- The Tribunal has been down for over 2 years. Riot has been handling cases themselves ever since then, and they are far more strict than the Tribunal ever was.
2: People can report you for anything, but if you're not doing anything wrong then you won't be punished-they will for false reporting you.
3: As far as Dunkey goes, Lyte explained it in an ask.fm post over 4 months ago.
**What do you think about vgdunkey's ban? **
It's really unfortunate. Many Rioters love Dunkey's content, and I've unloaded my share of "Not even close babyyyyy" jokes around the office; however, we really can't show favoritism to someone just because they are a pro or a known content creator. This isn't really a debate about whether trashtalking is OK or not OK in games; we've talked a lot in the past about how we're OK with players bantering with their friends but you should be careful when interacting with strangers who may not understand your intentions--especially if you're using hate speech or slurs. We have a zero tolerance policy against hate speech, racism, homophobia, and sexism and that policy stands whether you're a random player, a pro player, or a Youtube celebrity.
This also really wasn't a case about intentional feeders and whether it's OK to be toxic towards other toxic players--there wasn't even a Malphite in the game that got him banned and either way, retaliation just isn't OK because it makes the experience worse for everyone else in the game.
We know that players have been asking us to be more aggressive against intentional feeders for awhile, and it has taken us a bit longer than we'd like. We do consider gameplay toxicity just as serious as verbal toxicity, and are launching a new Intentional Feeder Detection system in 5.18 that can ban feeders within 15 minutes of matches. We're starting with conservative settings to make sure the system would not ban players for having the rare bad game, even if it was a 0-10 type of bad game but this is a great first step to aggressively tackling intentional feeders.
At the end of the day, this incident sucks for everyone. We respect that Dunkey hasn't posted his Reform Card, and I'm not going to post it either. Best wishes to him in the future.
4: Riot has stated many times that retaliation is never okay, as when you retaliate you force the up to 8 other players to deal with 2 raging jerks: the original and you. From the Tribunal FAQ:
That player in my game was far worse than me. Why am I banned???
I'll keep this one simple: those other players in your game that you thought were worse are probably also banned. Nearly 100% of the time, those players were banned even before you were. If someone is being toxic, just report them and move on.
We strongly believe that it is not OK to retaliate. If a player refuses to cooperate and says something negative, then players should ignore the player and report them after the game. Players can ignore or mute players by pressing the “Mute” button on the Scoreboard [when you hit TAB] in the game.
If a player retaliates and says something bad back, then the two of you have made a negative experience for potentially the other 8 players in the game. Rarely do teams start working together better when players begin fighting back—great games only happen when players cooperate and don’t make the issues even worse by fighting back and forth.
5: There's trash talking and then there's being a verbally abusive jerk. There's a point where it gets to it's limits, and that's the point where you need to just stop. From Ulanopo's Knowledge Base:
Trash talk is part of all competitive sports. It happens all the time in the pros.
Yes and no. Yes, trash talk occurs, but it has definite limits. Most of the things that are punished in game (racial, ethnic and homophobic slurs, sexism, etc.) would also earn you a hefty fine in professional sports.
A Tumblr List of NBA Fines (http://nbafines.tumblr.com/)
(My personal favorite on that site is this indefinite suspension (http://nbafines.tumblr.com/post/1010368028/3-12-96-the-nba-suspended-mahmoud-abdul-rauf-den), simply for refusing to stand during the National Anthem.)
A List of NFL Fines for Taunting (http://www.spotrac.com/fines-tracker/nfl/all-years/fines/taunting/)
NBC Article on Fines Agreed to by the NFLPA (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/12/01/bizarrely-specific-nfl-fines-come-from-agreed-league-union-schedule/)
"Excessive profanity or other unsportsmanlike conduct triggers a minimum fine of $10,500."
NHL Office of Player Safety (http://www.nhl.com/ice/eventhome.htm?location=/playersafety)
Brendan Shanahan is the ****ing Bad Santa of the NHL. Did you know that his Office of Player Safety watches every minute of every game, from multiple angles? He sees and hears EVERYTHING, including swearing.
... and the grand finale!
Marge Schott (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_Schott), who was forced out of ownership of the Cincinnati Reds for racist comments and pro-Nazi sentiments.
Also from Ulanopo's Knowledge Base:
People who report are simply being oversensitive. The mute button exists for a reason.
Lets start with the Riot quote on this (link (http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=30696571#post30696571)):
Why is verbal abuse punishable if there is a mute button/language filter?
Players shouldnt need to rely on features like the mute button or language filter to engage with other players in positive ways. When a player verbally abuses another player and forces him to use the mute button, they have already created a negative experience for that player.
Simply put, Riot says no. You can scream and cry all you want, but it is their house and their rules.
With that out of the way, I think the topic deserves some further discussion. The theory is that, if people resolved to care less, then they would be happier. I often refer to this as Argument from Stoicism and I think it is a fairly weak philosophy because it places the burden on the person being expected to endure the behavior rather than the person exhibiting the behavior. You should be able to handle it is just a flimsy excuse for being a bully or a jerk. I have to be the bigger man so that you can do whatever you want? That hardly seems fair.
There is also the issue of how I spend my limited free time. Like most people, I am constantly required to make value judgments between the different forms of entertainment that are available to me and, let's be honest, we live in an age of nearly limitless entertainment options. If I'm having a bad day in League, I can just fire up Steam and play a whole bunch of games that don't require me to put up with someone's BS.
This is not an issue of weakness or thin-skin; it's a question of choosing activities that don't leave me feeling frustrated and angry. Too many of those experiences and I'll just find something else to do. Riot knows this.
EDITED 18 JULY 2014
From the Tribunal FAQ:
What's the point of having a language filter if I can get banned for 'adult' language?
We aren't out to punish players who use adult language; in fact, very few players are ever banned for saying stuff like "f***, I missed that skill shot" or "damn, fing close game!" However, the language filter is not an excuse to verbally abuse someone in the game. When you verbally abuse or harass someone by calling them "fing *****" or "ngger noob", that's when you've crossed the line and will be punished by the Tribunal. I've said this before and I'll say it again, we aren't trying to clean online games of adult language; we're trying to reform or get rid of jerks who like to verbally abuse and harass other players.
Also, the reason that you got permabanned was because you were warned at least 3 times to change your behavior and you ignored them. Because you had already received a 2-week ban, the next step up was a permaban. If you post your reform card then we can try to help you understand where you went wrong and how you can improve for the future, but otherwise just don't go out of your way to continuously be a jerk to people and you won't get in trouble for doing so.
