[Suggestion] Polling for sub-community ethics.

Verandure·Nov 14, 2013·1 votes·212 views

Closer to the time of live launch, or at a point where platform traffic is more dense, I would suggest the creation of a series of stickies for each sub-community wherein summoners may "vote" on certain aspects of what they want in that specific community.

Among things that should be decided on a by-community basis are:

What votes mean in that community
Brevity of posts
What makes a post merited within the community

After a term of votes, the description of the communities should be amended to include the results such that there is clearly defined expectations for each sub-community on the platform.

4 Comments

DaenNov 14, 20131 votes

In theory there should be a natural evolution in each sub-community. If the systems are placed and maintained correctly, the sub-communities should develop their own identities through normal use!

The reason polling is tricky is that it's possible for people not a part of that particular community to vote, and if the community evolves it's very hard to change what the poll set at the beginning. Besides, it could potentially create an aura of exclusivity and elitism in the communities which might not necessarily be a good thing.

VerandureNov 14, 20131 votes

Communities, at this point, would be virtually incapable of evolution as it is merely a transition of mediums. By having set expectations at the beginning, you can set a code of ethics for posters to follow when creating discussions as well as replies and voting.

Of course it wouldn't have to necessarily be the final say, and creating a precedent of expected behaviors being clearly stated helps moderators clearly define inappropriate behavior.

As far as I know, there is no anonymous polling system for these forums, so each vote is given explicitly by a person to be weighed by their contributions to the sub-community itself. As the platform is still small (and would likely still be small up until the point of launch) treating votes on an independent basis is still possible.

DaenNov 14, 20131 votes

I could be alone in this thought, but it seems to me that the code of ethics should be relatively stable across the entire platform. If threads are in the wrong place, don't add anything to their particular sub-community, or break the code of conduct it would make sense to me that these are things that are basically nonnegotiable breaches of the rules of a sub-community.

What situations/usage cases would you consider this polling system most useful for? As in what sorts of issues are present (or might be later) that having a poll in each community would theoretically solve?

VerandureNov 14, 20131 votes

The three major ones are already listed. Since all of the sub-communities will get more traffic (as there is no GD) they need to assert what they do in their communities. This includes things that may need to be systemically altered in order to maintain order*, such as:

Communities that choose to use upvotes as a means of agreeing with a person or as a means of critical analysis of fan creations

Communities meant for serious discussion being drowned out by non-critical thought (and/or spammers -- which applies to every single sub-community).

Communities meant for specific topics having off-topic material posted.

The latter is already "enforced" by the naming convention and current description of the sub-community as given by Riot, the other two are community based and things that should be developed by the members who use the platform in a structured manner.

*Things such as upvotes as an agreeing mechanism for fan-creations or a "Funniness factor" for memes-and-games gives the sub-community inherently more visibility than sub-communities that choose to use upvotes for other meanings.