I know this argument has been rehashed over and over again on these forums, but I'm bored so let's rehash it again!

The question: are MIA calls absolutely necessary, totally useless, or something in between?

Pro MIA call arguments:

• You are responsible for keeping track of your opponent, your lanemates have enough on their own plate.
• It's easy to call, just ****ing do it.
• It is extremely helpful, it helps bring up the whole team's map awareness.
• The impact may be doubtful, but you should still try to do it when you are able. At the very least, it doesn't hurt anything.

Con MIA call arguments:

• You are responsible for yourself and your own map awareness. I can't babysit you goddammit, I have my own **** going on.
• All players should be in the habit of keeping one eye on the minimap. If you're not watching minimap, why would I expect you to watch chat?
• Sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether an opponent has based, stalked off into the jungle, or is lurking in nearby bushes. By the time I can call an accurate MIA, it may already be too late.
• Sometimes (especially in bot lane), it can be difficult to stop and type. I might miss out on creeps or kill opportunities. Can't you just ****ing watch your own map?
• I actually have a duty NOT to call MIAs, in order to encourage my fellow players to develop their own sense of map awareness. It's for your own good, noobs.

I think my position is somewhere in-between. You shouldn't rely on MIAs, and should have your own map awareness. At the same time, nobody is perfect and if I think it will help I will call it. More often than not, a quick ping is sufficient. Is there any angle I'm missing on this?

Call your MIA, even if you're not sure where they went. They could be going back to base, or they could be going to gank your teammates. Your con arguments reek of arrogance.

By experience you should have map awareness.

There are lots of instances where you're not going to be staring at your mini-map. When you're in the middle of a 2v2, 3v3 or 3v2 bottom lane, you're going to be busier landing/dodging your skillshots, cc and prioritizing targets than staring at the mini map. Pings and MIA's are invaluable in these instances.

I actually like some of your con points
Also, you can easily press tab for a moment to figure out which enemies are visible and which are not. I tend to think the pings are more useful than mia calls because pings tend to be more accurate as to who might be a threat. Also the ping noise gets your attention and it just takes a moment to check the map.

call MIA, even if you think its useless its still team communication

Call MIA's or ping early, late game and mid game, they're responsible for their own warding.

So far it looks like I covered all the bases. Alethia makes a good point about tabbing to see who's visible. I also agree about the pings, much better than an MIA call in my opinion. Again, my con point: why would you be watching chat but not be watching minimap? Best to draw attention directly to the minimap with a ping.

AWESOME NEW MIA FEATURE GUYS: Look at your minimap, look at how many enemies are in/not in their lane. Play accordingly.

Are MIA calls necessary? No, because map awareness should cover that for you.

Does it hurt to call MIA anyway? Not at all. Sometimes people will get too caught up in what they're doing to realise they might be in trouble, and so sometimes an MIA call will help. Not very often I admit, but it's not like you lose anything for taking half a second to type MIA or to ping.