Let’s talk Boards Organization

RiotA Small Man·Jun 18, 2015·31 votes·35,767 views

** EDIT - Thanks for all the feedback so far guys, we've already got some great food for thought. We'll be discussing our major takeaways and next steps, and get back to you soon as we continue the series of discussion threads for the upcoming Boards updates.**

Hey guys,

We’re back after our initial post about where the NA Boards are and where they’re going - highly recommend you give it and the comments a read (assuming you haven’t already) if you’d like to have all the background on today’s discussion.

Today, we’d like to chat with you guys about the Boards’ organization and our thoughts (as well as yours) on improvements. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, we are going to be making changes to the current sub-boards (more on that below) - where we need your feedback is on what those changes should look like.

A gaggle of sub-boards

The NA Boards currently have a bit of an imbalance between a few heavyweight communities and a significant majority of slow to extremely slow sub-boards. This is one of the main issues causing the Boards front page to often appear stagnant, and we’ve been meaning for some time to do a bit of consolidation. At the same time, we recognize the value even the smallest board communities can bring to the community-at-large.

So what do? We could just delete a bunch of the slowest sub-boards and roll them into the rest. That would certainly consolidate things a bit, but would potentially leave some topics without a home and at the very least increase murkiness around where topics should be discussed. Identifying the “correct” topical board can already a challenge, even for us - look at how often we post official threads in ‘Miscellaneous.’

With all this in mind, we’re convinced that there’s a more elegant way to provide clear homes for the rich variety of League discussions while at the same time streamlining the Boards experience. Broadly, we’d like to reorganize the individual sub-boards based on use case rather than subject matter.

Wait...what the hell does that mean?

While subject-matter grouping is obviously super common in online forums (which is why we started with it), on Boards we've noticed some issues. As I mentioned, it overly isolates conversations into a bunch of often secluded boards, and in a lot of cases prevents pretty cool content from ever being shown to the majority of players. Subject-matter based boards can also lead to one particular board (and thus topic) dominating overall discussion within the community-at-large (as I work on this post, Gameplay & Balance occupies 9 out of the top 10 threads). Finally, subject matter defines the use of a board absolutely, leaving very little wiggle room on how far you can explore and meander among League topics that are often fluid and wide-ranging.

Use-case, as we’re envisioning it, opens up organization into a question of “why am I visiting this particular sub-board?” What you’re actually using the sub-board for would be more important than making sure every conversation about X falls in exactly the same place.

So, we theorycrafted it a bit and thought about how to minimize the raw number of sub-boards while still covering the same ground as they currently do. Our considerations included both obvious factors (volume /quality of posts, tone of community) and some less-apparent details (potential for connecting players). As a side-goal, we also sought to winnow down some of the current Boards fragmentation (GD being off its own, a couple unlisted sub-boards at times).

Here’s what we came up with (titles are for explanatory purposes only and 100% not final):

Level Up: Peer-to-peer education is an integral part of any MOBA community. Because players have such a large role in defining the meta of League at any given moment, we frequently turn to each other for advice on how to play, who to play, what to build and the minutiae of gameplay. Topics we think could fit here include Tips & Tricks, big play videos, tutorials and game balance/”meta” based discussion. [Contributes to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, default nested comments]
League Creations: Story discussion, fanart, non-gameplay videos, cosplay (we’d love to see more from this group on the Boards) and discussion of official creative content. We’re also considering how fan fiction / roleplaying might fit under this umbrella, though there are definitely some potential segregation issues there. [Contributes to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, default nested comments]
NA Looking for Group: It may surprise you to learn that the Team Recruitment sub-board is one of the busiest. Expanding on this idea, we think team recruitment meshes well with “regional matchmaking” (connecting League players to each other outside of game) by providing a place to share info about viewing parties, local clubs and other live events. We already have some channels that surface this information, but more opportunity for players to connect is something we’re keen on. [Contributes to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, default chronological comments]
Riot Plz!: As you can probably guess, the idea here is a concentrated repository for feedback posts around the player experience. Whether it’s about Balance, Gameplay or UI, it all relates to specific requests and/or ideas around how you experience the game. [Contributes to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, default nested comments]
All Chat: If we’re here, chances are we’re passionate about both League of Legends and various other “nerd culture” topics Whether it's video games, movies, anime or any other of the many fandoms that exist in the same cultural space of League, we’d like the Boards to have a space for you to share your excitement. While there are any number of topics that we can geek out about, there are some areas of discussion we feel are better left to other community platforms (politics, religion, sex, etc). There will obviously be some exceptions - a good example would be the somewhat recent SOPA/PIPA discussions - and we’re committed to being objective when it comes to our discernment. [Contributes to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, default chronological comments]
Help and Support: Fairly straight forward - technical issues, general service related questions, etc. [Does not contribute to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, nested comments]
Report a Bug: Also fairly straight forward. [Does not contribute to front page, “upvote” thread sorting, nested comments]
Behavior and Discipline: This sub-board would be intended as a defined space where players can discuss moderation and receive feedback around Player Behavior measures directly affecting their accounts. [Does not contribute to front page, chronological thread sorting, nested comments]

With this organization, we’ll have slimmed down to just five core content sub-boards (with ‘Help and Support’ and ‘Behavior and Discipline’ being non-contributing, utilitarian boards), which should massively invigorate their respective activity and contribute to a more fluid front page. With ‘All Chat,’ we’ll also have looped the “All things League” space currently occupied by Miscellaneous and GD back in with the rest of the boards and ensured that all boards content is simultaneously available to anyone who visits.

