...etc..." is slight harassment and will still count negatively against you, he just says it's not punishable, period.

Unless I'm missing something here, if you can't be punished for something, then that means it shouldn't ding your account negatively.

After all, what's the point of saying "you can't be punished for saying X, but we'll still count it towards your overall status as a negative, so in the long term it could tally up in your account with other things that are punishable, and then you get punished".

What he does say is that saying "report our top laner ...etc..." when they are not (as determined by the IFS), IS punishable.

So that begs the question again; what if someone on your team is 0-11 and your genuine belief and assessment of that 0-11 player, is that they are intentionally feeding, yet once receiving the reports the system determines you are wrong and they are genuinely not feeding? Then let's work back to the assumption that knowing that you were the originator of those false reports, decides.... what? Does it punish you? How does it determine that you weren't maliciously asking for reports and using it as a form of harassment?

At the very least, Tantram could directly or indirectly (through the Arbiters), provide some clarity and say something to the effect of: "We have fail-safes in place to make sure the system does not issue punishments to players for accidental false report call harassment". There, it would done and answered.

At the very least, someone from Riot could come on here or through the Arbiters, give some sort of acknowledgement that they are/will be updating the knowledge base with information such as what was given in NaKyle's and Tantram's comments regarding report calling, the report system, etc.

Remember the fiasco with smite support nunu? Not sure if you remember, but RiotWookieeeCookie promised that Meddler was going to give more detailed conversation on the topic of off-meta playstyles etc in an upcoming /dev blog post, and that was over a month ago. They said they were also going to be updating their support portal with updated information about reporting. None of that has actually happened, to my knowledge (and I just checked the support site, it's all still the same).

If there were a popup in the client explaining how report begging is considered toxic, it would constitute a form of priming. Lyte mentioned in one of the MIT talks how the loading screen messages were deliberate attempts at priming. Some of the messages resulted in an increase in toxicity, as did at least one of the colors. Adding "Don't report beg" to the loading screen would probably be a bad idea.

Funny you should mention that; there was a recent post I was reading about this exact topic. You are aware priming still exists as of this day in the loading screen? The message that states something like "Players that verbally abuse their teammates are more likely to lose games" or some such. It's still there.

And no one is saying to throw "Don't beg for reports" into the loading screen; what I recommended was _a menu link called "Support" or "Community" or what have you, either next to "Collection" or as a sub-menu item under "Home" next to "Patch Notes".

By clicking on this menu link, a dynamically updated page could open up within the client, just like how they have Patch Notes setup. In this page, they could embed information on the reporting system and other player behavioral guidelines (and even the summoner's code) right there in the client. Then all you would need is a blog post on the news page and within the patch notes referencing the new addition, and this will allow Riot to deliver the all important player behavioral updates, code reforms, IFS system changes, etc, where everyone has the potential to see it. Right now only a handful of players have the potential to see the information about report calling; and maybe not even that, because no one thought to sticky an important post about report calling when it was posted.

ModUlanopoMay 11, 20173 votes

If report calling is almost always considered harassment (because you only need 1 report to flag someone), but Riot allows some "wiggle room" by not instantly punishing players (although you're saying that even just asking for reports is still a negative 'ping' on that player's record, regardless of the context, and I beg to differ, see more below), then why would Riot muddy the waters so to speak, by stating to the effect of "it's sometimes ok to ask for reports as long as it's not used as harassment"?

I don't know if you were around for the excellent discussion about the circumstances in which someone might feel a need to defend themselves in game. I just woke up to use the bathroom, so I am not going to be able to locate it before I go back to bed, but the core of it is in the old KB somewhere. Madmanwithbox was the author of the best comment.

I think you should look it up because it's a great examination of why people might feel a need to do things that are either against the rules or on the edge, how the system has some leeway build into it for partially this purpose and how we can support people without having an intimate understanding of the life experiences.

Okay. Back to bed.

ChønklordMay 11, 20172 votes

I'm not saying to definitely punish everyone calling for reports -- I'm a proponent in fact for perhaps a little more leeway if anything.

