Boards›Player Behavior

We don't ban people for asking for reports

RiotRiot NaKyle·3/28/2017, 8:40:08 PM·113 votes·65,318 views

Hey all,

Spotted a bit of confusion about whether or not we dish out penalties to players who ask for reports. Just to be super clear, we don't. If a player used asking for reports as a leaping off point for actual harassment, that's when we'd blow the whistle. When we think about updates to Instant Feedback, we think about solving problems that really distract you from what matters: Winning the game. And this issue just doesn't chart that high.

To give a bit more detail, we don't need to penalize for this because Instant Feedback is quite good at filtering out BS reports, and really only needs one to accurately decide whether or not penalties are warranted. If you're looking to make an impact on the community, the absolute best thing you can do is submit earnest, thorough reports when you see some shit you don't want in your game.

321 Comments

Anomander3/28/2017, 9:00:32 PM78 votes

Riot Husker (EUW) - 8 months ago Hey all. I don't specifically work on the team that deals with reports, but hopefully I can provide some clarity.

To address point one of the OP - Calling for others to report a player is a punishable offense. It is a form of bullying and as such is against the summoner code. It should always be a personal decision for each player as to whether or not they feel another player warrants a report. In fact, do feel free to tell your team mates that "report calling" in itself counts as harassment. Flaming and bullying a player will never help them to improve their game mechanics, communication etc. Take five minutes to add someone and talk to them after game. Perhaps do some customs to help them learn a champion, or how to gank or how to use vision.

To the second point of the OP - Don't worry about how many reports a player receives at the end of a given game. What's important is that if you feel a player truly deserves to be reported, that you do so. Don't feel pressured in to doing something by your team mates asking you to report a player. It's all recorded and all counts.

This is just one example of he MANY times riot has said asking for reports is ban able

https://boards.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behaviour-en/EE7d58Pu-dear-riotsome-clarification-please?show=nested

Gee i wonder why there is confusion.....................

elduris3/28/2017, 9:30:21 PM24 votes

With all due respect, would you mind clarifying this post from Riot Husker?

To address point one of the OP - Calling for others to report a player is a punishable offense. It is a form of bullying and as such is against the summoner code. It should always be a personal decision for each player as to whether or not they feel another player warrants a report. In fact, do feel free to tell your team mates that "report calling" in itself counts as harassment. Flaming and bullying a player will never help them to improve their game mechanics, communication etc. Take five minutes to add someone and talk to them after game. Perhaps do some customs to help them learn a champion, or how to gank or how to use vision.

As a volunteer on these boards, I strive to have the most accurate, up-to-date information regarding the behavioral systems so that I do not spread misinformation. But, in scenarios like this, I may not actually be aware I am spreading misinformation when I quote what a Rioter said. My only request is that messaging be clear and consistent across all platforms, so that we do not have another situation like this.

Chønklord3/28/2017, 9:13:16 PM16 votes

If 1 report is the same as 9, and tantram yesterday literally posted and said (paraphrasing) "if report > 0 then review", how is asking for reports not considered toxic, since all it takes is that same one person report to flag another?

Asking for reports in and of itself creates distraction and needless witchhunting ingame for any perceived "slight", ie top lane went ivern w/ smite? "Report troll"; mid lane got stomped 0-4 by a better player under 6 minutes? "Report Int feeder". These are all just examples of what happens in ranked games every day across thousands of games in NA alone.

Not to mention your colleagues have previously stated the contrary to what you just posted, as evidenced below by another commentor.

Then riot wonders why the community gets up in arms about miscommunication or lack of clarity on punishments and the like (nunu smite support case for esample).

Seriously, get your shit together. Either be transparent with the community on how your system works fully, or work on giving your staffers better training and cohesion to stay on message.

Not to mention I've seen multiple cases here on the forums where rioters and support staff either flat out or insinuated that players were punished for report calling in chat.

Chønklord3/29/2017, 1:46:40 AM14 votes

The more I re-read and analyze this new stance by Riot (according to this Rioter), the more I realize how utterly ridiculous and shortsighted this new stance is.

Like, do you guys at Riot have any clue what allowing players to 'report call' others without penalty will actually do to the overall levels of griefing/toxicity?

Here, I'll give you an example (which is happening right now all the time):

  • Player A goes off-meta pick (let's say top ivern with exhaust/smite for easier enemy jg camp steals);
  • Player A maybe has some good games, and some bad games -- it's the nature of league (there is only 1 winning team and 1 losing team, losing happens);
  • For the sake of this example, let's say we're observing a 'bad game' from Player A.

