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What is spam, and how does a recruiting message qualify?
astimingpyle
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I belong to a good fleet. We have good people and we try to be very helpful to our members, teaching them how to build ships, do STFs, contribute to Fleet projects, and reputation systems, etc.. We get a lot of new players who know little about the game, and are happy to teach them.
We occasionally go to ESD or other places and put out a recruitment message to the zone. There is nothing rude or offensive in our recruitment message, and we put it out at a frequency of about once every 5 mins for 3 or 5 times. We don't spend a lot of time at it. So we are not filling the chat channel with it.
We occasionally are told by various players that we are spamming and are reported. I don't understand why. We do get a number of new members doing this, so I must question what would these people do if no one were aloud to put out fleet recruitment messages in Zone Chat. Most of our members would not be in a fleet, nor would we have met them, and made such great friends of them.
If Fleet Recruitment messages count as spam, can anyone point or link me to the terms of service or Perfect World rules that specifies the particulars on this. If we are violating some rules that Perfect World has, I need to see the specific section of the rules that addresses them so I can point them out to my fleet.
Also, if there is an alternative method of recruitment I would appreciate if someone could point it out to me.
Thanks!
Cheers!
We occasionally go to ESD or other places and put out a recruitment message to the zone. There is nothing rude or offensive in our recruitment message, and we put it out at a frequency of about once every 5 mins for 3 or 5 times. We don't spend a lot of time at it. So we are not filling the chat channel with it.
We occasionally are told by various players that we are spamming and are reported. I don't understand why. We do get a number of new members doing this, so I must question what would these people do if no one were aloud to put out fleet recruitment messages in Zone Chat. Most of our members would not be in a fleet, nor would we have met them, and made such great friends of them.
If Fleet Recruitment messages count as spam, can anyone point or link me to the terms of service or Perfect World rules that specifies the particulars on this. If we are violating some rules that Perfect World has, I need to see the specific section of the rules that addresses them so I can point them out to my fleet.
Also, if there is an alternative method of recruitment I would appreciate if someone could point it out to me.
Thanks!
Cheers!
[SIGPIC]http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/image.php?u=96550022000&type=sigpic&dateline=1365955208[/SIGPIC]
Post edited by astimingpyle on
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Frankly, for public fleets inviting just about anyone in, you might want to just stick with ninja invites, or wait for someone to publicly ask for a fleet.
ESD zone chat tends to be, shall I say, "collectively dumber than a bag of bricks" on most topics, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that this is one of them. :P
[12:00][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
[12:10][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
The above is a simple recruiting message, and I don't care about it.
[12:00][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
[12:02][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
[12:03][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
[12:05][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
[12:06][Zone] Hello, My name is fleet leader, I want to invite you to my fleet.
Now the above is spam... Regardless of how many messages are inbetween, because:
Recruitment messages are obviously useful for new players, but after you've seen 1 million, you are understandable sick of it.
What bothers me even more, is people who paste their gear into chat or who are selling stuff.
Maybe we need better filtering abilities, like an advertising chat channel that can be turned off.
Are you watching a clock when you make those announcements? Might not have been five minutes; Might have just felt like five minutes to you.
Or maybe someone just sees X many fleets sending out their own different recruiting message and, only half (or less) paying attention, they think that it's spam for one fleet.
Heck, I think that announcing that you are reporting someone for spamming is spammy in it's own right.
It's completely unnecessary, so even if someone does it only a single time I think that they are just contributing to the chat clutter.
But it's also ESD. Chat there is used to discuss politics, religion, revisionist history (often involving politics or religion), how some particular series or film is superior to every other series or film, etc, as much as it is used to discuss the game.
Recruiting for your fleet may be disrupting someone's truly pathetic attempts to try and explain why some failed political movement or war or whatever would have worked if only they had been around to tell the people how to do things properly.
So they report you for spam.
Simple.
There is a Fleet Recruitment channel that is dedicated solely to...Fleet Recruitment.
So, when Fleet recruitment messages pop up by numerous Fleets in Zone chat ad nauseam, it gets reported.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
And of course every new player know about it and how to get on it.
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I think recruitment should be done through tells (within reason). PvE/P PUGs seem like the most appropriate place for this. See a fleetless player that clearly needs help, send a recruit tell. Or you found a fleetless player that actually uses team chat more than "gg", send a recruit tell. I still think sitting outside bases sending random tells is bad form though.
A single hey such and such is recruiting maybe every 30mins is not so big a deal, after all if people would learn to use the game's functions people can easily find your fleet in the fleet search feature if you make it visible for them to find.
