In-game help system update: Spam category

[Shiranai]

I am reported a couple of people as spammers when I see an unguilded name of asfdfasdf at the harbor mailbox at 6:15am PST. A few minutes later, that person was either logged off, or had logged off.

Personally, there are a couple of way to significantly reduce the spam we get.

1) do not allow unguilded lvl 2 or lower characters from sending more than 10 messages per hour. Even mules don't send that much mail.
2) Allow us to add our own filters based on content. (as was stated above: mmobay & trade4game).
3) Add a button (as stated above) to report the email as spam. All the details are in the message etc.. Use your own logs to better stop the problem than have us do your work for you.

#1 would be my first option so that the spammers can not spam...would take them days to do one set of mails. (BTW: It's all automated (aka macro), which Turbine stated it did not allow at all.)

We, as players, do appreciate making it easier to report the problem, but you are completely missing the point. MAKE IT GO AWAY! A reporting tool is only a band-aid to stop a jugular vein cut. If you were to actively try to stop it, it would make ALL of us much happier.

[brootus31]

While I also hate the spam, I see one flaw with your first thought.

"1) do not allow unguilded lvl 2 or lower characters from sending more than 10 messages per hour. Even mules don't send that much mail."

Couldn't they just make a new guild for the character, spam away, then delete the character? It takes no time at all to get to lvl 3.

[Riddikulus]

Better would be to simply disallow sending email to more than 10 different users per day.

This would still allow you to send a bunch of plat or equipment to your alts, for instance, but would prevent a spam mailer from emailing a whole server in less than a month or two.

Or even better... scale it by level:

level 1 = 1 email per day
level 2 = 4 emails per day
level 3 = 9 emails per day
level 4 = 16 emails per day
...

[Spookydodger]

There is an easy SPAM button. It's the one labled "Delete". Ya, I know it doesn't get reported that way, but if everyone just deleted the SPAM then maybe they'll give up.

I suppose it makes people think they are contributing. And, I would wager, it gives GMs some information to base their investigations to conduct more effective stings. Certainly knowing about it wouldn't hurt to at least know how big a problem it is, overall.

Deleting it and forgetting it is a fine idea in most cases. Though, those that would just delete it, or mark it as spam, probably aren't the ones that are keeping them afloat.

[~Treemarker]

and the issue about error on copy and paste in help window? this could makes the reports from players better

I quit reporting it because of this.

[muffinlad]

While a good step, it is still not enough.

We need to take away the ability to send mail from TEMPORARY ACCOUNTS/7 days trials.

This is the origin of nearly 100% of all SPAM to mail accounts.

Regs,

muffinscribe

[greystone306]

It'd be nice to possibly have a new button added to the mail dialog that is mark as spam...Most of the spam is easy to tell what it is.. maybe the button could delete the mail and automatically send a report.. not sure how feasible this would be and if it is even worth doing.. as it would require time away from quests and other content..

[noneou]

I hate to be like this but as long as they make money here they will continue to spam us. It's really the saps who buy the plat who keep this going.

Do they suffer any consequences?
If they do not the plat sellers will ALWAYS find a way back in to get their real money.

[Boulderun]

Concerning the use of the LFM windows as a classified section:

Reports on trades/sales in LFM should be reported under 'harassment' and not using the new spam feature.

Or, more appropriately, should not be reported at all.

[Ron]

How to Copy/Paste from the chat window to the bug report form

This CAN be done, though it is a bit non-obvious on how to do it. This is the method I use to copy /loc data to the bug report form in those cases where it isn't automatically put in. So I presume it should also work for copying spam messages over as well.

1) Highlight the message in your chat box using the mouse by dragging across the text you want to copy while holding down the left mouse button.
2) While the mouse is still over the chat box, hit Control-C
3) Now go to the bug report form and activate the input box you want to put the text into
4) Control-P doesn't work here. Instead, right click and select "Paste". Your text should be copied into the box

I haven't specifically used this to report spam, but I see no reason why it should not work just as well.

HTH

[Riddikulus]

How to Copy/Paste from the chat window to the bug report form

This CAN be done, though it is a bit non-obvious on how to do it. This is the method I use to copy /loc data to the bug report form in those cases where it isn't automatically put in. So I presume it should also work for copying spam messages over as well.

1) Highlight the message in your chat box using the mouse by dragging across the text you want to copy while holding down the left mouse button.
2) While the mouse is still over the chat box, hit Control-C
3) Now go to the bug report form and activate the input box you want to put the text into
4) Control-P doesn't work here. Instead, right click and select "Paste". Your text should be copied into the box

I haven't specifically used this to report spam, but I see no reason why it should not work just as well.

