Reddit style stifles minority opinions

Orenin·Aug 5, 2014·21 votes·4,487 views

The Reddit board style stifles minority opinions by giving them less visibility. Furthermore, This board makes the problem even worse by not telling you the upvote/downvote counts. So if you have an opinion that 100 people downvote, and 50 people upvote (33% of people agree with you), you just feel like nobody agrees, instead of getting some vindication.

This is something inherit in the Reddit style, that cannot be fixed. And, I believe this is the main issue with why so many people don't like this style. You may have closed the 400+ upvote thread saying we didn't want this style for the boards, but it the fact remains that many people don't like it, or want it. And the people that don't like it will have nowhere to go after this board replaces the original one.

40 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumAug 5, 201411 votes

Good feedback, short sweet and to the point.

I agree that the momentum style voting (more votes-->more vis-->more votes, otherwise known as 'circlejerking' if I'm using the term right) does indeed stifle minority opinions, and minority opinions are something to be encouraged to be heard. But I have a question for you, should minority opinions get visibility just because they're in the minority?

Personally, I'd rather have a system that prioritizes well-thought out ideas, explanations and effort regardless of what side they're on for a topic. I'm not saying that the Board system does this, but it is a step closer than vBulletin imho, because it gives each reader the choice to support the post or not. For me personally, even if I disagree with a post if it is explained well and can admit the OP has a point that can be further discussed I will upvote it, this post being a prime example. I realize that I can't use myself as an accurate representation of how the system will end up being used, but I believe the main problem is with the interpretation of the 'appropriate use' of the voting system and not the system itself. I admit, that may not be a 'fixable' problem, as you said, but I also believe it can have proper merit with the appropriate tweaks instead of a full system overhaul.

OreninAug 5, 20146 votes

should minority opinions get visibility just because they're in the minority?

The answer is no, they should not. However, majority opinions should not get visibility just because they are in the majority either. I agree with what you said though, well thought out opinions should gain more traction, whether people agree with them or not.

I can see where your coming from on the issue of the boards change. But on the other hand, the vBulliten at least gave every thread a fair chance. Threads with a lot of discussion were still kept on the main page in that system. I liked that anyone could move a post on the front by "bumping" it, because this gave passionate thread writers a chance to get views on their topics. It let anyone at all post in a thread and suggest "hey everyone, lets discuss this!". Topics that did not generate discussion were usually discontinued.

Being on the forums quite a bit, I saw only one person that really abused the bump system(the urf mode thread). Normal behavior was that people would bump their thread occasionally, but if it didn't gain traction, they stopped bumping it. If it did gain traction, it would gain many upvotes, and many people would come in and help bump it to keep it visible.

In conclusion, there are pros and cons to both board types. But there is already a reddit league of legends board, there doesn't need to be 2 of them. It feels like they are making it 'because Pendragon wants a reddit style board', and choosing his opinion at the expense of what the community wants. The community opinion may be a little influenced by status quo bias, but again, There Was Already A Reddit Board.

PendragonAug 5, 201410 votes

As much as we respect the right to speak - you have to respect the desire for others to listen and engage. Just because an individual feels strongly about something doesn't mean that other people have to care about it. One thing we want to make sure that we do really well here is for incubation to happen without awkward manipulation. When something is first posted there's a period where we don't have much data about how much people care about that topic, and we want to make that period as effective as possible.

If a lot of people care about it, it should get a lot of visibility. If not a lot of people care about it then it should get a little visibility, and if nobody cares about it then it should get no visibility. On the forums visibility comes at a huge cost - which is you get a huge amount of noise and you have to sift through a lot of nonsense to get to stuff you care about. There are tens of thousands of daily posts - so as an individual even if you spend tons of time on the forums you're actually only reading through a small fraction of what gets posted every day.

Right now the individual relevance is pretty random... the front page of vbulletin is 5 minutes old and the first 10 pages are less than 2 hours old. Unless you're going to page 50+, or spending many hours a day on the forums, you're only exposed to a fraction of the content that gets posted in a given day anyway and that fraction is determined by a pretty random... what time you decided to view the forums.

CampheneAug 6, 20142 votes

As much as we respect the right to speak - you have to respect the desire for others to listen and engage.

Hitler was a great speaker. He could really get the crowds going.

PryotraAug 6, 20142 votes

Then why not base sorting on discussion, with votes taking a backseat in the sorting algorithm?

