Sadly since the way riot works we have to read between lines.
But it seems Riot is stating that their first priority, before ranked is to stop the hemorrhage and increase population. So it seems to me, there won't be ranked BEFORE that happens.
Many, including me, believe that the only way to stop the hemorrage and increase population is to implement ranked (catch 22).

So in their belief they may be thinking that they actually plan to add ranked, because they think that the way to achieve the increase population, is another way.

(I think the only other way is to spend a lot of money on advertising and brainwashing, something i do not think gonna happen either)

Now for those that disagree with riot, then it means there is never gonna be ranked. Like I strongly believe that, I strongly believe that if they do not implement ranked they are gonna fail to increase population. So in my belief ranked is not gonna happen. Basically riot is telling us, to us that believe this, ranked never happening.

Because what if we are right? what if there is no other way to increase population?

My point is, to many of us Riot declared already ranked not happening ever. They only promised ranked truly, to those that think there are other ways to increment population.

But what do you believe in?

I think you're full of **** and paranoid to boot.

I'm inclined to agree with Nome that player perception needs to change before ranked is viable. But I've been saying that since Dom was released haven't I?

What I think right now, is that Riot has shown how little they care about Dominion by keeping ranked enabled in TT after it was completely reworked and is still in beta. Balance in that map is a complete mess right now, they're still making changes to the map layout and the items and yet still feel they need to reward players for cheesing their way to diamond with broken champs. But Dominion "still isn't ready"? What a joke.

Your argument was A+

A lot of the issue about ranked is just a follow-through snafu: It was said at launch that ranked would be incoming, and it never materialized.

Add to that the fact that EVERY OTHER MAP has ranked because... turning it off on TT is hard, apparently?

So broken 'promises' (I'll put it in quotes because, yes, we as a community read a lot into that one) + odd one out = wtf riot y u no support dominon!?!11one

And really, Nome has no control over either of those things, and is, as far as I can tell, taking the correct approach to this - the problem is compared to other modes dominion's got very little manpower behind it.

Oh, and all the temp-items we currently have are just a tiny fraction of the s3 item remake, making it really hard to see the big picture with two data points ):

I believe ranked isn't very important.

Riot wants to stop people from leaving?
Ranked is probably the best way to do that.

From my experience, most of the people who leave leave for ranked.

To be honest the ones who would play dominion if there was ranked is a very small. There just isn't enough players as a whole to support it.

I think the whole dominate dominion scene disproves that.

IMO Riot is going to try to tie a big map graphical update, aura rework, new itemization, and a fix to the whole losing team comeback mechanism all together, roll it into an ad campaign for a big exciting new change (like with TT) and then see if people flock over to dominion to try it out again.

I think they should also add ranked at that time; tell people there will be dominion based rewards (icons, borders, skins, w/e).

This will be IMO their best shot at revitalizing dominion from it's current backwater status. As it currently stands, why play dominion when SR and TT get you fancy rewards and have actually competitive ranked play?
also, taking top dominion players out of blind pick and putting them in ranked will solve a lot of other problems, like creating a friendlier and more relaxed attitude in normals, and fixing some balance issues by allowing OP champions to be banned

I posted this in the BFT thread, but my feeling is that we as a community don't have the answers. We know what we want, but we don't know what the quitters and non-dominion players want. They are the ones with the answer for saving and growing the population.

Ranked is fine for starters, but as pointed out before by others, the number of casual SR players dwarfs the number of ranked SR players, and the same would probably hold true for Dom. You'll get some more competitive players into Dom, but I don't see how ranked would attract casuals and get them to stick with playing Dom.