A simple, but long, explanation from the community point of view

Understandable analysis overall, but speculative. Granted it's all speculative so moot point really. I completely agree a transition would have needed to be forced eventually. However there are a few detriments to the transition that did not meet expectations of many, myself included.

The time given was nowhere near many people's interpretation of what was said by the Boards team. Tamat gave a warning of a few days, where as what was promised near the beginning of the Boards beta (then community platform, ah.... good times) was spun as somethign along the lines of weeks. I will completely admit a precise period of time was not confirmed, nor could one realistically be made then, but it was pointed out numerous times that there were long standing recurring events and community activities (such as RvC, Factions, and the MCCC as examples) that would need at the very least a week or two to prepare for a forced transition.

The GD/General Discussion thing was not a big deal by itself. In fact, most of the more vocal GD'rs in the CP chatroom and on the Boards would agree with that as well. What made it a big deal was the proximity to the migration and a surprising reluctance from the Riot side to change it (as you said, it wasn't a huge deal and downright menial honestly). This was mostly from Tamat, but to be fair he was also the only one actually speaking on the issue. Tamat, unfortunately, already had a reputation among GD for being dismissive and incredibly disconnected. So yes there was animosity from both sides which also contributed, but the reason I brought it up was another easy example of a decision being made by someone who does not understand how it would affect the people it impacted. The reaction to the response is also another example as it is proof of a disconnect between the community of GD and the Reds who were in charge of the decision (i.e. Tamat). Now, obviously some spectrum of disconnect is inevitable with this business, but it's the fact that Tamat was adamant that he knew the GD community enough to stick with the decision that I bring that bit of drama up. I myself am not a GD'r so I also think the entire thing was blown way out of proportion, but at the same time the fact that it was so exaggerated is something to note.

Now, all that being said, I am also of the same mind as you. I even now prefer Boards over what vBulletin used to be. Above all I hated the 'recently replied' sorting you were locked to. (And I still don't like it as an option here either, but I'm not forced to use it so meh.) It rewarded the most 'active' threads and as such promoted the posts that got the most people angry. Granted I also admit vote based sorting has it's own myriad of problems but I personally believe they are lesser. I also enjoy discussion mode more than chrono among other things such as the Red Tracker (which was also available in vBulletin by the way, but a little out of the way).

As such I believe you found the transition perfectly fine because, for you, there was no transition. The end result was your preference, as it was mine. So as an individual you were not impacted in the least. So going with that, I would like to ask you a question: do you feel the general mood of the Boards was better before of after the transition?

I ask this because my focus is on the community as a whole and it's health. My point of view at the moment is that it is not doing well at all from a variety of observations I can go into if you'd like, but in a broad sweeping stroke I'd say there was a much healthier community before the migration and it steadily declined since then, even while traffic increased.

I agree there could have been more time for the transition, but I don't think additional time was necessary. As for forcing it before the traffic evened it out, I think that had to happen.

There were two big issues with the transition, the most significant of which was actually right after the transition happened:

• Broken Promises - Riot was very adamant about only forcing the move when it was the clearly superior choice, and specifically mentioned numerous times that there would be ample warning and time to prepare. Riot failed abysmally on both counts, because they gave users only a few days to transition and the platform was very clearly not ready yet (chronological view wasn't even functional at the time).
• Ridiculous Moderation - On the first day of the transition, Riot literally told the community that if they stepped out of line there would be mass bans. The transition forced players to go from having no moderation for years to extremely harsh moderation in the span of like an hour.

I agree with you on the fact that without the transition traffic might not have gotten to the point of usefulness, but the problems I mentioned above are a lot more serious than migrating traffic.

I think that the change should have waited until the Boards were at least out of beta. I can understand trying to increase the traffic on it to get more bugs out, but they probably should have at least made it non-beta before making it the official League Boards

From my perspective, this is the main issue people had with the transition. This was certainly my biggest gripe, and for all intents and purposes the platform isstill in beta. There are very few situations where it's a good decision to force users onto a beta product with no alternative, and I don't feel like this was one of them.

The difference between GD and General Discussion is small enough that that change should not have bothered anyone.

This was more based on principle and identity than the actual name itself. The General Discussion community wanted to keep their original name and thus their original identity, but there was a relatively insane amount of push-back from Riot. It took about six months of the community constantly asking for it for Riot to finally (begrudgingly) change the name of the board, and the fact it took that long for such a simple request did not make people particularly happy with Riot.

Historically, on the Boards, Riot has been extremely reluctant to bother with GD, so it got a lot of people frustrated. Every time there's a change the entire GD community basically has to fight tooth and nail just to survive, and it gets aggravating having to do that over and over.

I feel like there is plenty of Riot communication when it is needed on the Boards and it is easy to find it with the Red Tracker. I couldn't find a similar feature on the old forums.

I agree, though I believe there was indeed a red tracker on the old forums. Maybe I'm wrong. Overall though I do prefer the Boards platform to vBulletin, but Riot just handled so much about it so poorly.

Overall I agree with Arma in that it seems you were already situated on the Boards so the transition wasn't particularly jarring. For those that weren't already using the platform, however, and for those of us (like Arma and myself) that spend ridiculous amounts of time analyzing the community, it was like a massive slap in the face to almost the entire forum community.