I mean, that theoretically solves all sides of this. If people truly care about it, and it is a great discussion point, then people will talk. Also, an early downvote or two won't cause a thread to disappear instantly unless no one posts. Hence, the garbage threads tend to die off whilst those true gems of discussion on some more controversial topics, like "Should supports Exist, or should we just make the game a 4v4?", won't just disappear because some sheeple decide to downvote it because it isn't a popular opinion.

I know what I am suggesting is radically different in approach, but from a theoretical standpoint it makes sense. Now realize that votes WOULD play a part in sorting, just not as large as they do now. For example, if a thread has 25 repliers, 50 downvotes and 25 upvotes, then this thread seems pretty active, and deserves a place on the front page, or close to it if there are even more active threads than that. Meanwhile, a thread with 25 downvotes, 50 upvotes, and 5 repliers wouldn't fly very far, as people simply aren't really discussing it, just agreeing for the most part. And of course, a thread with 50 downvotes and no upvotes would need an EXCESSIVE amount of repliers to get anywhere near the front page, as no one seems to agree with it.

At the end of the day, deciding who sees what primarily based on something as low effort as clicking an arrow is simply too easily abused for all the wrong reasons. I hope that you guys at least think about it, because personally I feel you guys dismiss the idea simply because reddit doesn't do it.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 6, 20141 votes

I see where you're coming and I honestly wouldn't mind a separate ordering option for sorting by 'activity' on a post, however this is actually the main reason I dislike vBulletin. It gives the illusion of support for an opinion based off of number of responses. Yes this can be a good thing, but you have to think about the train of thought it reinforces, "the more people I get to speak, the more people see it", and thus results (from what I've seen) in people posting to incite discussion rather than create it. As in posts that anger the general populace usually get more traction.

I prefer a large amount of discussion to be prioritized as well, but not by number of responses but by quality of responses. If had to choose between fifty responses of "no, because reasons" or one long "no, and here's why...." I'd choose the latter every time. I wouldn't mind having comments have some form of impact on a post's order (and I actually think they act as 'tiebreakers' currently but I could be wrong), but I want to warn against having activity being the primary visibility factor for the above reasons. But, again, I wouldn't mind it being a separate ordering option.

To be clear, I'm not saying that good ideas are impossible with that format, just that the end result of encouraging number of responses>quality of responses ends badly over a period of time.

PryotraAug 7, 20141 votes

I knew that someone wouldn't read the post closely enough. I said replier s. As in separate people, not the same jaegoff bumping the same post to get it going. If you are insistent that the reddit style sort needs to stay, then it needs renaming. Simply put, it isn't what is hot, but what is popular opinion. Hot can be heated debates. Not so with popular opinion.

As for encouraging quality, I think that weighing individual replier s more heavily than votes will in fact support this by virtue of the fact that without quality, most people won't have a reason to post. Without those posters, the thread will fade into obscurity. Whereas if you regularly create quality, people will want to respond. A sort of "if you build it, they will come" philosophy.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 7, 20141 votes

I didn't realize you were implying that it was based on number of unique people replying, apologies for the mis-interpretation.'

Completely agree that 'Hot' is misleading, and I actually already made a post here on that very subject. tl;dr change 'hot' to 'trending' to be more clear and add a 'sort by activity' option. (As well as finally making 'best' not-useless)

While definitely better, and not a bad idea at all, I still worry about the precedent of controversy>quality if this was the primary sorting method. Honestly I would be all for this idea as a separate sorting option, because at the end of the day knowing popular trending opinion is still useful to know. And while, yes, it doesn't promote discussion as much as most would like in a forum base it is still needed for probing changes and identifying trends within the game for Reds and players alike. But with two different methods of sorting, people who want to discuss topics and ideas can use one way and people who want to see what's popular right now can do so as well.

PryotraAug 7, 20141 votes

I actually wouldn't mind making this it's own sort. But I would then request that the default sort for newcomers is Recent. That way, they can make the choice, and until that point you could easily see how much activity the boards have with a simple f5.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 7, 20141 votes

Lol, I've actually been asking for that very thing for while now. Less out of dislike for 'Hot' but more for the fact that 'hot' was not useful back then (and still not very now) due to the Board's small community.

Thunder DreamssAug 6, 20141 votes

What I would like to see is discussions not being voted up/down at all. Instead users can apply tags and up vote those tags already applied.

For example a thread concerning the balance of supports might be tagged "Balance (15)", "Support (17)", "Summoners Rift (12)". Another, less popular, thread suggesting supports should be removed entirely might instead be tagged "Balance (10)", "Support (6)", "Summoners Rift (12)", "Troll (20)".

Users would be able to create filters to sort threads. These filters would specify what tags must be included or must not be present for a thread to make the cut.* For example a filter for "+Support +Balance" would show both of the above threads while a filter "+Support +Balance -Troll" would show you the first but not the second discussion.

