Dear Mods and Rioters who moderate the boards, a heartfelt and teary eyed message

Shenron·Jul 15, 2014·56 votes·3,387 views

Please, do no delete threads. Please move them to whatever category you think they fit into even if they don't. I had a gameplay discussion thread in the "Live Gameplay Balance" section that used Lee Sin as a point to speak about how Riot balances and a moderator thought it was more suited to "Champions and Skins" because it had Lee Sin in the title. Please read a thread's OP before deciding it doesn't belong.

The thread had 30+ upvotes and decent comments upon deletion and I thought, "Okay, I'll just be able to repost it and re-link it to everyone and it'll be okay". When I was in the middle of reposting it however, I got an update from my deleted thread containing an essay response from Riot Pwyff to it. http://puu.sh/abFxc/aac1e511c2.png http://puu.sh/abGba/8772a95646.png

I can't just ask them to repost that. It's just not the same when rewritten. Clearly Pwyff thought it was in the right section and replied on topic. Why can't the moderators read and understand the OP of a thread before deciding to move it? Why can't you guys just move it instead of deleting it? Why is it so hard to actually get a good mod team who knows what they are doing?

Please, just read the OPs and move threads. Only delete it when it breaks forum rules. No more heartbreak and stress over this. The boards are supposed to be a new beginning, let's make it a good beginning okay?

Edit: Thankyou for giving me back my thread! It really means a lot!

20 Comments

TamatJul 15, 201410 votes

Hey Shenron,

Thank you for this post, and for using the boards! I want to spend some time explaining our position, and why deleting verses moving is extremely important. Before I do that though, I want to reassure you, that we're doing as much as we can to be sensitive to you guys during this transitional time when many of you are learning how to best use this platform. The moderators found your post in Live Gameplay Balance several hours ago. They deemed it to be in the wrong board (which it was) but decided to leave it because it was well written, constructive, and already had a lot of visibility.

Anyway, there are a few reasons why we've decided to delete threads instead of move them. I've posted about this before. But I want to share a more personal philosophy.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

We believe it's vital for the success of the Boards to have a thoughtfully designed & well organized structure containing content specifically relevant to each board. We're going to be doing everything we can to teach everyone the proper culture & etiquette for each of these boards, but so much of that ultimately relies on each of you to think: "is this the right board for this discussion" before you post. If we went around moving everything that was posted incorrectly, the mods wouldn't have time to do anything else, and it would create a situation where we have lopsided participation with a majority of the traffic on one or two boards. Get onboard! :p

I'd definitely encourage you to get familiar with the Guidelines in each board, because while we're going to have a lot of leniency during these first couple of weeks, we're going to be deleting most of the content that is posted in the wrong boards. That said, when we do, I promise you two things:

We will always send you a private message with **WHAT **we removed, **WHY **we did, and **WHAT **(if any) your punishment is.
We will remain unbiased, and make sure that the content indeed violates the Universal Rules before action. Regardless of how many times it's been reported.

Thanks for reading, and please let us know if you have any suggestions for things we can do to help make this approach less painful. We're here to serve you, and we take no pleasure in deleting content that was posted incorrectly.

ShenronJul 15, 20145 votes

I appreciate the response and getting the thread back up, its just currently awkward to figure out where to post a thread like that because it seems like it belonged in Live Gameplay Balance because it was overall about the balance state of a game and a champion. Champion and Skins section just seems like it'd be more for Champion and Skins concepts, rather than actually discussing the state of a champion. It's just an odd combination to have imo.

Could we perhaps change it into a Champion and Skins concepts area and make a new subforum for Champion Guides? Similar to solomid and mobafire to generate more traffic? Just throwing out ideas!

TamatJul 15, 20144 votes

Love ideas. Thank you for that. :)

We know that we need to do a better job at making it clear what goes in Champions & Skins, and what goes in Live Gameplay Balance. That seems to be ambiguous in most minds. That's a problem, and we're looking into more ways to solve it. I don't think the answer is fragmentation (adding more boards) at least not right now when the audience is still growing.

Here's how I look at the differences between Champions & Skins and Live Gameplay Balance.

Champions & Skins: If the primary focus of the discussion is about Champions or Skins, then it goes here. This can include new concepts, feedback about them, suggestions for tweaking how they function or look, champ specific lore, etc.

Live Gameplay Balance: If the primary focus of the discussion is about League of Legends balance, or balancing elements that have a big impact on the overall state of League of Legends, then it goes here. This can include discussions about runes, masteries, ability types (long range abilities, AoE, heavy CC), experience rates, OP comps, etc.

Does that make sense? How can we better structure this so that it's more obvious, understood, and respected? We're willing to make some compromises to reduce some of the pain, but it's important for us to maintain the structure of each board, and to create the opportunity for cool cultures to emerge.

