Curse

Gawa · Jun 08, 2007, 02:01 PM // 14:01

Fact: Spamming = a lessened enjoyment of Guildwars for everyone, spammers included.

Let's do what we can to remedy this please?

A presentation of potential solutions to spammers follows a brief intro. (yes this is a long post, but it is a topic worth the time and consideration if a genuine solution can be found.)

I know there are lots of threads about spam, but there isnt a thread free of general complaints which generally ends up with the auction house type people demanding the rest of us to trun off all chat...

Please discuss and add your own potential solutions. Keep it civil, intelligent and mature. You need to believe that we can be the answer and/or provide answers to issues, even in such a large community that is Guildwars. If you have previously posted a solution, please link to it, and i will try and keep track of all ideas and present them clearly and updated at top of this thread.

Do NOT post if you do not have a solution to SPAM to offer.... I dont want to hear the same stuff again from people who think the solution to spam is an auction house. (spam is wrong. period. AAnet saythere wont be an auction house in GW, so stop flogging a dead horse and move on to present other solutions)

Dont post just to whinge about spammers or to whinge about people "whinging about spammers" *rolls his eyes*

Do post if you have something useful to add. The aim is to fine tune ideas to find the best solution to present to Aanet.

One favour please ...if AAnet staff do read this, could you be so kind as to point out to us and discount any solutions that are offered here, if you know for a fact that they will never be implemented. That will allow us to work on ideas which could be fine tuned so as to be useable by yourselves. Likewise, if company policy is that spamming isnt a concern, then also please let us know, so we can be dissapointed but not waste our time further. I imagine you can see that there are many many customers who do care and do wish for a viable effective solution to spammers. We will do what we can to help.

A favour from the Mods here too please

I believe in trying to work solutions out rather than just moaning.. id love a one stop thread like this to be kept clear of any crap which is not an attempt at discussing solutions to spam, if possible thanks.

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As a new Guildwars player it took me about 1 week to start swearing at the screen in frustration because of spammers in this game. Spammers ruin the enjoyment i have ingame. Nothing else annoys me as much; even if i die seconds from the end of a 30 min mission! Only spammers.

Spammers, be they trade spam, running spam, guild spam, lfp mission+bonus spam; "gimme free stuff" spam...... all of them need to....... stop and desist! (see how restrained i was there.. i didnt swear at them heh)

Tip; If you type something, do it once. Someone will respond, or not. You typing it 5 times in a row only pushes the chances of someone responding down because so many dislike spammers.

I have tried asking 1 or 2 questions in all chat. over the last week; legit questions about some aspect of the game, only to find that no one sees my questions because they are spammed into chat history within about half a second by everyone elses useless agressive spam.

All of this drives more and more people into soloing and less interaction, which is further away from what the whole aim of co-op that is Guildwars.

Spammers have no justification whatsoever. None.

Saying that they have to spam because they want a different trade system is just like saying you have to scream at every passerby as they walk down the street because you want more pocketmoney..... which is.... ridiculous and would never be tolerated.

use creativity, intelligence, common sense and common deceny; if you want to try and trade. There are plenty of us who dont wish to trade and thus not hear your spam. You have no right to use all chat to spam us. For your own sake, learn how to sell effectively, spamming should not be effective.

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SOLUTIONS to SPAMMERS

Just a few ideas from me and others ive read on forum. Some better than others. Please discuss in a mature manner. I believe AANet staff do read these forums, how about we give them some useful discussion to which they may even be able to do something with. In any case, there are a number of things which im sure we as players can do. Please share you own ideas for solutions.

Ban spammers

This cuts the problem at source, rather than trying to find ways around the problem, which in turn results in the spammers trying to find ways around those.. Remember - Spamming is a always choice...not a nessessity!

(this requires us to be allowed to report spammers and aanet acting on this; and also for GM's to monitor all chat and ban spammers. - this requires clear guidelines and consistant banning)

Similarily, as suggested further down this thread - instead of character bans, put in place

chat privilages bans

- remove their ability to chat for x hours/days etc, up till permanantly removing chat ability.