'Within' a filter threads would be sorted like they are now, using the total '+' tag votes. The filters above would treat my first example thread as having 32 up votes for the sake of sorting.

The current sub-communities would instead be default filters. Users would be able to save their own filters for easy access.

This would improve the functioning of these boards in a few ways. Firstly, with custom filter settings and no way to down vote you won't have the same risk of getting -2 from some stalkers and then never being seen again.**

Secondly, as more of GD migrates over things will become more crowded and finding threads you care about will become harder. With filtering it would be easy to drop 100 new threads a day down to 5 you care about.

Thirdly, user generated tags and filters would allow the League player-base to decide exactly what is important in discussion. Community consensus would end up deciding things like whether support Annie threads are trolls, off-builds, or just normal. Up and down voting kinda do this but not with the same degree of finesse.

Ideally one should be able to use boolean operators here so I could search using AND, OR, XOR, and so on.

** A stalker could add "troll" to every thread you create. I feel this wouldn't burry it as badly tho because it will still still show up for anyone who doesn't "-troll". The system should have a way to calculate the relevance of tags so a thread that is "balance (20)" and "troll (2)" would ignore the "troll" tag for filters.

PryotraAug 7, 20141 votes

An interesting Idea, but allowing the community to tag others posts is a bit too much power to give people IMO. You even said it yourself, this adds new ways to troll by tagging random threads with inappropriate tags. In order to catch these people, you would likely need to do a database pull, which riot said is a pretty big thing for them to do.

While I agree that tags will need to be implemented eventually in some form, that does solve the fact that sorts will still be needed, and therefore sorts need to still be corrected. I do like the concept of voting for tags, but not for making them effective or visible until a certain thresh hold. I suggest you make your own topic with your idea, so as to not derail this thread.

Thunder DreamssAug 7, 20141 votes

Tagging with inappropriate tags would be less harmful then a few early down votes are now. Thread would still be seen by anyone not filtering those terms.

I suggest you make your own topic with your idea, so as to not derail this thread.

I apologize if I misinterpreted this thread as one in which to discuss the difficulties of minority opinions in reddit style boards and possible solutions to said problem.

PryotraAug 7, 20141 votes

I apologize for coming off as inconsiderate/inattentive of your point. I do realize that there is merit to it, and I can kinda see where it fits in here, but I feel it's a big enough point to be it's own topic. In other words, I was trying to compliment it. =P

Regardless, I apologize for my poor phrasing, but still urge you to make your own topic about it. It's a pretty good idea, and I think with a little refinement in the details, it could work. I just feel that it expands beyond just minority opinions, and could easily be it's own topic.

Thunder DreamssAug 7, 20141 votes

Back when the boards were in beta there was a whole thread on tags. I still hope Riot decides to put in the work and implement a tag system, either mine or one of the others recommended in the past thread, but I don't really expect it.

So far as design of the boards are concerned, from what I've seen Reds only stop into bitching threads like this one, not ones focused on constructive suggestions. Hence I throw in tags wherever they (kinda) fit in the vain hope it gets picked up.

The first "community beta sucks" thread I jumped in I asked for wider columns so the boards would display better on small screens and that came to pass, who knows, maybe they'll pick up more from these threads.

PryotraAug 8, 20142 votes

As a member of the Heimerdinger Resistance, I understand all too well. Carry on.

TheBadnessAug 7, 20142 votes

that's bullcrap.

You don't want manipulation? That's EXACTLY what you want. OH...you meant you don't want manipulation by anyone other than Riot Games themselves. Oh i get it.

With this style of format, anytime something is posted that goes against making Riot look good, you can send your army of rioters or riot supporters to downvote a thread into oblivion and it will soon be out of sight, out of mind.

You people are afraid if someone posts something that generally makes you look bad and gets exposure, people who generally would have disagreed with the original post might be swayed to the other side after viewing the discussion that a normal forum would allow.

Going to a normal forum and getting a random list of threads to view is better than going to a reddit style forum where the top threads are nothing but a circlejerk of people that get upvoted by a bunch of readers that make spur of the moment decisions based on emotions rather than logic.

CuixAug 6, 20142 votes

I liked that anyone could move a post on the front by "bumping" it, because this gave passionate thread writers a chance to get views on their topics.

It is absolutely baffling to me that anyone would be glad for the behavior of "bumping".

DaenAug 6, 20142 votes

+1, I'm not a fan of bumping. It's essentially an artificial inflation of a thread's value within the community.