One potential concern I’d like to address right away is that this type of organization will end up swallowing niche communities that currently have their own dedicated homes. In this case, our general stance is twofold - 1) We’re open to the idea of filters, tagging systems, etc that will highlight conversations where that’s desirable, and 2) if your conversations on a certain topic are so awesome, then let’s show more people! Right now, there are a lot of great discussions that almost no one gets to experience, purely because the Boards are overly segregated. The Sound & Music board is a great example - there’s a passionate community and several Rioters who frequently drop by to chat, but even the best threads only see view counts measured in the hundreds or even dozens.

As I mentioned, we’re committed to updating the current Boards organization, but your feedback is absolutely vital to making sure whatever changes we make are a solid improvement on the current situation - let us know what you think!

674 Comments

ModJikkerJun 18, 201551 votes

Please do not delete GD. We were promised that we could have that subsection when we left the old forums and even though Tamat is gone, to go back on his word for this will destroy that community even further. Please reconsider and let us keep GD. Hide us if you need to, but do not remove us.

ChickenWrapJun 18, 201525 votes

{quoted}

Please do not delete GD. We were promised that we could have that subsection when we left the old forums and even though Tamat is gone, to go back on his word for this will destroy that community even further. Please reconsider and let us keep GD. Hide us if you need to, but do not remove us.

Pendragon told us that GD was one of the most active boards.

Therefore, we should get rid of it and hope that the GDers stay and join one of the inferior boards with no sense of community!

IT'S BRILLIANT!

RobertsmashJun 18, 201523 votes

{quoted}

Please do not delete GD.

RiotWookieeCookieJun 18, 201519 votes

GD will continue to exist in some form, but we're not happy with the way it is right now. We've talked it over a lot internally and with other community members and some of the things that stood out to us:

It's very insular. Active with a small tight knit community sure but not many fresh faces are showing up anymore. (Minus all the regular's new smurfs with funny names)
It's very polarizing. Sort of connected into the first point, but the content of GD extends well outside the realms of what we intended General Discussion to be so very long ago. We know that people have opinions on a variety of topics but we don't think extremely controversial conversations like politics or religion belong on our forums. There are other places for those kinds of topics and anyone who wants to discuss them are free to visit those other web sites.
It's very low effort. I think the common term is "shit post" and GD is filled with it. There are some discussions, but not enough. Most of the threads are either 1st world problems about Mods, pictures of a random anime girl, or a rant filled thread with no quality discussion about a specific champion in our game.

In our discussions we found that a lot of Rioters didn't want to engage in the boards or GD because of these points and others. We know that a big point of pain has always been "WHERE ARE THE RIOTERS?!" and it's sad to see that participation has dropped off. Our goal is to bring back a lot of conversations to our home here on our own boards.

But to do that we're going to have to revamp a lot of boards, and GD is one of them.

So I wouldn't say that GD is being deleted. It will change yes. There will be some additional rules and that might hurt some content. But there will be room for a lot of other content instead. And with more content will come more interaction with people in Riot.

We're going to expand GD into a place where ALL players and Rioters will want to come and discuss things outside the scope of League. Don't get me wrong, the transition will have a few kinks in it; change always does; but we hope that a lot of you will be willing to work with us to make it a better place for everyone.

Harmony11Jun 18, 201522 votes

I'm going to be hated for this, but thank you WC. I've been waiting forever for a Rioter to tell it like it is. I hate the current GD; it is a cesspool of shitposts and circle-jerks and wants to be treated like a special-snowflake on a private company forum. I'm so excited for the new All-Chat combining what little good that GD had with other subboards.

ModIts Yuu and MiJun 18, 201523 votes

{quoted}

I'm going to be hated for this, but thank you WC. I've been waiting forever for a Rioter to tell it like it is. I hate the current GD; it is a cesspool of shitposts and circle-jerks and wants to be treated like a special-snowflake on a private company forum. I'm so excited for the new All-Chat combining what little good that GD had with other subboards.

Weird, we dont actively call players pedophiles like wookie did.

Harmony11Jun 18, 201514 votes

[{quoted}](name=Best Furry NA,realm=NA,application-id=bzRrPGQO,discussion-id=Hx8p6GoX,comment-id=000b000200030000,timestamp=2015-06-18T20:02:13.733+0000)

Weird, we dont actively call players pedophiles like wookie did.

Right, GD has never, ever called somebody a horrific name without apology. Ever. Bunch of angels you are all.

ChickenWrapJun 18, 201523 votes

{quoted}

Right, GD has never, ever called somebody a horrific name without apology. Ever. Bunch of angels you are all.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't lump the decent part of GD in with the shitty part of GD, thank you.

Furthermore, decent moderation could have fixed all the issues. Shit posting isn't even an evil, perse.

I try to stick up for Riot when I can because they get a lot of unwarranted hate, but I'm not blind enough to see when they're spewing bullshit.

