How to stop being silenced by groups of unsavoury players (Day 2 and banned again)

ph33rm3

So I was advertising in the Winter Festival to make gift parties. I was using this advert:

Need more for next round of Undefined's NO SCAM alphabetical x10 gift party. Each person opens 10 per round then the next person goes. Multiple rounds. Ask around. 0 complaints. Many happy gifters.

Now all of a sudden, out of the blue I have a 24 hour chat ban. I cannot party for any content, cannot give or receive gifts. Cannot even send mail.

and now another user is using my EXACT SAME advert. Replacing my name with his.

This system NEEDS to be changed. It is too easy for a group of no-gooders to get together and have ANYONE chat banned for 24 hours. It is not fair and is ruining the game.

No sense buying starlight parcels if I can't even get a gift party.



***Update***

ph33rm3 said:

Well, here we go again. 2nd day and chat banned again. This time I specifically slowed down my postings to be sure not to offend anyone. Yet here I am, chat banned again.

I have sent a request to support to be unbanned. They will see when they review the chat logs, I WAS NOT spamming.

Because I cannot use chat, I am unable to queue or group up for ANY content. Making the game unplayable for me.

I believe (but have no evidence) that this is the work of several members of the guild MOD FURTHER EDITING GUILD NAME. As punishment for leaving the guild. If I am wrong. I apologize to MOD FURTHER EDITING GUILD NAME and it's entire roster. (The person that was copying my ad after my first ban is a member of this guild and after inviting another member of this guild to my gift party today, I am banned for the 2nd time)

This is clearly abuse of the chat system. I hope the logs are reviewed, and the offending accounts are punished.

Very angry right now.

***Edited out guild name as naming and shaming is not allowed***

ph33rm3 said:

I've been trying to think of a way to prevent this from happening other than to eliminate the report spam feature altogether.

The only thing I can come up with is a system message such as the following:

"user@handle has reported you for spamming"

Then give us an option of a 2-way ignore. So that I can right click their name and prevent that user from seeing what I type in the future.

It may not solve the problem, but at least it would not give malicious users anonymity and would prevent them from doing it to the same player repeatedly. They won't see my spam any more.

mofoconan

Its amazing how many people are on HAMSTER in the winter fest.

weaver936

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

ph33rm3

weaver936 said:

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

Yeah, I saw your post Weaver. I can sympathize with your situation. I have been silenced at least 20 times in the last year. The last 4 of them came almost consecutively for 5 days. I suspect the same group of people are behind this.

I contacted support and they lifted the chat ban. They did not mention if they took any disciplinary actions against the relevant accounts.

I've contacted support again for this latest chat ban, but it is Saturday. So I suspect I will have to suffer the entire duration of this ban.

ph33rm3

grrouper said:

Well 2 peas in a pod i have to say . Yet really if you copy and paste the same thing over and over spamming the instance what do you expect maybe slow your role post it once or twice then give it some time rather than going me me me see see see. Also i believe you can chat ban yourself if you copy and paste then spam it over and over something picks up on it and can auto ban you.

Automatic bans for spamming only last for 20seconds or so. However, you can receive a 24hour ban for posting multiple HTTP links. (happened to me posting links to the preview forum here) lol. I contacted support and they lifted the ban but informed me that posting HTTP links can cause an auto-ban.

I understand what you are saying, but I find it highly suspicious that I get silenced, then immediately following my silence, someone else starts copy/pasting my exact words. Only changing my name for his after being called out by another user I had previously partied with. Now I get chat banned and he spams it, scams people and I get labeled as the gift scammer.

loboguild

It's obvious that the chat ban system is lacking and user are more and more taking advantage of it. I personally rather have 100 bots spam PE than one user being wrongfully banned.​​

ambisinisterr

weaver936 said:

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

Still looking into it.

Overall it's not that easy to abuse the system. It was an issue in STO but settings were tweaked before NW went live and situations where people have actually abused the system are few and far between.

