/All vs. /Team Reporting -- A Question For Riot

ModThe Djinn·Nov 6, 2017·9 votes·833 views

Hey there!

I've seen quite a few cases recently where someone claims to have been punished for things said in team chat while in a 5-man queue, and I'd love it if a Rioter could elaborate on one part of the system that I'll admit I don't know the functionality of.

Namely this: if someone is reported by someone on the enemy team and only someone on the enemy team, is their team chat reviewed by the system? I can see both benefits and downsides to this, and I figure it would be good for the community to know in general, specifically for those 5-man groups who use League to communicate.

I'm also interested in the community's thoughts on this, and so have included a poll below.

29 Comments

BluEssenceFodderNov 8, 20172 votes

Would be alot better having a constant in-game language filter to prevent aggressive behavior would work much better. All riot would have to do is update that filter with new offensive words every time they patch the game.

Either work with a dying community, or a healthy community, cant have both.

zPOOPzNov 6, 20171 votes

Interesting dilemma. After giving it some thought, I believe you should only be punished (or reviewed) based on what people find toxic with what you said. If your 4 teammates have no problem with what you said in chat (by virtue of them not reporting you), you should not be judged by enemy blind/salt report for chat they cannot see. I believe in a no harm, no foul policy. If your other 4 teammates have no problem with what is said in team chat, you should be able to throw slurs if you want to without fear of punishment (obviously you need balls of steel to have faith none of your teammates will report you).

ModThe DjinnNov 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}Interesting dilemma.

Isn't it? Appreciate the thoughts. :)

YoungFarmerNov 6, 20171 votes

Although it would be annoying to be banned from that situation, considering I flame my premade buddies all the time and have never received a ban. I'm pretty sure anyone who has been banned in this situation has been toxic a multitude of times prior. In all honesty I am toxic often usually calling feeders bad etc and have never been banned, which leads me to believe you have to be incredibly toxic to actually deserve it. So despite being in a 5 man those who receive bans in those situations probably deserve it non the less.

AryzyraNov 6, 20171 votes

The way I see it, enforcement isn't _for _the person reporting. It's a check of a player's actions against the game standards. In that respect, it doesn't really matter what the person reporting saw. Or if the person reporting was offended or not. The only thing that matters is if the player being reviewed was behaving appropriately. There are a lot of options for banter that don't involve in-game chat. Finding a different medium would be the safe approach for a group of friends who want to say things that would not be acceptable under review.

Magical PlayerNov 6, 20171 votes

I'm going to ramble probably not in any order Never say anything in /all chat, enemy reports you all the same, if you did nothing wrong then report is meaningless. So no harm done If you however were flaming and your team forgot to report you then the report is still valid since the user in question was still toxic. Even if a premade it shouldn't exclude you from the rules, this is promotes usage of those attitudes in game and eventually it won't be in a 5 man premade. The review system should review everything and make note of what is said as all chat vs what is not.

If the system has access to pre/post game logs then it only makes sense to give it full access to the chat.

"No harm no foul" maybe not directly since your team doesn't mind, but indirectly it's still promoting a problem

scazzmanNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-11-06T22:44:04.397+0000)

I'm going to ramble probably not in any order Never say anything in /all chat, enemy reports you all the same, if you did nothing wrong then report is meaningless. So no harm done If you however were flaming and your team forgot to report you then the report is still valid since the user in question was still toxic. Even if a premade it shouldn't exclude you from the rules, this is promotes usage of those attitudes in game and eventually it won't be in a 5 man premade. The review system should review everything and make note of what is said as all chat vs what is not.

If the system has access to pre/post game logs then it only makes sense to give it full access to the chat.

"No harm no foul" maybe not directly since your team doesn't mind, but indirectly it's still promoting a problem

following this logic. reports should be removed for chat altogether and it should become fully automated

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

5 people are the community? No, the community is made up of millions of users simply because you're a closet racist or homophobe doesn't make it acceptable

If you're not reported then the system shouldn't review you as nobody believes you to have broken the TOS. if anyone reports you regardless if you spoke to them or not, the system should and does flag you for review. Why report unless you feel they did something tos breaking? Why break the tos and risk your account? if you're willing to break the tos for friends whats to stop you from breaking it again?

I'm not saying riot needs to go and 100% automate the system, im saying if you break the TOS regardless if the enemy team saw it or not your account is up for punishment. ZERO TOLERANCE FOR HATE SPEECH Why would that change because you're with 4 of your buddies, who think hate speech is "funny"

scazzmanNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2017-11-08T05:43:11.637+0000)

Why report unless you feel they did something tos breaking?

