Backup of LeagueofMeta Post.

As mods, we have a lot of very similar discussions play out the same way over and over again every day. Why am I banned for breaking the 9-1 spam ratio rule, I never knew this was a rule, do comments outside of /r/leagueoflegends count for the ratio?

What naturally happens when you do have the same conversation with the same questions reappearing often is that you preempt them. Responses and ban messages become more templated and less personal:

>You are currently violating the /r/leagueoflegends subreddit rules, which can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/wiki/subredditrules) and Reddit-wide rules, which you can view review [here](http://www.reddit.com/rules).

>Please remember to maintain a 9:1 ratio of non-personal content submissions (content that is not related to you) to personal content submissions (content from which you benefit in some way). This basically means you must comment or submit other content at least 9 times for every post you make with your own content.

>Additionally, please keep in mind that deleting and resubmitting your posts is considered a form of vote cheating and spamming under Reddit-wide rules, which we enforce on this subreddit.

>Continued violation of these rules will result in a punishment as specified by in the guidelines: your account will be banned from posting to the subreddit. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask by replying to this message or by shooting us a modmail.

That's probably not such a bad thing because it ensures the most common misunderstandings happen that some people think to ask about, and others don't.

---

But, it's easy to move beyond that point into frustration-land. People who have the same talk over and over with different people can become curt, overly direct or defensive. Assumptions are often made on behalf of the new person assuming they're like the last 10 people you've had this same conversation with. It plays out something like this:


Generally what you saw are some of the old guard who're really fed up with being yelled at the same way over and over. The result is being defensive right off the bat and jumping into the deep end to try to pre-empt the motions of a discussion they've been through a thousand times before that's always lead to the same conclusions.

---

Here's an example, it's pretty similar for a number of different topics.


> **User:** why was my post removed?

>**mod:** it doesn't fit *our* definition of things that are [about league of legends](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/wiki/subredditrules#wiki_must_be_relevant).

>**User:** your definition is bad.

>**mod1:** It's the best we can do while being objective. There'll be complete chaos and inconsistency if there's any real room for interpretation performed by mods.

>**mod2:** We know our definition can be improved, specifically in this and this area. I personally would love to get a better definition going because we're removing too much stuff that's obviously suited to the subreddit.

>---

mod1 and mod2 may then sometimes rehash the same old arguments they've rehashed internally a million times before, sometimes the user'll even chime in. Since there's no new suggestion for a better definition than the last times it was rehashed, nothing new can come of it. Nothing changes.

>More often the user is just concerned about their submission:

>**user:** This doesn't help my post that was removed although it should be in the subreddit! Why am I punished for your bad definition?

>**mod:** give us a better alternative.

>**user1:** that's not my job, fix your own problems

Nothing changes.

>---

A different common response is:

>**user2:** what about [*this suggestion*]

>the mods then have one of the following objections to a suggestion that's really close to one that was considered in detail months ago presented by someone who's just thought it up themselves too:

>* it leaves too much room for interpretation which is problematic as a) it leads to inconsistent moderation b) every user feels *their* post is being treated especially harshly.
>* it doesn't exclude non-lol things more suited to a general esports subreddit.
>* it isn't an inclusive definition so it doesn't give guidelines on all different kinds of posts.
>* it includes/excludes *this* which clearly is/isn't league related, so i prefer our current definition for these practical reasons: ..... .
>* it excludes everything League esports related, and that'll always be a part of /r/leagueoflegends
>* it excludes all fandom creations, which will always be allowed on /r/leagueoflegends because this subreddit also encompasses league culture.
>* it basically makes /r/leagueoflegends /r/gaming but for League. Short-duration and low-effort (there's a difference between the two) content will drown out practically everything else.

>**user2:** I've now jumped through all your hoops and you just blow me off like that?

>**mod:** you see this is difficult, there's a lot more that goes into this sort of thing than you probably considered.

>**user:** you're incompetent as mods because of these perfectly valid reasons, here is a list of inconsistencies, deficiencies and other issues with moderation in /r/leagueoflegends.

>**mod1:** We know, we're doing our best, we'll adapt anything we genuinely think is an improvement, but there are always going to be people who disagree with that judgement. We know we can't make everyone happy.

>**mod2:** also, if you don't like what we do, go to /r/riotfreelol or /r/summoner something. We can't cater to everyone, it's much better you find the subreddits that suit you better.

>**user:** I don't like it, but you've sorta covered yourselves there. I'm still angry though, because it's still bullshit.

>**mod1:** Sorry there isn't a more satisfying end to this. I hope you understand that we've listened to your suggestion and considered it carefully even though it hasn't been adapted. We didn't give you some nonsense "we'll consider that" while throwing the suggestion in the trash bin.

>**mod2:** if at any point you **can** think of a better or alternate League relevancy statement, I'd LOVE to hear it and champion it because I'm personally more discontent with the current state of affairs than other mods.


here mod/user 1 and 2 are different options for that step of the discussion. It rarely plays out exactly like this, or with all these steps, but in general most of the conversations on common issues follow very, very similar patterns where the same arguments are rehashed over and over.

That's not strictly true. It's over and over for the mods, but it's always brand new for the user(s) participating in the conversation. These new users don't deserve being treated defensively because of how things have played out with others previously. It's not fair to everyone that mods often skip to the more or less inevitable conclusions from how this conversation *always* plays out. It's really hard to come up with something new because we've had hundreds of similar suggestions, and often exchanged thousands of words on the topic before.


---

Now, when we talk to a lot of folks, things often boil down to differences in opinion regarding how things should be moderated, and what types of moderation work well on reddit and don't work well on reddit. Few people run a lot of stats, so often mods have to rely on their personal experiences, and how things have played out in other large subreddits. There aren't many gaming forums that see millions of uniques a month, hundreds of thousands of comments, or hundreds of millions of pageviews.

Personal experiences basically boil down to doing choosing something and sticking with it because it's working pretty well, and that other thing sounds like it'll flop completely. Or because a certain type of policy works poorly in other subreddits, or has worked poorly in the past.

There are a lot of people who present very strong and opinionated criticisms of both reddit and /r/leagueoflegends specifically without having any experience or sufficient insight into how things actually happen on reddit to present an opinion that takes into account unchanging realities of this website. But they often have followers who look up to them, or arguments they make *sound good* so they'll get upvoted even though they're untenable.

It's often on us that we don't speak up often enough to clear up things that just don't work. I do think /r/leagueofmeta is helping bridge that gap though. Those who are interested can find a lot of things, we can link to discussions that have taken place to those users we talk to rather than rehashing the same conversations over and over.

---

Ironically enough, I'm sure you can see that I've done pretty much exactly what I said I deem unfair to you:  I've skipped the whole rehashing of the same discussion just like I said the others shouldn't do.

The result is a wall of text that addresses a lot of concerns that haven't been brought up, and might not be brought up. It's a stock response to link back to whenever someone rightly complains they've been treated curtly or dismissively. But mostly, it's there to show that a lot of effort goes on behind the scenes thinking and considering potential changes to /r/leagueoflegends and just because your suggestion isn't implemented doesn't mean it hasn't been heard and seriously considered.

---
---

**TL;DR: mods have often had the same conversation dozens of times before. We're aware of deficiencies in the ruleset, we know things aren't perfect and are very aware of the biggest problem areas. Specific suggestions and wordings will get you the best and most direct feedback. Incidentally, they're also the most useful for the mod team.**