Often times in the past it's not abuse but rather that people interpret what is said as spam (spam is not limited to RWT site spam) that people don't appreciate. I.E. A line of text which may be valid but other players feel is disrupting their ability to communicate in the channel.

Being conscientious not to say something too often or somewhere it may not be appreciated is the best way to avoid false flags. People may still find helpful advertisements disruptive and report as spam with no malicious intentions.

The cases such as weaver936's in which people are purposely abusing the system to cause grief to a certain person is actually extremely rare. Normally the cause is the difference between the interpretations of the people who are filing reports and people who are being reported.

regenerde

Well, may be someone here could get the idea of an editable client sided chat filter through to the person in charge please?
The Report Spam function is pretty much pointless against real spammers...

loboguild

Maybe I'm a different type of user, but I personally never used the report function. The chat bots don't really hinder players to communicate or use the ingame channels and players that post stupid <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> get ignored. Why do you need a report function that can be abused, even if actual cases are rare?​​

weaver936

ambisinisterr said:

weaver936 said:

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

Still looking into it.

Overall it's not that easy to abuse the system. It was an issue in STO but settings were tweaked before NW went live and situations where people have actually abused the system are few and far between.

Often times in the past it's not abuse but rather that people interpret what is said as spam (spam is not limited to RWT site spam) that people don't appreciate. I.E. A line of text which may be valid but other players feel is disrupting their ability to communicate in the channel.

Being conscientious not to say something too often or somewhere it may not be appreciated is the best way to avoid false flags. People may still find helpful advertisements disruptive and report as spam with no malicious intentions.

The cases such as weaver936's in which people are purposely abusing the system to cause grief to a certain person is actually extremely rare. Normally the cause is the difference between the interpretations of the people who are filing reports and people who are being reported.

If people in PE Zone Chat interpret that PE ZONE Chat is there for their cliche's personal semi-guild chat and report spam anyone that are recruiting to a guild.. that's not Acceptable. That specifically has happened to me when i still actively mass recruited for my guild. Those same people have migrated to SOMI and the Winter Festival, as well.

Allowing a system that enables people to use MAFIA style tactics to exploit, abuse, and silence other people is not acceptable.

I understand the devs have certain limitations in how they can deal with the Gold Spammers in game... but trusting an untrustworthy group of people to help you moderate chat is not a great idea.

IDK if things have changed... but from what the OP said.. he was released from a chat ban by Customer Support.. that was not even an option, from what CS told me (repeatedly). If, there are checks in place where CS can verify the validity of a ban then that's acceptable. But, to allow the system to Dead End into an automatic ban without appeal and possibly be Initiated by certain Mafia Style guilds/alliances/circle of friends... that's just disrespectful of the Devs to decent people that are (most times) just trying to help the Game Community be better for decent people.

weaver936

Also, just because people blame the Game Company for chat banning them (instead of realizing it's player initiated) or don't bother messing with Customer Service... (maybe since they know it's pointless in situations like these). Does not mean that these things don't happen often. How would we know how negative an impact this system has on the game and it's community, when even talking about such things is over looked, condemned, or considered no big deal and a rare occurrence?

I've been thinking about this Mafia Style influence that people have had on the game community for a few weeks now. And the more I think about it the more that analogy fits... between Elitists... the "Rock Star/Groupy" relationships you see in PE Zone and some of the Alliances I've associated with.. and the Exploiter types that use Bots and Exploits in game and frequent other unnamed websites to find new exploits and buy AD/items... there really is a MMO Version of an Organized Crime Syndicate in game.

Maybe that has been acceptable up until this point in NW's history... maybe the damage to the community (and the game companies bottom line) has been over looked so far.... but with the addition of @nitocris83 and @mimicking#6533 to Cryptic's game management team... maybe we now have some hope for change. Not just in game content and systems... but in how the Game Community is handled and allowed to interact with other members of the community.