Now, Teammate Player B sees our Player A struggling in lane, maybe Player A is like 0-3 a few minutes in, whatever. Player A is having a bad game remember, he's genuinely trying to win the game and has had good games with this pick previously.

OK so, Teammate Player B sees the 0-3 score, has already in his mind pre-determined Player A to be a 'troll' from champ select (maybe he said something about the pick, maybe he didn't); now Teammate Player B at this point in-game starts calling for reports -- "report the troll ivern, he's int feeding! troll player ivern smite top!" in /all chat -- now, everyone in the game sees this call for reports, sees our Player A is 0-3, sees the Ivern/smite pick top lane, and they start to think 'yea maybe he's int. feeding / trolling', so they say stuff in chat like 'yea report him definitely, will do', etc.

Now, we here on the forums are (mostly) aware that reports do not stack, 1 is the same as 9, so on and so forth. Perhaps in this example scenario, our Player A doesn't know this; they just know everyone is calling them a troll, saying they're going to report him and whatnot. How do you think Player A is going to feel? Not good about themselves, that's for sure.

Best case scenario, Player A starts to feel pressured to do better -- and perhaps they were already feeling pressured because they're having a bad game -- but now it's extreme pressure; maybe they also feel harassed, or angry. After all, Player A was never intending to 'troll' or 'feed', they genuinely just like Ivern top and realized using smite makes it easier to steal camps away from the enemy.

Maybe, Player A gets frustrated so much on being called out for reports by everyone, that their playing gets worse; after all, has anyone ever done better in League after having someone else harass them about their poor performance? No.

Maybe, the other teammates on Player A's team start chiming in with how 'Player A is such a troll, wow. GG you feeder'; now you have other players being toxic and/or griefing.

So here we have an example where, according to Riot now, Teammate Player B faces no punishment for (in this case falsely) report calling, even though they've visibly made the game experience worse for Player A. Additionally, they've created a witchhunt against Player A and other players in the game have started chiming in with their own negativity. Awesome, so the whole team is now possibly punished (minus Player A), for the illegitimate report calling from one person.

Now multiply this kind of scenario across thousands of games, and how many players are negatively affected/impacted by false reports/report calling when the reported player in question genuinely and objectively has done nothing wrong.

Still think 'report calling' is a 'minuscule issue' and not worthy of punishment...?

P.S. if you read the entire comment, congratulations. This example is actually something that happened to me this morning in a ranked game of league when I played Ivern top.

Gene Hikaze3/29/2017, 2:51:09 PM14 votes

@Riot NaKyle

I've worked in this industry for years. I've had my time with Riot Games; I will preface this by saying that I am no longer member of their staff. I don't care if I get reprimanded for this by the staff because this needs to be said. You all need to get your collective heads out of your arses and actually come together and create a stance on this that is UNIVERSAL AND APPLIES TO ALL LEVELS AND LOCALS FOR THIS GAME.

It should be pretty clear cut by the language in the TOS. All of player support should have to know a lot about the TOS, I know this because it's basically the player support bible for how to deal with situations of PLAYER A reporting PLAYER B for whatever action they were taking in game. I know support gets bombarded with player requests for bans to take place for actions and the system should be much more clear cut and transparent as to when bans are handed down or not. The biggest problem with how this has been handled is that the language in the TOS is ambiguous at best and it really shouldn't be that open ended in this case.

I suggested that a system be put into place when I was there. It might sound familiar to you:

A player calling out into chat for another player to get "reported" should always be classified as player harassment for two reasons:

  1. IT IS HARASSMENT regardless of the content of the message. It is harassing to the targeted player and to the other team to have another player disrupt the flow of the game with negative chat like this in the ALL CHAT. Even if what they said was not offensive to the player, ALL CHATTING "REPORT PLAYER X" is distracting and can even change the way players are acting in the game (i.e., cause a team to target player X because they now know the harassing player will not support them). Regardless of the content of the message it still shows a clear cut lack of unity on the teams behalf and CAN AND WILL ALWAYS effect the game, regardless of the fact that the messages content is or is not defamatory.

  2. IT IS NOT NECESSARY for more than one player in the game to report another player for any reportable offense. The Instant Feedback system was designed to automatically detect if a report was needed or not and as you yourself stated: ONLY NEEDS ONE PLAYER TO REPORT ANOTHER PLAYER FOR IT TO KICK INTO ACTION. The act of calling out another player to be reported is not necessary in any way shape or form for this to happen, therefore the act of doing this should be classified as negative and defamatory behavior regardless of the nature of the message be it "Report PLAYER X, they AFK'ed" or "Report PLAYER X, they're a (FILL IN RACISIT/DEROGATORY TERM HERE)."