AANET to use and maintain a

heavy filter

with any and all permetations of wts etc

(when i ran a server in another game the spam filter at the backend was simply a text file to which i could add words i wanted filtered out, hence it was limitless. I also had to choice to replace the words with asterixs or actually blank the whole line, denying the person to actually utter the chat if it had the filtered words/chars.)

Have a automated system place a x mins/hours temp ban for spamming. If the engine picks up someone trying to spam - hit them with an automated warning message. They do it again... auto temp ban. Then do it again... perm ban. They obviously cant learn.

Additionaly, perhaps making clear that ANY trade messages in allchat are wrong and peristant offenders could get banned, even if not spamming. This is not meant to punish those who dont spam... but to encourage everyone who wants to trade to actually use the tradechat... atm people use both or just allchat.. which is pointless for those who do want to trade.

Unlimited, or close to, Ignore List slots

A very simple and elegant solution - someone spams, i ignore them and dont have to ever worry about them again. They can spam their silly little hearts out and the rest of us decent non invasive people dont have to get annoyed by it. 20 ignore slots (or thereabouts) is simply nowhere near enough. I reckon i could probably have used about 200 by now.

Chat time/ buffer limits on allchat and tradechat

Prevent messages being sent unless there is x delay between them (eg between 5-30 secs or so)

No one legitimately, in all-chat or trade-chat, needs to type multiple messages within a couple of seconds. Team chat would be immune to this as it may be required in missions etc.

Disable copy/paste/uparrow in LOCAL chat.

Dont interact/trade with spammers

we the players can do this one.. but it requires everyone to take part.. go a couple of weeks without buying/selling anything to any spammers...

I assume people spam because it works or they think they can get a sale that way. Change that, so that they dont get a sale. Ever.

Ridicule/Shame/Annoy Spammers

Again we can do this. Firstly of course politely ask them to stop spamming. Often my requests get lost in spam... if they keep it up or spam even more... then there is the shame/ridicule/annoy method. Less than ideal and smacks of resorting to their level..but then again maybe thats all they will understand..?
If someone spams..imagine if then 10 of us fired a useless reply to the spammer, several times over the course of a minute.. fight back and show them it is not ok to spam.
In a quieter district when someone starts to spam... shame them in all chat. Ive done this and seen it happen. Once several people agree with you, the spammer generally stops or leaves.

Improve Trade (additional NPCs, player stalls, auction etc)

Ive added this as an edit, only to try and make clear that we all are aware that many people want trade improved; and yes, i agree, additional NPC merchants for higher end items etc or abilty to buy our own stalls etc... that could go quite a way to cutting down on spam... However...that does not address allchat spam and does not stop people spamming other messages. Additionally, AANet have said they wont be changing trade anytime soon; so there is no point putting it forward as a solution!

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As long as spamming is merely frowned upon, or seen as a nessessary evil...then it will continue to plague us and only get worse.

I urge we the community and aanet to take action against spammers.

Hopefully AAnet will be keen too and able to do more to deal with the disease that is spammers..( i say this because the more it is tolerated, the more people do it and accept it and thus it spreads) . Additionaly we will have to take action ourselves. Is that playing nice.. nope... but by god i will not sit back and be told that i have to turn off a part of the game just because some ignorant irritating boy or girl wants to spam me.

Just because you have an item you want to sell for an arbitary number of gold pieces...doesnt mean you should be able to; deserve to be able to; or are justified in doing so by any means nessessary....

Ill close with my gaming sig..

"Play fair, dont cheat, have fun and help others do the same"

Nekretaal · Jun 08, 2007, 02:11 PM // 14:11

Only solution to spam is ingame mods with the power to send warnings and then ban. Anet has said this will never happen.

SPam is here to stay, and If I dont see signs it will be fixed, I wolnt buy GW2.

lyra_song · Jun 08, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Give them no need to spam.

Cacheelma · Jun 08, 2007, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Give them no need to spam.

Totally agree.

aelyn · Jun 08, 2007, 02:34 PM // 14:34

I agree with lyra, we need a reason not to spam.

Given how hard it is to sell something now anyways, I'd be pretty heated up if I got banned just for trying to sell something in chat, or if I was restricted. As it is, I have a ton of stuff in my inventory that I can't sell that is worth platinums of gw money, but isn't worth the time that it would take to sell it. If spamming weren't an option, I don't know if we'd sell anything.

