Have You Been Reporting Anybody?

With the newest dev thread about trade spamming in all chat, I was just wondering who is doing their part.

It reads:

As you know, we offer several types of chat options in Guild Wars. Lately, players have shared their concerns about the increasing problem of people spamming trade messages to the All Chat ("Local") Channel, instead of using the Trade Channel which is designated for that purpose. In response to that concern—which we share—we will be taking steps to increase our enforcement of the existing Rules of Conduct. As you are probably aware, spamming of any kind is strictly against the Rules of Conduct, but we are specifically concerned with those who are spamming the All Chat Channel. In order to encourage those with sales, purchases, and trade to use the designated Trade Channel instead, we will begin keeping records of the worst offenders, and those who spam All Chat with trade messages may have their accounts suspended. (You can find details on our policies and practices in our Conduct Breaches and Outcomes document.)

The Trade Channel is there for you, and we will not be taking action against those put their trade messages in the Trade Channel. You are free to go about your buying, selling, and trading messaging as you desire, as long as you keep it within the Trade Channel. (The use of a “spam bot”—like any bot—is still strictly disallowed, and we will action accounts that are found to be using them.)

This increased diligence towards trade spam in the All Chat Channel is not intended to stop trade – not at all! We fully encourage and support trade; that is why we have a channel completely dedicated to sales, purchases, and trades. This increased enforcement is designed to keep trade chat in the Trade Channel, and to help reduce the amount of spam in the All Chat Channel.

We thank you for your patience with this situation, and appreciate your support of the new initiative to improve the Guild Wars experience.


I've taken valuable farming time to start screening and reporting people for this crap (since it's my lot in life to complain ), and I'm wondering.........

Have any of you reported trade spamming in all chat? Can we get just a little hint of what anet is doing to stop it (besides relying on us) ?

KANE

Was this a call to players to report people? I assumed it meant they recognize this is going on and they'd have people watching and suspending as needed. If someone asked for my help on this, I'd be happy do to my part in reporting. I'm thrilled that this problem was addressed, as I thought we were pretty much stuck with it.

Nope, and I will not either. While I don't like trade in general chat, reporting I only do for very bad behaviour. ANet needs to get a technical solution for this problem instead of warning / kicking / banning ppl.

I only report for really bad things and if I'm bothered by anything. But that's it.

I don't even know how to report people.

http://guildwars.com/support/

Personally, I think you should learn.

I might be an ass in these forums, but I'm a great guy in-game, so I'd like to make it better any way I can.

KANE

Report people? why? I couldn't care less what other people do. If the spam gets too much I turn off chat. No need to cry about it.

Do we get money for it?
Lol joke

Anyone have a link to the page? for reporting
Also can we report the "WTB BATTLE COMMENDATIONS 50g GOOD PRICE" even if its in trade? its not fair to the newbies

EDIT : you posted link at same time i posted this
Thanks

If I have nothing better to do, I might sit in Kamadan and just start writing down names. It probably wouldn't be worth my time going through a support ticket, unless there were at least 20 names that'd get temp banned though.

after that message from gail, i've been asking people to switch to trade, and snaping screenies of those who don't - but i haven't gotten around to sending anything to a-net yet. hell i got a series of pics of at least 30 different people doing it in less then two minutes passing through kodash bazar last night.

Last night I sent a report in on someone that was spamming in All chat WTS crap 15 - 20 times per minute. (in all caps too, I might add)

The response I got was:

That's exactly the kind of thing I've been getting. That's why I started this thread (looking for other people's experiences). I would like to see a difference here.

Apparently, our collective threads about trade spamming in all chat got their attention, and I'm happy about that. We, as a community, have to back up anet (apparently) because they can't do it themselves.

Even though they didn't ask for our help, they need it. I'll continue taking screenies (cutting into my play time) and reporting.... as well as warning people in the major cities and dealing with the abuse afterwards. Weeeeee.

I'm an ass on these forums, but I want to see my game of choice treated with care.

KANE

Edit: Can't quote the response! LOL

Most people don't even know you can get penalized for spamming.
I bet it would take something like 10 repeated reported offenses, then 10 more after the dude was warned by a GM to ban someone for spamming.