Harassment of another player should always be taken as a punishable offense, regardless of how slight it is; a lightly toxic offense allowed, leads players into being more toxic in nature in the future and should be squashed at the start, not when it gets bad enough to ban them for it. Riot should be more willing to issue chat restrictions to get their point across on this and the complete lack of action in attempting to usurp this type of behavior is appalling. It should be that they take action on these lower offenses with lower punishments to make the player understand that they are being watched and that this type of thing, WHILE NOT BANNABLE can result in action being taken against them. This was discussed at length in the past while such an issue had come up and we had decided that this should be the stance, but it was never approved by anyone as an official standpoint (BUT SHOULD HAVE BEEN). This is why Riot Husker had made the comment that he had made because that was intended to be the stance across the board and it just wasn't put into place.

And I am sorry,

When we think about updates to Instant Feedback, we think about solving problems that really distract you from what matters: Winning the game. And this issue just doesn't chart that high.

It's very clearly understood that this effects the low tiered levels of game at its very core. All games where this happens it effects the outcome almost 100% of the time and I don't think I could possibly sit here (being locked into bronze as I am) and watch a member of the player support team come onto the forums and try to tell me that it doesn't effect the game when it is very clearly known throughout all of the support staff (and the player base) that it does. There wouldn't have been need to comment on this (by Riot Husker) if it didn't.

I have honestly off and on seen this behavior in game and warned people about doing this because it's a distraction and negatively effects team unity 100% of the time that it happens. Players can attempt to try to fix the issue and solve the problem in game BUT EVEN THAT IS A DISTRACTION FROM WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO DO: WIN THE GAME, and you can not say that it is not harder to CS as an ADC when you have to chat to your team to get them to stop flame warring each other. It is a distraction 100% of the time, and it should be reportable 100% of the time.

We had even discussed ways to warn players about these sorts of things; the in game pop up box that warns players that their actions had been reviewed and action had been taken against their account, should be good enough. Most times players that see that go "oh shite" and stop acting this way. Players also receive a box to let them know when a report has had action taken upon those whom they had reported, which is good feedback for the people who are reporting these kinds of behaviors to let them know, "Hey, we actually do care that you care about this too." I know that the new client doesn't have this feature working (from what I understood) and it needs to be a higher priority because the feedback system needs to let the community know when it's actually doing work for them.

I am sorry if I come across rude or pissed off about this (honestly I actually am kind of pissed off about this) but there needs to be a single statement by Riot Games in regards to this. Not a forum post by a somewhat misleading Riot Staff member that hadn't bothered to research the topic or to look over what their own co-workers had previously stated in the past. This comment makes Riot Husker (whom I have great respect for) look like he was talking out of his ass. It shows a very clear cut lack of a unified approach to player support and only serves to make Riot Games as a whole look bad to the community. You guys need to get your act together. Honestly if I were Riot NaKyle's supervisor I would advise him to delete this post and possibly tell him never to post on the topic again unless told to by the higher ups. All you've served to do here is make yourself look like you don't know what you are talking about OR at best, make Riot Husker look like he didn't know what he was talking about. Get your act together and finally address the issue with a well thought out and clear cut answer. Make it THE RIOT GAMES OFFICIAL STANDPOINT and go from there. And someone, please revoke Riot Draggles's posting rights. He basically trolled on another staff members post and didn't actually bother to add anything useful or insightful to the conversation besides calling the community "Sheep". If I were their super I'd write him up for that...

I like League of Legends, I like the League of Legends community (as a whole), I enjoy playing the game and it's a great way to relax after a shite day at work.

TLDR: Riot needs to have an Official standpoint on this.. not a bunch of blathering idiots making comments that are the opposite of each other... [slayer-jinx-unamused]

yoshi27903/28/2017, 8:45:22 PM10 votes

If 9 people report a player instead of 1, does it make a difference?

If not, then why do people ask to report?

AMYS GRAVE3/28/2017, 9:36:31 PM8 votes

Riot Tantrum:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/f/ZGEFLEUQ/d/AnqnsBPV?comment=000d

Asking for reports is considered harassment by the community.

vs. here:

If a player used asking for reports as a leaping off point for actual harassment, that's when we'd blow the whistle

What now?

Chønklord3/28/2017, 9:45:07 PM8 votes

So I'm free then to ask for reports in all of my games, if I perceive someone doing something against the Summoner Code... i.e.

