Forum Suggestions to Improve Riot-Player Communications
TL;DR: To help your PR and communication with your playerbase, add a "Read by a Red" feature so we know our feedback is being noticed, and a "Riot Approved" sticker for official posts/announcements, to encourage Reds to post unofficially without worrying about repercussions.
In the past month or two, you've obviously (and successfully) been attempting to increase communication with your playerbase.
One difficulty I've seen several Riot employees mention on the subject is that it can be difficult to make everyone feel like they're being heard, because with the millions of LoL players, Riot can't possibly respond to each one. As a player and forum lurker, I also feel this is an issue - when I write something in the hopes that a red will see and consider my post, unless the red responds to me directly in a post (I've never had this happen), I have no way of knowing if my post has even been seen. As someone who's passionate about the game and loves to help, this can be frustrating.
To help mitigate this, I propose a new forum feature: "Read by a Red." It would be pretty much what you'd expect: there would be a button next to the upvote/downvote/quote buttons, visible only to Reds, which they could click to indicate that they've read the post. This could be visible in a couple different ways:
- Only to the poster
- As a seperate number, like the upvote counter, of the number of Reds who have seen the post.
- Optional addition to #2: mouse over the number to see which Reds have seen the post.
This is an easy way for players like me to know we're being heard, without requiring obscene amounts of manpower from Riot.
A second issue that I've seen reds post about is the difficulty of writing forum posts. When a Red posts in the forums, it's often taken as something official. At the same time, there will always be a section of the community who is upset about something and liable to respond negatively to said Red post. As a result, Rioters who are on the forums feel that they need to
- Be careful about what they say, and
- Be careful about how they say it. Worrying about that kind of stuff makes posting on the forums a stressful and generally unpleasant thing to do. I'd guess this is a good part of why, before the recent surge in community outreach, Reds on the forums were rather scarce.
To fix this, I suggest giving riot employees an option to tag their posts as "Riot Official," and then making it very clear that anything that isn't Riot Official is still up in the air and/or the opinion of that particular Rioter only. Maybe you'd even want to go so far as to have a banner reading "Not Official" for all other Red posts.
Hopefully, this would relieve the pressure Rioters feel on the forums, and encourage them to stop by more often.
I'd love a red response, even if it's unofficial, and only to say that this post has been Read by a Red.
P.S. I'd also love to know what gets your attention - is it popular threads? Those with enough upvotes? Threads that happen to be on page 1 when you stop by? People adding "red bait" to their posts? In case it's the last,
@Reds @Mods @Lyte