What I'm saying is that Riot should provide more accessible knowledge about the report system. It's been how many years since the IFS was made? And the only updates the community receives are tidbits and snippets of information via board posts and comments, and maybe the occasional update mentioned in a dev blog post, which is all very quickly forgotten to time in the archives of the internet.

The casual player doesn't even open the Riot website, much less spend time looking through past board history to learn more about player behavioral rules -- until they get punished for something and don't understand why.

I have quite literally poured through and read every single dev blog dating relating to the report system and tribunal, back to when Lyte was running things -- and there is no mention of report calling. The closest thing I could find was a snippet mentioning that you could never be "group reported and punished solely based off of receiving reports; there had to be something in the chat logs that was toxic to warrant a punishment" (paraphrasing).

And I had to use the google "site:surrenderat20.net" search function looking for specific key words and phrases and it took me a few hours to find even that much.

Of course, the boards are littered with archived references and posts such as the newer one made by NaKyle -- but you can hardly say that is "easily accessible information" to new players. Even to old players -- I've been playing for almost 4 years, and only until a few months ago was I even made aware of all the discussion happening here on the boards, the dev blog, and even the reddit site.

I'm generally not one to intermingle within gaming communities too much; but I do find myself passionately drawn toward issues that I feel either are, or have the potential to disenfranchise groups of people based off of muddied, or poor communication from corporations, et al.

Coming from a 14 year background in Web, UX Design as well as Marketing and Photography -- I know what it takes for a business of any size to test and deploy user interface infrastructure such as the beta client and other aspects of business. I should, since I run my own businesses as an entrepreneur. Because of this, I can safely say that a company of Riot's stature and capabilities, are more than able to iterate another update of the client with their next patching cycle to include a dynamically updated copy of the support site knowledge database within a few tabs on the client homepage.

First they have to update the database, however. Now I don't know the inner workings of which team is in charge of what portion of player behavior or client programming and all that; but it's not really something so demanding of a business with a multi-departmental corporation like Riot to fit these sorts of things into their budgeting and whatever planning cycle they have; the problem I have seen is that they don't want to; Rioter NaKyle mentioned it himself when he stated that "in terms of a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being not toxic at all, and 10 being hate speech level of toxicity, the issue of report calling is about a 6". So they do realize and admit that "report calling" is an issue, but just not within their perceived "level of necessary attention".

I'm not telling Riot how to run their business, but I am telling them I truly believe they are wrong when they say report calling is not that big of an issue to at least give some nudges in priortization to. I don't know about other regions or elo's besides bronze, silver and gold, but in all my time playing league since the end of s3 and beginning of s4, last season and this one has been the most noticeable to me when it comes to the sheer amount of players using chat to "report call" others. Sometimes multiple players doing it against multiple players. I've had games where players have gotten into arguments about reporting each other; I've had players argue with me that I'm "wrong and you need 4, 6, 9 reports (all numbers vary wildly).

I did some more digging to try and understand why there are so many misinformed and uneducated players, and I believe a part of it has to do with the change from the Tribunal to the IFS.

Right now to this very moment, if you go to the Riot home site for League and go to the New Player section, there is a link for "Community Interaction" that has not been updated since the time of the Tribunal. It actually sends you to the Tribunal home page -- which just gives a generic "down for maintenance" plug.

The Summoner's Code -- intentionally vague -- makes no mention of the reporting system.

The knowledge article base under the support site has more relevant and detailed information about "what is reportable" and some more information about the IFS; but here too there's no mention about how you only need one report to flag someone, and that asking for reports may be considered harassment in certain scenarios.

The closest it gets to mentioning anything about reports in that context, is outdated information stating that players who "abuse the reporting system often to make false reports may be liable to have their accounts suspended", and that the "value of their report weight will decrease because of false reports".

ModPeriscopeMay 12, 20171 votes

I always thought that the Arbiters were more of an Espada group: each with his/her own strengths and not always agreeing on the same thing. Now you're making it sound like you're an Akatsuki organization: shadowy and led by someone that's being led by someone that's being led by someone that's being led by someone.

There seems to be some confusion about calling for reports.

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