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[Feedback] After a few days mucking about here, I have a list of things that I think could be better

Pryotra··14 votes·3,116 views

Hi! Pryotra here! For those of you coming over from GD, Welcome! You might remember me as that guy who made GD Night and GD Classic. If not, I was that blue guy with this Avatar:

http://imgur.com/OwdZYE6

Now, some of you are new to this platform, others have been here awhile, but I think all of us have something about here that we would like to see improved. It makes sense; after all, this is a beta, right? Anyways, after being in the new and improved Boards for a while and testing the new features, I feel that there are some things that could be improved. This is only my list so far, so feel free to add your own perspectives below!

Without further ado, let's jump right in!

#Chronological View

My, oh my, is this handy. Essentially the old Flat view from the CB, this new and improved version means that it finally got Riot's Seal of Support, and therefore comes with a plethora of features to make it at least parallel to the nested view, right? Nope, Chuck Testa. It still needs some help. Let's see if I can nail some of it down. Keep in mind that I feel chronological view should be parallel to Nested in that I could choose one or the other, and not have to hop in either direction for ANY reason.

  1. Default View - Look, I get it. You can only have 1 view as the default. But could you at least make it so that it remembers my choice across threads? I've heard this is a non-occurance, but I have had to switch to chronological view 5 times today alone, but never switched back. If it isn't supposed to do that, then could you fix it? Please and thank you!
  2. Lost in Translation - How do I know who the guy above me is talking to if he didn't quote the guy? Or if the guy he is responding to is on another page? Well, currently the answer is flip to Nested view, and that is a No-no. Could you add a link to the bottom of nested replies that takes you to the parent, without ever leaving Chronological view? Maybe even a "Show parent" button that simply pops the parent up from behind the post? Either way, I would appreciate not having to switch back and forth just to follow a conversation.
  3. Voter Registration - Simply put, I can't vote unless I am in Nested view. Not ok, please fix it.

Overall, thanks for deciding to support this view! I know I prefer the look, if only the functionality could back it up so it was a true choice.

#Boards on the Front Page Overall, there has been improvement here. I especially like the images beside the posts. That said, there is room for improvement here as well.

  1. Voter Privileges - So, It appears you can vote on threads OP's without even reading them (again). Could we just remove the vote tally and buttons altogether from this page? There simply is no reason to see it that I can determine, and especially no reason I can vote on something without even clicking in to read the OP.
  2. Sorting Troubles - Quite honestly, their are only 2 real sorts I use, Hot and recent. Recent when I want to find something new, Hot when I want to see where the discussion is. And frankly, Neither really live up to their potential. Hot Still only finds popularly voted stuff, which isn't really a discussion so much as a circlejerk, and recent is only the newest made thread, not the newest post. I think that in order to find Highly controversial stuff, there needs to be a sort that simply counts total activity period. Votes in either direction count positively in this sort, but takes a back seat to unique poster count as a function of time. This way you can find those truely active things, because if it is popular enough to deserve everyone's attention, It will still rise, where as in Hot sorting if it doesn't get votes it sinks. Pretty bad experience IMO.
  3. Where Do I Post? - Honestly, the current board choices are pretty bland, and don't really cover everything league related while still having overlap. I propose the following changes:
  • New Boards:
    1. Tips & Tricks - a board for people seeking advice and improvement in league. For all levels of experience, whether you are good at the game or just barely learning the ropes, this board would be a place to learn and help one another.
    2. Bug Reports - whether it be a site bug or a gamebreaking exploit, this thread should be the place to post. Help & Support are for those seeking help with technical issues like crashing or random pings. Bugs should have their own place to have that dialogue.
    3. Roleplaying - This is a community that already exists that has been excluded entirely. I feel they should get a home.
  • Revised Boards:
    1. Renamed: Champions & Skins ->Champion Lore & Skins - In my eyes, we already have a balance board. If the Moderation Team has issues with the concept of the same discussion belonging in multiple places, then we need to cut back on the overlap. Therefore, this board should be renamed and repurposed to include discussions of Lore between and surrounding various champions, Skins, and upcoming champions.
    2. Live Gameplay Balance - This should be about all things balance when it comes to the live version of the game. After all, that is what it says on the tin.

That said, I appreciate the improvement here. Seriously, I don't feel like removing my eyes from simply looking at the front page, so you are MILES ahead of where you started! Keep it up! That's all that I can remember for the time being, but I will update the list, or make a new one if you already started on this list by the time I remember more.

Lastly, but certainly not least: THANK YOU BASED RIOT FOR A DARK FORUM LOOK! MUCHO GRACIAS! DANKE SHON! Keep up the good work!

31 Comments

Pendragon4 votes

Thanks for keeping an open mind Pryotra

Voter Privileges - So, It appears you can vote on threads OP's without even reading them (again). Could we just remove the vote tally and buttons altogether from this page? There simply is no reason to see it that I can determine, and especially no reason I can vote on something without even clicking in to read the OP.