Why waste your time? it's Anets problem let their "professionals" deal with it

Lately? Isn't saying "lately" for something that has been one of highest annoyance factors for 2 years an understatement?

If anything, the spam dropped somewhat after insignias and separation of playerbase across chapters.

Why not just att a /report, that would send last 5-50 messages from that player to auto report.

Going through all that hassle with plaync support, submitting screenshots, times, etc. is simply not worth it, when you have 50 people spamming. And before you fill out the forms, there's 50 new ones. It's just not worth the effort.

I don't know how to report people. ANet makes it so complicated.

People really should not have a problem with trade spam...its part of the game and there is really no other alternative way to sell items. Also, most players dont even know about the trade channel, and because of that no alot of people use it anyway.

Most trade spam is only in Lion's Arch, Kamadan and Kaineng Center anyway and by now everyone know that those three towns are basically designated trading zones.

You, Sir, are the problem. Thank you for your post.

KANE

No, people should learn to behave according to what they agree to. If they can't they should take a little punishment, and if later on nothing is learned they should take more, say three strikes out, you loose your account.

Basically, i dont see much difference in spam/ trade in all chat or spam in trade chat. It annoys the hell out of me, cause i like to sell too. SO there is no option of just "shutting" the channel of.

I wonder whether ANet really will do something with good proof of spammers, and I would certainly agree on a small bounty for good reports say 1000 gold. This will not be money generating if accounts get a permanent ban after 3 to 5 times. nobody risks an account for 5 platinum.
As Kane said u are a problem, u interfere with the business of people that do behave, thats why u need to be expelled.

I report botters. I just fired off an email (with screenshot proofs) of 74 botters in Bergen. I don't want to send too many emails, though, so I'll start sending when I hit 100 names.

the only time i reported somebody was some ass at aspy.
he was insanely abusive so i took ss's of it and send it in.
then i got an email form anet if i REALLY want to report it or something - which was like 2 days after my report and all i though was - what? what is this about?
so i didn't follow the further instruction and just let it be.
if they can't take reports seriously after one sends them in but must rather put them on hold first - then i can't be bothered to HELP them make the game a better place.
deal with your own shit.

I actually started to fool around a bit:

http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...-agreement.php
And followed by a message describing their behavior as being unwanted

It worked quite ok, most of them are reasonable and change behavior, sometimes just shortly. They think you are an ANet empleyee, but I never actually say that nor do I imply it. Some are just really thick headed like this:
"I'm not breaking any rule, they should just make an auction house"

Clearly these are the thickheaded egocentric bastards that deserve a ban. I'd really like to know what ANets point or future actions are gonna be regarding spamming and trade in all chat? Statements are nice, but you should support them.

nevermind my question about the spammers that scam people for items like Battle Commendations as from that reply Anet clearly don't realy care about spam

Also the screen shot on page one ask what sort of responce they'd get and my guess is : "No names on guru please"

Too much effort to report people in general, especially since you don't know if Anet will even do anything about it...

You, Sir, aren't part of the solution either.

They don't pay us to report spammers, it's their job to do it.
You are so willing to do it just to annoy everyone else, and to get that pseudo feeling of power. Grow up a bit, will you? You and everyone else that shares your opinion.

What are you trying to do? Organize a "People's Militia"? Now that's new. Nothing better to do? Play other games.

This is exactly the jackass behavior I mention here.

Stop caring about other people's lives and care about your own. If there's an ignore possibility, it's there to be used. Isn't that what you say about the mediocre trade system?

Period.

I'm trying to help, that's part of the solution. I don't need to get paid for it. I don't do it to annoy anyone, I do it because they annoy me. Grow up? Get a frickin clue. And that whole bit about "stop caring about other people's lives" is the stupidest thing I've ever read.

If you're not here to help, quit reading and posting in the thread. Go spam local chat.... I'll nail you eventually.

KANE

Not to mention,Spam is inevitable.

A district holds what?100 people max?

Guess what happens when say 50 people all use any chat,that only has what?10-12 lines of actual text?

Maybe Anets "Professionals" should give us another viable way of trading?Oh I don't know..fix Party Search and make is actually useful?Maybe?I don't know.