As I told Julia and the Forums Mods once... the WORST thing in an MMO is to be made to feel ALONE. I'm willing to trust that steps are being taken to address this Chat Ban dilemma. To me, it's a fundamentally important issue and one of the most essential steps that can be taken to allow for new breed of Socially Active and Cooperative guilds/alliances/Custom Channels to exist. Instead of leaving a Qausi-Dictitatorial system of Cults of Personality in place.

Having focused on Social Gaming in NW and STO for a couple years (and having been that way in my 23 years of gaming experience) I have know lots of different types of gamers. One thing I've known to be constant in all of these game communities is that if the majority of influential (or at least most vocal) types are negative, abusive, discriminatory, and down right Toxic.. then even if the majority of people in the game are decent people... they still won't feel free to be social and interact with other members in the game outside of pugging with them. This (more or less) anti-social culture in a game's community with cause it to dry up.. or at very least constantly have to scrounge and compete for new players based on superficial things (shiny new mods) that provide a limited value of interest until the "new" wears off. Or, as is the case in NW... where content has been super simple for so long.... many of the old timers rage quit or if they stick around and are bitter and even more abusive of others in game... as you'll find with many people doing SKT content these days.

I don't mean to hijack this thread.. but the root cause for the OP's situation is essentially the same as what I've described here and experienced myself. "Report Spam" is a haigh Abused.. or MISUSED System in game. A fair and balanced consideration of the state of the Game Community as a whole must be included with assessing how the system is allowed to be implimented in game.

greywynd

Seems to me the simple answer would be to not spam/be annoying.

kreatyve

greywynd said:

Seems to me the simple answer would be to not spam/be annoying.

It's not that simple... If someone is upset enough with you and has enough friends that will help do their bidding, it's not hard to get someone chat banned no matter what they say in chat. The system is very faulty and needs work. It's one of the main reasons why I generally don't chat outside of guild and alliance chat.

mentinmindmaker

When I saw that Undefined announcement my initial reaction was that this is an elaborate scam. There is no way you can make guarantees with gift sharing, and if you do it alphabethical your name is last, right?

Now, I am not saying it is a scam or not, but that was my initial reaction. And then it is not unlikely others reacted that way too, and reporting it as spam.

So I think the reason for the ban in this case could be misjudging the effect of what you post.

rinat114

lol I'm pretty sure I'm one of the legitimate players with the most chat bans in-game, like seriously. It can be abused so easily I'm not gonna elaborate on that, but let me just say this - if a someone doesn't like you and they know a few people, they can get you banned in seconds. I literally have a toon named "Lia's Chat Banned" for when I get chat banned I can tell people. Sad.

litaaers

In defense of the OP, I participated in a gift group with Undefined (after mentioning the same issues @mentinmindmaker did), and found that they performed quite well. We actually had another person who was invited to the group, who tried using the "All done my 10" trick, when all they did was use Sky Lanterns. This person 'did another 5' when we all said we saw no gifts, but Undefined gave them the benefit of the doubt, which is more than I would have done.

Maybe skip the Alphabetical part, and just pick an order for the group, doing a couple at a time. Too easy to get people trying to leech off of other.

regenerde

magenubbie said:

regenerde said:

Well, may be someone here could get the idea of an editable client sided chat filter through to the person in charge please?

That would be just as useless. Unless you prefer editing your personal chat filter 500 times a day, which I do not. I'd much rather be playing the game if you don't mind.
...

The possibilites to describe a "product" or "service" in the chat is rather limited, while the numbers of accounts available to spammers is not, which would make a real client sided chat filter very usefull.

Besides, some kind of client sided "chat filter" is allready in place... Profanity filter.
All they have to do is add an option to fill it with keywords from "our" side, and that would be it.

Besides, if you don't want to use the new and improved client sided chat filter, you don't have to.
But it would be a great option for those players, that are just sick and tired of all the spam going on, and want some effective tool against this...

weaver936

greywynd said:

Seems to me the simple answer would be to not spam/be annoying.