We have certain topics that link you to external websites and over time we intend to do more of this. This means that you could have read the content of the submission without having gone to the comment page. Everything we've seen so far tells us that this isn't a real issue right now and people are not actually doing it. If it becomes a problem we can revisit the decision.

Sorting Troubles - Quite honestly, their are only 2 real sorts I use, Hot and recent. Recent when I want to find something new, Hot when I want to see where the discussion is. And frankly, Neither really live up to their potential. Hot Still only finds popularly voted stuff, which isn't really a discussion so much as a circlejerk, and recent is only the newest made thread, not the newest post. I think that in order to find Highly controversial stuff, there needs to be a sort that simply counts total activity period. Votes in either direction count positively in this sort, but takes a back seat to unique poster count as a function of time. This way you can find those truely active things, because if it is popular enough to deserve everyone's attention, It will still rise, where as in Hot sorting if it doesn't get votes it sinks. Pretty bad experience IMO.

"Hot" currently takes non-vote activity (such as comments) into consideration. Over time our intention is that "Hot" will show you high-activity relevant and fresh discussions/content.

Where Do I Post? - Honestly, the current board choices are pretty bland, and don't really cover everything league related while still having overlap. I propose the following changes:

Stay tuned for changes here. Some are coming

Pryotra2 votes

Thanks for keeping an open mind Pryotra

I read the rest, but am testing Snip powers in chronological.

Interesting about the other website content. My bet is it's going to be primarily used to link in reddit, which I hate to no end, but I'll wait to make comments and pass judgement. Still, is there any way that we can remove the ability to vote on content within this site until you visit said content? I remember a few instances on the old CB where it was a problem, and Considering my experience with alot of GD, I just feel it's too easy for someone with a vendetta against a certain poster to Ctrl+f the front page for them and downvote everything that comes up.

As for the sorts, I find that highly controversial stuff simply never rises, especially if it gets an early downvote. I would rather see highly controversial but highly active stuff on top, even if it is slightly negative in vote value, than something like the "Don't" thread, which, as much as I enjoyed the OP, felt rather circlejerky from the get-go. Not alot of discussion in a circlejerk, hence why I don't like posting in them even if I pop in to read the OP. That said, I don't mind a highly upvoted Controversial thread, or a highly upvoted thing on top, so long as there is actual discussion or at least talking in them. I guess I just feel like votes are still weighted far too heavily, and that conversation isn't rated enough.

As for those changes enroute, I can't wait! You guys have done good so far, so keep it up!

Pendragon3 votes

Interesting about the other website content. My bet is it's going to be primarily used to link in reddit, which I hate to no end, but I'll wait to make comments and pass judgement.

I hope not, and wouldn't expect that to be the case. I think though we want to make the boards a good jumping off point for content all around the LoL community. I'd love to see surrenderat20 posts, youtube videos, solomid posts, etc here.

Still, is there any way that we can remove the ability to vote on content within this site until you visit said content? I

There are ways that it could be done technically but none that are small in scope or easy to do. Honestly I'd rather wait to see if this is actually a problem. Right now it doesn't seem to be.

I just feel it's too easy for someone with a vendetta against a certain poster to Ctrl+f the front page for them and downvote everything that comes up.

There are other ways to combat that like successive downvotes from one person to another person weighing less over time. We're not doing any of that atm because we're seeing very little vote fudging, but I expect as we grow we'll have to sort some of that out.

As for the sorts, I find that highly controversial stuff simply never rises, especially if it gets an early downvote. I would rather see highly controversial but highly active stuff on top, even if it is slightly negative in vote value, than something like the "Don't" thread, which, as much as I enjoyed the OP, felt rather circlejerky from the get-go. Not alot of discussion in a circlejerk, hence why I don't like posting in them even if I pop in to read the OP. That said, I don't mind a highly upvoted Controversial thread, or a highly upvoted thing on top, so long as there is actual discussion or at least talking in them. I guess I just feel like votes are still weighted far too heavily, and that conversation isn't rated enough.

Can you show me an example? Right now if something has a lot of posts but not a lot of votes, it's pretty easy for it to float to the top. It's important for us to consider other factors besides raw votes and we're just working on figuring out the ratios right now. I do think early downvotes is an issue though.

Pryotra2 votes

Can you show me an example? Right now if something has a lot of posts but not a lot of votes, it's pretty easy for it to float to the top. It's important for us to consider other factors besides raw votes and we're just working on figuring out the ratios right now. I do think early downvotes is an issue though.

That's kinda tricky, what with timeframes of posts and not being able to see overall vote scores, but and obvious example I found on the front page was this:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/esports/fBctZc3T-10-dominant-players-and-their-most-feared-champions

Had to scroll down a bit, but there is stuff above it that is a day old and WAY less comments, yet their few more votes see them up. Meanwhile, this has no apparent votes, seemingly lots of discussion, and is only an hour old.