If they do this wrong, which there's a high chance they will off their track record (and they're already going in the wrong direction with this), they'll lose a lot of people just so people who are openly aggressive towards us for no reason can feel like you can finally come in and join a "community"? We're pretty damned open to anyone who wants to join us, unlike the RP boards. It won't be a community if they remove certain aspects of GD just so that people can pretend like a Miscellaneous called "All Chat" is better

Harmony11Jun 18, 20156 votes

{quoted}

I'd appreciate it if you didn't lump the decent part of GD in with the shitty part of GD, thank you.

Sorry, I thought it was clear from my first post that I welcome the "good" side of GD, however small it is.

Furthermore, decent moderation could have fixed all the issues. Shit posting isn't even an evil, perse.

It's an "evil" in that it does nothing productive and turns a lot of people off at best. At worst it's offensive and even hurtful.

I try to stick up for Riot when I can because they get a lot of unwarranted hate, but I'm not blind enough to see when they're spewing bullshit.

If they do this wrong, which there's a high chance they will off their track record (and they're already going in the wrong direction with this), they'll lose a lot of people just so people who are openly aggressive towards us for no reason can feel like you can finally come in and join a "community"? We're pretty damned open to anyone who wants to join us, unlike the RP boards. It won't be a community if they remove certain aspects of GD just so that people can pretend like a Miscellaneous called "All Chat" is better

The problem is you have the idea in your head that people want to be a part of the current "community". It's not that people hate fun and talking and being part of a group. They just don't like the shittiness that makes up a large part of the current GD.

Also concerning moderation, I see people saying "moderation>deletion" but every single time I visit GD there's a thread complaining about, you guess it, over-moderation. GD has it in their head that they are different than the rest of the forum and should be treated as such. The problem was that Riot agreed and trusted GD when Boards were created, and a lot of people abused that trust. "But we're all friends" people cry. If a friend of mine called me half the things the bad side of GD calls each other then they would be lucky if I simply walked away and didn't retaliate in some way. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

ChickenWrapJun 18, 201524 votes

We were told that we would be allowed to mold our own community and rules.

I made a thread about it and together GD came up with a ruleset that was lenient but also kept the worst kind of junk away.

It was approved.

Then the mods didn't care about it at all.

Now GD is upset at being a police state in regards to moderation. You really can't speak about it unless you're actually a part of the community. You simply wouldn't understand as an outsider.

"But I shouldn't have to be an outsider!" Then stop talking shit about us and make a thread or two. We'll welcome you with open arms as we always have. I talked to Daen about this as well. You, as a non-participator, can't talk about the board as if you know what's going on. You simply can't.

ModJikkerJun 18, 20158 votes

To be honest, I think most people have forgotten that. I'm all for going back to the rules and having them being enforced by the mods. If only it were Riot or Player mods and not some 3rd party company.

ChickenWrapJun 18, 201518 votes

Pendragon told a few of us that he had plans to allow players to create their own boards, somewhat akin to Reddit as well as instate player mods.

That's neat and all, but I'm seeing the exact opposite of that. At the very least, I'd prefer it if our board wasn't named after some shitty youtube series.

ModJikkerJun 18, 20153 votes

If anything sounds like a bad Reddit rip-off, it's "All Chat". I mean, give me a break every other game forum ever has a section named "General"

ModIts Yuu and MiJun 18, 201523 votes

{quoted}

If anything sounds like a bad Reddit rip-off, it's "All Chat". I mean, give me a break every other game forum ever has a section named "General"

Come on guys, it's fun! It's fresh! It's new! It's awesome! It's-- All Chat!

-Vomiting intensifies-

BodyByDaveJun 18, 201510 votes

General chat is a pit-stain of the internet on levels that only certain 4chan boards can eschew.

ModIts Yuu and MiJun 18, 201514 votes

{quoted}

General chat is a pit-stain of the internet on levels that only certain 4chan boards can eschew.

That's not true.

BodyByDaveJun 18, 20159 votes

When I go to look at general discussion I see tons of garbage that makes it too hard to find anything of value, it's literally a grab bag with all sorts of NSFW bs strewn about it and people crying out for attention. Like who can have the most risque post today to get daddy Riot's attention. Obviously not everyone is participating in this garbage, but insular is the perfect word to associate with GD. I want to come to the boards to talk about league and it's kind of sad that I am restricted to Gameplay & Balance and Red Tracker to find anything of worth here.

The Lord CookieJun 18, 201518 votes

{quoted}

When I go to look at general discussion I see tons of garbage that makes it too hard to find anything of value, it's literally a grab bag with all sorts of NSFW bs strewn about it and people crying out for attention. Like who can have the most risque post today to get daddy Riot's attention. Obviously not everyone is participating in this garbage, but insular is the perfect word to associate with GD. I want to come to the boards to talk about league and it's kind of sad that I am restricted to Gameplay & Balance and Red Tracker to find anything of worth here.

I'm sorry, but I just have to absolutely laugh at what you're posting when your name is Toddler Tickler.

BodyByDaveJun 18, 20153 votes

Haha, I realized I was gonna have an uphill battle here with my silly name, but I play for fun and for the most part people seem to think it's funny. Obviously I condone nothing of the sort and my name clearly refers only to the fun loving tickling we all received as babes.

The Lord CookieJun 18, 201524 votes

{quoted}

Haha, I realized I was gonna have an uphill battle here with my silly name, but I play for fun and for the most part people seem to think it's funny. Obviously I condone nothing of the sort and my name clearly refers only to the fun loving tickling we all received as babes.