"Spam" is defined differently (and sometimes moronically) by different people.

weaver936

kreatyve said:

greywynd said:

Seems to me the simple answer would be to not spam/be annoying.

It's not that simple... If someone is upset enough with you and has enough friends that will help do their bidding, it's not hard to get someone chat banned no matter what they say in chat. The system is very faulty and needs work. It's one of the main reasons why I generally don't chat outside of guild and alliance chat.

This attitude of only communicating in SAFE places is what I mean when I say things like there's an in game MAFIA.. and people feel trapped in guilds (at least they aren't as bad as ...) instead of their being open lines of communication where people can feel free to find a guild that fits them...

Or people feeling free to create and promote and alliance/guild that isn't elitist or anti-social like most.

loboguild

magenubbie said:

As for the OP, I think Ambi hit the mark on this. It happens in PE as well with people spamming /lfg messages in /zone. Technically there's no harm done, but people will mute you just the same. I suppose it all depends on frequency. If you keep spamming every 20 seconds, you're annoying and will get muted. Be patient and restrain yourself and you're usually good.

No offense, but some postings in this thread exactly illustrate why players shouldn't be trusted with an automated chat ban system. Spamming as posting the same stuff too often is already dealt with by the system. Reporting others because you don't like their posting frequency is abusing the report function.

weaver936

grrouper said:

weaver936 said:

greywynd said:

Seems to me the simple answer would be to not spam/be annoying.

"Spam" is defined differently (and sometimes moronically) by different people.

When i person pushes/spams their ideals their opinions their clan in zone chat to the point it becomes annoying is "moronic".

Most of the chat in PE Zone (especially in PE ZONE where most people get their first experiences with the game Community) is moronic.. Politics.. Religion... pervyness.. you know... stuff taht is better discussed amongst friends in guild chat instead of in public.

ZONE chat should be a reliable place to find people (guilds/etc) of like minded purpose or function... or to find help in learnign the game up front... to make it easier for newer players to learn the game and feel a part of the community. Not a place for a bunch of people that can't seem to find a guild that likes them enough for them to talk about those things with them

There is no authority or control mechanisms in Zone Chat... so no one to tell them to stop being a jerk, idiot, or worse... so i think this is why the SPAM that is usually in Zone Chat is the only type allowed and MANY people just turn Zone chat off... further isolating themselves from helpful guilds and individuals in game.

greywynd

weaver936 said:

"Spam" is defined differently (and sometimes moronically) by different people.

Posting the same thing over and over in a relatively close period of time is spam.

myles08807

I'd like to point out that repeated gift-group requests are the norm for the Winter Festival zone. I cannot imagine any reasonable player objecting to the process. I certainly understand dropping the spam-hammer in PE zone chat, and have done so myself probably thousands of times, but the festival is wildly different. How else are people without guilds with whom to share the wealth supposed to share the wealth?

drewhayes

weaver936 said:

ambisinisterr said:

weaver936 said:

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

Still looking into it.

Overall it's not that easy to abuse the system. It was an issue in STO but settings were tweaked before NW went live and situations where people have actually abused the system are few and far between.

Often times in the past it's not abuse but rather that people interpret what is said as spam (spam is not limited to RWT site spam) that people don't appreciate. I.E. A line of text which may be valid but other players feel is disrupting their ability to communicate in the channel.

Being conscientious not to say something too often or somewhere it may not be appreciated is the best way to avoid false flags. People may still find helpful advertisements disruptive and report as spam with no malicious intentions.

The cases such as weaver936's in which people are purposely abusing the system to cause grief to a certain person is actually extremely rare. Normally the cause is the difference between the interpretations of the people who are filing reports and people who are being reported.

If people in PE Zone Chat interpret that PE ZONE Chat is there for their cliche's personal semi-guild chat and report spam anyone that are recruiting to a guild.. that's not Acceptable. That specifically has happened to me when i still actively mass recruited for my guild. Those same people have migrated to SOMI and the Winter Festival, as well.

