retaliating against against other players being "jerks" is frowned upon by the game.
No, it's a problem for the community in general. Nobody wants to listen to people argue instead of focusing on winning. Riot doesn't punish people for behavior that isn't reported, and player reports shape the system much like a "vote" for what behavior should be punished.
League of Legends...polices players who choose to use more colorful vocabulary more harshly than those who intentionally feed, grief, and the like
It is many times easier to detect negative chat than to detect and prove intentionally malicious gameplay, and negative chat is simply more common than griefing too. That is why punishment for such is more common.
Those gameplay offenses are not punished less severely, as I said they are more difficult to track, but also they really are punished more severely; you don't get a chat restriction for feeding, you will be escalated to the account ban steps. If the system catches it in time, you can be banned for just a single game of inting, even.
There is not a chat filter, there is an option to enable one but it is not required to be in full time use.
That is true, but my message which I will reiterate in different words, is that it's not up to other players to control your behavior. That's your job. Even when words are successfully censored that doesn't mean the message was not perfectly understood, which is yet another reason why filters don't excuse toxic behavior. For example, I could say "You're a ****** and I ****ed your mother", you probably didn't assume the words were "sweety" and "gifted", the message is loud and clear and had the same effect as if uncensored.
Muting someone does not inhibit their ability to spam smart pings and intentionally feed.
You're right, but I think we've gone off the primary subject here. I'll talk about this anyway; Muting may not stop ping abuse and gameplay offenses, but it doesn't hurt, and those people tend to flame also so you might still want it. I also find that when I mute a player I tend to not have any inclination to speak to them, which helps reduce some toxicity from both ends so that everyone can focus on the match. Some sort of ping muting may be on Riot's short list to add as far as I know, I wouldn't be surprised. Flaming someone doing these things tends to just add fuel to the fire, which is why muting them (and not engaging them in chat) is still advised.
A more apt solution would be a 10 minute surrender vote
They have a 15 minute unanimous surrender in testing on OCE, and appears to be successful. I don't think we are getting more than that.
Riot trying to police players
Here we come back to it being the players that decide what behavior is punished; they are the ones driving the system with their reports. Riot takes a hard stance against certain behavior like cheating, feeding, and hate speech, but otherwise it's the community that decides.