GavranJul 15, 20144 votes

Frankly, I think you just need to reconsider where champion-specific balance issues belong. There's absolutely nothing in the Live Balance section that suggests they don't belong there. There isn't anything in Champions and Skins specifically saying champion balance belongs there.

I think the majority of balance posts are about champions. And I think there's enough other Champion and Skin specific content to warrant the section without including champion balance.

ShenronJul 15, 20145 votes

IMO all balance discussions should fall under Live Gameplay Balance, even if its about a single champion simply because at its core it's discussing the champions viability rather than the champions lore or it's skins.

Earl EulrichJul 15, 20141 votes

I completely agree, most controverses about live-balance is focused on certain champions - so excluding them in that forum really would akwardly split balance-discussions into several camps.

PryotraJul 15, 20146 votes

Here's how I look at the differences between Champions & Skins and Live Gameplay Balance.

Champions & Skins: If the primary focus of the discussion is about Champions or Skins, then it goes here. This can include new concepts, feedback about them, suggestions for tweaking how they function or look, champ specific lore, etc.

Live Gameplay Balance: If the primary focus of the discussion is about League of Legends balance, or balancing elements that have a big impact on the overall state of League of Legends, then it goes here. This can include discussions about runes, masteries, ability types (long range abilities, AoE, heavy CC), experience rates, OP comps, etc.

Does that make sense? How can we better structure this so that it's more obvious, understood, and respected? We're willing to make some compromises to reduce some of the pain, but it's important for us to maintain the structure of each board, and to create the opportunity for cool cultures to emerge.

So.... Lets make a mock up example that BREAKS that Ideology, shall we?

Let's say I want to discuss how a champion is single handedly WARPING game balance. Ironically, a champion that currently does that is Lee Sin, the same one OP used.

Now, you could make the argument of HAH! IT'S ABOUT A CHAMPION SO MUST GO IN THE CHAMPIONS & SKILLS BOARD! But imo that is ignoring the point of the post. You could also make the argument of HAH! IT'S ABOUT OVERALL GAME HEALTH, SO IT MUST BE PUT IN LIVE BALANCE! But again, the focus is on one champion.

Either one is a completely valid argument. Whatever happened to "discussions can reasonably exist in more than one community?" Like how "Lee Sin warps the meta" could go into:

Champions & Skins
Live Balance
Esports (considering he is LITERALLY pick/ban in every tourny)
Maps & Modes (If the focus is more about how he abuses a certain map/mode too well)

As a guide writer, I still don't know if I should post in Champions & Skins, Live Balance, or Maps & Modes (considering that the guide would be primarily about a certain champion on a certain map as they stand today.) That is a problem.

My suggestion would be to better define Champions & Skins to concern the Lore, look, and feel of champions and their skins, as well as be a place to suggest and discuss new champions and skins (Maybe rename it Legends & Looks?).

Furthermore, you would need to create a new board for Strategy & Tips for those who want to be better at something or help others be better at some part of the game. Reason I suggest a new board for those people is that quite frankly, they are a group of people that really don't have a place to post. Live Balance is more of a discussion on the current ups & downs of the current state of the game, not really a place to find knowledge or help in becoming better. Champions & Skins is more of a place to discuss Specific champions or Skins, not necessarily how they fit into the game or how they operate with/against other champions.

Do it for LolsJul 16, 20142 votes

These whole new board thing is REALLY confusing.

-First time in them is an hour ago. I am still having LOADS of problems figuring out where I want to go to read things?

Examples?

Where do I go for Item discussion? I see Grez Lantern is removed in PBE on Howling Abyss. Where do I go to discuss how to build a Lightbringer on that same map?
Where do I go to discuss Howling Abyss Build Strategies? There are no map forums for specific maps anymore.
Where do I go to ask about how to play against a certain champion?

Honestly these boards really feel really clunky and poorly thought out. Even if there is an appropriate forum for item discussion here, if it is general to some other set of topics, it is much less likely that the item team will see it.... and that alone makes it NOT worth coming to post.

HellioningJul 15, 20144 votes

What do you think is more likely to happen to a new user who doesn't know where, exactly, a single thread is supposed to go, or when the players and mods disagree where a thread is supposed to go (because I think that their thread makes more sense in live balance than champions and skins, because that REALLY seems like a champ and skin concept board) and the mods delete their thread and tell them that it's because it's in the wrong section:

A) The player goes 'oh, wow, I completely messed that up! I'm sorry for posting that in the wrong board, and I'll go ahead and repost it in the other board!' and proceeds to do so B) The player goes 'what the hell, that was perfectly on topic! Like hell I'm retyping all of that again, fuck this board' and then goes off to GD to complain about mods.

ModUlanopoJul 15, 20143 votes

I don't understand. If a mod has the time to delete a thread and to explain the reasoning to a poster, how is that any less time consuming than moving a thread and explaining the reasoning to the poster? The former feels arbitrary and oppressive. The latter feels like a good-faith effort to educate the poster.

