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News versus threads: long-term visibility

CupcakeTrap·10/10/2013, 11:22:21 PM·1 votes·299 views

My primary concern with a Reddit-style format is that Reddit is built for "news" rather than long-term threads. Even the most popular, most-upvoted Reddit thread automatically dies after a few days.

I've overseen at least two long-term threads which (I think) sustained useful long-term discussions and would have never made it on Reddit. To the extent that this site functions like Reddit — and I have read that there are significant differences — these threads would also never happen here.

Synergy — I created this thread to discuss the "support starvation" / "4 goldstreams for 5 Champions" situation and to propose one possible fix, a new mechanic that would give bonus splash gold to nearby Champions. This thread went on for months, with over 150K views, 8K votes, and 1K posts. I think it really helped move forward the entire Support discussion and I like to think it contributed to some of the Season 3 changes.

Factions Sign-Up Thread — I created this thread for Factions sign-up. Factions (www.leaguefactions.net) is a community-powered game mode in which Summoners declare for a faction, such as Piltover or Demacia, and then fight matches using faction-specific rosters that culminate in shoutcasted tournaments and influence the outcome of a storyline (like a war between factions or a Void invasion). Counting the various storylines together, well over 5K players have signed up for Factions.

Sign-up for Factions is handled through Google Docs, but I have new sign-ups post to the sign-up thread as well for two reasons. First, it verifies that they indeed own the account they're signing up. Second, it bumps the thread. I feel it's fair to give the thread a couple minutes of front-page time for every person who joins. The data indicates that "seeing the thread bumped up" is a major draw for new players. I don't know what would happen with the new Community system. Perhaps there could be a Factions membership that people could add to their profiles, like a Facebook Group, and it could spread virally from there?

Anyway, this is one of my major concerns.

2 Comments

Zielmann10/10/2013, 11:28:54 PM1 votes

You're assuming that this place works exactly like Reddit. Guess what: it doesn't :P

It's not a 'reddit clone', and isn't even based on any one core platform. Riot is building this whole thing themselves.

So I think you have a valid point and concern. And bringing it up here is definitely the right thing to do. It'll be seen and they'll definitely consider your feedback on this. But don't lose all hope for it just because reddit does things one way. Riot likely has implemented things a bit differently in this regard. And if something doesn't seem to be working quite right, they can change it.

Leo the yordle10/11/2013, 2:55:18 AM1 votes

As a member of the RP forum, I along with many others shared this concern. If you look at the RP forum, you'll notice many threads into the hundreds in terms of replies. Several in the thousands. In fact, Ask Miss Fortune is at 7.3 THOUSAND replies. I'm not even sure if that's the largest thread.

So yeah, if one group knows a thing or two about why making the platform friendly for long-term threads is a damn fine idea, it's us.

Riot knows that the platform in it's current state would be nothing but a detriment to the community we've had going. So, they've been reaching out to us recently looking for feedback on how they can make the platform RP friendly. We've pitched a few ideas, including chronological sorting (which is absolutely necessary), collapsing the sidebar on the right to allow more room for the text, and the option to un-nest replies, which benefits chronological sorting.

These are all on the table, and the Community Beta team discusses these things pretty much daily. I would be very surprised if they weren't implemented at least some point in the future.