4 ms·

Spoken like someone who’s never played the game. Get ready to be banned for no fault of your own, just because your three teammates decided to report you for th

by shawn 8y ago

Spoken like someone who’s never played the game. Get ready to be banned for no fault of your own, just because your three teammates decided to report you for the lulz. There are people who post on /r/dota2 complaining that they get banned from the game for nothing but picking techies each game. They don’t even say anything. People just report them immediately. By the way, streamers are one of the most high impact users of the game. They are also one of the most unfairly targeted by report systems. This problem is extensively studied and very tricky.

ethbro 8y ago
Just because there are false positives or one company has a bad implementation doesn't make it an unsolveable problem. As parent mentioned, ml sentiment analysis + logging + peer reporting + final human analysis = problem effectively combated It's the final human analysis that companies are loathe to fund (e.g. Facebook), as costs scale with user count. But it's not efficiently unsolveable with current tech. Therefore, companies simply aren't prioritizing it. And won't, as long as the impact of toxic users isn't impacting the bottom line.
- shawn 8y ago
  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 bans. I don’t think you really appreciate the scale of the problem. Final human analysis is not possible when there are literally millions of games per week. It’s also not something that ML can identify cleanly — the moment it does, the culture will adapt to bypass the evaluator. It always does.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    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 users' opponents' clients to do the initial detection / filter / compression pass) But my point is this is fundamentally an economic problem, given current state of the art, not a technical one. Companies are looking for pure-technical solutions because they're cheaper, and then complaining that it's a hard problem because they're unwilling to properly fund hybrid systems until state of the art can deliver. ML is a first order approximation of human ability, not a magic unicorn that gives you exactly what you want. Thats the definitions of engineering: how do I build a system that fulfills my requirements from the pieces I have, not the pieces I wish I had? So I don't feel much pity when companies allow toxic user bases to flourish because it's cheaper than funding solutions. * Above intended in no way to belittle the awesome work folks are doing in the space with ML detection. But sometimes as engineers we need to admit when management is making unethical choices for financial gain
    - shawn 8y ago
      You're quite cocky. That's not an insult. I think if you cut your teeth on this problem for a couple months, you'd look back on this comment with some mixed feelings. When a system is inherently toxic, there is no way to make it not-toxic short of coming up with a different substance. We can't make nuclear waste pure just because we wish it were. This is a very similar situation to this particular type of game. When it's a team game, and you rely on people who aren't doing their job, and you're separated by distance, it brings out the worst in you. The problem isn't chat. If it were, it would be solved already, for the reasons you point out. The problem is the people. When someone doesn't like someone else, they will find a way to ruin their game while bypassing your censors. And yes, you can ban some of them, but not most of them, and not when most of the community acts like this. Which they do. Which you can't understand unless you go play the game for a bit.
      - ethbro 8y ago
olavgg 8y ago
I've been playing DOTA since the Warcraft 3 days, and a lot of HoN. I'm seriously grateful for the excellent Linux client. Today I've moved over to Dota 2 and now I see that I no longer get banned and moved to unranked for picking techies. I play him at ancient/divine levels and getting reported is very common. Techies is my favorite hero as he is more about strategy than quick precise reactions. I think Valve has done some progress in this area, especially as you now can commend players.

by shawn 8y ago

ethbro 8y ago

Just because there are false positives or one company has a bad implementation doesn't make it an unsolveable problem. As parent mentioned, ml sentiment analysis + logging + peer reporting + final human analysis = problem effectively combated It's the final human analysis that companies are loathe to fund (e.g. Facebook), as costs scale with user count. But it's not efficiently unsolveable with current tech. Therefore, companies simply aren't prioritizing it. And won't, as long as the impact of toxic users isn't impacting the bottom line.

shawn 8y ago
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 bans. I don’t think you really appreciate the scale of the problem. Final human analysis is not possible when there are literally millions of games per week. It’s also not something that ML can identify cleanly — the moment it does, the culture will adapt to bypass the evaluator. It always does.
- ethbro 8y ago
  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 users' opponents' clients to do the initial detection / filter / compression pass) But my point is this is fundamentally an economic problem, given current state of the art, not a technical one. Companies are looking for pure-technical solutions because they're cheaper, and then complaining that it's a hard problem because they're unwilling to properly fund hybrid systems until state of the art can deliver. ML is a first order approximation of human ability, not a magic unicorn that gives you exactly what you want. Thats the definitions of engineering: how do I build a system that fulfills my requirements from the pieces I have, not the pieces I wish I had? So I don't feel much pity when companies allow toxic user bases to flourish because it's cheaper than funding solutions. * Above intended in no way to belittle the awesome work folks are doing in the space with ML detection. But sometimes as engineers we need to admit when management is making unethical choices for financial gain
  - shawn 8y ago
    You're quite cocky. That's not an insult. I think if you cut your teeth on this problem for a couple months, you'd look back on this comment with some mixed feelings. When a system is inherently toxic, there is no way to make it not-toxic short of coming up with a different substance. We can't make nuclear waste pure just because we wish it were. This is a very similar situation to this particular type of game. When it's a team game, and you rely on people who aren't doing their job, and you're separated by distance, it brings out the worst in you. The problem isn't chat. If it were, it would be solved already, for the reasons you point out. The problem is the people. When someone doesn't like someone else, they will find a way to ruin their game while bypassing your censors. And yes, you can ban some of them, but not most of them, and not when most of the community acts like this. Which they do. Which you can't understand unless you go play the game for a bit.
    - ethbro 8y ago

olavgg 8y ago

I've been playing DOTA since the Warcraft 3 days, and a lot of HoN. I'm seriously grateful for the excellent Linux client. Today I've moved over to Dota 2 and now I see that I no longer get banned and moved to unranked for picking techies. I play him at ancient/divine levels and getting reported is very common. Techies is my favorite hero as he is more about strategy than quick precise reactions. I think Valve has done some progress in this area, especially as you now can commend players.