Party Search that spaned the continent you're on with a character limit like that of chating in a district would be FAR superior to the current method of trading.Seriously though.This is retarded,we have no other way of efficient trading ingame.And yet for some god awful reason,its our fault.

That reply was to be expected.
Nail me? Oh my god. Are you trying to get on my nerves? Contrary to what you may think, no I don't spam local chat. Should I be "by your side" ? Hell no! You didn't even give me a valid argument as to what are your reasons, and why should you be right in doing this. You just say you do it because you feel so. So yes, GROW UP!
What you are doing is just stupid, retarded and immature. That means I spam? Talk about silly assumptions. That just proves how childish this is.

Is it just me or this is purely a flame thread?

Go on and nail me. I dare you.
Unless you forge some screenshots you are out of luck.
I would laugh in your face if I saw you in game doing that. You just stop watching so many cop movies.

Flame? Oh well, you just reap what you sow.

Yes it is immature, spamming is immature, the majority of GW players are immature, grow up and learn that everyone is different. They aren't going to all be the same just because you want them to. I personally think what Anet is doing is very childish, they don't have proper means of trade for the amount of people that play GW and then they just threaten their customers (that they supply a service to) with being banned for using the only means of trade. It's an online game for crying out loud! There are built in filters to avoid spam and yet Anet threatens us with bans if we spam? I just find it very childish on their part. They need to learn a bit more about marketing before they just ban all the customers that are (basically) running their business. Not everyone is going to listen to rules, people need to understand that. There are people like that everywhere whether it's in an online game or in real life.

And it is (IMO) very immature to report players for no reason just because you have nothing better to do. I've never reported anyone in my 2+ years of playing, if someone gets on my nerves I just ignore them and that is what Anet will even tell you to do. The report feature is to report players that are taking away the fun for you, the gaming experience, if you aren't even playing the game for fun in the first place why do you even log in?

In the Netherlands you are legally obliged to help people in need, even for people needing a toilet some unknown and probably old laws excist. So drowning ones, ones that had an accident etc. need be helped. So why can't people be adressed when they are misbehaving? And often interfering with my sale activities as well (because they are spamming). They say: mind your own business and copulate off. Well I was tending my business there, my right to equal advertisement space.
Ignoring that is no option as they are intervening, putting your head in the sand does not help. Though I agree we could use some good support from ANet, either that we know that we can report persistent spammers, or that they put some active give that wipes em from the database for a bit.

I have reported people, mainly for racism, and very insulting remarks (mainly discrimination and such). I don't say how they should behave, but people should behave within limits of the regulation, if it is to become an anarchy we will not be served by that.

So we need filters so people do not have to be responsible? No, people need be responsible and suffer the consequences from their actions if they don't learn. The EULA was and still is very clear on spamming, unfortunately many do not read what they accept, so you can get "punished" for that, its like ignoring the small letters of any contract.

Rather than calling people names, accept the all this reporting business is a pain.

No, I'm not going to bother spending five minutes filling out some support forms for for hours every day.

Add a report button in game. Someone annoys you, click it. Then it's up to PlayNC or Anet to go through these report, and ban the players that were in violation of TOS.

There will be bogus reports, and there might even be griefers (those reporting everyone in town). Guess what, that's TOS violation too.

And very soon, the problem will solve itself.

About those who do not know about not spamming: As soon as the bulk of spam is cleared, the second they do it, they'll get warned by others.

But the current system doesn't help, unless you have vengeful personality and enjoy spending your game time on a web site, filling the same report over and over. It's inconvenient, slow, annoying, and just too much trouble to be worth it.

That, for example, IS a perfectly valid reason for a report action by a player.

So I really don't understand why you said, Dutch Masterr for example, should be expelled from the game without even telling that he was spamming.

He is interfering with the business of people that do behave ? How?! By ignoring spammers? Something is not right here. Are people obligated to report spammers now? He doesn't even said he was spamming!

Maybe I should report you, "hero cops", for threatening everyone of unfounded reports. You know that impersonating moderation staff members is also a violation of the T.O.S., right?

Just live and let live... If they are spamming and breaking rules they will eventually be caught by those responsible.