Comes off as extremely creepy.

Like, ridiculously fucking creepy.

ModIts Yuu and MiJun 18, 201541 votes

Please dont remove GD.

It's been a home for 3 years.

I dont want to leave my home.

It's a community... A lot of us post there because we dont have much else to go. Some of us are afraid to go out, some of us get really busy and just cant do a lot, some of us are stuck home for a billion and one reasons, and no matter what it's always been a home for us to talk.

It's like a lounge, online, I guess...

I dont know where else I'll go to tell my friends that they're freelo abusers, or that we'll discuss the newest things that day, or maybe our current thoughts... As League players. Yeah it's off topic, but you can't call it off topic when it's just a way we come together as people who love League and want a community to just discuss things, generally.

You guys... Never...Listen....

You say you do but you dont....

You say you listen but when we say we want to jokingly insult, you say no forms are okay even as pure jokes. When we say we are fine with moderation but lessen a grip, we're ignored... When we say we want more clarity, we only hear it's being worked on but nothing's being seen.

And above all else...

We dont want to go.

Please... Please dont remove GD.

It's a home for some of us. It's not fair to just take it away.

StarlighteJun 18, 201538 votes

No, No, No!

If the goal of Boards is to create a thriving community where players want to spend their time reading the boards, then Riot making a decision to force together sub-boards and make communities interact with each other is antithetical to the overall goal.

Look, the Boards Team has some legacy promises that they are obligated to fulfill. When the Community Beta was first introduced, Riot said, "Nobody would be forced to move unless they wanted to." Your team broke that promise to the community. General Discussion was promised to have a home, and to be able to retain its unique identity. And with this proposed move, you plan on spitting in the face of that promise as well. I realize that these were promises made by the old Boards team, and that you may feel you have no obligation to fulfill them. But if you want a community that cares about the Boards, and wants to be engaged, breaking promises is a bad place to start your interaction as the “new” Boards team.

Consolidation may help from the perspective of “Where is the proper board for me to put this content?” but let’s look at why that is a problem right now. Moderators are instructed to remove misplaced content, rather that relocate it. Now sure, nobody wants mods to be bogged down in moving content that is misplaced all day, but at the same time, if content doesn’t get removed then suddenly the question of “Which board?” is no longer relevant. Let the community vote on that question. Put in “downvote to close” again, increase the level req. for accounts (on all boards but tips and tricks, support etc.) and let the community close threads that are out of place. A Lore thread in Gameplay and Balance? Downvote it into oblivion! Balance complaints in Fantasy LCS? Yup, murder it with fire.

You have many, many options, to produce better organization paradigms across Boards. The one you’re asking for feedback on now, seems bad. You’re destroying homes, and legacy communities from your games inception. OPEN UP sub-boards, don’t take them out! Follow-through on a subscription system, where players can clear their front page of the 9/10 Balance discussions if they’re a Lore aficionado. And if they’re a dedicated GDer, let them decide what content they want to see form the other boards, if any.

This seems like a lazy way of going about this Riot. This seems like you’re just going to consolidate and make it easier on mods rather than provide the tools that players have been begging for since they saw the Community Beta. We still can’t create sub-boards, we still can’t self-moderate, and we certainly can’t give feedback to mods through the report function let alone receive actionable messaging from them as to why content was removed.

DON'T GO THROUGH WITH THIS. This is asinine, and forcing us several steps backwards to the start of Community Beta, when there wasn’t even a Story & Art board. You worry about the front page being dominated by one community over the rest? Well, what happens when you force all those communities into 1 of 3 boards. Suddenly those Lore threads that got traction (and still haven’t received a Red response) will just get buried underneath all the endless bitching about who is FotM and who is OP this week in LCS.

RiotdArtagnanJun 18, 201512 votes

If the goal of Boards is to create a thriving community where players want to spend their time reading the boards, then Riot making a decision to force together sub-boards and make communities interact with each other is antithetical to the overall goal.

We 100% agree that the Boards should be a thriving community where players want to spend their time reading Boards. The current problem is that the community is too fractured between various Boards, causing only a few popular Boards to dominate the main page. By merging some communities together, we are going to create a more vibrant place to have discussions, as well as help increase the diversity of the main page.

Look, the Boards Team has some legacy promises that they are obligated to fulfill. When the Community Beta was first introduced, Riot said, "Nobody would be forced to move unless they wanted to." Your team broke that promise to the community. General Discussion was promised to have a home, and to be able to retain its unique identity. And with this proposed move, you plan on spitting in the face of that promise as well. I realize that these were promises made by the old Boards team, and that you may feel you have no obligation to fulfill them. But if you want a community that cares about the Boards, and wants to be engaged, breaking promises is a bad place to start your interaction as the “new” Boards team.

We're definitely aware of the various commitments made to the GD community in the past. Frankly, some of those commitments to GD were made in poor judgement, and have actively hindered healthy development of the entire NA Boards ecosystem. GD and the rest of the boards have evolved a lot since then, and in a lot of cases in unhealthy ways. In response, we're planning some wide-scope changes to the entire NA Boards ecosystem (organization, moderation, rules, etc), which is what this series of posts is directed at communicating and discussing with you guys.

Our primary goals with these changes are making more stuff visible to more players and getting the Boards moving more fluidly. As part of that, we want to bridge the current divide between the positive parts of the GD community and the rest of the Boards. All players who currently participate solely in GD are more than welcome to participate within All Chat following the guidelines and rules that will be found there.

