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Six Months at Riot Games

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Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#261

Post by dragonwriter »

stickfigure wrote: post #154
lsmarigo wrote: post #40

Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter. At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is…

this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article This article rocketed to 180+ points in two hours, yet it's already on the second page and falling fast. Moderator activity? Flagging? Some algorithmic quirk? Possibly the first article had the same problem. There's enough hidden behavior on HN that I don't think you can trust individual story ranking to express anything about the HN community. Unf…

> This article rocketed to 180+ points in two hours, yet it's already on the second page and falling fast. Moderator activity? Flagging? Some algorithmic quirk?

Judging from the topic and actual discussion, I would think the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic, but not a quirk.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#262

Post by thomasz »

chronid wrote: post #229
Qub3d wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing an 'indie' tag on a company that makes over 1 billion in revenue annually is ridiculous. And even indie companies have to pay the piper when the bad culture and tough decisions that are put off result in blowback.

Youtube, Facebook and company have a ridiculous amount of false positives, for the money (and the people, they have quite a lot of human moderators) they throw at the problem. Also, they enjoy complete market dominance, so even if you want to move out of youtube... where are you going to go? With the same rate of false positives there will be enough community rage (I guarantee someone is going to find a way to have y…

The problem youtube, facebook and similar companies face is whole orders of magnitude more complicated than policing a game chat. It is, for example, highly unlikely that you will be censuring honest content when you encounter the words 'gas' and 'jews'.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#263

Post by Balero »

mozumder wrote: post #128
pjc50 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do people not go to strip clubs anymore? I've been in the industry 20 years and not had that happen anywhere I worked in the UK. > Are all interpersonal relationships now formalized into an algorithm? Eh? > Do people not get into actual fistfights at the office anymore? The guy I knew who did that at his gaming company Christmas party got put on "final warning" for a year.

> I've been in the industry 20 years and not had that happen anywhere I worked in the UK. Do you think that's because of the corporate culture you're at or due to you personally not knowing about it? What do you do after-hours at conferences in Vegas? Check out the Britney Spears show or Cirque du Soleil? > The guy I knew who did that at his gaming company Christmas party got put on "final warning" for a year. So, ho…

In the UK there is no strip club culture like there is in the US. The only people who go in them in the UK are slimy old men. It is not something even remotely acceptable, and I would think less of anyone going to one here.

"What do you do after-hours at conferences in Vegas?" Probably gamble, not everything is different.

"So, how come he didn't get fired? Was he critical to project success at all?" We don't have on-demand firing. It has to be a process, and you have to have a justifiable reason, and process.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#264

Post by fatnoah »

mikestew wrote: post #232
lsmarigo wrote: post #40

Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter. At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is…

people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is way things are Speak for yourself. As a manager, I've shut down far, far more innocuous things than described in the article. And now that I'm old and cranky, I'll call out those above me just as easily. The problem is that I don't work at Riot, and likely never will, so I can hardly be accused of "knowing it's all true" nor…

>As a manager, I've shut down far, far more innocuous things than described in the article. And now that I'm old and cranky, I'll call out those above me just as easily.

Same here. Anything approaching the level of stuff in that article would be a "you're a hair's breadth away from looking for a new job" conversation. Hell, I had a crufty QA manager that reported to me that was a sweet human being, but I had to break him of the habit of referring to a dead server as being "tits up".

Going up the chain, I got into a very heated conversation with the EVP I reported to about his advice to a female Director that she needed to be "more agreeable". She was one of the most agreeable and accommodating people I'd ever worked with. Never mind that her peers (all male, myself included) were all very outspoken and opinionated, and never received similar advice.

TBH, if anyone described a company as having a "frat party atomosphere" that'd be an instant disqualification in my mind.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#265

Post by dang »

zetimana wrote: post #174
TillE wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seriously can't think of a single idea for how to ban toxic players at scale? Start with crowd-sourcing via reports, then pass it over to customer service once a critical mass has been achieved. Make sure one person can't easily create a new account after being banned. This really isn't a new problem, tons of companies of all sizes have tackled it with varying success.

Okay something tells me you've never played an online game, like ever?

Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#266

Post by shawn »

ethbro wrote: post #166
shawn wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kay. What are the odds that some HN commenters are going to solve the same problem that has been an active priority for years of the people in the field? I can’t speak for Valve or Riot, but at S2 it was a concerning issue. There’s just no good way to do it when the people involved are actively malicious. If you think there is, get ready to have your community collapse around you as everyone complains about unfair ba…

I absolutely appreciate the scale of the problem, and the adversarial nature of peer reporting. My day job has those same characteristics. Millions of games per week * 30 minutes per game * avg lines of chat per minute = manageable w/ a proper streaming architecture Especially when you have access to a massive, perfectly-scaled, distributed edge compute system . (i.e. running minimal, performance-optimized models on…

Sorry for calling you cocky.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#267

Post by AndyNemmity »

wild_preference wrote: post #137
zimablue wrote: post #56

Looking at this skeptically, given that as she says she put a target on her own back there's not much concrete here about problems she personally faced. Companies have a culture, it might not be your culture, and it's mental to expect to be able to walk in and attack it in the first six months then everything be sweetness and joy. Joining a gaming company and complaining about female outfits is roughly equivalent to…

My older brother settled down in the suburbs and picks up work as a substitute teacher in a school with female-dominated staff. He’s a handsome guy. Every time I see him, he tells me the latest story of a teacher or fellow staffmember making a crude sexual joke or coming on to him. All of these being mostly middle-aged women. We have a chuckle. It’s interesting how men generally don’t “whistleblow” on those sorts of…

I've been at the table when middle aged women objectified men, discussing package size, etc in a work environment.

It wasn't a big deal. I wasn't offended.

I don't think that's prescriptive for anyone else. I'm older, and I tend to just believe I don't/can't understand what makes one thing right and another wrong. I have enough of my own problems to police the actions of others.

It does seem strange everyone else seems so sure of how everyone else should be. That sort of confidence I only have towards technical topics.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#268

Post by exelius »

shard972 wrote: post #255
exelius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more that you shouldn’t use that word in the first place — it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough. Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\ t” screamed 20 times an hour — how will that make him feel for the rest of his life? Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay? I hate to say it, but the days of a…

> it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough. I didn't say that, you said that! Why would you think gay people are lessor to straight men? > Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\t” screamed 20 times an hour I would ask why a little boy identifies as gay in the first place, a bit young to be making such a big life decision. > h…

> I would ask why a little boy identifies as gay in the first place, a bit young to be making such a big life decision.

It’s not about the little boy who identifies as gay in the moment; it’s about the little boy who realizes he is gay later on, and who has already internalized the message “it is wrong to be gay and people will make fun of you for it.”

And it’s not just gay people; this can apply to anyone who is considered “lesser”. The slurs are hurtful; and should be avoided out of empathy for your fellow humans rather than because the government said so.

But naturally there are a bunch of unempathetic edgelords who have to defy authority. So we are where we are.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#269

Post by ethbro »

shawn wrote: post #266
ethbro wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely appreciate the scale of the problem, and the adversarial nature of peer reporting. My day job has those same characteristics. Millions of games per week * 30 minutes per game * avg lines of chat per minute = manageable w/ a proper streaming architecture Especially when you have access to a massive, perfectly-scaled, distributed edge compute system . (i.e. running minimal, performance-optimized models on…

Sorry for calling you cocky.

Np. I didn't take it as an insult. And I know what you meant -- I've seen the cool work that's come out of teams working at game shops.

And I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling they (and community managers) are working without the full support of their management to fix the problem. E.g. bandaid the broken bone

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#270

Post by whamlastxmas »

irb wrote: post #141
pjc50 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's enough of a pro-sexism faction to flag it off the front page, this usually happens to discussions of sexism in tech.

The typical reaction of HN to articles about sexism in tech is basically proof in and of itself of sexism in tech.

I think the real reason people dislike sexism discussions is because there's not a whole lot rational discussion to be had about it. If you try to make a point about a single aspect you might disagree with, you get shouted down as sympathizing with sexists. There's no winning and there's no minds to be changed.
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