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Forum Feedback after some forced use

Grand Eleven·11/10/2014, 7:29:20 PM·7 votes·1,649 views

With a combination of new boards getting released and me being very involved int he Cassiopeia update changes, I've been a lot more intimately involved with thee boards and have some feedback I'd like to share with Riot/Community for consideration.

Response popularity sucks I've beat this drum before, and I know it was removed from GD. But it continues to plague the feedback and other forums. Prime example: for the most part the latest Cass thread (that is stickied) has been very civil with lots of ideas being thrown about. This thread is arguably IDEAL grounds for seeing what your voting/ranking system should and should not do. But if i read the thread and sort by "best" (which is, of course, the default view) What's the #1 response? A wise-ass, non-constructive critique of changes:

"We read the problems you all had with the rework - here are some changes that don't address them."

This is exactly the kind of stuff I was afraid would happen, as it makes constructive feedback that much harder to accomplish when the first thing you're greeted with when visiting a thread is satire.

In addition, it seems that an entire thread (when in conversation view) will get bumped up to the top based on the highest single rated post in the entire thread. This annoyed me as I went to see how my ideas were "ranking" with the community (potentially a valuable feature I assume you'd want) only to find lower ranking ideas featured more prominently than my own simple because .... a funny meme made it into the response that got more up-votes.

I guess in the grand scheme of things it's not horrific ... but even in what I would normally consider a very constructive and civil thread, responses are getting buried by slap stick. It's disappointing, especially in the context of trying to have a positive impact on champion development.

Character limits suck worse This is a big one. Now I ramble, i know this and by reading this sentence it should be pretty clear to you too. However aside for that, sometimes concepts are difficult to explain or a debate just takes time to map out. I have repeatedly run into character limit walls with this new system, forcing me to not only stop my train of thought but delete enough already formatted work to tell people to look for my next post. Then there's the problem of "but how do I post the continuation?" If I post a new thread then unless the up-voting lines up 100% my posts gets scattered pages apart. If I reply to my own post then it can still be buried under the "more" button when you collapse the thread as replies to the initial page can push it down. Basically you force me into paraphrase mode ... or to compartmentalize my ideas ... which sometimes I can pull off but other times I'm left posting something incomplete. Again in the context of trying to push a champion concept forward ... this is a major pain in the rear.

Minor Gripe on Colors Yes I've read the argument that the color tone is easier on the eyes in low light (which btw I've also Google'd for and never found so I call BS)... let me argue that for those of us who aren't basement dwellers and actually have a good deal of sunlight coming in this is tough to read. Like nearly impossible. The lighter backgrounds are NOT just habit from the physical media world ... they actually work well. Please consider updating the colors so it doens't feel like I'm back in 1994 playing a MUD. (bonus points for those who get the reference).

10 Comments

Daen11/10/2014, 7:48:03 PM3 votes

Response popularity sucks

I agree, mostly. I think it's good that flippant remarks and such can still gain popularity if the community feels they are worth that popularity. That being said, there are two distinctly different types of comments on a feedback-heavy post like the one to which you're referring: Flippant and Deep. To me, these two concepts are totally separate and a single voting system can't even begin to cover the necessary ground.

I would love to see Riot at least test a system where there are two separate kinds of vote; the current voting functionality would be used to determine appreciation of a given post, and a new gradient-based voting option would be used to show the quality/effort of that post. A voter could thus upvote/downvote as normal and also pick on a gradient scale (e.g. pick a number on a 1-10 continuum with 5 being neutral) to show what they thought of the content.

This would be a much more flexible system (in theory), as posts could be ranked on their quality as perceived by the community rather than just agreement or amusement.

Character limits suck worse

Yep. The current character limit is way too tiny, and this has been brought up by the community ever since the platform was created. I don't recall if/when it was ever addressed by Riot.

Minor Gripe on Colors

I somewhat agree, though for me it's more about overall aesthetic rather than color scheme. It's a bit sterile; everything is just blocks of matte coloration rather than having any real detail or visual beauty.

As for the darkness, I both agree and disagree. I think the dark scheme actually works pretty well for spending a lot of time on the Boards (I know, I'm probably the minority); it's easier to look at for long periods of time and I appreciate the contrast. However, I almost always find that a dark forum is significantly less inviting than a lighter-coloration site. Parchment or other brightly colored elements add some much needed personality and a sort of "you can post here, it's friendly" atmosphere that I think the Boards platform is lacking.

IceCreamKitty11/11/2014, 7:44:43 AM1 votes

I agree, new forums suck and the designer should stop designing boards.

Hyrum Graff11/13/2014, 4:24:41 PM1 votes

Character limits suck worse

Fellow rambler here. For one, I've tried to make an effort to ramble less. As easy as it is to ramble, and as much as I like to be complete, I also recognize that being concise makes my post much easier to read and digest.

That being said, when you're having a complex discussion, sometimes you just need more room. Pending a better solution, I reply to the comment I want to continue. The first line of the continuation is a permalink to part 1. Once I post the continuation, I go back and edit part 1 to include a permalink to the continuation.