A "ban spammers" or "ignore spammers" solution is not possible or fair. That's how the market in GW works. If we want to fix spammers, we've got to fix the cause.

Edit: the last line was a little too harsh...I want to keep this a discussion.

Calen The Civl · Jun 08, 2007, 02:42 PM // 14:42

One possible and simple solution is the add a counter to the chat buffer. Since most spammers use the up arrow to access the buffer just add a counter to it. If this counter exceeds say 5 (as in they just sent a message 5 times in the last 5 minutes) the system would send a warning message. If the player insists on continuing their spam they will be booted and receive a "time out" message for one hour that explicitly states the reason they are in a time out - spamming. After that hour is up they can continue their play.

This system, of course, could be worked around but it is an elegant solution that should be simple to code and keeps Anet from needing to hire mods. The chat buffer could easily have code added to compare for slightly different messages. Such as if 50% of the message is the same as the previous ones. This should just require some basic text parsing code to compare the buffer entries.

note: the numbers are arbitrary and just used as an example.

iriyabran · Jun 08, 2007, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Boost the prices NPC traders offer
For example i buy dye for 100g and i sell it right back for 10g. That's not even half of it
That's why people would even spam for a sh*ty orange dye!

Aera Lure · Jun 08, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Give them no need to spam.

There's never a need to spam, nor is there a need now. Spam =/= WTB and WTS messages on trade channel. Can sell just fine with the system the way it is. The only reason people spam multiple messages in succession is that they are impatient and cant sell their items fast enough, and that has more to do with them overpricing or trying to sell things not exactly in high demand. Even though its a buyer's market, I still sell things fairly quickly without the need to spam. Anet has already said there wont be an auction house, so there is no solution along the "Give them no need to spam lines" anyway.

I'd implement an All and Trade channel time-related buffer. The same person can only place a message on one of these channels every 15 seconds or so. Its easier to implement than a filter, because a filter needs to recognize things like "\/\/TS" as well as "WTS xxx 1" and "WTS xxx 2" etc. Whisper, Team and Guild/Alliance channels would be exempt from this. There's no need to place a message on these channels faster than that in most cases. When I'm selling, I drop something in about every 30 seconds and its perfectly fine.

Its not ideal, sure, but at least it doesnt involve Anet trying to create and extensive filter system and/or a way to temp ban offenders.

korcan · Jun 08, 2007, 03:04 PM // 15:04

current trading model

player <---> player = spam city

improved trading model

player <---> npc <---> player = less trading spam

if players had the option to drop their wares off to a 3rd party npc for trade, i believe the amount of spam would significantly decrease.

as long as players have items they wish to sell in their inventories, there will always be tons of spammage in all major outposts.

Patrick Smit · Jun 08, 2007, 03:12 PM // 15:12

I would get rid of spammers against a fair amount of money. I would even give them a fair chance to improve on themselves.

But it still stands according the EULA that spamming is not allowed. It is not a neccessity, nor does spamming show of any respect towards others that want to sell stuff too.

I'd like to see if ANet still stands behind their EULA, and if so what they are gonna do about it. Sometimes I tell em why spamming is not such a nice method and if they don't listen I sometimes even chase em out of Kamadan. Not very respectfull too, but it lets them feel what others are feeling.

Only one measure will work against it, and that is a clear statement showing the position of ANet and some active policy that deals with the problem.

lyra_song · Jun 08, 2007, 03:14 PM // 15:14

There is need to spam. Wether those needs are reasonable however.....

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There was an idea in Sardelac (which i cant find), about allowing players to make their own custom filters.

This will allow players to filter out what they dont want, and filter through what they want.

i think thats the best solution to prevent from SEEING spam.

No matter how clever a spammer is, if you had a custom filter, you could instantly add that new fangled spam line.

frickett · Jun 08, 2007, 03:15 PM // 15:15

improvement to trade = improvement to spam issue

Nomen Mendax · Jun 08, 2007, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gawa

...

Spammers have no justification whatsoever. None.

Saying that they have to spam because they want a different trade system is just like saying you have to scream at every passerby as they walk down the street because you want more pocketmoney..... which is.... ridiculous and would never be tolerated.

use creativity, intelligence, common sense and common deceny; if you want to try and trade. There are plenty of us who dont wish to trade and thus not hear your spam. You have no right to use all chat to spam us. For your own sake, learn how to sell effectively, spamming should not be effective.

