@Tamat/Boards Team: Plans for Upvote/Downvote Culture?

Roaranor·6/13/2015, 6:38:36 PM·1 votes·519 views

As it stands, the criteria most use for upvoting/downvoting is the opposite of what Riot has intended to happen from what I've seen/read. I support the idea that quality content to be upvoted, whereas negative content (derailing, toxic, meaningful, misinforming) should be downvoted. That's not generally what you see. People upvote what they agree with, and downvote things they disagree with regardless of the actual content value.

  • People asking simple questions will get downvoted, while the answer is upvoted (You can visit the questions in the Pool Party Team Up thread in Announcements for plenty of examples of this particular case), and that's actually counter-productive. If you downvote legitimate questions that much, it becomes harder for players with the same concerns to see that it was asked and answered leading them to ask themselves.
  • Players expressing the unpopular side of an argument will get downvoted by the opposing side regardless of how constructive their post/comment was or how much it added to the conversation. Rather than encouraging a "I see your point, here's mine so we can talk about it", the model as it stands is feeding a "I'm right and you're wrong, the upvotes/downvotes prove it" mentality where only the majority rises to the top and any other opinions sink to the bottom never to be considered again.
  • New or lower level players seeking help or advice will often have their entire threads downvoted. This is when you see the "git gud skrub" mentality kicking in. Pretty self-explanatory.

Obviously, these trends are pretty unhealthy for the boards. So I'm wondering if there's any plans on dealing with this cultural aspect, or if Riot is okay with how the upvote/downvote system is functioning despite it steering so far from their initial intentions with it (Tamat in particular I remember speaking on this quite a bit before).

3 Comments

skatharozoumis 16/14/2015, 12:15:42 PM1 votes
  • Darius Draven Zed +Talon Azir item 1038 item 3270 {{summoner:17}} ____________________
Hyrum Graff6/14/2015, 11:25:14 PM1 votes
  1. Tamat is no longer with Riot.
  2. Pendragon has said that he's interested in removing downvotes. I can find the link, or you can look through his post history.
Daen6/15/2015, 6:56:16 AM1 votes

Real quick: Tamat no longer works at Riot; this is likely better directed at Zwill or ADillonMostDirty (best name ever).

These aren't actually problems I notice as being super significant, though I have some slight addendums that make them more relevant (in my mind):

People asking simple questions will get downvoted, while the answer is upvoted

People asking simple questions that can be very easily answered via brief research or a google search are generally downvoted, while the response is upvoted. This is likely because questions like that can show lack of attention, which can annoy people.

I feel that, for the most part, legitimate questions are answered in kind.

Players expressing the unpopular side of an argument will get downvoted by the opposing side

I actually notice this in a different way. It seems like conversation voting depends on what happens initially, then it snowballs. Let's say two players are arguing a point; one of the players gets upvoted by someone right off the bat, and you might notice a trend where that player will be upvoted consistently for the rest of the dialogue.

The most likely result of this is that the upvoted comment is generally more well-thought-out or aligns more closely with general opinions. Situations where players are upvoted just because of disagreement don't happen very often, but I can definitely see your concerns here and have seen it happen.

New or lower level players seeking help or advice will often have their entire threads downvoted

To me, the main problem here is that there isn't a single place on the entire platform that is comfortable for new players to ask questions and try to get help. Tips & Tricks encompasses far too much, and actually caters to experienced players looking to gain an edge rather than new players trying to get a grasp of the game.

What do you think of my rewrites/responses to your concerns? I agree with you on a lot of this, but I'm not sure I see the same problems and situations as being as problematic as your thread postulates.