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Hypothetically, what would a removal of escalated punishments look like?

Jo0o·12/4/2017, 10:36:37 PM·3 votes·343 views

Please don't get me wrong here, I'm not in favor of any sort of leniency added to the current system. I'm just curious as to what you all think would happen in this hypothetical scenario.

What would happen if the zero-tolerance trigger words didn't result in escalated punishments? Make them trigger the basic punishment system, sure, but starting at a chat restriction level.

I'm 26 years old, and I have a hard time figuring out why anybody would unflinchingly use hate speech in their in-game chat. Use of hate speech or calls for suicide in the context of a video game is simply absurd to me, and if any of my associates were banned for it, I'd have zero sympathy for them. But on the other hand, people literally half my age are allowed to play this game, and it does strike me as slightly extreme that a kid's first indication of the level of maturity expected of them is a two-week ban. Of course, there's no practical way of distinguishing age, and differentiating punishments based on age is a bit silly.

So enough about my random musings. Judging by upvotes vs. downvotes on these boards most folks seem to be in favor of current Riot policies, so what are your opinions on this hypothetical change?

6 Comments

Karunamon12/4/2017, 10:40:34 PM4 votes

What would happen if the zero-tolerance trigger words didn't result in escalated punishments? Make them trigger the basic punishment system, sure, but starting at a chat restriction level.

The same thing that happens now - they'd start walking up the scale. This is the way it was before the zero tolerance stuff was added. It was added because it taking so long to get punished for encouraging suicide is a bad look.

ModThe Djinn12/4/2017, 10:46:59 PM4 votes

There's only one outcome I can see: we would see more hate speech. If a 14-day ban as a first warning is not sufficient to get someone to stop, adding a 10 game chat restriction on top of it will not help the situation. Sure, there will be one or two edge cases where it does help, but in general I can't really see it doing anything to improve behavior in general, and I can see a lot of opportunity for allowing people to get in at least two more games of hate speech... likely more, because lower punishments are easier to work off your account.

Jo0o12/4/2017, 10:54:58 PM2 votes

Thanks guys, that makes a lot of sense.

OnlyYouCanHearMe12/4/2017, 11:19:33 PM2 votes

I actually had a guy in one of my matches last night, that I couldn't help but laugh at. It was a ranked match, and I always make a point of starting off those matches with "Good Luck and Have Fun All!" or something equally cheerful along those lines. The enemy Lucian piped up with "You too my N word." That's exactly how he typed it. He didn't type out %%%%%%. He typed "N-word." All I could think was "this person either reads the boards, or has been punished for it before. Either way, it was just so comical. It was completely obvious that he wasn't using it as a slur, or as any form or insult, and it caught me so off-guard that I literally cackled in the ear of my duo partner.

I do tend to agree with the others, that we would see a lot more hate speech, if it wasn't zero-tolerance, and people would work their way right back up the ladder to a ban. What would worry me is that we would likely also see an influx of people here on the Boards posting about the hate speech the way they do about trolls and inters. You can pretty much watch the trend of threads and the response of the IFS following it. We had a ton of threads about people being upset about "kys." Now we have the bans for it, and the threads where people are getting instantly punished for it. We had a ton of threads about people being upset about inters. Now we're having more bans for inting. People were upset about the toxicity, among that the hate speech, and the IFS has learned that, and is following through.

But on the other hand, people literally half my age are allowed to play this game, and it does strike me as slightly extreme that a kid's first indication of the level of maturity expected of them is a two-week ban.

I'm also older, 35 in my case. But the way I look at it isn't so much that the ban is their first indication. Their parents, teachers, preachers, grandparents, etc... everyone and anyone that had a hand in raising them had the responsibility to teach those kids that you don't go on the internet and act like a jackass.

AJStarhiker12/4/2017, 11:09:50 PM1 votes

I'll be honest, I don't like zero-tolerence policies on principle. This isn't because I don't think a particular action shouldn't be punished, but because too many of those poilcies are made as knee-jerk reactions. At least Riot's policy was instituted based on data gathered over the past several years and uses information on which types of restriction work and at what point no more chances should be given.

I also don't like calling Riot's policy a true zero-tolerance . For one, it rarely triggers on a single offense. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing "But my report did nothing" posts because every game with a valid hate speech or self-harm comment would trigger the IFS. For another, the first offense is not an instant permaban. It's a 2-week temp ban.