The problem is trade spam in Local chat
It's a part of the game because ignorant people think that it's the only way to get their items sold. The fact of the matter is, that it actually HURTS their chances of getting things sold because there are lots of people who just automatically put them on ignore or refuse to do business with people spamming in local chat.
That's just nonsense and you know it. The number 1 reason people who spam in local is because "everyone turns of trade chat." What they don't realize is that people who turn off trade chat aren't looking to buy anything anyway.

You forgot Ascalon City, Droknar's Forge, Sunspear Sanctuary, and the Kodesh Bazaar. But it happens everywhere, so trying to excuse it because it only happens in a few places is a cop-out.

I have to apoligize then to Dutch Masterr, Zappa, (as I'm fair) I thought wrongfully he was admitting to spamming too, but he spoke from a general point of view I now see. My sincere apologies.

It remains however thats spammers are in violation, and by doing so interefer with peopel that sell in a normal fashion without spamming. I never impersoanted any ANet staff member, many people think so because they are adressed they might have to do so, I don't and din't say I am an ANet staff member, I'm just a player who has wasted some time to educate the people who don't know better. I f they ask me straight out I don't even answer, I let in the middle whether I am a regular player or not. Why? As long as they don't know who they are communicating with they are quite considerate and you can achieve more. If you present yourself as a vengefull player you will certainly not achieve anything.

All people spam, so thats my reason --> if all people would commit suicide, would you do so as well?

I really think ANet should tap a bit more on the heads of spammers in outposts and towns.

Can vigilantes be an option? Yes I think so, if you as a entertainer do not have all means to control violations, you might rewards ones that can perform this task for you, ofcourse strictly controlled. If you got flagged and warned, and banned three times, I think that it is a proven fact that you are not able to adapt to the rules set in the GW client. I would not mind removing such a problem case

So..a majority of you people would rather waste time and effort to ban one spammer after the other,instead of trying to intitate a better trading system (No not a Auction house retard.Fixing something thats been ingame for a while now but has been bloody well useless begins with a P,Ends with a arty Search),which in turn can and probably WILL reduce the amount of spam.Maybe even making a designated "Trading Distrtict".

But of course, most people would rather use RAGE! over rational thought and logic.

Yeah, I got that same response and so I quit reporting spammers. Now that I know the anet might be doing something about it, I will start doing it again. To make it easier, I will make the chat window longer, so I can get several in one report.

That is because not many have been penalized for it and so they think they won't. If anet really clamps down and actually starts banning people, the word will get out.

That arguement is getting very old. Not having a viable trade alternative doesn't make breaking the rules right. People saying, "if they don't fix the trading problem, f anet and their rules, I'm going to do what I want" doesn't make it right either.

That is so not true. Go almost any where, in almost any district and there is spamming. Besides that, those places mentioned above are also questing area's.

So are bank robberies, that doesn't make them legal.

When your line disappears, you enter it again, once.

All chat is limited to only the district you're in, the party window is to all districts of the town or outpost you're in. So remind me again why spamming, which is not only annoying and against the rules, is better then the party window. Oh and you can't use the arguement of the limited character amount. In this age of texting and IM shorthand, everyone should be very good at limiting their text to the window allowed.

I don't care about being paid, I do it for the sheer joy of it. Reporting and stopping spammers is caring about my own game play. These people make it impossible to carry on a conversation, look for a group or any other number of things that the all chat is for. It would be physically impossible to put every spammer on ignore. As to your arguement of the "mediocre trade system". Your refusal to follow the rules makes you the childish one.

Hmmm.....The People's Militia, I like it! Thanks for the idea! We'll form a people's militia and report everyone we see spamming in local.

Where did I say I refused to follow the rules, Mr. "Elite Guru"? Is it so hard to get through your thick skulls? I DON'T SUPPORT SPAM! Can't you simply understand that it's not in your hands to do it? That's pure, egotistic attitude!
The trade system is mediocre yes, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been working for me. It has... barely, but the truth is simple.. It IS mediocre. In contrast to the good things we have, it's quite noticeable!

Oh and are you gonna nail me too?...

Closing this due to the nasty turn it took into flame land. This always seems to happen when discussing reports, for whatever the reason.
Report what you will, and don't what you won't. Let's not make it personal, in either case.