Discussion: What to do about unwanted game e-mail
By
Acanous_Quietus,
Posted on: 2008-04-21 14:20 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.
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I like this suggestion.
Also, haven't seen pr0n ads yet, nor heard about them from any other players. And in my SG, I'd be getting text messages about it as soon as it happened.
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As I mentioned in the original announcement, we have several improvements to the game coming in Issue 12 to address. While I don't have an exhaustive list of everything we are doing, it does include much easier ways to report abuse as well as ways to prevent abuse from the start (including limitations to Trial accounts).
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Julie, if you keep quoting/answering me, people are gonna start talking... 
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http://www.plaync.com/us/support/ask.html.
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AM I the only one getting a dead page with this link?
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I think it is because the period got put in as part of the link (so it's a .html. file, not a .html file).
Mods, please fix the link in Lighthouse's post!
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Sorry bout that. Link is fixed.
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Np, after all, periods can happen anywhere.
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Goodness... Nobody's gonna fix it?
I guess I will:
http://www.plaync.com/us/support/ask.html
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Edit: Bah... missed where LH says he fixed it... but only the top thread. But I'm leavin' it here due to the others that get quoted. So there.
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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.
Unfortunately, you may be sent an unwanted in-game e-mail advertisements. Should you receive one there are several things you can do that will alert us to the problem and allow us to address it:
First, make use of the /ignore_spammer command on the sender of the unwanted e-mail. This will fast track the process of identifying the account doing the sending as a spammer and also add the user to your ignore list to prevent you from receiving further tells from them.
Second, make use of the /petition command to let us know what happened. This can be as simple as "/petition I received a spam e-mail from <name> that was advertising buying influence." You can also enter or manage your support tickets via the web at http://www.plaync.com/us/support/ask.html.
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Lighthouse, can you pass along to the programmers the need for a button in the in-game email interface that:
* Deletes the spam email.
* Activates the /ignore_spammer on the sender
* Starts the /petition against the spammer for the user.
The reason is that the typeface (in this case mont_demibold.TTF) used by the game has a [u]known problem[u] of allowing people to tell the difference between "l", "I" will naturally produce false positives that the spammers will use (and have been using) to protect themselves.
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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.
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I like this suggestion.
Also, haven't seen pr0n ads yet, nor heard about them from any other players. And in my SG, I'd be getting text messages about it as soon as it happened.
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As I mentioned in the original announcement, we have several improvements to the game coming in Issue 12 to address. While I don't have an exhaustive list of everything we are doing, it does include much easier ways to report abuse as well as ways to prevent abuse from the start (including limitations to Trial accounts).
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is there anyway at all to safely release to the live game now the new limitations to trial accounts?
or barring that, can the ingame email system be safely deactivated until ish 12 comes out, then once the new safe guards are in place you could reactivate the email system.
Here is a suggestion to solve the whole junk e-mail thing.
1. Remove the current system as it stands
2. Replace it with the following two feature.
i. Firstly a SG Only Messaging system, that allows only members of a certain rank to send e-mails to the SG members, but allows replies, it can have it's permissions entered in the SG permissions screen, from all out total access for all SG members to a select few.
ii. A Global friends e-mail system, where you can send and recieve e-mails from only those on your Globals list.
Well thats my suggestion, and enough of the thinking for now.
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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.
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Click backspace for the auto-reply, then arrow back over to replace /t with /ignore_spammer. Remember to remove the comma and space at the end too! That works well. 
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Lighthouse, can you pass along to the programmers the need for a button in the in-game email interface that:
* Deletes the spam email.
* Activates the /ignore_spammer on the sender
* Starts the /petition against the spammer for the user.
The reason is that the typeface (in this case mont_demibold.TTF) used by the game has a [u]known problem[u] of allowing people to tell the difference between "l", "I" will naturally produce false positives that the spammers will use (and have been using) to protect themselves.
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Aye, that is quite necessary. Good point.
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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.
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This is a great idea, I think an e-mail forward addy would be perfect. For tells its simple to just hit your reply button then change the "t" to ingnore_spammer and hit enter no worries about spelling the name wrong.
