Let’s Talk About Boards Moderation
Hey guys!
Keyru here to discuss moderation on the NA boards, including both what we’re currently working on and our long-term vision. A lot of you have provided really good feedback about moderation as part of our wider discussion regarding the updates coming to the NA boards Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Hopefully I can provide some insight into how we look at moderation as well as where it’s going.
First, for clarity, as many of you may know we partner with a third-party company called Metaverse in moderating the boards. I’m actually responsible for that relationship these days, and have been working with Metaverse closely on to make sure we’re aligned on what’s working and what needs to improve.
One of the major points of feedback we’ve heard from you guys concerns the level of transparency and visibility around moderation on the Boards, so that’s obviously been a big part of both our internal planning and my latest communication and alignment efforts with Metaverse. Ultimately, we’d like both the specifics of our moderation policies and the mechanics of how they’re implemented to be more clear to you guys. To that end, I’d like to provide some info about changes we’re planning to shortly make to moderation guidelines and processes on the boards. Here’s the current list:
[FUTURE CHANGE] Modify the Universal Rules to be clearer and on-point, which should improve consistency for both players and moderators. For example, here’s a snippet from the current draft of the updated Universal Rules:
Spamming / Trolling
Here is a breakdown of the various types of spam / trolling that the moderators look for and will take action upon:
- Posting content not related to the discussion
- Posting designed to bait conversation or falsify content
- Making repetitive non-constructive or low effort content
- Bumping of discussions with no additional context
- Excessive emoji / icon spam
[FUTURE CHANGE] Concurrently with the updated Universal Rules, begin holding Boards posters more closely to the letter of the rules and be more aggressive when it comes to enforcing them (no more 50+ violations without being banned). We’re diligently working to ensure the updated rules are easy to understand, comprehensive, and representative of common values shared among members of the League community. Ideally, the rules should be simple to follow, and the lines clear - when they are crossed, appropriate action should swiftly follow.
[IMMEDIATE CHANGE] Institute a blanket policy across all sub-boards, including GD, disallowing conversations regarding religion, race, politics, sex, and social issue topics unrelated to League of Legends (i.e. online legislation is ok, fracking legislation is not). This is an interim step to aid adjustment as we move towards eventual new Universal Rules, sub-board guidelines, and moderation policies as a part of the overall boards updates.
[IMMEDIATE CHANGE] Update moderation notifications to more accurately inform players of both the reason for their punishment / warning and the consequences. While deleted comments aren’t visible, mod messages will include both a copy-paste of the actionable comment and a direct URL for the discussion in which the comment was posted. Here’s an example of a message a player would receive for using a racist, homophobic, or sexist term:
Hey XXX,
We here at Riot do not condone the use of racial, homophobic, or sexist slurs. You have been given a final warning and 7 day suspension. Please be more mindful in the future of those around you.
Here is your comment:
[QUOTE]
And a link to the thread in which it was posted:
[LINK]
[IMMEDIATE CHANGE] Going forward, we’ll be replying and answering in more moderation based discussions, about general policies or specific actions that have been taken (myself and HurriKane aka Moderator Kane will fill this role for the time being). This should help with transparency and let players know our thought process on why we take certain actions. Long-term, we’ll be looking to give these conversations a more specific sub-board home (along with wider Player Behavior conversations) as part of the upcoming boards reorganization.
We also continue to work with the Boards dev team when it comes to prioritizing features, and the same goes for moderation related ones. Some of the things we’re interested in developing (no promises) include:
- Moderation appeals
- Ability to respond directly to moderation notifications
- More report options and an open text field
- Personal Boards blacklist/muting feature
- Ability to move discussions instead of deleting them, where appropriate
Of course, let us know which of the features you feel are most important as well as any other mod-related ones you’d like to see.
As mentioned in the bullets, we’re pushing a couple of these changes live immediately (i.e. on Monday, 7/20). Us hopping into more moderation discussions and better notifications are all upside, while the interim blanket rule against particularly unrelated discussions should mostly be a light corrective measure to the worst excesses and help ease transition towards the eventual new Universal Rules. Obviously, this last change will most significantly affect GD, where the updated rule will be reflected in an addition to the sub-board guidelines pending new Universal Rules.
Going forward, we’ll continue to develop updated Universal Rules and of course share them with you guys for discussion. Further down the line, the Player Relations guys are planning to kick off a discussion around our (currently still vague) ideas regarding community mods / MVPs. We’d like to explore with you guys how that kind of system could potentially enable players to feel more ownership over their Boards and their moderation.
The moderators, myself, and the rest of the NA boards team would love your feedback, so feel free to share any thoughts you may have on moderation!