The forums don't only exist for Riot to talk to the community

such smelly·Oct 31, 2013·5 votes·781 views

They're also there so the community can talk to each other, and most of us hate Reddit. Please don't ruin the forums.

11 Comments

HalcioneOct 31, 20137 votes

Yes, the forum was designed and exists for that reason. But it failed. It's supposed to be a place where players can discuss game balance and other topics. Now it's everything except that.

There's no discussion being done there. People post heavily biased topics and downvote anything that disagrees so threads are nothing but oceans of "I agree" and lots of blocked responses from down-voting that simply disagree with valid posts.

The forum is flooded with ridiculously obvious troll threads and idiots that fall for it keep posting indignantly and bumping it, flooding the front page with useless troll threads.

There's the porn issue.

Moderation isn't exactly working as well as it should, which is not even the problem. The problem is that inadequate moderation adds more fuel to the obnoxious spam of troll/idiotic posts.

And the occasional and extremely rare actually legit thread with a decent discussion that dies 3-4 pages in. The image gallery threads aren't too bad either until they turn into extreme nsfw.

The forum does not work.

DaenOct 31, 20133 votes

I agree with your premise, but it's a bit overly harsh... :P

The biggest issue I see is that the other subforums besides GD are basically completely unsupported. Rioters tend to post in GD far more than anywhere else, and that tends to draw crowds.

The very near second biggest issue is definitely moderation. Mods on the current forums are completely invisible, and it's very seldom clear when they're actually doing their job correctly. I'm hoping they treat moderation seriously on this platform...

arkhammerOct 31, 20133 votes

There's no discussion being done there. People post heavily biased topics and downvote anything that disagrees so threads are nothing but oceans of "I agree" and lots of blocked responses from down-voting that simply disagree with valid posts.

I agree with this, but I don't really see how a "reddit-style" in-house forum (this beta) is going to stop people posting heavily biased topics and down voting anything that disagrees. The problem with community moderation often is the burden is on the community to make smart choices, but often what happens is popular memes or topics come up that may have no particular value. I mean, why are there so many reposts on reddit, for example?

Professional moderation is the only way to go. The company knows what it wants/needs to talk about, and it can direct the conversation through use of Red posters as well as topic creation. I think Riot's "problem," if you will, is LoL has gotten so big with so many players that there's no real way to finesse good conversation out of their forums without constant and man-hour-intensive work being done by Riot community managers.

That being said, I just don't see how Riot's "reddit-inspired" community beta will solve the "most voted idea is the best," even if it isn't but is popular among the forum warriors.

DaenOct 31, 20131 votes

From what I understand Riot is heavily considering player moderators, which would essentially be professional moderation without Riot having to devote the intense man-hours and money to paying people to moderate.

I'm really hoping they do this, because having some sort of step between Rioters and normal players could be really valuable overall.

DaenOct 31, 20133 votes

Are you talking about the fact reddit is being used to discuss the preseason changes, or this Beta?

Try using this for a little while if it's the second, it's a lot more polished than reddit and has some unique features!

ValentenOct 31, 20133 votes

I just really dont like how Riot is basically abandoning their own forums for Reddit. I personally dont wanna use Reddit cause its all hivemind over there.

Solan StonewhipNov 1, 20132 votes

they haven't. they're in a transitional phase.... the old vbulletin forums have been outscaled this one isn't finished... patience....

OsamabinlaggingOct 31, 20131 votes

summoner 21

PLANT3DNov 1, 20131 votes

I like Reddit. But I agree this kind of format is not doing well for us.

DaenNov 1, 20131 votes

How so? In what way is it inferior to GD?

ExpertSockThrowNov 1, 20131 votes

Riot's invested way too much in their "improved" Reddit clone to completely re-do the whole thing. This is needlessly hard to read and keep track of, and no matter how many people say they don't want a Reddit-style forum, the devs will ignore us. :( I've been to Reddit several times, I've tried this site several times. I can honestly say that I hate this discussion layout. The only comments that are read are the ones at the top with the most votes- minority voices are drowned out and exiled to the bottom. Not to mention that replies to replies being stacked in the same box is a total eye-sore.

If they really want to solve the problem of irrelevant/redundant/caustic threads always getting the most visibility, they could get rid of up/down voting and/or hire or promote positive Summoners to the position of Community Mod to delete and move off-topic or unproductive topics and posts. Having the same basic system with a new look will not change anything for the better.