MajorPain9Aug 6, 20141 votes

There are thousands of fantastic community threads I never would of discovered with out someone bumping. This board will have a much more difficult time doing something similar to that.

DaenAug 6, 20141 votes

We'll just have to wait and see once the community is larger.

Bumping does have good things about it (showing there are people active on the thread), but it also incentivizes creating posts that are inflammatory and spamming.

GenerickeAug 5, 20142 votes

Good feedback, short sweet and to the point.

I agree that the momentum style voting (more votes-->more vis-->more votes, otherwise known as 'circlejerking' if I'm using the term right) does indeed stifle minority opinions, and minority opinions are something to be encouraged to be heard. But I have a question for you, should minority opinions get visibility just because they're in the minority?

Personally, I'd rather have a system that prioritizes well-thought out ideas, explanations and effort regardless of what side they're on for a topic. I'm not saying that the Board system does this, but it is a step closer than vBulletin imho, because it gives each reader the choice to support the post or not. For me personally, even if I disagree with a post if it is explained well and can admit the OP has a point that can be further discussed I will upvote it, this post being a prime example. I realize that I can't use myself as an accurate representation of how the system will end up being used, but I believe the main problem is with the interpretation of the 'appropriate use' of the voting system and not the system itself. I admit, that may not be a 'fixable' problem, as you said, but I also believe it can have proper merit with the appropriate tweaks instead of a full system overhaul.

I've seen a lot of really good posts get ignored despite how well thought out they were. At the same time, I see a lot of terrible posts get a tonne of attention and upvotes for all the wrong reasons. For example, anything Hashashin posts is wrong but gets a lot of attention and upvotes/public support. At the same time, certain things like "Poppy isn't the late game God you all seem to think she is" will get downvoted, regardless of how factual or compelling the argument (as a dominion player who deals with her semi-regularly, where she gets to bypass the laning phase and hit mid/late game, I'd place her at tier 2).

PendragonAug 5, 20149 votes

The Reddit board style stifles minority opinions by giving them less visibility.

The platform we're building here is based on relevance to the reader - and the ability for constructive discussions (generally) to happen. Votes are a factor of relevance right now - but so are other things, (like activity).

You may have closed the 400+ upvote thread saying we didn't want this style for the boards, but it the fact remains that many people don't like it, or want it.

We're using a ton of different mechanisms to help us understand how we make decisions. One of these is listening to that direct feedback, but we also use engagement & usage metrics, surveys, etc. Generally the most prevalent perspective is that the "best" platform has more to do with the content on the platform than the interface.

We believe that we are building a platform that will be better at surfacing relevant content to our players, and the relevant subsequent discussions. The focus here is relevant content, relevant discussion. I don't think it's important that a minority opinion is surfaced - as that a line of discussion that's relevant to the individual player is surfaced. If you're the type of person who really likes to see the minority opinion, we have to make sure that's what you see. There are many more dimensions to relevant than just the vote.

Also... we did not close that discussion, and wouldn't have. The discussion naturally ran its course. If you think it makes sense to revisit the discussion, you're welcome to repost it again but I like to think we've generally done a good job of addressing many player concerns with the work that we've done here.

Overall we appreciate everyone's feedback. We did a pretty major update a month or so ago and we're certainly not done.

CampheneAug 6, 20142 votes

It fundamentally changes the way the boards worked. Now there's a branched tree where you have a lot of separate smaller conversations. No one has time to read all that crap.

Before you could skim a thread and get the gist of what's going on.

KSHarrisonAug 7, 20141 votes

Do we really need votes or downvotes to be visible? It seems the advantage of a voting system is to track what's popular and what's not. Why not keep that statistic private from the general public?

For example, if only upvotes were seen, popular topics are still sorted, and people can enter a topic without a biased opinion, especially ones that are just starting up. Minority opinions will have a better chance of withstanding an unlucky initial wave of downvotes.

ChickenWrapAug 5, 20145 votes

To be honest, so does the old forums. Downvotes = closed thread = stifles minority opinion

Earl EulrichAug 5, 20144 votes

I kinda agree...there sure are some functions implemented that work against this to happen, but it´s still very unlikely for controversial topics to really rise to the top-visibility. Half the frontpage is always taken by "established" stuff if you go for the default "hot"-sorting - and if you sort it "recent" you have the trouble that topics just disappear after a short-while.

So for a topic to rise in visibility the timing to post it is utmost important with these forum-mechanisms, sth. that get´s posted while forum-activity is low will just decline and there´s no way to get it back up - even if it would be worth further attention.

