Boards›Player Behavior

Dealing with Bullies and Abusive people

Lovepet·10/4/2017, 11:50:26 AM·3 votes·2,542 views
How to Deal With Bullies

Riots official stand on bullying and abusive players is to Ignore them. Their principles regarding this is not shared by any source I could find. Me, TedX, wikihow and every other source of information I could find got a different idea on how to deal with bullies and abusive people.

So, where does this theory come from that if you were to ignore a bully or abusive player that solves the issue? To me, TedX, Wikihow and every other source I could find about the worst thing you can do is to ignore the problem/bully. There are reasons you don't ignore a problem. For one the problem will most certain grow bigger or change in character in a way you can no longer handle. Another reason is that if a bully doesnt get his validation from you due to you ignoring him, he simply wont sit down and accept it, he will seek validation from another source. Just like any hungry person will go to another restaurant if the one he went to is full or out of food.

I speak from personal experience when talking about bullying and abusive players as I was bullied for most of my childhood. I manage to end the bullying towards me by in a physical confrontation with a bully picked him up and slamed him in to a locker and down on to the hard floor. After that noone has ever tried to physically bully me. People still try to bully me with words without much success... I have been through hell, so a few random comments from abusive people doesnt hurt me at all. My advice is to confront the bully. That's what I allways do and I allways come out on top. My information is public and so far 0 people have come knocking on my door from the intenret. I get about 1 silent phone call a year and about 1 strange sms... That's the price I did pay when I stood up against bullies.

Riot got a problem though, they can not learn and they can not be changed. "You can’t change my mind." <-- Statement from a riot-related person. "Cool. Our opinion and Riot's opinion wins. I don't like pulling that card. But this is Riot's boards. They make the rules." <--- Disqualifying any argument due to it being "riots house, riots rules and riots reality" ... I have stated it before, riot think their knowledge is absolut, but it's not. They have been caught lying several times. Been wrong about the definition of words (Idiocy, moronic, n00b, spam, idiot etc etc etc)... But disqualifies any fact that goes against their "way of thinking" on the premises that "this is our board , our rules"

Riot got a view of bullying and abusive players that is not shared by anyone to my understanding.

  1. How do we stop bullying and abusive people on the intenret/games?
  2. How can we make riot understand that their knowledge is not absolut and they should be open minded towards other ideas, especially when their ideas is not supported in science nor history?
  3. Anyone able to explain Riots offcial stand on bullying and abusive people?

Thank you for contributing to this thread. Thank you for not going offtopic.

68 Comments

EvilDustMan10/4/2017, 12:07:44 PM12 votes

Dealing with bullies in real life is far different than dealing with them online. Online bullies have more anonymity and can't gain that personal empathy.

However, yes, you can politely and sternly rebuke someone flaming you. You CAN assert yourself, but you should do so concisely and not more than once. And with firm but polite words. After that, if they continue, you mute them and report them.

Reporting them is not leaving them alone. Reporting them leads to their eventual punishment. You are not personally taking action, but you are ensuring that action is taken.

Drugoth10/4/2017, 2:38:09 PM4 votes

Your advice for dealing with bullies is horrible, the one case you use as an explanation is terrible as well.

You got off lucky after you did what you did to that guy. Assaulting him could of seriously backfired. You could of got arrested and charged for assault. He could have come back at you with several of his friends for revenge. Sure, people stopped bullying you after you did that, but I'm sure it also made it harder to make friends as everyone else was likely afraid of you.

No matter how much you try to argue that real life bullying is the same as cyber harassment, the fact of the matter is they aren't the same. As was explained by evil dust man anonymity makes a huge difference coupled with the fact you will likely only encounter this person once. On the flipside, in real life, usually the bully is someone you see often (school setting for example) and you each know each other's identity. This changes the bullying to be on a more personal level, as the bully likely knows personal things about you and can use that knowledge against you. Not to mention they can physically assault you.