...

Even though you don't want to hear it, the solution to the trade spam is to give people a better way of trading.

Have you ever watched a movie with a bazaar (that's bazaar, not bizarre) scene in it, where all the stall vendors are yelling at passerbys to buy their stuff? Well that's all the trade spammers are doing, if ANet gave them a more efficient way of trading I imagine many of them would quit spamming.

I still think the easiest (i.e. cheapest way for ANet) way to improve trade is to make the merchants give you more for gold and purple weapons which reduces the incentive to waste time trying to trade them.

I'm also not sure if any of your solutions will work:

Ban spammers - I guess this might work, but it seems way too draconian to me (and by the way, I don't spam, my response to the lack of a trade system is more passive than aggressive, I just can't be bothered to try to sell stuff).
Heavy filter - it seems like a good idea but I'm guessing that the filter list will get larger and larger and still be way too easy to circumvent.
Larger ignore lists - this seems might it like help.
Just not trading with spammers isn't something that will work as they only need one person to trade with them to make a sale.

Part of the problem (IMO) seems to be that this isn't something that ANet wants to spend much money on, so any proposed solution has to be cheap.

Anyway, off the top of my head, here is another suggestion though it's probably not worth much.

Increase the number of Trade tabs in the chat window to distinguish between different types of items being sold. If I was doing this I'd analyse the sales and pick say four or five categories to break things down into. This might encourage people to use the trade chat.

Gawa · Jun 08, 2007, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Sorry to reply so quickly, but theus's poor post just gave me a 'wtf' moment. *sigh*

I just wanted to point out that as i tried to make clear, we should focus on the solutions rather than the cause; because the cause is people; making the conscious choice to spam, knowing full well that it is neither 'nice' nor allowed.

Some people claim the cause is a trading system that could be better..... but that is incorrect... Although spam is instantly associated with traders and in the main is.. we also know that:

a) spamming is not limited only to traders unfortunately.
(hence the solution must go beyond looking at trade only. Besides which as said, AAnet has said it is not looking at changing this anytime soon)

b) spamming in ALL CHAT under any circumstance can never be justified. (since there is a trade channel, trade should be carried out there)

These 2 points are why i believe (as do others from their useful posts) that we must come up with a solution to people spamming. Spamming is always a choice, never a nessessity.

The chat buffer concept does sound as if it could be very useful with less effort. At least that way, legitimate questions or chats made by non spammers would have a chance of being seen then in all chat.

edit: Nomen, good post thanks. Yep, while i agree that comments regarding changing the trade system could indeed help reduce trade spam.... it doesnt address all spam, and additionally, aanet has already told us categorically that trade will not be changed in the near future. Thats why i said i didnt want to discuss it - so we wouldnt waste time on it, thats all

keep the good thoughts coming guys, cheers.

Series · Jun 08, 2007, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Remove the ability to trade with players in guild wars and add a ton of traders for everything in the game. Weapon Mod Trader, Gold Trader, Green Trader, etc. GG spam

Darkfoxx · Jun 08, 2007, 03:43 PM // 15:43

You forgot my solution:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...9&postcount=53

TheRaven · Jun 08, 2007, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Well, let me put in my 2 cents on the ideas you have so far.

Ban spammers
heavy filter
Unlimited, or close to, Ignore List slots
Chat time/ buffer limits on allchat and tradechat
Dont interact/trade with spammers
Ridicule/Shame/Annoy Spammers

1. Ban Spammers - Nice idea, and I'd love to see it implemented if it's done correctly. Arena Net should send out loud and vocal warnings at least 1 week before implementing letting everyone know this will happen and what the rules are. The main drawback is that a lot of people are opposed to this idea (not just the spammers) and they may lose players.

2. Heavy Filter - Sorry. Won't work. There will always be ways around the filter. If you filter every possible combination of "wts, w t s, w-t-s, VVts, etc" people will just use "selling" or "----XX Selling". Then you filter the word "selling". Next they use "For Sale: ", so you filter that. They then change to "Seling: " and "4 Sale". It's a never-ending spiral.