DaenAug 5, 20143 votes

OK, there are a lot of things to tackle in this post.

The Reddit board style stifles minority opinions by giving them less visibility.

Honestly, I would agree with this if the way threads' visibility is calculated were only based on votes. Comments have an effect on visibility, and in my opinion if someone makes a minority opinion thread where most people don't agree and it doesn't promote discussion, it's not worth being prominently seen.

if you have an opinion that 100 people downvote, and 50 people upvote (33% of people agree with you), you just feel like nobody agrees, instead of getting some vindication.

I think this has been discussed in the past. Having both upvotes and downvotes shown could lower the clarity of the platform, and it's not necessarily useful in discussion. Amalgamating the vote totals into one net number is technically less informative, but arguably the information it doesn't have isn't overly important.

You may have closed the 400+ upvote thread saying we didn't want this style for the boards

You mean this thread? It's still open, and keep in mind it's also six months old. This platform has gone through radical changes since that thread, everything from the color scheme to how moderation is handled.

the people that don't like it will have nowhere to go after this board replaces the original one.

It's been stated numerous times that this platform will never replace the original forums unless there is no one using them and/or it's objectively superior in every possible way. The Boards are a long way from being perfect, so rest easy on that!

WoofMonsterAug 5, 20143 votes

Having both upvotes and downvotes shown could lower the clarity of the platform, and it's not necessarily useful in discussion. Amalgamating the vote totals into one net number is technically less informative, but arguably the information it doesn't have isn't overly important.

I don't think that is why at all, but if it is, then let me help you. I can assure you, the information is very important to the person writing the thread, that instead of seeing they got 3 downvotes, seeing that actually they got 20 upvotes and 23 downvotes.

OreninAug 5, 20141 votes

well said!

Cloud PotatoAug 5, 20141 votes

1: Riot has stated that the old forums will not be removed to force people over, that instead they want people to come of their own will (or not come) 2: Just because your opinion has visibility doesn't mean people will agree, care, or feel their circlejerk threatened

OreninAug 5, 20143 votes

1: Riot has stated that the old forums will not be removed to force people over, that instead they want people to come of their own will (or not come) 2: Just because your opinion has visibility doesn't mean people will agree, care, or feel their circlejerk threatened

They are trying very hard to kill it without closing it. Just look at the drop down menu. They put "forums" second to last. If they put it last it would be noteworthy, but they put it second to last, in the middle of other options.
Going by this, you don't care if minority opinions are stifled.

Cloud PotatoAug 6, 20141 votes

They are trying very hard to kill it without closing it. Just look at the drop down menu. They put "forums" second to last. If they put it last it would be noteworthy, but they put it second to last, in the middle of other options.

The drop down menu is pretty small. I don't think it's that relevant where it is in regards to Riot's attitude toward the old forums.

Going by this, you don't care if minority opinions are stifled.

It's not about what I care about, but what the majority wants to see. Regardless of visibility if the majority doesn't want to listen they won't.

MajorPain9Aug 6, 20142 votes

Either way, its impossible to access GD on a phone or tablet with ease now. While maybe not on purpose, small stuff like this can annoy someone that actively posts on the forum daily.

Angry MonsterAug 5, 20141 votes

I pretty sure that they said they will not force people over while in beta. Not that they will never force people over at some point.

FlintfallAug 5, 20141 votes

He's not complaining about leaving the old forums behind, he is concerned that unpopular opinions/posts never gain traction.

Personally, It would be nice to see how many upvote (hard number, not a %) and how many people downvote a post. Names don't have to be disclosed.

EstybAug 5, 20141 votes

You have to consider though that although some of these minority opinions are insightful and simply countering the circlejerk mentality, there's a lot more of them that are simply troll posts, say nothing, hentai etc. And the vBulletin forum format makes it so that extremely popular opinions or well thought out posts can be buried by mountains of shitposts in a large discussion.

Overall both formats have their advantages and disadvantages and it's pretty hard to make a format where you can filter based solely on post quality.

OreninAug 5, 20143 votes

Yes, and think about this. Before these 'boards' were created, we had 1 Reddit style board, and 1 Vbulliten style board, and everybody used the one they were happy with.

Hyrum GraffAug 6, 20142 votes

...and hopefully by the time this platform is done, we'll have one board that everyone is happy with. Or at least, that's what I think we're trying to go for, here.

EstybAug 7, 20141 votes

No arguments there, I agree with you actually. I rarely browse GD because I like the Reddit style much better, but the GD style definitely has its benefits and I do think that a Riot managed Reddit with slight modifications is largely unnecessary since the people who want to Reddit with just use Reddit.