"i mute all every game and blindly report all 9 players" "im upset that we lost. so im gonna chuck reports at the enemy team hoping one of them said something "toxic" "im a bait troll who deliberately tries to get people banned"

if you're willing to break the tos for friends whats to stop you from breaking it again?

this is slippery slope fallacy, and some people know how to talk differently around strangers as opposed to their friends

I'm not saying riot needs to go and 100% automate the system, im saying if you break the TOS regardless if the enemy team saw it or not your account is up for punishment. ZERO TOLERANCE FOR HATE SPEECH Why would that change because you're with 4 of your buddies, who think hate speech is "funny"

because no one is offended by it in that game

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

No one is offended by that...... that is a lie Hate speech is called hate speech because why? speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people

if you did nothing wrong why would it matter if you were reported?

lets take a story and see if it works

I killed 4 people but because the other 4 people said it was okay and didn't call the cops its okay. But hey the neighbors think something was wrong, and called the cops cops investigated found you killed 4 people But neighbors didnt see you do it. guess we'll just discredit the 4 murders even though all the evidence says he did it. Since nobody called it in who saw it happen. Gee doesn't that sound good ( : P)

scazzmanNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=00030000000000000000,timestamp=2017-11-08T06:03:22.919+0000)

No one is offended by that...... that is a lie

i meant to say "no one is offended by it in that game" it ate my chat

Hate speech is called hate speech because why? speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people

if you did nothing wrong why would it matter if you were reported?

lets take a story and see if it works

I killed 4 people but because the other 4 people said it was okay and didn't call the cops its okay. But hey the neighbors think something was wrong, and called the cops cops investigated found you killed 4 people But neighbors didnt see you do it. guess we'll just discredit the 4 murders even though all the evidence says he did it. Since nobody called it in who saw it happen. Gee doesn't that sound good ( : P)

except using offensive language around your friends isnt murder.

getting banned for "hate speech" because you were blindly reported by the enemy team is a victimless crime

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

If my friends don't report me for murder, then the analogy is the same replace murder with hate speech. Piracy is a victim less crime......

hate speech :speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people again Just because you think its funny doesn't change the fact its still hate speech Like everyone trying to say F-g is a bundle of sticks tell me how well that worked

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

You are ignoring what makes hate speech bad, vs. what makes piracy (which is not truly a victimless crime btw) or murder bad.

You are also ignoring how language works, especially in regards to people whom you have possibly close relations with and who know how you mean things that other people might misinterpret.

Words have meaning; both intended meaning and interpreted meaning. But if nobody interprets it as hate speech and it wasn't intended as hate speech, then by any meaningful definition of the word it isn't hate speech. And if nobody who actually saw it reported for it, there's no real way of proving how it was intended or interpreted.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

lets say as a community weve come to a conclusion kinda like certain words= hate speech and that there is no such reason to use them Kinda like what already happens

Now imagine if just do this for me, someone says F~G = a bundle of sticks its definition but as a community we've concluded that it is hate speech regardless of its definition much like an acronym means kill yourself.

Hey but KYS is kiss yourself to that guy so what? That makes it somehow acceptable? No, when the implied definition that is commonly used is hate speech then it is hate speech.

And now, you can say all you want in person but riot doesn't condone hate speech. So riot has access to all the logs why should they tolerate hate speech simply because it wasn't blasted across /all chat

scazzmanNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=000300000000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2017-11-08T07:14:42.865+0000)

lets say as a community weve come to a conclusion kinda like certain words= hate speech and that there is no such reason to use them Kinda like what already happens

Now imagine if just do this for me, someone says F~G = a bundle of sticks its definition but as a community we've concluded that it is hate speech regardless of its definition much like an acronym means kill yourself.

Hey but KYS is kiss yourself to that guy so what? That makes it somehow acceptable? No, when the implied definition that is commonly used is hate speech then it is hate speech.

And now, you can say all you want in person but riot doesn't condone hate speech. So riot has access to all the logs why should they tolerate hate speech simply because it wasn't blasted across /all chat

im pretty sure magical player is a troll who likes seeing other people get banned. heck. he is probably one of the people who blindly reports people

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

im pretty sure magical player is a troll who likes seeing other people get banned. heck. he is probably one of the people who blindly reports people

Is that all, thank you for the contribution to the discussion. I greatly appreciate it

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

So "we" as a community have concluded that "we" are the sole authority on what words mean, regardless of whether they are said in private in a possibly entirely different context?