Game 1: "Report mid lane int feeding" (player only went 0-4 in 6 minutes against a better player) Game 2: "Report jungler trolling/not assisting team" (jungler farming for 10 minutes straight) Game 3: "Report bot lane trolling" (not calling MIAs, not communicating with pings)

So on and so on. Whether or not I have a valid reason to report someone, I am still allowed then to simply ask for "report player X" for whatever perceived slight, or problem, I feel they are making, correct?

And I won't be punished for this. I can witchhunt a player and have everyone 'mob report' them (even though it could be 'false reporting'), as long as I don't say anything else in the chat except "please report player X for <insert whatever here>", and this action is not punishable according to you/Riot, am I understanding correctly?

Will start doing this ASAP; if my $3k invested w/ over 2k games in s7 played account gets permabanned, I can direct Player Support to your post then, to get my ban lifted, right? After all, I'm just trying to bring justice to those I believe to be committing wrongdoings.

P.S. Yes I had bit of an addiction for a while with buying a lot of loot crates, and yes I play way too much league per day; I have a diagnosed problem.

Lucifer3/28/2017, 11:11:36 PM7 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot NaKyle,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=PzY1ArN3,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-03-28T20:40:08.939+0000)

Hey all,

Spotted a bit of confusion about whether or not we dish out penalties to players who ask for reports. Just to be super clear, we don&#039;t. If a player used asking for reports as a leaping off point for actual harassment, that&#039;s when we&#039;d blow the whistle. When we think about updates to Instant Feedback, we think about solving problems that really distract you from what matters: Winning the game. And this issue just doesn&#039;t chart that high.

To give a bit more detail, we don&#039;t need to penalize for this because Instant Feedback is quite good at filtering out BS reports, and really only needs one to accurately decide whether or not penalties are warranted. If you&#039;re looking to make an impact on the community, the absolute best thing you can do is submit earnest, thorough reports when you see some shit you don&#039;t want in your game.

This doesn't make much sense to me, and other Rioters have said differently in the past. I don't understand very many situations where asking others to report someone ever makes the situation less toxic. Especially when it only takes one report to trigger a review.

DeathBurst3/29/2017, 1:30:59 PM6 votes

I feel this post only adds to the confusion.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Asking for reports is not punishable in itself. Asking for reports as a symptom of real harassment, however, is punishable. All right?

Well, but when does this bloody distinction matters at all, seriously? 9 out of 10 times, if someone jumps to asking for reports against another player, he was already flaming that player for a while anyway. So why not just stay with the old stance from Riot Husker: asking for reports is a form of harassment and as such it is reportable (and punishable), period.

I, for one, will continue reporting the people who ask for reports as "verbal abuse", even after reading this thread. And I for sure hope that my report weight won't be devalued because of that.

Kobold3/28/2017, 9:00:16 PM6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot NaKyle,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=PzY1ArN3,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-03-28T20:40:08.939+0000)

Hey all,

Spotted a bit of confusion about whether or not we dish out penalties to players who ask for reports. Just to be super clear, we don&#039;t. If a player used asking for reports as a leaping off point for actual harassment, that&#039;s when we&#039;d blow the whistle.

This and the announcement that multiple reports do not affect a person is very different from what was told to us years ago. This in itself shows a issue with Riots closed door policy on how things work in the Client and feedback system. Riot as a company really needs to be announcing these as soon as they change not after it causes confusion but the moment the actual change happens. Also keep players updated on it as well, not keeping them in the dark on issues like these.

EDIT: See my responses as it seems I was wrong on them not stating that only one report was needed. The fact still remains there is much needed improvement to be done in regards to communicating to players policy and feedback/report changes.

Great Muta3/28/2017, 9:59:56 PM4 votes

There you go.

Feel free to ask for reports everyone, Riot is giving you the OK.

Don't forget, by asking for reports you have an extra 1/8th of a chance of another person actually reporting someone and you never know, that could be the lucky one.

Since things like arguing and calling someone a "retard" are enough to justify bans, the more you harass people by asking for reports, the better chance you have at making them say something to get themselves in trouble.

Flawless Fetus3/29/2017, 12:49:17 AM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot NaKyle,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=PzY1ArN3,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-03-28T20:40:08.939+0000)

the absolute best thing you can do is submit earnest, thorough reports when you see some shit you don&#039;t want in your game.

Lol. I shall report feeders from here on out. :^]

ShroomPlugTeemo3/19/2018, 10:56:29 PM1 votes

i just got banned for asking for reports. when i made a thread about it everyone told me i deserved it cus i asked to report an afker