I don't really feel like digging to deep, but I found that within a minute of scrolling. I'm sure that if I kept going, I would have found more.

Pendragon1 votes

What would be helpful is any time you see the front couple of pages and you feel like they're mis-sorted, just take a screenshot and shoot it over to me.

Generally we think that activity is something that drives relevance as much as voting and we just have to find the right ratios.

Kobold1 votes

What would be helpful is any time you see the front couple of pages and you feel like they're mis-sorted, just take a screenshot and shoot it over to me.

Generally we think that activity is something that drives relevance as much as voting and we just have to find the right ratios.

Any plans on making the Red Tracker have actual exact time stamps instead of "About 9 hours" or "about a day" as that doesnt really help when there are a large amount of rapid posts by reds in the same topic. Your old Dev tracker has it so why not this one?

Pendragon1 votes

The biggest reason to use relative dates is that absolute dates require us to know what time zone you're in, and often times force variances in different parts of the world.

For example - US us MM/DD/YYYY, and the rest of the world is DD/MM/YYYY. This means that accurately showing the time of the post in your current time zone and format is tricky and has a lot of edge cases.

We can certainly add more specificity to the relative times though (1 hour and 17 minutes ago vs about an hour ago) if it's commonly requested

Pryotra1 votes

What would be helpful is any time you see the front couple of pages and you feel like they're mis-sorted, just take a screenshot and shoot it over to me.

Generally we think that activity is something that drives relevance as much as voting and we just have to find the right ratios.

I can certainly do that, but do I open a ticket, or Email you, or something else altogether?

Also, I'm likely to slow down on my forum browsing significantly, due to recent employment. (yay!) This means that It might be a while if I am the only one doing this.

Pendragon1 votes

Grats on the employment! Just reply with it here imo.

Pryotra1 votes

Grats on the employment! Just reply with it here imo.

Alrighty then. My day off, been pretty busy, but was able to grab you a couple pics from the front page before bed. I didn't forget!

From the front page of the Boards:

http://imgur.com/jsDgbdH

This image shows color coded boxes, Red indicating that the system appears to value them too highly compared to it's peers, Purple meaning undervalued.

http://imgur.com/rZVPMy0

This one simply were threads I thought to be too lowly valued. I felt I would be highlighting the majority of the page If I did the too highly valued, as there were a lot at this point that were simply empty except the OP. That isn't discussion, and shouldn't be on the front page of the Hot view of the overall boards. How is it HOT if there has been 0 interest outside of the OP.

The metrics I used to determine if they looked too high/low were Comment count, date, vote, in order of importance. I realize that I do not have the full metrics of up to down vote ratio, unique commenters, views, etc. I'm too tired to do more, but some of those were obviously out of place, while I'm sure others are debatable.

Kitsune Saleh1 votes

We have certain topics that link you to external websites and over time we intend to do more of this. This means that you could have read the content of the submission without having gone to the comment page. >

This makes absolutely no sense.

  1. if you are linking us to 3rd party websites, then why would we be voting on something here?

  2. In the extremely rare case that you had read something on a 3rd party website, and happened to see the same exact post here, how would you even know that from the thread title? How could you be sure it was the same post?

  3. Even if you could be sure, it's not normal to read something on a 3rd party website and then come here to vote on it. Such a rare occurrence shouldn't be regarded as the standard situation to base decisions off of.

Pendragon1 votes

Many of the posts in announcements take you to a "different website" which just happens to be elsewhere in leagueoflegends.com

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/riot-official

The votes on those discussions are votes from here, but the content itself is on another 'website".

AnonTwo3 votes

I think this sums up a lot of my current issues on the forums.

Not much else to say at this moment.

Hyrum Graff3 votes

Yeah, this is pretty much how the development cycle goes over here:

  • They come out with something new and cool
  • we go crazy posting feedback about it.
  • We come to a concensus: these are the things that need to be improved
  • There's a lull in feedback while they work on those things
  • repeat

I'd guess there'll be another week or so of rapid-fire ideas like this (although, the big burst is already past us), and then we'll have a month or two of relative quiet before the next big update.

Of course, they might also break from that mold and release new features as they come up with them this time, who knows.

Pendragon2 votes

As a team we never want to hold back valuable features or improvements. The visual update and other improvements kind of required a big single launch because of how inter-connected every piece was, but otherwise we plan on releasing changes as they are made.

Hyrum Graff2 votes

Awesome!

Hyrum Graff1 votes

Agreed on all counts.