I'm sorry, but that's just not how language works. The community does not get to decide how individuals talking to each other entirely in private interpret or mean words.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

So "we" as a community have concluded that "we" are the sole authority on what words mean, regardless of whether they are said in private in a possibly entirely different context?

I'm sorry, but that's just not how language works. The community does not get to decide how individuals talking to each other entirely in private interpret or mean words.

You're right about that and wrong at the same time The community supposedly determines what is acceptable and not, so if alot of people are reporting for the KYS term, the riot starts t punish for the KYS term, kys has many meanings and some of which mean kill yourself. Not all by the vast majority of its usage is related to telling someone to kill themself. Use F~g for example dictionary definition is a bundle of sticks, now for the most part nobody uses the definition of the word anymore and has since translated to being a slur to hate on a type of person. Weather you agree or disagree with that is entirely irrelevant RIOT sets the terms of service not you or I. Entirely private would be face to face in person, typing something over the internet is still subject to the rules covering it. You want to shout KYS, racial/homophobic slurs be my guest use discord or your choice of voice comms. Otherwise why shouldn't be punished by the rules?

If I am correct you're argument stems from what is said in "private" should be left in private, thats great if the situation is truly private. I don't feel league of legends is a private forum to use such terminology. Again if you're of a different mindset thats okay You can either convince the community that those terms aren't ban worthy Change how the term is used in the world Or Move it to a more private line where riot isn't involved

But if you say it on riots systems riot should have the option to review it In this case if you are reported for hate speech and you clearly say hate speech, then by all means you should be punished for hate speech in most cases

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

In this case if you are reported for hate speech and you clearly say hate speech, then by all means you should be punished for hate speech

Well, that would be, in essence, the problem here.

What if nobody reported me for hate speech? What if nobody who was able to see the slurs reported me, and the enemy reported me for something as minor as saying "gg ez", not even intending for me to get punished for the thing Riot may end up punishing me for?

What if an enemy reported me for hate speech despite not being aware of any slurs I used? That would pretty much just straight up be a false report from their very own perspective. Meaning while I was technically reported for hate speech, nobody (knowingly) reported any actual hate speech.

Look, I absolutely agree that Riot ultimately gets to decide what we are allowed to use their client for; including messages sent over it. And luckily I've grown out of edgy jokes (even between friends) that could be misconstrued as hate speech by unaware bystanders... but ultimately these rules are meant to protect players from toxicity.

And when people are protected that don't want protection, based on the reports of people who don't need protection, then that is patronizing at best and purely nonsensical at worst.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Well, that would be, in essence, the problem here.

Why is this a problem under no circumstances I’d hate sppech acceptable. So then if you spout hate speech even to your friends you should still see the repercussions of your “edgy joke”

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

The problem is, if you had read the paragraph below that statement, that you are assuming people are being reported for the supposed hate speech and not for other reasons.

In fact, if somebody is reported only by players who didn't even see the supposed hate speech, then they were not reported for hate speech, because reporting something requires knowledge (or at least suspicion) of it happening.

What's more is that you used the word "clearly" when referring to the hate speech, when it really isn't clear at all. Hate speech isn't just anything that contains words on a certain list.

Let's go with a really really extreme scenario to drive the point home:

I have a couple of friends who are all upset about how toxic most f2p communities are. They are also pretty political and do like talking about this sort of subject. It is very plausible that in such a setting, with people I know very well, and of whom I know that they share my views, I might say something along the lines of: "What pisses me off the most is how frequent people still throw around f%ggot as an insult."

Now, in this scenario: Would you say that this is "clearly" hate speech? Because if I say that sentence via ingame chat, the enemy team reports me (for whatever reason), and Riot does indeed scan ally chat even when only enemies report, then this sentence would be flagged as hate speech.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

So this Really extreme scenario the .0000001% of times is occurs in league of legends. So extreme its an outlier and can be handled by external review/support Lets go for the common example of FGGT being used as an insult occurs the other 90% of the time 9.9999% is people repeating ebcause of some reason.

