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New Boards substantially limiting Discussion by Reds on Key issues

Crownsy·10/21/2014, 2:36:41 PM·100 votes·10,054 views

I know I'm not the first to bring this up, but I'd love it if a Red could stop by and explain why the transition to the new boards has drastically limited Red's ability/desire to comment on gameplay/ champs.

For instance, currently out of the first 50 red posts on the Red tracker, a whopping 3 are related to game play, and of those 3, 2 are simple "thanks, we'll look into it" bug reports. The others are Red's patting themselves on the back for the new Xerath/Azir short stories (fine, i like them too, but do we really need 20 red posts saying "you're right, they are awesome!" in that thread while topics like EC ping, champ diversity, and other questions go ignored though?), riot themed pumpkins, and promises to play a round with a person who is about to hit 1000 wins (again, no problem with that, that's a cool gesture, just question where the effort is in other areas.)

It just seems to me that the amount of riot interactions on substantive issues has hit a brick wall since we swapped to this kinja inspired mess. on the old boards, we seemed to have active red's in both the game play and champ threads who were very helpful to understand where riot's head was at on certain issues. Now it seems like they stick to fluff posts and stay out of gameplay discussions.

Is it a question of the Red's learning the new boards too? Removing red's dedicated to one forum? just sample bias early because everyone is busy wrapping up worlds?

88 Comments

Pryotra10/21/2014, 5:48:41 PM63 votes

This is happening for a few reasons:

Worlds, but you knew this.
Preseason is coming. Again, this is obvious.
The boards failed their intended purpose.

Rito White Knights: But Pryo! How can you say that? We have moderation! We have new forums!

Simply put, the Boards were designed around a few points. While they have minor (and debatable) success in scarce few scenarios, the real purpose for all these changes was not realized. New =/= better, and should be judged solely on whether or not it was actually successful.

Moderation - Just starting here because I mentioned it above, a part of the boards purpose was to improve upon both the tools, methods, and results of the moderation team, while also increasing our own ability to self moderate. While they did indeed give us a report button, they still have not addressed the issue of down-votes being far to influential early on, and completely ineffective later on. And that is only 1 half of the equation

The other side is the moderation team themselves. They have been given new tools, and more presence. However, they are ineffective due to a) Still not giving very good feedback on why they moderated, b) still completely invisible, with no community faith (a problem they are responsible for both making and remedying), and c)very little oversight or actual influence. I think it is telling here that while they definitely have the potential to be either great heroes or top tier villians, they end up as the comedic relief of the forums.

Ease of finding the key topics - One of the big reasons the Boards were created was to give view of the hot topics to Rito, so that they could easily find and respond to them. Thing is, we are getting even less communication than before. Even before worlds and preseason, Communication was pretty lite. This means 1 of two things:
They can't find the hot topics. - Pretty obvious fail right here. If the reason they aren't posting is that they truly cannot find said issues, then they both got rid of a platform that filled this purpose better while simultaneously forcing everyone on to a platform that was less efficient. Oops.
They don't want to post - Well, this is arguably worse. If they can find the hot issues, then they are purposefully remaining silent. The main issue and reason they used pre-boards to defend from the critique of ignoring player feedback was that it was hard to find said feedback. That being removed means that more response should come. So where is it?
Alienated Communities - This is a big one. A promise of the boards was a new, better home for all communities. That said GD was given a tombstone and Communities like Lore Fans, RPers, Dominion players, TT Players, etc. were essentially told to hold their breath while Riot decided whether or not they deserved to have a home. Pretty messed up, considering they evicted these fans from their old home.
Discussion is all but dead. - The more verbose will easily tell you that you that this board is really confining. But even the not nearly as verbose have probably at least run into the end of the reply string once. If you limit how we respond to one another, the conversation is essentially killed at some arbitrary point. Rioters heralded the boards as a better place to hold discussion, but GD never killed off conversation arbitrarily outside of the thread being locked, and even then people would occasionally just make a new thread to continue it. Right or wrong, that board still catered to discussion far better than this board did.
Circlejerk OP - Rioters claimed this board would solve the problems of GD. When the community brought up the issue of the circlejerks, Rioters laughed at the notion that it was an issue, and mentioned it would be even less of a problem. They then turned around and buffed the circlejerks. The only way to fight circle jerks now is to out smurf them. WTF.

In the End, the boards are worse. I would continue with areas that Riot did succeed, but character limits. Oh wel

DollaMenunaire10/21/2014, 6:41:27 PM14 votes

Reds: "we've all transitioned to the new boards, now it's your turn."

Two weeks later

Reds: ""

bunies10/21/2014, 5:21:20 PM7 votes

you are forgeting Riot's motto, do as little as possible while claiming you do alot

Dr Clueless PhD10/21/2014, 3:51:15 PM6 votes

Worlds is important, certainly, but you're also forgetting all the changes for the new Season they're working on. Most of the gameplay guys are probably putting significant hours into the pre-season changes.

Daen10/21/2014, 3:43:37 PM6 votes

just sample bias early because everyone is busy wrapping up worlds?

This is probably the most significant factor. I still think it's weird that Riot decided to cut the old forums like two weeks before World Championships then let the community get frustrated at the lack of communication, but it makes sense that Worlds is/was sucking up their time.

10110011100010/21/2014, 9:42:05 PM4 votes

These different departments should at least have someone designated to communicating with the player-base. Is it really hard to say "Hey, you over there, talk to the players while we work on this."

dialMARK4acti0n10/21/2014, 6:53:15 PM4 votes

During the Beta they were SUPER active. Like... CRAZY active. But, it's surely because of worlds and preseason coming. We've been having some Red posts all the while. Surely, not much, but that Azir thread e.g. was awesome x)

1st HanarSpectre10/21/2014, 8:25:43 PM4 votes

The boards are garbage for mods also, although they'll never admit to it.

Flintfall10/21/2014, 9:36:33 PM4 votes

Here's my thoughts:

End of worlds, end of season. Everything is ramping down for preseason, why have in-depth conversations about Cassiopiea while the biggest changes of the year are right around the corner? Most discussions are probably on hold while they get everything ready.
Before the merging of the forums, reds were extremely active on Boards, I'd say a few might have gotten scared off, but I doubt that's the main issue.
Conversations with the community usually mean taking time off work/in their free time. So again, it's near preseason, they're not gonna be very talkative.

Serge THE GREAT10/21/2014, 8:52:00 PM3 votes

Riot was just as bad on the old boards.

Also, fun fact if my memory is correct: Riot said that they wanted the boards changed to the Reddit style because Reddit facilitates better communication because of the posting format (and that was the reason that they said they didn't like posting on GD). Well, here we are, and I don't see an improvement.