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When are you actually going to listen to us? (@Pendragon @Tamat)

mi ramfan·8/28/2014, 1:12:35 PM·29 votes·13,363 views

We've had a long list of issues we've been bringing up in Boards Feedback over and over again that haven't been addressed.

-Ghost mods who STILL don't delete blatant trolling threads. See yesterday, when the morning gave us a wonderful thread about how non-Diamonds have no right to any opinion about League and the afternoon gave us a thread about how all board users were anime fans (I won't be using that poster's term for it). Sure, the second thread got deleted by Pendragon, but not until six hours after it was made, and not by somebody who's actually on the job. -Single downvotes killing well-written posts. This is an issue with any voting based format. The ability to downvote something and make it less visible just enforces a circlejerk on popular opinions and makes it impossible for the other side of the argument to have their point of view heard. Imagine if, during a presidential debate, any person who was watching the debate on TV could instantly end either candidate's speaking time and give it to their opponent by pressing a button on their remote. That's what's happens every time somebody downvotes a good post because they don't like the opinions espoused within. -Confusing formatting, with little clarification in the help tool. This is a little bit less important, but there are so many tools in this forum set that we could use to make our posts more presentable that have only been figured out by Armalum and Rioters. When do you plan on opening the toolbox to all forum users in a transparent manner, instead of only those who have the time to source code Riot posts and figure out exactly how they got the formatting they did.

Riot, it's nice that you're trying to reboot your community after the royal clusterfuck that was GD. However, you've taken absolutely none of the steps you need to to prevent this forum from becoming GD again. In fact, if the GD community was all forced to come over here at once, I guarantee it would be worse then even current GD, because the trolls could literally prevent actual content from being visible by upvoting each other and downvoting any legitimate posts that get made.

If you want Boards to not be GD 2.0: Electric Boogaloo, this is what you need to do:

  • **Moderators must be REQUIRED to post in a thread when moving, deleting, or closing it, so that they can explain to the people actually using the thread for discussion why it had to be moved, deleted, or closed. **Additionally, the email addresses or some other means of contacting moderators MUST be made available, so that bans can be appealed and rules-related questions can be asked.
  • Something has to be done about single downvotes killing posts. We all agree that the community should be involved in getting rid of bad content; however, right now, people are abusing the system to get rid of good content they don't agree with instead of its intended purpose. Either scrap the downvote entirely, or require at least 3-4 downvotes in order to reduce a thread's visibility.
  • All of the formatting tools should be made available on the bottom bar, not just the simplistic ones you have currently. I know there's many, many more tools that exist for these forums then are down there, and I don't want to have to be a coding expert to put a little banner in my thread.

Riot, please.

52 Comments

Pendragon8/28/2014, 6:36:35 PM16 votes

One fundamental issue to think about when it comes to us responding to players is that there's a difference between doing what you ask - and addressing your concerns (where appropriate). Addressing each point...

We've made a huge number of improvements to the boards to specifically address player feedback over the last year. It would be hard to argue that we haven't been overall pretty responsive to community concerns and I think the boards community has significantly shaped the quality of this experience. I find the aggressive and accusatory tone of your post to be pretty unfair - and as a point of general feedback it makes me not want to respond to it.

To comment on your specific concerns

Moderators must be REQUIRED to post in a thread when moving, deleting, or closing it, so that they can explain to the people actually using the thread for discussion why it had to be moved, deleted, or closed. Additionally, the email addresses or some other means of contacting moderators MUST be made available, so that bans can be appealed and rules-related questions can be asked.

To me this would be nice to have as an evolution to our current approach to moderation, but I disagree that it's "mandatory". Right now if a post is deleted by a moderator the OP receives a message with details, and is still able to access the discussion - but people who posted in it may not be able to access it. Over time as we develop a more robust suite of moderation tools we would like to have options like "de-listing" which would be removing the post from the index of discussions, but still allowing people who have the link to view it - and potentially post in it (locked versus unlocked).

Overall I would like to have a way for players to privately send a message to the mod team.

Something has to be done about single downvotes killing posts. We all agree that the community should be involved in getting rid of bad content; however, right now, people are abusing the system to get rid of good content they don't agree with instead of its intended purpose. Either scrap the downvote entirely, or require at least 3-4 downvotes in order to reduce a thread's visibility.