Also, how is it "teaching a man to fish" when the penalty for choosing the wrong forum is deletion? Obviously the question of moving vs. deletion is only relevant to posts that are not "low effort." How is the poster supposed to feel when they are told, "You wrote something that was worth reading, but you put it in the wrong area, so I had to delete it. Next time put it in the right place."

Finally, do you perceive no possible overlap between forums? Or that a post might qualify for more than one section? Do you expect posters to edit in such a way that a reviewer cannot disagree about where it belongs? Is that sort of self-editing desirous?

DaenJul 28, 20141 votes

If a mod has the time to delete a thread and to explain the reasoning to a poster, how is that any less time consuming than moving a thread and explaining the reasoning to the poster?

Technically it does take a bit more time to move and explain, but +1 for this comment.

How is the poster supposed to feel when they are told, "You wrote something that was worth reading, but you put it in the wrong area, so I had to delete it. Next time put it in the right place."

If I could +1 you again I would. This is a great point.

LeeDarkJul 15, 20141 votes

The problem with your philosophy is that he is already fishing. You're taking away his fish because it is the wrong kind of fish, and offering no real compensation except pointing to a vague ruleset describing what kind of fish is the right kind. What is vital to the success of the forums (I'm not calling it the "Boards" no matter how much you try to ram that term down our throats) is quality content. If your rules about where threads belong are vague, then significant leniency needs to be given. If a thread such as his could conceivably, in the tiniest bit, be about the game's balance, which it was, it should be left alone. If you don't want to do that, much clearer rules about subsections need to be defined.

Linna ExcelJul 15, 20145 votes

If you are too lazy/cynical/resentful to move a thread where it belongs and delete it instead, you probably aren't the best person to be a mod.

DaenJul 28, 20141 votes

+1. I don't know if I'd go with that word choice, but let's be honest; if it's too much effort to move a thread, there's some sort of problem with the system (either with the tools or the moderators).

Hyrum GraffJul 15, 20144 votes

I'm going to cast my vote here: I am strongly in favor of moving threads rather than deleting them.

A while back, I posted a thread on this topic. In it, 12tales and myself did a bunch of analysis, and the tl;dr conclusion we came to is that it would NOT be that much extra effort on the mods' side to move posts rather than delete them.

IMPORTANT: "Not that much extra effort" is RELATIVE. That is, we're assuming there is a dedicated mod team. If it's Rioters who are doing the mod duties in their spare time, the extra effort is considerable.

If that's the case, or if Riot actually feels that the extra effort is too much, my suggestion is that we create "community mods" who are community members and volunteers, cleared by riot, whose sole duty is to move threads to the correct boards. Riot Mods would stop touching threads in the wrong forums, and only delete threads that violate the forum rules.

Mr KrypJul 15, 20143 votes

Hmm maybe you are a little to upset about it. The mods actually do have a hard job moderating the thousands, ten thousands, i don't know how much, but they have to moderate everyone on the forums or boards to make it a nice place so everyone can enjoy it. Also the lee sin thread I think was an unnecessary thread. He's not broken. It takes someone with a great amount of skill to play lee sin at a "Broken" level, but you could say that about pretty much any champion. The workers of RIOT work very hard to try to keep the game as balanced as possible and when a thread like that is made just saying all the work they've done is wrong, that would tick me off. Yes I agree that the discussion should be moved, but their is no reason to make a discussion about a "broken" champion when there isn't any hard evidence of him being broken. I've seen plenty 0/8/0 lee sins. It's all about the user. It's gonna be Ahri -ight mate. Cheers

ShenronJul 15, 20143 votes

I'm pretty sure there are separate mod teams for the boards and the normal forums, this was heavily hinted at by Tamat's old threads here. It is also easier to moderate here because of the recent view for all boards at once so they can locate suspicious threads easily. What I was getting at is how they went about moderating it and the actions they took.

I'm not saying moderating the boards is easy, but currently there is very minimal traffic so it shouldn't be to difficult at the moment.

If you want to discuss the Lee Sin thread, they restored it here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/BQBsOXkp-lee-sin-will-never-be-meaningfully-nerfed-by-riot-or-reworked

LastProtagonistJul 15, 20141 votes

I agree. I did exactly pretty much the same thing (minus getting the red reply) yet the same thing happened to me.

Furthermore, when going to the Champions & Skins Board, it doesn't mention anything about ahem BALANCE discussion in the little blurb about the purpose of the board in the bottom left.

To me, there's a big difference when talking about the balance of a champion vs. champion skins and concepts.

Aquaman711Jan 9, 20151 votes

I wholeheartedly agree with everything the OP has said, and everything said by other commenters afterwords. It seems so easy to just move threads to sections where the Board mods think they belong. Why is it, though, that they have to delete them?

Or, at the very least, why don't the mods give the OPs of 'incorrectly' placed boards a few hours of warning before deleateing their posts, and actually try to explain why the post is being moved. It can't be that challenging, can it?