Allowing a system that enables people to use MAFIA style tactics to exploit, abuse, and silence other people is not acceptable.

I understand the devs have certain limitations in how they can deal with the Gold Spammers in game... but trusting an untrustworthy group of people to help you moderate chat is not a great idea.

IDK if things have changed... but from what the OP said.. he was released from a chat ban by Customer Support.. that was not even an option, from what CS told me (repeatedly). If, there are checks in place where CS can verify the validity of a ban then that's acceptable. But, to allow the system to Dead End into an automatic ban without appeal and possibly be Initiated by certain Mafia Style guilds/alliances/circle of friends... that's just disrespectful of the Devs to decent people that are (most times) just trying to help the Game Community be better for decent people.

On the other hand, if I see three messages from the same player in my chat window at the same time, with the same message, I am going to spam report it. It makes no difference to me if that person is guild recruiting, looking for a group, or selling things. Spam is spam & it absolutely does interrupt the chat flow. I'm sorry if some people fall afoul of the ban hammer, but that is the risk you run.

weaver936

drewhayes said:

weaver936 said:

ambisinisterr said:

weaver936 said:

I've had similar issues for different reasons. From what I understand.. the powers that be are looking into the issue.

Still looking into it.

Overall it's not that easy to abuse the system. It was an issue in STO but settings were tweaked before NW went live and situations where people have actually abused the system are few and far between.

Often times in the past it's not abuse but rather that people interpret what is said as spam (spam is not limited to RWT site spam) that people don't appreciate. I.E. A line of text which may be valid but other players feel is disrupting their ability to communicate in the channel.

Being conscientious not to say something too often or somewhere it may not be appreciated is the best way to avoid false flags. People may still find helpful advertisements disruptive and report as spam with no malicious intentions.

The cases such as weaver936's in which people are purposely abusing the system to cause grief to a certain person is actually extremely rare. Normally the cause is the difference between the interpretations of the people who are filing reports and people who are being reported.

If people in PE Zone Chat interpret that PE ZONE Chat is there for their cliche's personal semi-guild chat and report spam anyone that are recruiting to a guild.. that's not Acceptable. That specifically has happened to me when i still actively mass recruited for my guild. Those same people have migrated to SOMI and the Winter Festival, as well.

Allowing a system that enables people to use MAFIA style tactics to exploit, abuse, and silence other people is not acceptable.

I understand the devs have certain limitations in how they can deal with the Gold Spammers in game... but trusting an untrustworthy group of people to help you moderate chat is not a great idea.

IDK if things have changed... but from what the OP said.. he was released from a chat ban by Customer Support.. that was not even an option, from what CS told me (repeatedly). If, there are checks in place where CS can verify the validity of a ban then that's acceptable. But, to allow the system to Dead End into an automatic ban without appeal and possibly be Initiated by certain Mafia Style guilds/alliances/circle of friends... that's just disrespectful of the Devs to decent people that are (most times) just trying to help the Game Community be better for decent people.

On the other hand, if I see three messages from the same player in my chat window at the same time, with the same message, I am going to spam report it. It makes no difference to me if that person is guild recruiting, looking for a group, or selling things. Spam is spam & it absolutely does interrupt the chat flow. I'm sorry if some people fall afoul of the ban hammer, but that is the risk you run.

I agree that 3 copy/pasted messages in like 2 minutes is overkill and to me would be defined as Spam... but 3 messages in 10 minutes isn't. I say this, because there are times I've seen that happen.... the chat is dead enough that the same message is in my chat box 3 times.. but with Time Stamp turned on.. I realize that it's not out of control.

I usually set my own standard to how often I repeat a message to 2 minutes between messages. That is enough time that enough people have logged on or entered the zone to warrant another message that might interest them.