Prioritizing work is tricky. We have a limited number of people on the team who can only do so many things at once. Sometimes it's really important that we get ahead of a problem because of the potential risk for it to become widespread and allow for exploitation. Sometimes though we have to acknowledge that something could be a problem in the future - and keep an eye on it. I think this could become a problem in the future, but is not a large enough problem now that it warrants a shift in development priority. The earliest potential abuse cases (downvote army, trolls, etc) can be handled through manual intervention, and generally right now I see the community self-correcting for this issue. I want to encourage people to vote more - the more players vote - and vote how they feel, the less potential for abuse there is. You have to remember that a single downvote is easily countered by a single upvote. Also just because something is well written doesn't necessarily mean it deserves attention.

All of the formatting tools should be made available on the bottom bar, not just the simplistic ones you have currently. I know there's many, many more tools that exist for these forums then are down there, and I don't want to have to be a coding expert to put a little banner in my thread.

We're going to do a pass at the editor at some point - I just don't have an ETA. Personally I'd like to see a full wysiwyg but we'll see.

BabySledge8/28/2014, 4:22:54 PM11 votes

I don't agree with making mod emails available, but there should definitely be a way to contact them. Or at the very least, make the mods more visible and well-known to the community. It's hard to trust in them when we don't even know who they are, aside from a select few. We don't even need to see them once a minute either. Just be a solid presence on the boards/forums so it's obvious that someone is around to moderate what is going on in here. IMO, it would go a long way in fostering more trust and confidence in the moderation of the boards if the moderators were more visible.

Sir ArmaMalum8/28/2014, 1:29:49 PM7 votes

Good feedback.

On the subject of a single downvote sniping killing a well written thread, that can be an issue I agree but it's only really an issue in the 'hot' ordering. 'Recent' and 'recently replied' are not affected by that. I honestly think it's more of an issue of lack of upvotes, as I can imagine people are more inclined to downvote things they don't agree with versus upvoting things they do.

12tales8/28/2014, 1:57:53 PM4 votes

Moderators must be REQUIRED to post in a thread when moving, deleting, or closing it, so that they can explain to the people actually using the thread for discussion why it had to be moved, deleted, or closed. Additionally, the email addresses or some other means of contacting moderators MUST be made available, so that bans can be appealed and rules-related questions can be asked.

Disagree with the approach here, although I like the concept. You delete or close a thread because you don't want it to remain visible to the general public - simultaneously bumping it defeats the point, and wastes the moderator's time. I also think that having moderators act in an official capacity publicly reinforces the schism between mods and regular posters, which seems to bother some people.

I definitely agree that increased transparency for moderation would be a step forward. If something akin to what you suggest could be done automatically, that'd be fantastic.

Diamonesd8/29/2014, 1:34:31 AM3 votes

All comments should be seen by everyone reading. That is why General Discussion makes so much sense. I can read every comment, BY THE ORDER they were commented. I dont give a flying fuck about who gets more upvotes. I dont want to see those post first and scroll all the way down to the dissenting post. I want to see every post in the order they were written. That gives so much context to each response.

GranspearZX8/28/2014, 2:16:33 PM2 votes

"The ability to downvote something and make it less visible just enforces a circlejerk on popular opinions and makes it impossible for the other side of the argument to have their point of view heard."

Up until now, I wasn't aware that the Boards team had implemented a feature that prevented people from posting their own counterpoint threads.

Even the most 'well written' post can be filled with flawed arguments, unresearched information, and uninformed opinions. For example, I'm willing to bet that any evidence you have of people "abusing" downvotes is purely anecdotal and not based on anything but the same information any regular user has. There's also the fact that your hypothetical about GD's forced migration is a non-issue, because it's been said numerous times that it won't happen. Now, does that mean your entire post should be downvoted? More to the point--should your post be entitled to visibility simply because it's in coherent English?

And there's literally nothing preventing people from spamming a moderator's e-mail address. If the goal is to move away from the landfill that has been General Discussion, somehow giving people another anonymous avenue for abuse doesn't really seem to be all that productive a solution. Maybe people should read the board description before posting there? It's a crazy idea, I know, but considering how many people advocate for prior knowledge before going into a Ranked game, this shouldn't be that hard.

It's, at best, a gross exaggeration. It's a cop-out for people who can't craft an argument and rely on the same poor articulation to get people who stop thinking at the last word of a post to agree with whatever's been said. Giving merit to the meritless should *never *be the default. But that could just be me.

MrBuffington8/28/2014, 1:28:16 PM1 votes

People will just circle jerk for the necessary 3-4 down votes, it happened both ways with the two threads you mentioned; they spiked to like 20 up votes a piece then down to single digits again within an hour or so.

Colonel J8/28/2014, 1:44:43 PM1 votes

RIot should just delete Boards because it's terrible and no one will use over Reddit and just stick with gee dee.