Consolidation may help from the perspective of “Where is the proper board for me to put this content?” but let’s look at why that is a problem right now. Moderators are instructed to remove misplaced content, rather that relocate it. Now sure, nobody wants mods to be bogged down in moving content that is misplaced all day, but at the same time, if content doesn’t get removed then suddenly the question of “Which board?” is no longer relevant. Let the community vote on that question. Put in “downvote to close” again, increase the level req. for accounts (on all boards but tips and tricks, support etc.) and let the community close threads that are out of place. A Lore thread in Gameplay and Balance? Downvote it into oblivion! Balance complaints in Fantasy LCS? Yup, murder it with fire.

Given the sheer amount of Boards, finding a proper place to find content is very difficult. Even Rioters themselves are often confused where they should post, before ending up on Miscellaneous. By moving to a "use case", we are going to make it easier for players to find the right place to share their thoughts, and have others interact with it as well. Additionally, with less splintering of the community, more players will have the ability to both see, and post in these discussions as well.

Lastly, we are open to the idea that moderators will move content to the correct board, rather than simply deleting it.

You have many, many options, to produce better organization paradigms across Boards. The one you’re asking for feedback on now, seems bad. You’re destroying homes, and legacy communities from your games inception. OPEN UP sub-boards, don’t take them out! Follow-through on a subscription system, where players can clear their front page of the 9/10 Balance discussions if they’re a Lore aficionado. And if they’re a dedicated GDer, let them decide what content they want to see form the other boards, if any.

We completely understand that old communities will be lost, and consolidated into new Boards. This is why we are open to discussing tagging, filtering, discussion subscription features, etc. We want awesome posts about any topic to have the visibility and experiences it deserves, and not be missed in the smaller niche communities.

This seems like a lazy way of going about this Riot. This seems like you’re just going to consolidate and make it easier on mods rather than provide the tools that players have been begging for since they say the Community Beta. We still can’t create sub-boards, we still can’t self-moderate, and we certainly can’t give feedback to mods through the report function let alone receive actionable messaging from them as to why content was removed.

The consolidation is designed to create a better forum experience through increased interaction between communities. Player created sub-boards and self moderation has not been completely forgotten about, but we want to make sure that Boards is in a healthy enough state to support this before fracturing the community into too many small pieces. As for moderation specific concerns, such as feedback for the mods and actionable messaging from them, we are going to discuss moderation in-depth in a focused-post within a couple of weeks!

DON'T GO THROUGH WITH THIS. This is asinine, and forcing us several steps backwards to the start of Community Beta, when there wasn’t even a Story & Art board. You worry about the front page being dominated by one community over the rest? Well, what happens when you force all those communities into 1 of 3 boards. Suddenly those Lore threads that got traction (and still haven’t received a Red response) will just get buried underneath all the endless bitching about who is FotM and who is OP this week in LCS.

With having Boards as use-case, communities will be larger and more vibrant than they were before. Several different types of discussions may gain a lot of traction, and therefore appear on the main page. While League Creations may appear several different times on the main page, it may be about wildly different topics, such as Cosplay, art, lore, etc. With more community interaction, the greater the diversity that will exist on the main page.

ModIts Yuu and MiJun 18, 201524 votes

{quoted}

We're definitely aware of the various commitments made to the GD community in the past. Frankly, some of those commitments to GD were made in poor judgement

Oh that is -bull- and you know it.

We just want a place to talk.

THAT IS A POOR COMMITMENT?!

Im gonna say it again, people like you WHO DONT ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE COMMUNITY, are the reasons why Tamat left.

How the HELL can you be on a Player Relations Team if you dont actually care to relate to us?!

You cant!

You guys dont care to relate to us at all!

Just leave us alone!

ModJikkerJun 18, 201527 votes

Preach is BFNA, preach it man.

Player relations....well if relations means "let's delete a community cause they say mean things" then I guess my definition has been wrong all these years. At the park, we didn't just kick out the unsavoury type because we didn't want them there anymore, we kept a close eye on them, issued citations as necessary, and tried to passively work with them when they brought concerns. That's public relations, not "get out we don't like you". Riot's unprofessionalism is going through the roof.

ModEvangeleJun 18, 201535 votes

Nami Wow.

I have to say, of all the things that I believed would happen, I did not believe that this would be one of them. I cannot even express in words how...disappointed I am in this decision (as it seems to be already made no matter how many threads you title "discussion"). It's heartbreaking to see a company and people you once looked up to basically look down at you and tell you you're not worthwhile to them anymore. It's mind-boggling to try to understand how one day a claim can be made that you care as a company about the people who post on GD and understand that it's a culture we want to keep and then the next day basically tell us that you do not believe the community is worth anything and definitely not the simple, basic concept of respect.

It's disrespectful to lie. It's disrespectful to not hold up your part of a bargain that was reached between the community and previous Rioters. It's 100% -not- ok to say that just because you don't like it, it should not be respected and adhered to. It hurts to be lied to over and over.

