An Easy, Automated End to Spam

[CBGB]

When 20+ players Report a poster as a spammer, automatically remove posting privileges. No more 'SO Cheap Gold!'

 

It's that easy, and abuse can be prevented. If, say, Guildmates wanted to Report an ordinary player as a kind of prank, just allow any player to open a ticket if he or she feels unfairly banned. If Customer Service determines such a thing occurred, they restrict posting privileges by the players who inappropriately Reported spam when there was none. That'd keep Reports honest.

 

There are ways to make the automated algorithm more sophisticated, stopping even the initial posts from ever appearing in General Chat, but this one is simple and effective.

Edited December 17, 2012 by CBGB
clarified

[idnewton]

Agreed, these gold spammers are getting really annoying. If you guys haven't implimented an IP ban, now's the time. They're constantly in fleet chat, pming random players, and even mailing messages. It's getting a little out of control... Granted, the spammers do seem to be banned within the day, and for that you have our thanks. But all they have to do is make another account. And they do, every time.

[CBGB]

It's getting a little out of control... Granted, the spammers do seem to be banned within the day, and for that you have our thanks. But all they have to do is make another account. And they do, every time.

Yep, and this would shut them off after a single post.

 

You could make a more sophisticated algorithm to stop even the first one, but it'd take more effort. Among player attributes, for instance, you could also record on a scale of 0 to 9 how likely it is that someone is a spammer. New accounts would start at 7 or 8 and be unable to post with the words of known Gold-selling websites, then as the account behaved more normally, running missions and interacting with other players, the restriction could ease.

 

Or, my favorite measure: instead of an obvious ban, block a spammer's messages from every account except his own. On his screen, and only his, he'd see his messages in General Chat, believing they were going through. Eventually, spammers would learn to check a second account for their posts, but it'd be blissfully quiet for awhile.

 

 

Still, those approaches are more complicated and/or temporary. Effective, he automated solution I proposed is easy , fast, and enduring.