Online is a completely different landscape and is actually much easier to deal with harassment. Riot has left a shiny little nugget of a tool for us in the form of the mute button. Someone harasses you about the fact you're 0/3 at 10 minutes? Mute em. To top it off, if the harassment was especially bad, we can always report them at the end of game screen.

Tl;Dr, Using a single case to justify your theory or method of dealing with bullying is silly and you're simply wrong. Going around, suplexing bullies into lockers is not the way to end bullying. Unfortunately, at the moment we still have no real way to stop it altogether and we only have ways to deal with and punish it.

Sarutobi10/4/2017, 12:04:26 PM3 votes

  1. You cant stop bullying period. Everyone is different especially in terms of how they bully, let alone the fact that this is online and there is that animosity. Thats really the main reason people do what they do. You dont know who they are, so they are scared of any type of real punishment.

  2. Riot is more than happy to see ideas, it just doesnt help that really your only solution is to do physical harm to others who bully. Its fighting fire with fire which is something Riot doesnt tolerate.

  3. I mean i get it, The main reason people do this is to get attention. They want you to rage in the chat not only because they get a kick out of it, but because they know how the punishment system works and thus will get you punished. This is why Riot tells you to ignore. Dont give in to their demands because it only causes more problems than solves. Ignoring them helps because it doesnt give them what they want, and thats the attention!

BlueThingamajig10/5/2017, 1:58:20 PM2 votes

There is a huge distinction between real life and online ignoring.

In real life, when you ignore a bully, you still have to put up with their abuse. You still hear and must put up with them talking, yelling, screaming, harassing, mocking, etc. You still experience any physical abuse they might choose to partake in. When you ignore someone, they still exist. You just pretend they don't and try to not react to them.

You can't pretend a physical attack doesn't exist, and expect to be healthy afterwards. Mockery can still hurt, even if you pretend to not hear it.

In League of Legends, when you ignore/mute someone, they might as well become a different person entirely. You no longer experience any harassment. They are physically prevented from interacting with you. For all intents and purposes, using the mute feature replaces the toxic player with a completely silent player at the same skill level. It literally ends all chat-related harassment you could possibly experience.

You don't have to pretend to not notice something, because it no longer exists.

Deep Terror Nami10/9/2017, 3:12:35 PM1 votes

This board is a place for holding discussions about the behavior of players in League. While discussions about behavior in general are acceptable, it is expected that they relate to the League of Legends game and it is a viable discussion to have within the bounds of this topic. Due to this thread not being allowed to relate to League by the OP (despite it being specifically about Riot's position on toxicity) I am locking this thread now.

If you have questions or concerns about this action please visit us in the Moderation Discord here.

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Frontline Fury10/4/2017, 12:16:59 PM1 votes

Its simple. Riot's "principles" are Tencent's principles. Have you seen how people live in China? Their standpoint on EVERYTHING negative is "pretend it doesnt exist" or "remove it by force if it becomes an issue". There's nothing in between.

x Royal Solo x10/5/2017, 1:54:28 PM1 votes

"Bullies" You mean ignorant internet losers with low IQs.

The only reason people like that bother me is because it reminds me off how stupid people are and how we as a society haven't handled it yet.

They will never change unless forced to or by some miracle have an awakening. No point in even putting attention to it unless you genuinely plan on changing them yourself. Of course some people are beyond help and need to be professionally rehabilitated.

To the point, mute them or start a very long debate in the middle of a competitive game. Thats how you handle the lol "bully"

Shacobroyo10/7/2017, 2:15:46 PM1 votes

The truth is that this experiment is a failure because that's exactly what this player behavior system is. It's not creating a better community what it's actually doing is causing people to turn into trolls. Any psychologist worth anything will tell you ignoring bullies and not facing them head on in any form is going to cause more trouble for not only you later in life, but also for other people. Another huge thing they will tell you is that holding emotion inside is highly toxic for you, and when you feel like you're being abused or used to say nothing. Those three things are so of the most toxic things you can do to a human psychology.