Chronologial view - 2: you mean, like this? :)

Pryotra1 votes

Something along those lines, yeah, but I don't want it to switch over to Nested view. Basically just brings you to wherever the parent is in Chrono-view.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

That solution doesn't; it's the "pops parent up from behind" suggestion ;)

Sir Frosthaven1 votes

Hello Pryotra! It's been awhile eh? Thanks for posting this thought out feedback. I believe most if not all of your chronological concerns are things that are being discussed (and I believe that your view type not saving may be a bug).

And I'll admit, I really like the current theme! I'll check back in this thread to see what discussion grows from it when I have some more time later today.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

It is a bug, albeit a common one.

When switching to Chronological view, this selection will be remembered as you browse the rest of the Boards

link

Sir Frosthaven1 votes

I believe I was able to reproduce it pretty easily by hitting the back button in my browser after setting it to chronological. I noticed that the url removes the flat parameter (and my theory is it causes the setting to be re-saved).

I'll be sure to note what I find when I play with it some more :)

Pryotra1 votes

I believe I was able to reproduce it pretty easily by hitting the back button in my browser after setting it to chronological. I noticed that the url removes the flat parameter (and my theory is it causes the setting to be re-saved).

I'll be sure to note what I find when I play with it some more :)

I've been able to reproduce it by clicking my notifications. It sends me to the comment... in nested view. Which then saves. Frustrating.

Pryotra1 votes

Long time, no see! Glad to see you've kept busy!

I hope this helps with what I feel is missing/could be better, but so far outstanding job!

Sir ArmaMalum1 votes

Good feedback! I agree on all except that I actually do like the current Recent ordering for finding new posts and looking at the ordering independent of either votes or participation, that being said I would love the addition of a "Sort by Activity" ordering, just imho don't replace Recent. To add as well, a time division for the Best ordering has been asked for for awhile, i.e. Best of all time, Best of the month, Best of the week etc.

Pryotra1 votes

Sry if it sounded like I wanted a replacement. I while I wouldn't mind if it was, I still don't think it needs replacing.

Also, that Best of X time is a pretty good Idea. I like it alot!

AnonTwo1 votes

Just something i wanted to add from learning in another post:

There is a letter cap on posts. It would be nice if either that was removed...

Or really just a word counter so you can see where the cap is would be nice.

Pryotra1 votes

Just something i wanted to add from learning in another post:

There is a letter cap on posts. It would be nice if either that was removed...

Or really just a word counter so you can see where the cap is would be nice.

I actually hit that a in my math thread. I would have liked to have seen it coming, perhaps I should add it?

Matthias91191 votes

Sorting Troubles - Quite honestly, their are only 2 real sorts I use, Hot and recent. Recent when I want to find something new, Hot when I want to see where the discussion is. And frankly, Neither really live up to their potential. Hot Still only finds popularly voted stuff, which isn't really a discussion so much as a circlejerk, and recent is only the newest made thread, not the newest post. I think that in order to find Highly controversial stuff, there needs to be a sort that simply counts total activity period. Votes in either direction count positively in this sort, but takes a back seat to unique poster count as a function of time. This way you can find those truely active things, because if it is popular enough to deserve everyone's attention, It will still rise, where as in Hot sorting if it doesn't get votes it sinks. Pretty bad experience IMO.

Hmm. Maybe differentiate between "highly rated" (has gotten a lot more upvotes than downvotes) and "hot" (getting a lot of comments/votes either way)?

Also agree that it would be nice to see both "most recent threads" (what the "recent" sort is now) and "threads with the recent posts" (ie, how vBulletin sorts it in the legacy forums). Although they may have changed it specifically to NOT do this so that people don't bump their posts every 5 minutes for attention like they do in the old GD forum.

Pryotra1 votes

Hmm. Maybe differentiate between "highly rated" (has gotten a lot more upvotes than downvotes) and "hot" (getting a lot of comments/votes either way)?

Also agree that it would be nice to see both "most recent threads" (what the "recent" sort is now) and "threads with the recent posts" (ie, how vBulletin sorts it in the legacy forums). Although they may have changed it specifically to NOT do this so that people don't bump their posts every 5 minutes for attention like they do in the old GD forum.

They did do that, but to me that just makes Recent the thing I check after hot, and I still feel like I miss 95%-100% of the controversial topics. That shouldn't be the thing. That is why I suggested making a new sort for most recent activity by unique posters. That way it counts how many people are still discussing, while if it is only one guy repeatedly bumping it still falls off.

AnonTwo1 votes

Just wanted to mention (a bit annoyed) that for the umpteenth time i'm having issues with images.

First thread i made i couldn't attach more than 4 images...thread couldn't be done

then imgur came and that worked...okay

Now made a new thread for it, here

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/zQIj200E-by-green-dew-mommy-lulu

And i've found out the embed module won't let people go to the site, and the image link is very small.

Is there any long-term solution being made for large image threads? It's very difficult to post pictures right now compared to GD on top of these embedding issues.

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