I don't expect anyone to know who I am, or accept my opinion on things. I know I'm not the most frequent poster and maybe not the most liked, however, I made a post a long time ago, when GD was forcibly removed from old forums and added to boards, if you feel like reading it, please do ( http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/GD/2hJZATjx-riot-tamat-gd ). At this point I was excited, thrilled to be moving to boards and I have 100% supported Riot throughout the move. I offered to help people with the transition, piece together how we can make GD into something people would love to post in while maintaining the culture that was created and weeding out bad apples(lol) that cause strife between Riot and the community. I offered advice and I've talked to numerous members of the community about how we can still make boards our home. I understood it would be different, but I also understood that GD was a force of it's own and you have to respect that force. GD could be a place that is fun for everyone, without stripping it of what it is at it's core.

The problem is two-fold and they relate, just as I mentioned in my post 8 months ago. You're having a problem with GD in particular because you refuse to try to understand it as a whole and you placed people in a situation they were not ready for with virtually no warning. That situation is "moderation" and there's some problems with it currently.

 I said in my post that you brought people from a basically free forum to a modded forum without providing any clear and concise rules. They change day to day, and while I understand you may be changing that, it still doesn't change the fact that it's been happening for 8 months. Of course a community is tired of dealing with that. **That's not on us, that's on you guys. Now you punish the result of your inability to decide your own rules. **You also need moderators that are fair and accountable for actions they are taking. None of this "woops we messed up on deleting that one post, oh well". Moderators need to be **named, and known**. I don't care if they are 3rd party (though that opens up another bag of worms). We have heard that the moderators are "training" since before the boards transition. It's completely fair of us for expect that you have your shit together by now and that this should not be occurring.....yet it is.

I have not seen any Rioter attempt to have a **discussion** with the community about these things other than Tamat. This "discussion" is a farce, unless we are discussing how upset we can be at your decision without you respecting our wishes. GD is a lot of people's home. It's where I've met some really amazing people and have made some long lasting friendships. It's where I go to laugh while I'm at my shitty job and it's where I go to talk to people about league of legends. I like reading the odd shitpost, I love watching friends duke it out over what champion is more freelo, I -love- that people can have an opinion on almost everything in the world and let it be known. I -want- people to have different opinions, I want them to discuss these things, I want us to open our minds to things we might not have before just because we read someone's stupid opinion on evolution. I want to laugh when 41noob posts a "supports get carried" post because we all know he's the biggest pile of luggage around (<3). I want to see champion art and threads based around how much Nami art can we fit into one thread (srs pls make this thread now). I -want- my community. 

In the end, GD could be something amazing, and it STILL could be without stripping it bare of what it is currently. What it sounds like to me is that you are not willing as a company, as those who we are supposed to respect and look up to, as those that are supposed to work with us to achieve our best us, to help us get there by putting in the work it takes. You sound lazy. You sound like what is said is "Man, it'd be just too much work to provide clear and concise rules to General Discussion and then act on those rules in a consistent manner while respecting their identity as a community"

And that's just sad. Really sad.

p.s. Sorry for the novel, but if you want a tl:dr you won't get one from me.

HellioningJun 18, 201532 votes

Time for lore discussion to be impossible to find, then.

CupcakeTrapJun 18, 201514 votes

{quoted}

Time for lore discussion to be impossible to find, then.

This is what stood out to me, as well. Given that Riot's been through some rocky times with lore lately, it's hard not to perceive this as a cynical attempt to eliminate lore discussion from the forums, burying it under a flood of "look at my awesome Teemo t-shirt—I call it my T-MO-shirt, lol!" posts. It would be very strange to have a lore discussion under a header of "League Creations". I'd always feel like I was posting under the wrong forum. And for that matter, it seems like a new person wouldn't think to check that board for lore discussion; they'd probably just assume there was no lore discussion board.

Ticklish TasJun 18, 201530 votes

{quoted}

GD will continue to exist in some form, but we're not happy with the way it is right now. We've talked it over a lot internally and with other community members and some of the things that stood out to us:

It's very insular. Active with a small tight knit community sure but not many fresh faces are showing up anymore. (Minus all the regular's new smurfs with funny names)

How fucking dare you when the roleplaying board is allowed to be unlisted and people are actively discouraged from joining it. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/roleplaying

It's very polarizing. Sort of connected into the first point, but the content of GD extends well outside the realms of what we intended General Discussion to be so very long ago. We know that people have opinions on a variety of topics but we don't think extremely controversial conversations like politics or religion belong on our forums. There are other places for those kinds of topics and anyone who wants to discuss them are free to visit those other web sites.

I'm still a bit confused as to why instead of creating a new area which is your dream subforum filled with sunshine and cupcakes and people who don't know swear words where Rioters can frolic about as they please and deliver their overly saccharine anecdotes of information, you would rather just lump a bunch of shit together and tell all the members of the individual boards to deal with it we're not small children we know what we want and we know how to go get it if I want to go see some League Memes, I will go to Memes and Games But that's NOT what I want, I want GD and you're taking that away from everybody that wants that distinction

It's very low effort. I think the common term is "shit post" and GD is filled with it. There are some discussions, but not enough. Most of the threads are either 1st world problems about Mods, pictures of a random anime girl, or a rant filled thread with no quality discussion about a specific champion in our game.