People need to learn to use the game's resources, otherwise they are going to remain in the dark about a lot of things if they don't experiment.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I find this reasonable, and agreeable.
When I first started recruiting for my fleet, I didn't know anything about what was acceptable. I got yelled at in Zone chat for spamming, so, since then I generally watch the clock, and put my recruitment message out there no more frequently then once every five minutes, and usually only do it about 3 times, so about 15 minutes. I do it somewhat intermittently, meaning at least once a week, but some times 2 or three times a week. I don't think this is unreasonable or spammy.
I also watch the zone chat for a few minutes before I start because I try to avoid recruiting when other fleets are already at it, and I also avoid recruiting during a massive debate or altercation in zone chat.
There may be a recruitment channel, but there are many new players who not only do not know about it, but don't know how to explore channels to find it. I was one of those types not too long ago. The recruitment channel is only useful to those players who know about it, or, know about finding channels.
Our fleet is filled with players who know/knew very little about the game prior to joining our fleet, and learned much flying with us. These players would likely have stopped playing the game in frustration if no one ever did zone chat recruitment. They all have become very good players, who in turn are glad to help the other new players we recruit into our fleet.
Thank you for your response!
Recruitment through tells is just plain insufficient. It is a very ineffective way to reach people who need/want help, and are interested joining a fleet.
I look at it this way...if you love a game, you try to not only support the game directly via a paid subscription and occasional micro-transaction purchase, you try to help others learn the game so they can enjoy it too. I never partake in flame wars, never troll, never try to harass anyone, or do anything to make this game a bad experience for anyone. That would be bad form, and doing a disservice to the game.
Our fleet tries to promote a friendly, helpful community to make the game a good experience for all. Many new players just don't know enough about the workings of the game to find a fleet on their own, or maybe they don't know what it is they need to ask about to improve their play experience.
Zone chat recruitment messages (that are not spammed more frequently then once every 5 minutes and only for 3-4 iterations) offer new players a chance to join a good fleet that will happily take the time to teach these new recruits things that are difficult or toilsome to learn on their own. This improves their game experience, and a happy player is more likely to spend a little real world money on the game then an unhappy one. This supports the game and helps pay to keep it running.
I believe it is bad form to stifle or impede fleets from open zone recruiting (again as long as they are not spamming more frequently then once every 5 minutes) because those recruiters are supporting the game by helping new players.
We have to deal with the reality of what is, rather then what we wish it to be. Saying "If people would learn to use the game's functions..." does not mean they will or do. Some will, some do, but many don't. That's the reality we have to work in.
There are many new players out there who find it difficult and frustrating to learn on their own many of the game's functions. Many quit the game because of this. However, this does not have to happen. If they see a recruitment message, they are given a opportunity to join a fleet, and learn faster and with less frustration how to use the game's many features. This offers a possibility that they will become happy enough with the game to occasionally pay for some stuff and thereby contribute to keeping the game alive. I know this to be true, as my fleet has many players who love our fleet, love our players because we are helpful, and make the game more fun.
Zone chat open recruitment messages contribute to the life of the game. Sending out a fleet recruitment message once every 5 minutes over the course of 15 minutes once a day is not unreasonable, and is a benefit to to the life of the game.
Obviously that we could argue what often is or is not but there's no need to get into that.
Once every five minutes or so shouldn't bother anyone. It's just text.
Thanks trevorws, but the private e-mails seem to be incomplete, like they got cut off. Is there a link you can give me that will bring me to where you posted your recruitment guide in it's entirety?
If the answer is something like 5 people hitting the spam button, then I'll stop hitting the button myself.
But I think it would take more people. And in that case, I think it's pretty likely that you were indeed spamming.
I could be wrong though.
Indeed. The great irony of the "Fleet Recruitment" channel is that 99% of the people who even know it exists? They're there recruiting for their fleet.
The utility of a recruitment channel that reaches absolutely NONE of the people you're trying to recruit is... Questionable, at best.
Though...maybe it is just me...I am dead sexy. By which I mean I am sexier than most dead people.....MOST.
Yep and that is why we have people running around ESD, at lvl 50 asking where do I get hypos from?
Well all it takes is some common sense to talk to npc's and see what they actually do, besides sit there looking pretty you know what I mean? :P
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I just go into the social menu's settings and block the drive-by invites completely, myself.
As far as it goes, also IMHO, blind fleet invites are far more annoying than spam, so IMO a recruit message is "doing it right" unlike the aggravating fleets that just target people and invite them at random.