Boards›Player Behavior

A discussion of clarity in reporting

You Are Cute XD·7/18/2017, 5:03:54 PM·5 votes·438 views

We would all like to play with well behaved players, and I'm certain most of the player base does their duty in reporting toxicity, but the system as currently configured is essentially a black box where we have very little idea what actually happens. I have a few thoughts about the current reporting process, and would like to generate some discussion about it.

Most importantly, reporting someone currently is unfulfilling, in a way. It is hard to feel as if you're contributing to making the game a more enjoyable experience when you have no idea whether or not your reports are actually doing anything. Some sort of feedback system would be wonderful, similar to what I read about the feedback the tribunal used to give in cases you voted on. If there were some way of knowing whether or not your reports led to anything, it seems like that would go a long way towards encouraging reporting of bad behavior. Right now, when you press report, you have no idea what happens unless you get one of the very rare messages about a player being punished. Those messages are great, but happen far less frequently than times players actually are punished. Some amount of information about what has become of your reports would help feel like we have more ownership of our community of players. It can be very frustrating to feel like nothing is happening to toxic players because you have no idea that they were actually suspended.

Additionally, some additional guidance on what is reportable would be helpful, as people have wildly different standards. I report people fairly often, while a friend of mine says he prefers to tolerate more, or in his words "i'm fine with some level of douchebaggery". It's difficult to get an idea of what is actually reportable and isn't. I see players all the time saying to report for things that aren't actually offenses, or players being caught off guard that their actions were offenses. Unless you follow the boards frequently, it's difficult to get a standard of what behavior is acceptable. I find the summoner's code to be very vague, and it feels like more clarity or guidance around where the lines are actually drawn would be helpful. Even if it's just basic things such as multiple reports in a game not mattering more than one, a reporting tutorial of sorts would be a handy guide to help more people know this.

The impression that comes from this lack of clarity can be very negative, and you often see it here with people posting after their accounts were banned. It can feel like there is overlord Rito, lashing out at random summoners with inconsistently applied judgements. On the other side of things, it's also easy to feel like your reports aren't doing anything, like you aren't contributing, and like you have no voice in the process. I think that there are systems of guidance and feedback that could (and maybe used to, I wasn't around for the tribunal days) help alleviate these problems, and help players feel more motivated in controlling and helping their own community.

tldr, I want to know more specifically what I'm supposed to be reporting, I want to know that toxic players are being punished, and I want to know that my reports are doing something.

5 Comments

Kei1437/18/2017, 10:38:42 PM2 votes

How would you like a report card system?

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/aFmEtAVK-riot-should-add-monthly-status-cards

ModPrandine7/18/2017, 5:28:35 PM1 votes

Let me try to help as best I can. In terms of what is and/or isn't reportable:

What IS reportable:

Poor chat behavior (flaming/insulting others, death wishes/threats, hate speech, racist comments, etc). Intentionally feeding/afking/trolling. Ping/Chat spamming. Calling for reports. Botting. Malicious third-party programs.

What ISN'T reportable:

Having a bad game. Disagreement of tactics. Playing off-meta (i.e. Jungle Malzahar). Picking a champion/item that you don't like. Banning a champion that you like.

In regards to your second and third questions just a quick look through this section of the boards will show that trolls are indeed being punished. In regards to gameplay trolls specifically they are less vocal about their bans because often times they know what they did wrong and thus have no need to come to the boards to complain about it, hence why we see more people complaining about their chat-related bans on here than anything else. Also, while the IFS isn't very good at the feedback part of its name it's pretty safe to say that as long as people are reporting someone for consistently poor behavior that they will eventually be punished if they haven't already.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Chermorg7/18/2017, 5:31:38 PM1 votes

  1. You're supposed to be reporting anything that you feel violates the Summoner's Code. Put the most simply, anything that does not go in line with sportsmanlike competition should be reported.

  2. A simple perusal of these boards should show that people are in fact punished. Riot does not, as a matter of policy, release information about specific players' punishments on request to prevent gravedancing. This is a result of a common internet attitude that if someone is punished it's necessary to publicly humiliate them for eternity. This is contrary in and of itself to sportsmanlike behavior, thus Riot prevents it from occurring by silently punishing people.

  3. Your reports are doing something. You will only get a (generic) notification when your report was a part of the final game that punished a player - keep in mind many if not most players go three games of negative behavior before getting punished, and so they will not be punished on the first or second games barring any kind of extreme behavior. Thus, you should, at most, expect to get IFS notifications for 1/3 of your reports, given there's an equal chance theoretically your report is the first, second, or third game the players have been toxic. In reality, many times, it may be the first game they're toxic, and they may not be toxic again (they may have been having a bad day). In this case, they won't be punished and you won't get notified. So in reality, if you get notifications for 10% or so of your games, your reports are extremely accurate. Many people (like me) get notifications much less than 10% of the time, but that doesn't mean reports aren't doing anything. If you'd like Riot to review your reports, you can submit a support ticket and ask for a human to just look over your reports to see if they're mostly accurate, inaccurate, not specific enough, wrong categories, etc. They won't release information to you about specific reports, but they'll be able to tell you if you're on the right track or way off.

SuicideAll7/18/2017, 10:30:50 PM1 votes

You think reporting is unclear, did you even consider being the one reported?

Riot doesn't even tell you. before entering a game, that you got a chat restriction. They never tell you why you got a chat restriction.

When you get your "reform card", it is a copy/paste of everything you said. It gives you a general reason for your ban and then expects you to know what you did.

One time, I sent in a support ticket about a banned account. Even then, they refused to give me specifics. They said things like "you were toxic, this ban was warranted."

LegendmakerGX7/19/2017, 8:16:56 AM1 votes

Pfft just had a game with a cry baby Soraka who uses a excuse for report for the stupidest thing ever.

Me: "Wtf shouldn't have dived the enemy under the turrent you should had got turrent or dragon" Soraka: "Can you be quite?" Me: "How about no?" Soraka: "Okay reported" I swear so much dumb people using report for the littlest things even though we had the lead we lost because they decide to dive and chase non stop for kills feeding a Diana which single hand carried his whole team. If people are stupid to learn and take advice from a person who knows how not to throw a lead then fine be dumb but lmao report me for saying you shouldn't have dive then you are clearly a baby to young for this game.