Maybe every second thread wouldn't be about mods if they weren't

Third party
Ridiculously inconsistent
Target banning
Lacking reasonable judgement

also I just went to the front page of GD and saw literally 0 anime girl threads

In our discussions we found that a lot of Rioters didn't want to engage in the boards or GD because of these points and others. We know that a big point of pain has always been "WHERE ARE THE RIOTERS?!" and it's sad to see that participation has dropped off. Our goal is to bring back a lot of conversations to our home here on our own boards.

But to do that we're going to have to revamp a lot of boards, and GD is one of them.

I'm being honest when I say I fail to see the connection here.

So I wouldn't say that GD is being deleted. It will change yes. There will be some additional rules and that might hurt some content. But there will be room for a lot of other content instead. And with more content will come more interaction with people in Riot.

I wouldn't say that GD is being deleted, but the culture and rules and name are all going to be forcibly changed. BUT DON'T WORRY, IT'S STILL GD!

How would you feel it you bought a Reese's peanut butter cup and you opened it and it was square and made of dark chocolate and then you bit into it and instead of peanut butter the inside was full of vegemite and they were now called Jimmy's Vegemite Squares.

We're going to expand GD into a place where ALL players and Rioters will want to come and discuss things outside the scope of League. Don't get me wrong, the transition will have a few kinks in it; change always does; but we hope that a lot of you will be willing to work with us to make it a better place for everyone.

Haha all except for literally everyone that already uses GD and stays because of it's unique community but I guess if you want to just delete it and pander to the lowest common denominator to create an area where nobody knows anybody else and the community dies after 2 weeks because nobody gives a fuck about it, that's fine too.

NorscoutJun 18, 201529 votes

Are you deleting a General Discussion?

SamuraiFladiccoJun 18, 201529 votes

Fuck you deleting GD after forcing us to move WHEN WE DIDNT WANT TO then completely shitting all over our culture, no wonder TAMAT LEFT.

ArcDriveFinishJun 18, 201529 votes

If you're gonna do this you might as well just deleted community discussions, all of them, and replace the whole thing with a link to Reddit.

TRUNK5Jun 18, 201528 votes

Welp, Riot has done it. They will delete General Discussion.

Please remind me why we had to come here at first? Because Tamar forced us to come on the Boards by promising us a new General Discussion where we could chat on the Boards and leave the Old Forums.

Now, it's being deleted. Good one Riot.

Since even the Boards are deleted, give us our old forums back or just don't fucking touch our GD.

Tundra FizzJun 18, 201528 votes

Please don't delete General Discussion.

Several other people have already given their input, so there isn't much else I can say besides voicing that I'd love for it to stay, thank you.

Mr Broken WingsJun 18, 201528 votes

In this thread 99% of the people dont like the idea of riot to remove gd. What will riot do? " If you dont like it, go somewhere else." Lets talk my ass. Its more like " Here that will happen and you have to accept it or gtfo."

HateDaddyJun 18, 201520 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mr Broken Wings,realm=EUW,application-id=bzRrPGQO,discussion-id=Hx8p6GoX,comment-id=0063,timestamp=2015-06-18T21:25:23.034+0000)

In this thread 99% of the people dont like the idea of riot to remove gd. What will riot do? " If you dont like it, go somewhere else." Lets talk my ass. Its more like " Here that will happen and you have to accept it or gtfo."

Riot reminds of that one friend that wasn't actually your friend that came over to your house to play your super Nintendo and save over all of your files on Super Mario RPG and get Popsicle juice on all your controllers then the next day you see them at school, they call you fat nerd and slap your books out of your hands.

Scumbag riot

"No we are every bodies friends <3 friends like omg lol!!!!"

SilentNightSonaJun 18, 201527 votes

Wow, what an interesting thread for me to come across before having to go to work. I suppose I won't have time to write out a larger response, as I would want to.

I guess this is it, so long GD. A few rioters aren't able to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to see their view on the community isn't in line with the majority of the player base, and will overall cause their boards to fail in the long run. Apparently it's still a smarter idea to go back on promises, continue to alienate players, and outright ignore serious feedback while cherry picking bits to respond to, and poorly at that.

Thanks for showing your continuous inability to listen and learn. If this change goes through, I'm gone, and taking everyone I can with me.

See ya Space Cowboys

DaenJun 18, 201526 votes

I'm not sure that lessening the number of boards is the right move. I do like the transition in focus to communities rather than topics, but there are some inherent problems with the approach here. The biggest one to me is dilution of content, and I think that's best shown in the proposed All Chat board.

I understand you addressed this in the OP, but the following boards are all being shoved into a single board (All Chat):

Boards Feedback
Esports
Memes & Games
Miscellaneous
Maps & Modes
Skins & Champion Concepts (the skins part)
Story & Art
Sound & Music
Fantasy LCS
General Discussion

This basically breaks my entire usage of the Boards platform, because I focus specifically on Boards Feedback and General Discussion for the most part. I don't care about the vast majority of what's present in All Chat, and it heavily dilutes the content I actually care about.

ModJikkerJun 18, 201534 votes

Exactly and once all the GDers move in there, it's just gonna become a nasty mess. If anything it should be combined like this:

Esports + Fantasy LCS -> Esports Discussion

General Discussion + Memes & Games + Miscellaneous -> General Discussion

And the rest are hard to combine, so maybe combine a few others to make room for them? Scrunching them all together is a very bad plan.

NewMkJun 18, 201525 votes

WE FUCKING NEED GENERAL DISCUSSION RIOT

NocPatJun 18, 201525 votes

You can stick a few fun forums into GD but keep esports out of it.