But the E-mail it's such a hassle i think most people simply delete and move on. Doing a forward to @spammer or some thing like that would be easy and would help run these people down.
I wish there were some kind of checkbox that would auto-delete email from people that are not on my global or server friend list.
Lewis
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I wish there were some kind of checkbox that would auto-delete email from people that are not on my global or server friend list.
Lewis
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Add SG (and perhaps Coalition) list to that and you might be on to something.
Limiting the email system to SG or Global only limits the legitimate use of it by all players because of spammers. A change like that effects all players to limit an unapproved use of current system. (I can hear some RP'rs screams of outrage of how that effects their gaming experience.) Allowing us a fast way of quickly forward emails to support with an ignore_spammer button that automatically deletes the email, will encourage the in game use. Some days I log into a character with 20+ spam emails - individually ignore_spammer'ing them can be timely, I certainly don't read them for their content - but even if I did and wanted to send a petition, there's no copy text option in-game - meaning we have to retype the contents of the email into a petition - leaving room for typos, etc. And again it's timely. I log in to play the game not deal with junk mail, most people can agree with me there. Make it fast for the user and it will be utilized - otherwise most are just going to continue with the quick Delete and be done with it.
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The only problem with using the /ignore_spammer command I see is the continuous use of nonsensical names used by most spammers, that makes it often impossible to correctly ignore. For the email that has been flooding our accounts specifically could the Dev's please add an in-game email address (per server) that we can forward the emails to (IE Email Petitions; Pinnacle Spammers; Virtue Petitions, etc). The player base can then easily forward the email along to the support team for their review/actions. Or add a button to the current in-game email structure to forward the email as a petition.
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Click backspace for the auto-reply, then arrow back over to replace /t with /ignore_spammer. Remember to remove the comma and space at the end too! That works well.
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Doesn't work for email. 
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I would like to say I am looking very much forward to whatever changes this brings. NOW I REALLY can't wait for i12.
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I'd just assume get rid of the market for spammers, but that's not gonna happen. Seems like it would be easier... Purple and Orange recipes stop selling for upwards of 50 mil each and yellows recipes and orange salvage going for upwards of 5 mil each... Make them common enough that prices come down to more resonable prices and, you kill the market for both spammers and farmers... That seems like it would be a matter of adjusting a few numbers and changing the setup for Pools a bit, not editing the game's core engines.... Whatever...
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I probably be flamed for this because it is a radical idea. But ...
Why not remove the e-mail system all together? All MMOs have e-mail which is why I say it is radical. But, it's usage here is limited compared to some others. We cannot transfer influence, enchantments, salvage, or recipes like other MMOs. It is really only text based communication. In my opinion communication is handled much more conveniently with tells and offiline messages. It would be curious what the actual usage numbers for e-mail would be without those reported for spam. My perception (which is limited and quite possibly wrong) is that it is not used much outside of sending RMT and now p0rn messages. Removing it would stop one of their more powertools, the ability to send spam while the player is offline.
Just my .02 influence.
--Rad
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The way I've heard this idea described is "cutting off your finger to deal with a hangnail." I concede it would solve the problem, but loss of ingame E-mail would impact people. Among other things, the SuperGroup I'm in uses E-mail to send announcem,ents to all hands about upcoming events, status and so on.
Loss of that would be a major problem for us.
Rather than taking extreme approaches like that, I'm willing to wait and see what the devs have lined up for us in I12. Lighthouse as good as said that trial accounts will be unable to send e-mail. If they add some easier spam reporting tools, such as the "this is spam" button on the e-mail screen, then hopefully it'll help.
That said, looking at this in the cold, hard, light of day, now that the game has an economy, this problem will never go away. All the devs can do is make it as hard as possible, and reduce the spam for us as much as possible.
I've said this in the past, and I'll say it again. The one thing I want, above all else, is a client side filter that allows ME to specify that if an e-mail or tell contains a particular string, it is to be considered spam. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out a couple of the strings that would show up in it pretty quickly. 
