Chat spam

Before you start reading, this isn't about me or personal, it's about principles.

So, I did something I've never done before, used one of these:




I waited for the right moment, a good setting, to make it funny.
Someone said on #1 "free zana" and I replied:
"Did someone say...FREE?" followed by the spoiler.

As usual, there is always that one person miserable enough in his basement to get off on reporting anyone for anything, with a angry pineapple sideways up their you know what.

I got a several hour long mute, which itself doesn't concern me at all 'cos I know more people got a laugh out of it than the few who felt like reporting me.

The GM told me I got muted for spam.
So this got me thinking; how exactly was that spam?
The definition of chat spam should include text being repeated frequently, fast, in a flooding style.
I did neither of those. I simply used symbols and stayed in the character limit of that given to me by the chat box.

A) Did I flood? No.
One message after 6 hours of silence. And nothing after it.

B) Was my message irrelevant? No.
I replied to a player with symbols of the shape of a face.
Nobody would have reported me if I had used a smaller face like this ^__^ or =D

C) Was my message nonsense, like gibberish? No.
The characters used clearly form a face, the same way smaller character form smaller items, forms and shapes, objects or faces.

Also, one can not use "I don't understand it" as reason for being classified as nonsense, or else
everyone who uses even one foreign or too fancy a word should be muted.
Which is thank god not the case, yet.

If someone has a uncontrollable compulsive disorder which forces them to fall into a deep,
unpleasent rage when seeing messages written against their liking, be it:

ALL CAPS BALLS TO THE WALLS...
Or maYBE FIFTY fifty caps AND THEN lower case UP ANd down...
or totaLLy missPLaced uPPer cAse leTTers...

Then that someone should use the tools, provided to him by the game, to /ignore whoever sends those disturbing messages, instead of bothering a GM by filing a report about spam,
because these messages do not meet the criteria of spam or flooding.

If you don't like it, don't read it. Mute the person on your own.
It takes only 2 clicks. Far less than reporting someone.

Let's get back to my specific case example.
The most expected reply to this post will probably be something like:

"You used abnormal characters, ascii, something you can't create by normal keyboard strokes.
That's why your message counts as spam/irrelevant nonsense."

By that logic, every russian and asian player should be muted because their "odd" symbols (letters) can't be found on the common western keyboard layout?

Also, let's report everyone who doesn't speak english as their native language, anyone with even minor errors in their sentence structuring, wording or typos, because such a display of low standards must be a obvious sign of spam, right? RIGHT?!

How many percentages of ascii symbols can a message contain before it can be classified as spam or irrelevant spam? 10%? 30%? 51%? Should every GM stop and do the count? Absurd.

The amount of characters in one sent message can't label it as spam either.
The character limit per message is about 500 give or take.
It doesn't matter if someone uses every bit of that by going on a rant about anything, game related or not. You can't report anyone for spam if that someone uses 1 full message of 500 characters to talk about awesome loot he just got, his pet rock irl, or using ascii to paint a giant face.







Here's the absolutely hilarious, ironic kicker about this whole issue:

The majority most likely thinks: "ascii stuff is wasting my time!",
when in reality it is less time consuming to look at a image made out of 500 characters,
than starting to read a 500 character message, only to find out half way in,
that it is total nonsense in which you have no interest in at all!

If someone pops up a ascii image, in full message size, it takes you 1 second to get it.
You either like it or don't, it's done, get over it.

If someone pops up a full message sized mininovel, it takes you several seconds till you are half way done with it, before you can tell if that user is either serious and interesting, giving you new information, asking a good question, or simply being entertaining, OR if he just wasted several seconds of your life with complete nonsense!

But as always, logic 404, not found.

My points being:

1) To all the GMs; stop muting players unless they send messages that actually classify as spam.
This means flooding, or frequently repeated sending of the same or slightly changed content.

2) To all the report sending haters; just ignore the user personally. It's less trouble for you, less trouble for the GMs, and makes you look less like a total dick who hates life. Also, in all your instant rage and stupidity you probably forgot this fact:
When you report someone, they get unmuted and if they really do spam, you will have to report them again later. If you simply /ignore them, they'll stay muted forever.
So look at yourself now, what's the real reason you report others for?

Nothing more than wanting to slap that user on the wrist with a virtual, second hand, temporary mute. How sad and miserable of a existance must one have to sink this low, that they would do something like this? Does anyone really feel any better about themself after doing this?
"Hah. Showed him. Yeah. Muted him for a while. Victory is mine. Such glory."
Seriously, what the actual fuck?

Personally I've been online for decades, never had to mute anyone for any reasons above.
The only time I mute or ignore someone, is when they literally flood me with a pure flooding troll mentality, which happened only a few times in my life time. Or, if someone I don't know keeps talking to me about stuff I'm not interested in, while I'm having a conversation with someone I know and things get confusing. Also a rare case.

