Hey guys,

I'm writing this in response to the *****torm feedback we received in response to a recent news post about Syndra support. The general consensus seems to be that posts like this shouldn't be on the front page (which I'm perfectly willing to accept if most people feel that way), however I feel there are a few things that I should clarify/ask first. I decided to do it in a blog because I wouldn't want to unlock the thread just to leave a post of my own without anyone being able to respond to it.

Lordzios is/was part of MOBAFire's eSports Central crew and has in the past also written articles about (for example) Cassiopeia support and Mafa's support Malphite. Note that the idea behind these articles is not to present his opinion as facts, but to facilitate a place for discussion about whether or not these champion picks would work at different levels of play. One could disagree in the same way with Jebus' Korean Power Rankings or anoriginalloser's analysis on why Fnatic were in a slump earlier this year, but that isn't an issue as long as the content itself is deemed valuable.

I say "is/was" because I'm not sure what MOBAFire's plans are in regards to the eSports Central. The articles written for it were made on a volunteer basis, which is also why it hasn't always been consistent. I believe posting the articles as news instead may be an option for the future that is being looked at (though I should add that's mere speculation as I'm not personally involved), with this first one being a - somewhat unsuccessful - test project.

There are some questions that the comments in the thread raise, however, which I'd like your feedback on:
  1. Most of you seem to agree that the information in the post is incorrect. First of all, I'd like to once again make clear that creating a news post and placing it on the front page is not our way of saying "this is fact, accept it". With that said, let's assume for a second that lordzios (or anyone else, for that matter) had instead written an article which you guys completely agreed with, or something which you guys would at least consider much more viable. Would that have been deemed valuable content, would that have been ok?
  2. Let's step it up a notch and say we'd like to make a (weekly/biweekly/monthly/????) series out of theory crafting news posts, with a proper introduction stating who the article was written by and an outro with information on how your thread in the "Theory Crafting & Ideation" subforum (or article sent by email) could be next (yes, even about Twitch support!). Would that be considered good content to have discussions about with the community or is that still "not news"?

Moving on to news in general, there was also the feedback from one member on how "the news page is being flooded with absolutely worthless posts" (admins pls). Ignoring the fact that is not an overly constructive way of providing feedback, I just want to explain our position regarding this matter. Right now, our news posts are (mostly) a copy of what Riot releases as news. We're looking into ways of making these news posts feel less spammy, but we don't want to weed out certain posts created by them because we think different users will have different interests and all posts will be valuable to at least parts of the community. We're also looking into adding more news series of our own, though I can't give any details on that just yet (and no, the theory crafting one I asked about earlier is not one of them, that was just a random thought of my own).

Finally, should you guys ever disagree with things we promote as news in the future (or with anything else for that matter), I'd ask you to talk to us about it rather than to resort to derailing a thread.

I look forward to your feedback.

Kind regards,
Wayne