HTH

Have you done this recently?

Because I haven't been able to get Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V to work in quite some time and that's basically the same principle.

[DZX]

Tolero it seems like there is a relatively easy solution stamp out mail spam. Add checkboxes under the UI settings which will make it so that you only accept mail from certain groups of people.

[ ] Accept Mail From Guild Members
[ ] Accept Mail From Friends List
[ ] Accept Mail from All Players


Then you just toggle on which ones you want to accept the mail from. From my side it seems a simple solution, maybe it would take some time for them to code properly, but it would be a great way to cut down on the spam.

Obviously GM/Dev Mail, Auction Mail would never be filtered.

[NiasTrams]

Tolero stated, "...Note that you will not be informed of any disciplinary actions taken against another player..."

Personally, I will wait until DDO makes a thread that actually post the names of user accounts and sites they were spamming for before I start taking my time I am paying for to contribute to the cause of stopping spam, until then I will continue ignoring and deleting.

I would like to see a "Spam Update Thread":

Something like;

bfghtrd paying account frozen for sending mail spam, $14.99 kept for TOS violation; trade2gamers.com
farmerjohn trial account frozen for sending /T spam; trade2gamers.com
etc...
etc...

An actual thread showing Turbine is taking a serious part in fighting spam and leaving no room for wondering if Turbine isn't turning a blind eye to accounts who are paying to be on DDO since it was announced elsewhere, Tolero stated, "...One such feature was to disallow in-game mail to be sent by trial accounts..."; http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=126004. I am still getting a lot of spam mail, not just tells.

[Iroth]

I've posted this in another post, but I thought might as well post here too.

Why not put a level limit on outgoing mail? I think that if you put a level cap of level 4 on outgoing mail, most spammers wouldn't want to go through the trouble to level up so that they can spam. I've talked with several friends in game and they agree. I wanted to at least propose the idea. I don't seem to get that many in-game tells, but my only thought is that if you are on a trial or under level 4 you should only be able to tell to a maximum of 5 separate characters per hour unless you got a tell first and then you can reply as much as you want. I don't think it takes too much effort to get to level 4 anyway, but you shouldn't get too many good things to mail to your other characters under level 4 anyway (that's why there's a bank) and who tells more than 5 people in an hour other than spammers?

Iroth

[Hendrik]

While a good step, it is still not enough.

We need to take away the ability to send mail from TEMPORARY ACCOUNTS/7 days trials.

This is the origin of nearly 100% of all SPAM to mail accounts.

Regs,

muffinscribe

QFT/H

[jmelanie7]

My current problems with reporting spammers is that they have typically deleted their character by the time I get to report. You cannot submit a Harassment (for online spammers) or Cheating (for offline/mail spam) report if the character has been deleted.

I hope that the new "spam" category allows us to submit the name in all cases, so it can be traced to account and credit card for blocking/banning. Heck, I've even gotten plat seller spam mail from the exact same name a week or two later. But, the person was untracable in the meantime. I assume the spammer deleted the name to stop traces and recreated using the same name, later.

Here's how it works, if they got a brain, the accounts in which they spamm are free trial accounts, while the accounts in which they physically farm all those plats and items are real accounts. When they spamm in your mail, they don't care about their accounts to be deleted, since there is no items, neither is plats on this account, it's STRICTLY for spamming, so sorry Turbine, your Spam section won't work. Again, I hate to see my mail filled by those ******, but we have to live with it.........The only way to get rid of those plat farmers is to KNOW how they do it first, so you don't release tools for nothing.....

[Mad_Bombardier]

Since it was necro'd I'd liked to point out again that Trial Accounts can no longer send mail. All those mail spams are coming from paid subscription accounts! Take 2 minutes to report them so they get banned and the spammers lose money. Businesses that lose money don't stay in business for very long.

[aTsunami]

Do they get banned? DDO weon't tell us what happens to accounts we report.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Do they get banned? DDO weon't tell us what happens to accounts we report.

In the Town Hall meeting, Quarion said that over 3000 accounts were banned in one fell swoop. So, yes Virginia. There is a Ban-a-Claus.

[Falco_Easts]

I'd like to see a "report as spam" or just "spam" button in our mail UI. To prevent mistakes a "Do you want to report this mail as spam?" box could come up to confirm it.

We get so much spam that making the reporting of it as simple as possible will increase the number of reports that you get.

/Signed