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[color=yellow]Well to be honest I'm one of those gamers who uses the e-mail system fairly regularly for ppl I don't have on friends & for certain things you Just can't have show properly in a tell (like the color codes for clear chat bubbles). Since I get a lot of ppl in game asking me how to bind chat bubble colours & other macro & bind related stuff where they need to be able to see the info while they follow the instructions. Unfortunately Tells just don't always help with that since they scroll up when ever new chat's & tells appear, where as e-mails don't scroll.
I have to admit I'm Very curious to see what the Devs' do to help us deal with this problem, whether it's with a [report spammer] button or [forward spam] so that the e-mail is directly delt with in some way. If we have that & have to use it in conjunction with the standard delete (as in report/forward the spam-mail & then hit [delete]) I'm all for it!
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How about a nice button where i can put spammers on ignore, cuz when i use the /spammer_ignore option...it doesnt work...and i still get spammed 15 minutes by the exact same people.....something anything to where i can stop it from coming to my account period...i hate having to be in /hide mode 100% of the time....my friends can never find me because of these idiots 
the problem also is they are using the free 14 day trial accounts to do this. Hasn't anyone ever tried the /gignore one on them and noticed it's also a giberish ignore name. The other problem is these are PL farmers that have no problem getting a toon to lvl 50 in a few hours. So if your gonna do it by can't send emails till a certain lvl or stuff like that it's just not gonna work.
The ingame email is a system that can be sacrificed for the good of the game but maybe it can just be changed to Global, SG and Coal until Devs can figure out a better means of long message communication. But I don't think that just ending ingame email is the right choice. Just my view on the subject.
What I would like to know is how these spammers get ahold of character names that aren't on or haven't been on in a long time. I took a break from the game and emptied my mail boxes on my toons before my hiatus. When I came back a few months ago, each of my characters had tons of spam emails. How did they manage that when I wasn't on for them to see my characters on a /who list? I'm looking forward to seeing what I12 brings us. I use the email system now and then, but not daily. However, it is annoying to see that I have unread mail only to find its nothing important. And to lose the email all together would be a pain in the rear. It does have its uses. I didn't discover the lvl restriction on sending mail until last week when I tried to send a message from a new alt. It was an inconvenience for me to have to log to another character to send my message. But I understand the neccessary fix because of these spammer poop head. Can anyone shed some light on my question above though?
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What I would like to know is how these spammers get ahold of character names that aren't on or haven't been on in a long time.
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excellent question. let's take it a step further.
if/when city vault is released what is the likelihood of 'The List' (or portion thereof) being copied and used as a spam marketing tool?
just a thought.
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the problem also is they are using the free 14 day trial accounts to do this. Hasn't anyone ever tried the /gignore one on them and noticed it's also a giberish ignore name. The other problem is these are PL farmers that have no problem getting a toon to lvl 50 in a few hours. So if your gonna do it by can't send emails till a certain lvl or stuff like that it's just not gonna work.
[/ QUOTE ]Exactly, so a simple solution is that only paying accounts that have been active for 3 months or more can use the email system. And only pay accounts can use the tell system (don't hold them to the 3 month deal).
Can you just offer a way to disable the in-game e-mail entirely? I have never, ever used it.
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I probably be flamed for this because it is a radical idea. But ...
Why not remove the e-mail system all together? All MMOs have e-mail which is why I say it is radical. But, it's usage here is limited compared to some others. We cannot transfer influence, enchantments, salvage, or recipes like other MMOs. It is really only text based communication. In my opinion communication is handled much more conveniently with tells and offiline messages. It would be curious what the actual usage numbers for e-mail would be without those reported for spam. My perception (which is limited and quite possibly wrong) is that it is not used much outside of sending RMT and now p0rn messages. Removing it would stop one of their more powertools, the ability to send spam while the player is offline.
Just my .02 influence.
--Rad
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I would be ok with removing the e-mail system we have if there was an easy way to communicate en mass with my entire SG at once. As it stands now, I have to send SG updates via the e-mail system. I send out a quarterly State of the SG type thing just to let people know what's going on and what's coming up. If there were another system in place I could use instead, I certainly would! The e-mail system is far from ideal, but was helpful when we didn't have globals.
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Why not use a website for that kind of thing? It would seem to be more efficient, and could foster more extensive communication, as well... Just an idea....
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