"Say It Forward"

Hey, I wanna bring for the issue of players helping the game for a moment. One of my characters ingame is "Syllabear the Druid" and I tonight (using him) am starting a campaign to clean up our game. It may have been tried before but I am trying it again. Maybe the voice of the community can do something that ANET has been unsuccessful to do up to this point.

Say It Forward intails telling any district that is having issues with people using "All" chat for trades to Please Use Trade Channels for Trade. If we address these individuals in a kind manner and just request it, and then request that they ask the next person they see to use the trade chat. Maybe just maybe we can clean this up. Now I get plenty of "STFUs" and "Why should I" but the matter of fact is, ANET wants this fixed and that is why they use WTS and WTB as chat filters. If you are changing your chat to W TS or the like you are conciously making an effort to ignore a system that is in place to keep the game healthy and to make it a nice environment to play in. As this is true (at least IMO it is) I furthermore encourage everyone to just not trade with anyone who deliberately uses all chat for trading. Show these people we are saying no. We are using the right channels because we want to improve the game for each other.

Why am I doing this you ask? Because someone has to and it isn't just me, it should be everyone trying to make the community better. If we all just "say it forward" and stop trading with the all chatters that deliberately avoid trade, well then we might just make a difference. And this requires no great amount of work on everyone's part. Just the next time you are in kaineng or LA or anywhere like that, take a few minutes, just 2 minutes or so and "advertise" to use the trade channel for trades. If everyone in the GWG community does so, wouldn't that maybe make a difference?

Please let me know if you support this guys! I really want to make the game a better place. And trust me ignoring a problem does not make it go away.

Using spam to stop spam. Great.

Friendly tells mostly. So you aren't really spamming any. It is just as much my right to use the All chat for this as it is for others to use the all chat for trading.

Gotta say that I don't have a problem spamming the spammers. On occasion when none of my friends are around to game with, I'll pick out a couple of those "all channel" traders and play mind games with them till they switch districts or ignore me.

Entertainment comes in all forms.

If we do this in a kind manner though and just inform them and persuad instead of harass we are making a solution instead of another problem.

That's something that I would do >_>

I like it *grin*

QFT. And doing this is pointless, nobody will listen to you I saw you say something about 2 mins ago, and everybody just kept spamming. Sellers/Buyers probably dont even pay attention to the chat. All they look for is the WTB/WTS at the start of a sentance. I'm sure many appreciate what your doing, but its worthless to try.I remember someone from ANet went to LA d1 and said use trade channel. Everyone went to trade channel until they left, then started spamming again. If they wont listen to him/her, they wont listen to you.

Having everyone spam the Trade channel will just cause to want an Auction Hall because I doubt everyone else likes to see a deluge of red text bleeding into their eyes. If ArenaNet added different color text after each message in the Trade Channel then...I think there will be less spam in the Local chat box.

I dont feel this is pointless, I got about 20% of the people I sent tells to immediately swap to trade channels and some even said they liked the idea. As for everyone ignoring me I wouldnt say everyone. I actually had a few people harass me and I have subsequently reported them. I feel that if enough people say "this is enough" then they might actually get the clue.

Just got like 3 more people to swap to trade channel and thank me for doing what I am doing or apologize for their use of the All chat.

So true. Everytime I try to look for an item, the wall of red text throws me off. The rapid rate of how the text moves up is overwhelming at times. Having alternate colours would definitely be a plus.

And to expand on the thought, how about alternate colours for buying and selling? Through the walls of red text, it's hard to figure out whether the advertisement is for purchase or sale. Many times I have given an offer to purchase an item, and I get a reply of: "I can't afford that, sorry"

Bad mix-ups o.o

I dont have any issue reading the trade chat. If it does go too fast you can stop the scrolling by moving the scroll wheel up and going through at your own pace.

1 district in 1 city down. Even if you got a majority of the districts in big cities to calm down on the all chat, it'll eventually start up again when more people log on. Also a majority of the people who change to trade channel will move back.

Im aware, that is why it is a campaign, you have to keep at it. A little bit each day each week. After a while maybe itll be natural to behave like civilized individuals that can handle following the channel guidelines put down..

By the way when I explained guidelines in a game to one person he laughed and said he already had a guild.

You really think this is the problem that needs addressing most?

What I want is a filter that will only allow me to see chat messages for which at least 60% of the words appear in a standard dictionary.

Sign me up sir!

Onetime i was so annoyoed of the localspam, i made evil revenge. That was to spam whispers to people who used local chat to sell their fellblades, that says: ``WTS longsword of charr slaying dmg11-13 and +5%vs charr and shield armor 9 reg3 tact. You Buy?`` haha. I added funny ( to me atleast) spelling errors like sheild and amour. hah hah. That was great. Im from Finland, me speak bad english.

This really doesn't need to be a campaign. I make a point of politely pming especially annoying players and asking them to avoid the annoying behavior. Being patient and too the point works wonders. If you treat these people like adults they are less likely to act like kids.

...Or better yet, customizable filters for which we can define our own regular expressions. I would take great delight in being the first to come up with the expression set to filter out all generic guild recruiting messages. ("CAPE HALL PM FOR INVITE" would take out 90% of them.)

I'd like to see filters hooked to actions, too. So that, for instance, I can auto-ignore anyone who ever uses the word "n00b" and auto-party with anyone who says "Looking for [profession]" instead of "LFG."

Heck, I'd set one up to donate gold to everyone who said "Please" in public chat, and platinum to everyone who said "Thank you." This wouldn't impact my character's finances at all.

I see where you're coming from, Mr. Interrupt, but with all the raving idiocy in All Chat, I just don't see the existence of trade messages in it as the one thing that needs crusading against.

Some , well, most spammers are ignorant and will not listen to kindly, or any remarks.

Little Draco still wants his auction house

But for now he will do by just ignoring or eveding certain text and districts

I like the idea but the effect is probibly unsuccesfull or works for maybe 1 hour and then were back where we started. It is sad to say but this is how it generaly goes.

PS: Dont forget the people who get paranoid when you say something about there spam and go beserk in a full loaded district(does have somekind of entertainment value, or i'm just twisted ).

We do what we can with the power we have and that is all we can do.

WTS/WTB spam may not be the most threatening problem our game faces, but it is one of the most prevalent and infectious.

Small campaigns such as this are truthfully, rarely successful in the short term. Results don't come fast and furious. But over time, as more people join to aid them, they gain momentum. If truely inspiring and organized, small campaigns can become larger and permiate a more positive mentality.

People who want action now won't think this idea is worthwhile, or effective. But that's fine, there are other facets of assisting the community that will suit their style.

Also I would like to address something. I find it very disturbing that in multiple post people have heeded the call, but for the wrong reasons. People seem to see this as a "fight fire with fire" revenge campaign to punish the spammers.

You people know who you are, and I would like you to stop and realize that's not what the objective is. The point is not to whisper "STFU you stupid spammer!" it's to politely request they tone it down. We're going for a positive approch, not vengence. (Coming from me, I know, wierd.)

I'll certainly do my part while in game.

P.S. 20% is impressive for one guy. Finding the harrassment people is a good thing too, but you might want to compile a list w/screenies before sending in a report. Sending in 10-20 seperate reports would cause clutter. Just incase that's how you were doing it.