Another type of quality I've seen in so many online users, which I would like to bring up briefly,
is the neurotic outburst displayed when seeing caps. It is not a laserbeam pointed directly into your eyeballs. Get over it. Whenever I see someone say something in all caps, there are always five people screaming "ERMAGERD STAHP CAPS!!", also in a more serious tone "dude, caps".

And every time I see these replies I can't help thinking "what kinda next level ocd shit is this, what pills did these guys forget to take this morning?" Like seriously, do they ever go outside? When was the last time they've seen sunlight? How deep are these people, how much of a real life this virtual reality has become to them, so that they take communication FONT SIZE matters THIS seriously?


Bottom line TL;DR

If you don't like it, don't read it, /ignore it.
Everyone is happier, them, you, and the GMs.
Reporting users who don't actually spam, only makes you the a-hole, not them.

PJSalt

reported for spam.

Holy first world problems.... seek help young exile.

LMAO...

"

Quantume wrote:

A) Did I flood? No.
One message after 6 hours of silence. And nothing after it.

Yes you did, you posted 6 lines of text in one go, just as bad as posting the same nonsense 6 times in a row. doesn't matter whether you posted nothing before or after, if everyone did this it would make chat unbearable for anyone (well more than it already is...)

"

Quantume wrote:

B) Was my message irrelevant? No.
I replied to a player with symbols of the shape of a face.
Nobody would have reported me if I had used a smaller face like this ^__^ or =D

Yes it was. How is a stupid ascii face in any way relevant to anything??

"

Quantume wrote:

C) Was my message nonsense, like gibberish? No.
The characters used clearly form a face, the same way smaller character form smaller items, forms and shapes, objects or faces.

Yes it was. Just because it is recognisable doesn't mean it makes sense.
It is a waste of anyones time.

I wouldn't have reported you because I am not 8 anymore but I would have put you on my ignore list. You deserved the mute you got and you probably wasted more time writing this post than you got muted for in chat ...

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Get a life.

Like those who report others and as I pointed out achieve nothing by doing so?
Really? I'm the one who needs to get a life, not them? Care to elaborate?

"

blubbber wrote:

Yes you did, you posted 6 lines of text in one go, just as bad as posting the same nonsense 6 times in a row. doesn't matter whether you posted nothing before or after, if everyone did this it would make chat unbearable for anyone (well more than it already is...)

Let's stop right there.
The game chat allows you almost 15 lines of text, that's the limit. If someone uses 6, 10, or 15 lines, and that's a painful "wall of text" or "spam" for you, then it's your problem.
The user did nothing wrong. GGG is obviously aware of how much someone can say in one go, so if that bothers you, you should contact them and ask them to limit the line amount down to twitter size 160 characters?

Looks like you didn't read my points about defining spam?
Using up all lines in one go isn't spam.

I could go on global#1 and use all 15 lines to talk about a item I found and talking about a build I'm going to do around it. Would that get me muted? Hardly. Would that annoy the shit out of many people due to being a wall of text? Absolutely. But it still doesn't make it spam.

Spam is flooding, repeating, for the sake of it.
I can't believe how nobody gets something this simple.

You can't just bend rules to fit your own personal preferences.
If you don't like something, that does not make it spam.
How hard can it be to understand that?
I thought the poe community was smarter than this.

► You were reported and subsequently muted for spam. Your definition of what is and is not spam might not be stringent enough.
> For example while the rows of text in your ascii image weren't repeating, they still would've taken up several rows and been put up immediately one after the other.

► Even though you're given 500 characters or so, that does not mean you should to use each and every one.

► Even though you said nothing for 6 hours beforehand what matters is how much appears in the chatbox over a short period of time.
> In this case, 7 lines of text in a second or two.

► Even though it's quicker to ignore someone than report them, there is a limit to how many people you can have in your ignore list at any one time.
> By reporting rather than ignoring there's a chance that person changes their behaviour in the future whereas ignoring them removes that possibility.
> If someone uses 6 clicks to report instead of 2 clicks to ignore? That may cause 5 other people to NOT need 2 clicks to ignore. That's a saving of 4 clicks!

► I suspect the reason you were reported was not for using ascii characters but rather the fact that you took up 7 lines in one message.
> You said it yourself: "Nobody would have reported me if I had used a smaller face like this ^__^ or =D "

► The game chat doesn't allow you 15 lines of text. It has 15 lines of text in the chat window at one time. They're not all for one person.

► Kudos for being in Global Chat. You're a stronger person than I.

"

► Oh! I forgot to ask, is there an actual PoE guideline on what constitutes spam? If so, could you link me to it? All I've found are the forum guidelines. :(

"

Quantume wrote:

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Get a life.

Like those who report others and as I pointed out achieve nothing by doing so?
Really? I'm the one who needs to get a life, not them? Care to elaborate?

Dont mind him. Its a PoE forum etiquette to say something ofensive, insulting or stupid

"

Quantume wrote:

I got a several hour long mute, which itself doesn't concern me at all 'cos I know more people got a laugh out of it than the few who felt like reporting me.

Hah!