A better mod message for "Wrong board" deletions

We can definitely update the message, with a copy pasta of the Guidelines. Adding in a "Move my post" option isn't likely to happen though. We talked about this a little bit on the team, and decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process, but also because moving content can have funky side effects on the culture of a board when it's moved. Also, this could cause a detriment to the sorting algorithms, because math. I won't even try to explain that one.

I actually want to redo some of the moderator notifications and Guidelines this week. Keep this feedback coming. ;)

move posts with a log system. if a player consistently posts a lot in the wrong sections with the expectation that a moderator will just move it for them, then delete their posts instead. An incredibly lengthy and detailed post getting deleted because one mod decides it might possibly be in the wrong place is just plain stupid.

But then again, the iron fisted politically correct squad that seems to be the moderation team is one of the key reasons the boards will never be as active as the original forums.

decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process

Is this really ideal? A solution like Hyrum suggested would still force the OP to pick a new location, it would just streamline the process.

There shouldn't need to be a learning process. Most of the people posting have used a forum before, and a lot of this comes down to clear and defined rules. People abusing features should absolutely be punished, but users that are new or are just trying to fit in should not have the same penalties.

Current moderation feels...clinical. It lacks a lot of the personality I have come to enjoy from Riot, particularly for such an important piece of functionality. Any way it can have a bit more flexibility would likely be a positive thing, as long as it's feasible to maintain on your end.

Let's take two forum users as an example:

One is someone that is new to forums and really wants to get involved with the Boards community. He posts something in Boards Feedback thinking it belongs there and is really excited to meet everyone and interact, but it happens to be something that should be in Miscellaneous according to the moderators. In the current system, he will basically come back to find out his hard work has been completely deleted from the Boards; no history, no specific reasoning. He will have a canned message in his Notifications that says his content was removed for being in the wrong place, and he would likely be frustrated that nothing was explained as far as specifically what he did wrong and how to resolve it.

The second is a forum veteran and a bit of a jerk. He posts something that is clearly in the wrong place and doesn't really care what happens. In the current system, he will basically come back to find out his trolly post has been completely deleted from the Boards; no history, no specific reasoning. He will have a canned message in his Notifications that says his content was removed for being in the wrong place, and he would likely be amused at this fact.

The net effect on the first poster is heavily negative; he really wanted to fit in and the first thing he ever did was permanently removed. The net effect on the second poster is completely neutral; he didn't really care what happened either way.

Is there any particular reason we want a system that is very negative for accidental rulebreakers and neutral for intentional offenses? Overly strict rules actually hurt accidental or minor rulebreakers far more than intentional abusers. If the rules are reasonably lenient but crack down on repeat offenders/clear abuse, you end up with a system that allows for a bit of a buffer (like the current report system in-game). A system where anyone that ever makes a mistake is punished in exactly the same way can create huge problems; it would be like players getting immediately chat restricted if any single report were ever valid.

We can definitely update the message, with a copy pasta of the Guidelines. Adding in a "Move my post" option isn't likely to happen though. We talked about this a little bit on the team, and decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process, but also because moving content can have funky side effects on the culture of a board when it's moved. Also, this could cause a detriment to the sorting algorithms, because math. I won't even try to explain that one.

I actually want to redo some of the moderator notifications and Guidelines this week. Keep this feedback coming. ;)

Okay. Sometimes it's hard to know where to put a boards bug. Like in the "report a bug" or "boards feedback" and you just put it somewhere and it gets deleted. If we're going to repost it, can you at least say WHERE it should go?? or do we have to report a boards bug in every section like Boards Feedback, Miscellaneous, Report a Bug, General Discussion, and Help & Support until we find the right one for the type of bug we're reporting?? Cause that will take forever. "Ain't nobody got time fo that". I remember reporting one about 0s not happening in the first line of some of my comments and had a couple screenshots of it in the post. I put it in Boards Feedback or Report a Bug, whichever (don't remember now), and it got deleted. Like, thanks Riot for telling me where it should go after deleting it. Much help. Sorry for the mean sarcasm, but still, some things are just confusing and take forever to repost.

I'm sure some people type a really long post and it gets deleted. Who wants to repost something like that?? I'm sure they're sorry for posting in the wrong spot, but it's a little disappointing to people that their post will forever be unnoticed if it happens to be a really long one where they can only remember little parts of what they put, and they just have to deal with it being that way and don't want to bother with redoing the entire thing from scratch all over again.

Would be nice if I got a notification of my post being deleted in 24 hours and told where it should go. That way I can copy and paste it in the right section, and then delete the original myself. That way I don't have to redo every single little detail in that post and bother to remember exactly what I put.

We can definitely update the message, with a copy pasta of the Guidelines.

Along with a tool to move the thread, this would be helpful. Puts everything you need to do the right thing in one place.

By itself, this would only be more frustrating to me. I read the guidelines and made a good faith effort to put the post in the right spot.

decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process

With the mods making decisions that I don't understand even after thinking it over, this just adds frustration to using the forums.

I've been on a ton of message boards, even a few moderation teams myself, and nobody has chosen this moderation strategy. Presumably it's a scale thing for you. Seems like there should be a better way though, this seems like adding extra work for both players and mods.

moving content can have funky side effects on the culture of a board when it's moved. Also, this could cause a detriment to the sorting algorithms, because math. I won't even try to explain that one.