3. Ignore List slots, Dont interact/trade with spammers, Ridicule Shame/Annoy Spammers - I'm grouping these 3 together. They won't work because they are player enforced and it's impossible to get 3 million users to abide by these rules. Even if every single registered guru member reads your post and every single one agrees to do this, it's still only a drop in population bucket and the spammers will always have customers.

4. Chat time/ buffer limits on allchat and tradechat - Good idea. I like it. It will help, but still the bots and hard-core spammers will push the envelope on the limit. Not a solution in and of it, but a starting point that could be combined with something else.

Ok, here are my 2 ideas. They aren't perfect, but that's why you are here. Perhaps the reader can improve them.

1. Add a trade tutorial to the game. This game already has tutorials for everything from armor crafting to DP to map travel. It needs a trade tutorial. Add a "trading NPC" to Pre-Searing, Ascalon, Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastery. The NPC has a green ! over his head which launches a trading quest. You trade items back and forth with the trading npc and he gives you trade tips. He can include some of the common scams to watch for like the 5g instead of 5k switcharoo. New accounts will not be able to trade until they complete the tutorial.

2. I like the "ban 'em" and "chat time limits" idea. How about combining them with less harsh punishments. No more than 1 chat message in All chat or Trade every 15-30 seconds. 1st time violators lose their chat privileges for 10 minutes. 2nd offenders lose their chat for 1 hour. 3rd offenders and up lose chat and trade privileges for 1 hour. No need to ban anyone. Just take away their ability to annoy folks.

Kook~NBK~ · Jun 08, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by aelyn

I agree with lyra, we need a reason not to spam.

The reason not to spam is that it doesn't get your items sold any faster but it does irritate the majority of players, making the gaming experience less desireable.

Quote:

Given how hard it is to sell something now anyways, I'd be pretty heated up if I got banned just for trying to sell something in chat, or if I was restricted. As it is, I have a ton of stuff in my inventory that I can't sell that is worth platinums of gw money, but isn't worth the time that it would take to sell it. If spamming weren't an option, I don't know if we'd sell anything.

I've seen tons of people having "Inventory clearance sales." instead of trying to sell just one or two items, advertise the whole lot. If I get 4 or 5 Axes, for example, I'll have an Axe Sale. It's a good point you make about time spend being a waste of money since it could be better spent out farming.

Quote:

A "ban spammers" or "ignore spammers" solution is not possible or fair. That's how the market in GW works. If we want to fix spammers, we've got to fix the cause.

If the community as a whole (or very large majority) took it upon themselves to let spammers know that their behavior is intolerable, that would go a very long way to stop the nonsense (it's called "peer pressure"). And there is no need to be a jerk about it either. I've seen districts (2 & 3) in Kamadan where nobody was spamming or using local for trade chat because a few people in those districts politely spoke up and told people that spam is unacceptable.

What saddens me is the "A-Net needs to fix this, I don't have to do anything" mentality. Example: It's hard to find HM groups. People scream "A-NET FIX IT!" But very few of those people who still complain responded to the thread entitled "PUGSville," which has a nice suggestion of how the community could solve the problem themselves.

Panacea · Jun 08, 2007, 04:25 PM // 16:25

If we're talking about vending spam, you could always take a note from RO, and make it so that players can set up a store and idle their characters as merchants. Just put an icon over their head or somesuch to make note of their ... vendingness status...

phil_carter · Jun 08, 2007, 04:40 PM // 16:40

The way I see things is that a large percentage of the spam we have is because people see that as the only way to get people to see their message, they feel they must also spam or their message will be lost in other peoples spam.
What this means is that we dont need such a huge change, a little should go a long way, once spamming becomes a little more difficult it will be massively reduced because people will se it is no longer necessary in order to deliver their message.

Of course this would require something to be done but it widens the possiblilities. The main thing we need to do is to encourage use of the systems we have been given. We have trade chat, we even have party search but very few people use them.
Its basically a vicious cycle, people see trade chat full of spam, they turn off trade chat, sellers cant sell in trade because noone is reading it, sellers spam all chat.
Which has led me to an idea, perhaps Anet could place some permanent anouncements on the login screen about party search and trade chat, maybe people will read them and start using the facilities weve been given instead of spamming all chat.