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My first instinct is that this is creepy overreach, and that I'm glad I don't work for Riot. On the other hand, they have the right to big brother their staff -

• minimaxir 10y ago
  League of Legends is a 5v5 team game, not a private 1v1 affair. Anything said in in a LoL game is as sufficiently public as a Twitter account.
  • doktrin 10y ago
    > League of Legends is a 5v5 team game, not a private 1v1 affair Does this imply that chat in a 1v1 game is private? That doesn't really follow, since the only difference is the # of immediate spectators > Anything said in in a LoL game is as sufficiently public as a Twitter account. I suppose I see where you're coming from, but this feels like a stretch. For starters, the vast (utterly overwhelming) majority of LoL players do not have a real name associated with their gaming handle. They're theoretically similar, but in practice are far from equivalent.
    • huac 10y ago
      Chat disappears after the game, unless someone screenshots (so it's 10x less private than a Snapchat DM or a 1v1 game). But this is orders of magnitude less public than Twitter.
      • doktrin 10y ago
        > But this is orders of magnitude less public than Twitter Couldn't agree more, honestly. However, I had to acknowledge that the parent had a point in that they were theoretically comparable.
      • CocaKoala 10y ago
        Lots of people stream games, and lots of people watch those streams. Anything you say in public chat (or in team chat when your teammate is streaming) can be viewed by anybody who watches the stream or watches a recording of the stream. The potential audience is far greater than just "the ten players in the game at the moment".
        • palunon 10y ago
          This happens even in 1v1 games... See http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft/starcraft-2-progamer-stephano-suspended-joke-about-child-abuse http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft/starcraft-2-progamer-steph...
• morley 10y ago
  If you get hired for many companies, they'll do a background check. Would you consider that overreach? And how is this any different? From my perspective, they're hiring someone to have access to their codebase; release their code to millions of users; and spend most of the day next to other people. Hiring is already a blunt tool for finding out if someone can do the work, much less interact well with others. As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk.
  • doktrin 10y ago
    > If you get hired for many companies, they'll do a background check. Would you consider that overreach? And how is this any different? > As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk. Does it seem reasonable for Google to analyze the personal email accounts of their employees? If not, how is that any different from what's being discussed here?
    • scott_s 10y ago
      Email accounts have an expectation of privacy, since they are person-to-person communication. In-game chat on public servers does not have an expectation of privacy, since it's public to all connected.
      • doktrin 10y ago
        By this reasoning, isn't email also "public" to all recipients? Does Google Hangouts not have an expectation of privacy, since it's fundamentally no different from chat on a game server?
        • scott_s 10y ago
          You have control over who you email or invite to a Hangout. You do not have control over who you connect with in an online game. You're trying to reason this through from a technology perspective, which is not how others are thinking about it. What matters more is the perception, not the software that makes it happen. We think of Gchat, email and hangouts as private communication. But playing an online game is more like being in a public space, so we have less expectation of privacy. Online games already have mechanisms for reporting toxic players, so you know going in: someone else may look at what I said.
• dylz 10y ago
  Being passive aggressive is not an issue here; employees calling their customers worthless cancerous trash while on an official company-name-tagged account is an issue and would have you removed from any company regardless. Almost all of my friends there have separate personal and work ("Riot<username>") accounts, the latter at the very least requires you to set a good example as a company representative
  • doktrin 10y ago
    I didn't get the impression that only company accounts were being audited, since the article ends with mentioning how new hires are forced to share their personal handle.
    • dylz 10y ago
      New hires share their personal handle because that is the only handle they have; i.e., they have not played games on their company-provided accounts yet. You don't need to share your primary account, you can theoretically apply for the job with a secondary, or none. This isn't exactly strict separation of personal life, you are basically working at a specific venue and playing at that same venue just without your uniform; people know and you won't last long in similar situations elsewhere either (unless you're maliken/s2 games)
      • doktrin 10y ago
        > New hires share their personal handle because that is the only handle they have; i.e., they have not played games on their company-provided accounts yet. So, are you saying that once they acquire a company provided account their personal ones are no longer audited? That doesn't seem to be the case at all.
        • darklajid 10y ago
          No, I think they are saying that you are asked to share your handle and new guys tend to hand over their 'real' one. While you might just as well create a 'I apply at Riot' one earlier. Or (no idea about that) claim that you don't have one perhaps?
• tehrei 10y ago
  they have the right to big brother their staff No they don't. Their behaviour may be legal, but that doesn't make it right. You're not just a piece of meat, you're a human person. Our rights include a right to privacy and that means a right to privacy at work. Being stripped of your human rights is exactly what slavery is.
• mathattack 10y ago
  This is worse than overreach. It's actively subverting your employer. If you work for a bank touting stock X, you can't in troll Yahoo boards crapping on it. If you work at a school teaching kids math, you can't troll on-line forums giving wrong answers to math problems. (At least morally)
  • enraged_camel 10y ago
    You can do both of those things anonymously. The problem is that, in Riot's case, employees are required to use their Riot username when they play, and IIRC the game clearly identifies them as Riot employees. Furthermore, the problem employees in question tried to influence their teammates by pulling rank on them or intimidating them using their employee status. That, I suspect, is the main reason they got in trouble.