This sounds easy to repair, technically speaking. You can have the post "moving" system just delete and repost behind the scenes.

What about cases where the post seems to fit into the guidelines? Due to the limits of size availability they can hardly be exhaustive. Times will emerge where either from a misunderstanding of the guidelines, for simply a different interpretation of language, people will post where they think it should genuinely go. Upon deletion without the ability to get good feedback from moderation, just hearing "Read the guidelines again" can to little in a moment like this. It will turn the re-post into a gamble for the second or thirds best posting area from the perspective of the poster.

This can lead to a community feeling I have already seen from some people on these boards. One of fear to post. People as a generality do not want to do something for no reason. If there is a perception that posts can get deleted for reasons they either can not understand or do not agree with people can feel demotivated to contribute to the community.

It is a matter of perception really. Even though Riot is not out to make people scared the perception of a scary thing is what makes it scary. I know, and I think most people know, Riot has great intentions to help make the Boards the best they can be, but cold, bland messages without the option for help if we need it do little to foster that feeling.

... Adding in a "Move my post" option isn't likely to happen though. We talked about this a little bit on the team, and decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process,

My second post ever was deleted because it was on the wrong board. This didn't feel like learning, it felt like a smackdown—"try again, little boy." I was new here, and it was unwelcoming. I don't disagree that learning where things go is something that should happen, but I think the implementation chosen was not conducive to "safe" learning, if that makes sense.

but also because moving content can have funky side effects on the culture of a board when it's moved. Also, this could cause a detriment to the sorting algorithms, because math. I won't even try to explain that one.

Re: algorithms it would seem like those can be changed, but anyway. Could you walk me/us through a couple of examples of how moving a thread could have funky side effects on a board's culture? I really would like to understand the reasoning here, but again, I'm new and haven't seen enough to understand.

Maybe a compromise could be reached. Users with hundreds of posts probably have got the hang of which thread goes in which board. Users with four, like myself, are still learning. Perhaps you could be more lenient to them?

We can definitely update the message, with a copy pasta of the Guidelines. Adding in a "Move my post" option isn't likely to happen though. We talked about this a little bit on the team, and decided we should force you guys to re-post the content manually as part of a learning process, but also because moving content can have funky side effects on the culture of a board when it's moved. Also, this could cause a detriment to the sorting algorithms, because math. I won't even try to explain that one.

I actually want to redo some of the moderator notifications and Guidelines this week. Keep this feedback coming. ;)

your search functions are some of the worst ever. you can literally type a topic thread title and not have it show up at all, even though it should be first...

edit: it caters heavily to 'views' and 'action' when discussions are 2 people not always adding 1,000's of replies to the thread, and gets swallowed off firstpage(only effective way to find a topic, instabumps make 2 minute replies page 2'd)

old GD was cool because 20 simultaneous conversations, here people are worse about one problem in GD, where you just talk about whatever is important to you anywhere you can.

Part of the reason this is worse is you delete so many threads/posts that you generalize atm, that people amas in 'popular' threads,* that mods don't close for some reason*, and start 20 conversations in 1 thread. It's easy to see in this context it's a bad idea, but you started it with the 'mega' thread, almost looked at immediately by the public as a 'we can delete anything' disclaimer...

great to know, you are active and have the power to delete, can you get to work on some real problems already? I have a thread where a bug disallows me to read anything half the time I try to connect to the forum

I have one clarification: I wasn't proposing a system that send a message back to the mods, always. That's only when you claim your post was in the right spot to begin with.

When you choose one of the other boards, you move your own post.

I honestly don't see much of a difference between:

• Select a board to move to, click submit.
• Copy your post, paste it into a new post on the correct board, hit submit

The latter is more annoying, but I think they both force you to put just as much thought into where your post goes.

If you're concerned about people moving it haphazardly because "I can always move it again," make a policy where if a thread is moved, and then subsequently ends up on the wrong forum, it's just deleted with no chance to move.

I also think preserving the content of the comments on the post is as important as preserving the content of the OP. That's one reason why I strongly favor moving posts over deletion.

Really good idea! However, I don't think the mods are going to take time to actually review a case if you send it to them. I mean, you send in a support ticket for something like logs, and the first thing they say is something along the lines of "we will not change anything". I would just be satisfied if they told you what they removed and where a better place to put it would be.

I dunno. If there were a character limit on how long the message you send mods could be, I don't think it would be that much more work for mods to read it before saying what board your thread belongs on. I'm not saying they need to give you back a long analysis of why your thread belongs there, in the 2nd message. Just a short message saying where it belongs, which is what you're asking for anyway.

Mods should move the post themselves. After all, if they believe a post is in the wrong section, that means they already know which section it should be in. Every other reasonable forum on the internet has mods that will move posts for you.

I think the point is to get OP to think about what section it belong in so he/she doesn't make the same mistake again.

Post deletion [...] leads to a reason to just always post on GD.

That's an interesting point that I hadn't thought of before.

There's an argument the other way too, though - that if mods move things for you, people won't really think about where to post, because "mods will just move it to the right board."