I'm still not convinced Riot is listening to the people who don't like the Reddit layout.

SlumlordThanatos·Oct 15, 2013·5 votes·749 views

So far, every time Riot has asked for feedback:

"So, what do you guys think?"

"We don't like the layout, please give us a proper forum with proper features, not a Reddit clone."

Asks louder to find more positive feedback: "SO, WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?!"

A bit louder in return: "WE DON'T LIKE IT!"

Drops the thread, starts a new one: "So, what do you guys think?"

The sad part about this? This has even extended to the chatroom, with Pendragon dodging my questions about the Reddit layout. And in all the time they have been trying to push it, they have done almost nothing to convince me that the Community site is anything more than a Reddit clone.

The layout is easily the biggest gripe that the community has about the Beta. And yet, Riot has given no indication that they are willing to change the layout to a more traditional forum, citing non-existant problems about how discussions are difficult to follow or how difficult it is to moderate. Multiple threads stating exactly what the majority of us want are ignored under the pretense that vBulletin is too difficult to work with.

It seems to me Riot is sticking their fingers in their collective ears and yelling "LALALALALALALALALA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALA" every time someone brings up the site's similarities to Reddit.

Nested comments, the upvoting system (which is a problem with the actual forum that needs to go away), and posts sorted by "hottest" by default is not a very good way to have an actual discussion, which is why I frequent the LoL forum. I don't want the Community site to turn into a circle-jerking cesspit, where everything is ruled by upvotes and people with valid observations or complaints fall into oblivion because they are simply trying to start a discussion and aren't whoring for upvotes.

I will admit, the Reddit format is good for announcements, general news, memes, and AMA's, but if LoL already has one of the largest subreddits in the world, why don't you just continue using it, instead of creating a redundant website?

So, I just have one burning TL;DR question for the web designers here: Are you willing to change the layout?

8 Comments

RiotKrylhosOct 15, 20135 votes

To your TL;DR - we're always willing to adapt, and this community experience is far from finished.

I'm really sorry that you feel like we're dodging questions! There are a lot of questions being asked, and it can get a little tough answering them all.

I'm curious though - why do you feel like nested comments are worse for discussions than a single threaded chronological board?

The different sorting strategies are there to provide different ways of discovering content. We're very open to experimenting with more sorting strategies, both on the comments level and the discussion thread level. "Hot" strategy is a great way to mitigate the moving target problem with large communities. Not everyone wants to see every discussion as they come in (or get bumped).

As we progress and evolve this experience, we continue to shape it to be more of a League of Legends community experience, not a "Reddit clone". Each new update we release is defined by you, the community.

Let me ask you this. Aside from a "flat" view - what would you like to see in this community web experience?

SlumlordThanatosOct 15, 20133 votes

I'm curious though - why do you feel like nested comments are worse for discussions than a single threaded chronological board?

Because it makes me feel like I'm part of several, smaller discussions, instead of one BIG discussion.

I tend to prefer the bigger discussions because it is easier to keep track of one discussion instead of several slightly different ones, even if it has a chance of going off on a tangent.

And even then, the tangents can be fun experiences, and aren't necessarily a bad thing. It is difficult for something like that to happen in this format.

Let me ask you this. Aside from a "flat" view - what would you like to see in this community web experience?

It's been said many times, but I'll state them again.

Actual avatars, not just in-game icons.
Post signatures.
Post and thread tracking. (done!)
A dev tracker. (done!)
A "Report User" and/or a "Report Post" button.
A blacklist feature.
The removal of the archaic upvote/downvote system.
A vBulletin-style text entry system. I don't like having to check the formatting guide every time I want to bold or quote someone. I'd much rather just press a button.
The capability to send personal messages to other users.

But, here is the frustrating thing about all of these. Even if you implement everything you have posted here, I would still gripe about the overall layout.

I'm still unsure that you guys have even considered the simple fact that Riot needs to RADICALLY differentiate the Community site from Reddit. Different look, different format, different everything. If you don't, either this website or the LoL subreddit will just become utterly redundant, depending on where the Rioters decide to post. People will assume it works exactly the same...because it does, alongside a few quality-of-life changes that you guys have made.

And what would be the point of having two different websites that behave mostly the same?

I come to the LoL forums because it is different from Reddit. Different community, and a different way of having a discussion.

Being different is a GOOD thing.

PendragonOct 15, 20134 votes

Well -- more than asking "Do you like it?" We're asking "how can we improve it".

We're pretty sure that the fundamental architecture changes that we've made will result in a higher quality of experience over time. That includes things like changing the default sorting to hot, and nesting comments. We haven't proven that yet, but a huge part of this project is to test whether that's true or not. The path forward to explore that is to pay close attention to what people don't like, why they don't like it, and make lots of improvements to address the feedback.

If the net of all of our work is that more people don't like it than do like it, I don't think it would necessarily make sense for us to continue with it - but we're way too early in the project to make a decision like that.

We've already made tons of changes based on the feedback of people who don't like it including

Larger avatars
Showing new replies
Link color indicators
Improved formatting tools
Discussion preview
Mouseover mini-profiles
Font, color and layout improvements

Probably 85% of the backlog for the product right now is made up of changes specifically addressing gripes, concerns, and opportunities that players have brought up. I think it's incredibly unfair to say we're not listening, or that we don't want your feedback. we're going to continue to put an incredible amount of time and diligence into understanding what works for people and what doesn't work and we're pretty flexible here.

The two sticking points you have are bumping/sort by most recent reply, and threaded/vs linear display. We think that this model dramatically improves the signal to noise ratio in a high traffic environment - and we're doing a bunch of highly specialized work to make that feature-set as strong and effective as possible. So I'd rather not revert on that decision until we've put forth all of the effort to optimize it.

In the meantime - we definitely want to understand the things you don't like, but more importantly why you don't like them. I think the tools to show changes to a discussion that we've just released go a long way towards making a conversation sticky and allowing it to live for a long time.

SlumlordThanatosOct 15, 20131 votes

I'm going to be blunt here, since I'm in a terrible mood right now (I probably bombed one of my midterms) and I can't think of a more delicate way to put this.

All of the things you listed above are simply features tacked on to the Reddit framework. It is basically Reddit with a new coat of paint and a few new features.

Which means, at the end of the day, the community site hadn't done enough to differentiate itself from the LoL subreddit.

And that is the core of the problem.

In order to be an active, positive member of the community, I either have to frequent the forums that you run, or go to Reddit and post there. Because I dislike Reddit's format, I chose to come to the League forums, such as they are.

But now, you are planning on replacing the forums with something that looks and behaves an awful lot like Reddit, but with some QoL improvements tacked on.

We think that this model dramatically improves the signal to noise ratio in a high traffic environment

Is this a problem for you guys, or for us?

Because I rarely see anyone complain about how hard it is to find things on the forums, but that is mostly because that person doesn't have FEK.

I don't ever recall anyone besides yourselves wanting to fix this, and if the community doesn't think is a problem, why should it be your problem?

OakjovenOct 15, 20133 votes

NO, BUT REALLY....
WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK??

CypherousOct 15, 20133 votes

The thing is they want feedback on the current system, at this stage its pretty much going to happen like it or not, i'm in the "not" group myself OP so we're on the same page, but riot in their infinite wisdom spent money on this so they will use it :(