    • duskwuff 10y ago
      Having players who are employees always explicitly identified by the game seems like a bad idea from the get-go. It exposes them to unusual user behavior, both from users that will not misbehave when they see an employee is present, and from users who will deliberately antagonize the employee. It also places employees in a situation where they may be tempted to pull rank on their customers; if they aren't identified as employees, they have no way of credibly doing so. Most other online games I've played have had a policy of not identifying players as employees unless they're actively acting as a moderator (e.g, gamemasters in MMORPGs, who aren't really playing the game anyways). I'm very surprised that Riot isn't following their lead here.
      • enraged_camel 10y ago
        My guess is that it serves to quench the common player criticism of "omg, this game is so unbalanced, it's like the developers don't even play their own game!" And, from what I remember, the LoL community generally really enjoys playing with Riot employees. Back when I used to play (several years ago now) I don't remember running into a single toxic Riot employee. Then again they didn't have very many employees then.
• nacho2sweet 10y ago
  At first I thought the same with the creepy overreach. But I thought for two seconds, and was like if I went around acting on my work campus like I do at 3am drunk with friends I should be fired too. You are engaging in your place of work and should be a positive influence. You don't shit in the middle of the office.
  • hashmymustache 10y ago
    Exactly, as representatives you're held to a higher standard in setting the tone for the community, regardless of the time of day. That said, this should have been made clear to every employee up front if it's that important to them.
  • doktrin 10y ago
    In principle, I agree with you. In practice, I think we're entering somewhat untrodden waters. Certainly : acting like a fool in your place of employ is bad. However, using your analogy as an example, what's happening here is also a bit like those 3 AM campus shenanigans that occurred while you were a student being held against you when you go looking for a job - since Riot is screening potential employees based on their game history. If Riot screens applicants based on their LoL behavior, then why shouldn't Facebook? Google? Why shouldn't any of these respective companies sell said information to other 3rd party companies that want to pre-screen hires? Ultimately I guess I'm arguing against a fully transparent world, because as happy as I am with my electronic footprint - I'm not sure how happy I am about the idea of everyone in the world who I interact with peering at it with a microscope.
    • RiotBoatStuff 10y ago
      It's less about your game history and more about your behavior directed at strangers. We're a player focused company, and if you're a total jerk to strangers because you've tilted, how can you be expected to make the game better for those same people?
      • doktrin 10y ago
• Splines 10y ago
  I find this creepy. I completely agree with policing your employees when they self-identify themselves as such (e.g., with RiotFoo name tags). This is normal. What is not normal is asking prospective employees for their user id and making decisions based off of the chat logs attached to it. I mean, it makes sense, but it seems like an invasion of privacy. Would it be fair for YC to make decisions based off of the HN comment logs of YC applicants? Sometimes you do stupid things and I believe you shouldn't be forever in the future held accountable for what you said in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten
  • was_boring 10y ago
    I thought they asked for your HN username. What else would they do with it?
  • zorpner 10y ago
    Would it be fair for YC to make decisions based off of the HN comment logs of YC applicants? They explicitly do this.
    • vonklaus 10y ago
      not parent. I bet they do not, however I think you implicitly agree by providing it on the application. Maybe in the case of partners being on the fence, ect, but if not out of privacy probably strictly out of time and number restrictions. That said, they always speak about how incredible their internal software is YC and HN has solid management & spam reduction software. I wouldn't be surprised if they filter for some internal criteria in an automated fashion.
  • bertrand-caron 10y ago
    To be fair, using the word 'privacy' implies that those conversations were private in the first place. In my opinion, there is nothing 'private' about verbally abusing (or whatever else lead to the report) a stranger on the internet on a 5v5 chat (plus any potential spectator).
• draw_down 10y ago
  That's about how I feel about it too. My concern with this growing "no assholes" or "no toxic people" sentiment is that it sounds great, but who gets to decide who is and who isn't?
• RiotBoatStuff 10y ago
  Made an account to just comment on this. It's not little stuff like passive aggression, or even swearing at teammates. It's the extreme stuff that gets you in trouble: racial slurs, death threats, pulling rank (I'm a Riot employee I'm going to ban you BLEEEEEEEP).
  • doktrin 10y ago
    > It's the extreme stuff that gets you in trouble: racial slurs, death threats, pulling rank (I'm a Riot employee I'm going to ban you BLEEEEEEEP). I appreciate the context - this wasn't really super clear from the article. It's completely nuts that anyone would behave this way on a Riot-named account. Was this sort of behavior prevalent? I'm honestly surprised it's never come up. If I was in a game and witnessed a Riot employee going off on players with racial slurs and death threats - that most certainly would have been screenshot and reddit frontpage worthy. Either way, specifics aside this sort of behavior is obviously completely unacceptable in a place of employ (of which a company sponsored account is an extension).
  • developer2 10y ago
    Bullshit. It's claimed in the article that the frequency is ~25%. 25% of players do not commit the kinds of chat you are talking about. Clearly the chat log audit against employees is conducted via a purely subjective process, and you can be blacklisted into the "bad employee" pool for anything the auditor of the day decides is "inappropriate". Riot and every Rioter should be ashamed that this process is taking place. Search up on Henry Ford's practice of invading employees' private lives. It's disgusting. And what you guys are doing is no different. I can't believe there are employees defending this in public... anything to gain favor with your bosses, huh?