A big factor which makes the lol reddit unbearable is the massive amount of Esports related posts that I couldn't care less about.

GD must stay alive.

Katy LiedJun 18, 201524 votes

I like how this Rioter doesn't even know how to quote people.

But we better trust him to make the boards better!

303DevilfishJun 18, 201523 votes

So, you're combining General Discussion with other boards?

will it keep it's current, old-forum layout, or will you be doing the ONE THING we despised and giving us this reddit-ripoff layout?

HighTemplarStormJun 18, 201523 votes

Keep the name GD, calling it all chat makes it seem like its associated with that YouTube show. Might be misleading for new people

Evil JesterJun 18, 201523 votes

There goes Riot again with that good ol' "we know best" attitude that they have adopted over the years.

Riot, just once, just one damn time could you just PLEASE listen to your community? We DO NOT want GD to disappear, nor do we want it changed.

WE DO NOT WANT THIS!!!!!!

ManDudeJun 18, 201523 votes

Riot's not keeping promises and screwing over their forum communities again?

I'm not even surprised at this point.

To put this as nicely as I can, I'm deeply disappointed in Riot Games as a company lately, for exactly this kind of behavior. The Riot Games of 2009 would be disgusted to see what kind of company it's become.

HateDaddyJun 18, 201523 votes

GD was just starting to feel like GD again minus the inconsistent moderation (that frankly was already in the process of being addressed). I don't need to add much more, it's been stated. But I am here to tell you GD has a very attached love to their section and we want it to stay as GD. If you want to migrate other boards in, fine, whatever. But please keep its name as General Discussion since the name General Discussion has been a staple for discussion and the name is historically significant given its long history. Don't suddenly change that now.

And for the love of god, do not force nested comments down my throat. I don't want that shitty reddit 2.0 style of posting forced on me.

QUAGSlREJun 18, 201521 votes

I realize most of the complaints are with GD, but it hurts other boards just as much as GD, if we're speaking about culture. You can't just throw a bunch of people together out of nowhere and expect them all to mix, it doesn't even really happen in places like GD. The fact that you are mixing a bunch of communities together is just going to destroy them. Its a stupid idea.

Akali is SO HOTJun 19, 201521 votes

Merging GD with any other section on this forum is not a good idea. It is a REALLY bad idea. I don't care you can do all of the assimilating you want but for fucks sake leave GD out of this. You have promised us so many fucking times that you wouldn't destroy us and time and time again you break your promise and hurt us and our culture even further. Do all the merging you want but do not fucking touch GD. Just don't fucking do it. You already destroyed us when you moved us to Boards and now you will be effectively doing the same thing again. Just for once fuck off and leave us alone.

Tamat didn't leave because of us he definitely really cared about us and tried his best to take care of us and what not despite going on his rampages from time to time. He left because of YOU. You guys constantly fuck everything up and frankly made it impossible for Tamat to do his fucking job. That is why he fucking quit. Not because of us but because of you. Doing this to us again and breaking your promise just further shows us you are incapable of running a simple internet forum smoothly.

You didn't even let GD last a full year before you destroyed it again too. Couldn't even give us a full fucking year to recover from the split between the community. This is probably the maddest that I have ever been at you guys. You have proven to us so many times that you don't understand GD at all. Tamat was the only one who truly understood how we worked and you guys forced him to quit because you suck. Look at how many downvotes this thread already has. There is no Rioter comment that hasn't been downvoted to oblivion yet. For once don't fucking do what you want. DO WHAT WE WANT FOR FUCKING ONCE. Who are you supposed to be catering to? If the answer is not the players then it's probably Wookies dick. Don't move us. Leave us alone.

Also, while I'm here @Wookie. I think you are a retard and should be fired. Thanks.

CupcakeTrapJun 18, 201519 votes

"League Creations" seems rather problematic to me. I don't think there's a lot of natural synergy between "I baked cupcakes with Teemo's face on them!"/"Check out my Graves cosplay" and "Ancient Shurima and Icathia"/"Reformist versus Traditionalist Noxian Values". I think the former warrants its own forum. If anything, I'd say it would be more reasonable to just fold "Community Creations" in under "Story & Art", rather than attempting to "segregate" them further. After all, many Community Creations of the story/art variety are reflections or explorations of canonical Story & Art.

For example: Factions. Where do Factions posts go under the current system? I've often found it rather unclear. It's "Maps & Modes", in that it centers around a community-created custom game mode. It's "Community Creations" in that it also involves community lore and artwork. It's "Story & Art" in that it involves a lot of discussion of canon sources and questions about the canon foundations of the various factions. Sometimes I think it varies by the type of post, but it's not always clear there. If I'm sharing a Factions lore update, that's pretty clearly Community Creations; if I'm asking for community input on a lore question, that's pretty clearly Story & Art. But what about announcing a Factions tournament? Is that Maps & Modes?

If I may risk a somewhat provocative statement: shoveling Story & Art and Community Creations under a "League Creations" banner that also includes cosplay photos is going to seem to further the alleged trend of League deleting its own lore. I have nothing against cosplayers and cupcake bakers (obviously, right?), but it is notable that cosplay (the type of "Community Creations" you say Riot most wants to see more of) is a fairly "harmless", even "passive", type of community creativity, perhaps maximally so.