Even then though... I /ignore people rather than Report Spam (which is meant to keep Gold/AD Sellers in check.. not other legitimate gamers) someone... just as easily as I /ignore people that add absolutely no value to the social aspect of this game in Zone Chat. Some people I'd rather not accidently add to my Guild or Custom Channel because of the negative impact they would have on said organizations... so... /ignore is just a safe guard against that, without harming that person I have no interest in associating with in the future..

ambisinisterr

Weaver, what is happening to you is not the normal "abuse."

Normally it is exactly what I and others described...people interpreting messages as disruptive to the chat channel.
It is spam from the reporter's point of view.

And sadly a bit of luck can also play into it as you might only be posting once every three minutes but other people might be posting a similar message every 10 seconds. People get irritated with the message regardless of the messenger and report the message accidentally.

Point is, most of the time there is no abuse or "mafia." There's a difference in people's opinions of spam.
Weaver, you are an exception to the rule. A group of people seem to have it out for you but that is not common. It can be abused such as your case but the vast majority of the time people are reporting spam because they truly feel like the text said is spam.



P.S. The system only auto-detects spam if the line is copied and pasted in a rather short period of time or if you say a number of lines of text too frequently (even if it different) if memory serves.
That doesn't always fit the definition of spam if you ask a person.

There's no hard set rule anywhere that defines what is and is not spam. Okndsuhknwaefd and other such nonsense text repeatedly entered to disrupt chat is about the only universal definition you get in different games yet obviously Bot Site Advertisements are 100% considered spam by Cryptic/PWE even though the frequency is not enough to trigger the auto-detection service nor is it nonsense text. Where or why something is said is how people will define spam and it will vary based on the context. Many people will say they consider Trade Advertising in LFG Spam...and it can absolutely be argued as spam such regardless of whether it truly merits a report.

At the end of the day considering where you are posting something and how often it is being posted is the best way to avoid being incorrectly chat banned by the system. Most situations, such the OP's, is not a result of malicious intentional abuse of the feature. We won't know whether the other person did get a bunch of friends to target him just to advertise but it sounds unlikely if for no other reason than it being more hassle than it's worth.

loboguild

ambisinisterr said:

P.S. The system only auto-detects spam if the line is copied and pasted in a rather short period of time.
It can be avoided by altering the text slightly so you can outright spam let alone fit the common definition of spam to other users without then system auto-detecting you.

There's no hard set rule anywhere that defines what is and is not spam. Okndsuhknwaefd and other such nonsense text repeatedly entered to disrupt chat is about the only universal definition you get in different games yet obviously Bot Site Advertisements are 100% considered spam by Cryptic/PWE even though the frequency is not enough to trigger the auto-detection service nor is it nonsense text.

At the end of the day considering where you are posting something and how often it is being posted is the best way to avoid being incorrectly chat banned by the system. Most situations, such the OP's, is not a result of malicious intentional abuse of the feature. We won't know whether the other person did get a bunch of friends to target him just to advertise but it sounds unlikely if for no other reason than it being more hassle than it's worth.

I personally don't like subjective evaluations, much less if an automated ban is based on them. The replies in this thread have shown that users are not smart enough and are commonly misusing the function when they should just ignore someone.

Imho all reports should be manually verified before any ban is applied. And then users that have wrongfully reported someone, intentionally or because they didn't know better, should receive a chat-ban themselves. In the end it's a function that should be used responsibly.

ambisinisterr

Problem is that would take far too long and would actually cause a whole world of problems.
Contrary to popular belief large amounts of spam bots are chat banned by players every day. Part of the issue is that it can take Cryptic as long as the mute to review the report so consider how much worse the bots would be.

Sure you can argue for better RWT filtering, and I would love that too, but unless that happens the system doesn't get abused often enough to justify the spam nightmare. Spam may be arbitrary but if, say, 30 people think you are spamming you should probably not have been saying whatever you said wherever it was said or as frequently as it was said.