Fostering a COMPLETE Community Experience

Trick1F·Aug 28, 2014·4 votes·1,725 views

Hey everyone,

I'm going to dive right in. The Summoner's Code emphasizes the importance of constructive feedback, civil discourse and not taking pleasure in delivering pain. I am still relatively new to the game (coming up on year) but am completely enamored with the changes being made to positively modify the overall gaming experience. Primarily, this has occurred with the overhaul of the Tribunal and the implementation of chat restrictions and, more recently, automated account bans.

I am not here to cast a shadow on all the hard work Riot has put into making these changes or to stir up debate on their efficacy in the game. My point has to do with fostering the same kind of overall positive community experience in all facets of the game.

I see racial slurs, homosexual labels and seemingly infinite cursing occurring on the forums. Thankfully, the community Beta boards and the pending dissolution of the GD (General Discussion) board have made some progress in alleviating this negative experience.

But I'm curious: why does the Summoner's Code and the overall community experience with League of Legends extend to player behavior on the forums? If anything, by allowing what we deem as toxic behavior on the forums but restrict it in the game it only serves to confuse. Would it not make more sense to extend the same kind of positive foundation stones we see in the Summoner's Code extended to player interaction on the forums for the game?

Discuss! And thanks for reading.

4 Comments

EMOFRATPARTYAug 28, 20142 votes

You definitely bring up some interesting points. In lieu of adopting the Summoner's Code for the Boards, Riot leverages a separate set of Universal Rules.

To be fair, the overall principles found within those rules do not differ greatly from the Code. Sure, the language is different, but the overall message is still there -- "Don't be a jerk" is the first point of emphasis for the forum rules. All in all, it seems to be a way of allowing the community to be the guiding hand for what does and does not make good content on the boards.

The summation of that first point, again "don't be a jerk," more or less aligns with Riot's view of how the community should interact with one another as a whole. We are all trying to enjoy our time here and appreciate the great content, such as this post, that the community might create.

While the Summoner's Code would likely apply to board conduct, I think the Universal Rules is a much more boiled-down way of viewing community interaction in the forums. To me, that is not a bad thing.

Trick1FAug 28, 20141 votes

Thanks for replying Emofratparty!

I was thinking of including a discussion on the Universal rules and I should have. I meant more in keeping with the decision by Riot to take a proactive approach to ensuring an overall positive experience such as the chat restrictions, etc.

So aside from moderators being tasked with the overwhelming responsibility of monitoring the boards for any infractions of the Universal Rules, would we apply a similar...behavior modification system to the forum contributions in order to promote the same kind of positive experience we are seeing in the game?

EMOFRATPARTYAug 28, 20141 votes

So aside from moderators being tasked with the overwhelming responsibility of monitoring the boards for any infractions of the Universal Rules, would we apply a similar...behavior modification system to the forum contributions in order to promote the same kind of positive experience we are seeing in the game?

I think I see what you are saying. The issue is that tracking these habits is harder in the context of the boards than it would be the game.

In League, you'll have a series of events that are triggered. Riot collects a lot of this data (you can see much of it in your Match History) and can do so easily because of the trigger system in place. IF/THEN statements are a lot harder to track in online forums because of the amount of context that is associated with text.

We have the report button, we have the voting system...but creating an automated system to determine the context is something that is still far away from being a science. Systems akin to what you are referencing, i.e. reddit bots, do work in some regard, but they are by no means perfect.

In a perfect world, we have context-sensitive bots that can determine what posts don't belong. But until then, we -- Riot and the community -- will have to rely on one another to make that a reality.

One middle-ground option that I'd like to see implemented is a player-run moderation team, similar to The Tribunal in functionality, but who knows how or if that would take form.

Silly robots.

Trick1FAug 29, 20141 votes

Hey EmoFratParty,

Sorry for the delayed response. Real life. Psh, for the birds.

It's only a matter of time before Skynet becomes operational. But in the meantime, I think a similar system the Riot team is looking at in implementing both an automated punishment system and a human-based judgment system (Tribunal 2, Judgment Day) could also be implemented in the forums. They can easily replicate the data sampling size based on the amount of traffic on the forums. I don't know how difficult it would be to create the algorithms but I think it could be done to the overall benefit of the League of Legends community.

It wouldn't be too difficult to have players reporting bad behavior on the forums similar to the way we do in the game. As a logged in user, you could flag a post for inappropriate material and the system would weigh the content to see if it violated the Universal Rules.

Thoughts?