"My friends are political and speak inside a game to express their views". Great I'm happy that is the case, your friends are still subject to the ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY while speaking on riots system. You and I can disagree about this point but at the end of the day, riot has set that any use of words deemed hate speech regardless of context earns a punishment. Why because riot is the sole authority about what they determine is hate speech in their game. So yes in context, you're issue is correct its not hate speech but it occurs at a .0000000000001%(outlier, not the common) But we all know context isn't inferred by the system. Neither is sarcasm, wit, humor,jokes and lets say your friend was being sarcastic and was encouraging others to use hate speech because maybe he really does hate a type of person. I couldn't say because text has zero emphasis and when read by different people can be inferred differently.

So if you and your friends are disappointed by this by all means open discord or voice chat of your choosing, talk about it in person, over the phone, or even write it to eachother via snail mail.

Here make a new account, go type out that exact statement get your account flagged for review and go have the discussion with riot support.

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=00030000000000000000000000000000000000010000000000000001,timestamp=2017-11-08T22:14:34.407+0000)

So this Really extreme scenario the .0000001% of times is occurs in league of legends.

But it reveals the underlying flaw of looking for offensive words in a chat log that did not actually offend anybody.

And once again: I'm not denying Riot the right to establish and enforce rules for their game and server. I am, however, saying that the reason as to why those rules exist does not match their effect.

You and I can disagree about this point but at the end of the day, riot has set that any use of words deemed hate speech regardless of context earns a punishment. Why because riot is the sole authority about what they determine is hate speech in their game.

See, that's just the thing. Their entire reasoning for the rules that are in place has always been that the community defines what is or isn't acceptable and not Riot. By punishing people for something that the reporting player was not even aware of, they are completely going against this idea. Worse even, they are risking a systematic error completely skewing the statistics with which they determine these things.

If they had since the beginning gone with the sole authority route of making rules then this would be a different subject... but since Riot is kind enough to frequently provide us with the reasons why they do certain things, rather than just saying "because I said so", I'd consider it extremely rude to not look at those reasons and provide them with feedback when there are flaws in their logic.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

The issue still stands why are you using hate speech, when you know riot punishes for it. In addition to this .000001% example case, which go ahead have this conversation with riot via a support ticket A report just means to review the reason could be as simple as you had a negative attitude or u thought you were cheating, the options are really meaningless Just statistics not a Kensek for riot to look through. You do anything that could give reason to someone else to report, then you get reported. If you did nothing wrong there is no harm

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Magical Player,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=WVQp9t7x,comment-id=00030000000000000000000000000000000000010000000000000003,timestamp=2017-11-08T23:01:39.002+0000)

You do anything that could give reason to someone else to report, then you get reported. If you did nothing wrong there is no harm

Except for if an enemy reported you without (good) reason, and you used language in ally chat where you also didn't give anybody a reason to report you because you know them well enough to know you didn't offend them.

I mean what you said right here is the perfect summary of what is actually not necessarily true if Riot checks all chat regardless of who reports.

Magical PlayerNov 8, 20171 votes

Okay I see where your coming from But even still there is zero reason to have political discussion inside of a game Or use hate speech Just move it to discord or other voice chat.

For 90%+ of the time the use of words deemed hate speech are actually hate speech The .00001% of the time it’s for political discourse, should be avoided as there is no context to really make it viable. See what I’m saying?

Kaptain KuddlesNov 7, 20171 votes

Essentially, this question asks if Riot should necessitate a differentiation or at least a 'status' check on the lobby before the system reviews the chat logs. IF a player is grouped as 5 =/= check team chat, otherwise check all. I think in this specific instance that may be helpful. This would still leave groups of 2-4 susceptible to friendly banter that results in a ban because the other teammate or someone on the other team reports the player, possibly resulting in confusion as to how the system works which makes this post all the more pertinent.

If there is an easy way to differentiate between the different types of chat that exist within the game, then I don't see why Riot shouldn't implement such a fix. It still leaves a 5 man queue in a position to be reported if they decide to troll the other team but players can openly have some fun with their friends without having to worry about a false positive.

scazzmanNov 8, 20171 votes

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/imytl2Qw-proposed-changes-to-the-mute-button?

TrulyBlandNov 8, 20171 votes

I've been wondering, too. I'm fairly certain it used to be that only chat visible to the person reporting was taken into account, and personally I believe that should (have) remain(ed) the case.

Sidenote: The poll is a bit confusing given the similarity of "all chat" and "/all chat". I guess the mistake in the i.e.-bracket doesn't really help either (I guess "Ally" should be "Enemy").