Spam Rule Is too Broad and violated by nearly every guild in the game.

Almar · May 2017

So this is the spam rule: 7. SPAM
7.1 You may not post messages or distribute via any in-game mechanic, spam, chat flooding or any other disruptive messaging. This includes posting messages more than once, posting messages to multiple locations.

So then isn't every guild that travels to more than one zone to recruit in violation of the chat rules and guilty of spam? Additionally, isn't every person that says WTB something more than once also in violation? There needs to be a clear rule on what size message and how often it can be repeated surely we should be allowed to advertise what we are looking for in more than one zone?

Shadow_Viper_vX · May 2017

Aye, and also; Technically, selling items via chat is against the ToS

Almar · May 2017

That is just crazy. If they banned everyone that bought and sold items via chat they would have no player base. . What a ridiculous policy!

alexkdd99 · May 2017

I think if you are posting it over and over to the point where your post is all that is seen, then that is spam. While what is in the rules is fairly vague and not really accurate I find it best to just use common sense and not aggravate people.

The part about posting the same thing in different locations doesn't really make sense. I know if I am in a dungeon or trial and I need to replace someone I will post the same thing in all my guilds looking for people.

I usually think if I am doing something that would cause me to be aggravated from other people doing it, then I probably shouldn't do it. The whole do unto others thing.

Almar · May 2017

The part about posting the same thing in different locations doesn't really make sense. I know if I am in a dungeon or trial and I need to replace someone I will post the same thing in all my guilds looking for people.

I usually think if I am doing something that would cause me to be aggravated from other people doing it, then I probably shouldn't do it. The whole do unto others thing. [/quote]

Alex i agree with what you say but it is subjective. Posting what im trying to buy once per hour in each zone(which is what i do) should not be annoying, but what if someone just disagrees with my prices and gets annoyed that way. Or, what if they just happen to travel to several of the same zones im posting in, then they could get annoyed by the repetition even though it is only once per hour per zone. I just wish i could get a clear answer from customer service rather than a vauge reference to vague rules!

KingYogi415 · May 2017

People need to promote their guilds.

How is posting one long message every 30 mins spamming?

This is the intented purpose of zone chat, to bring people together.

Cheers!

CaptainBeerDude · May 2017

Rules are left vague in order to give the governing body more leeway.

So they let us do stuff, but could put the boot up someone for doing the same if they were harassing others.

Runs · May 2017

Guilds should stop spamming zone chats, and instead let players find and apply to the ones they want via the Guild search feature.

Oh, wait...

Korah_Eaglecry · May 2017

Shadow_Viper_vX wrote: »

Aye, and also; Technically, selling items via chat is against the ToS

Could easily be rectified with a Trade Channel. Then they could come down hard on anyone who doesnt place their items in the appropriate channel as thered be no excuse.

nhisso · May 2017

Have strict channels like warframe. The end. Not that hard, and is inexcusable that we dont have lfg chat, trade chat and a zone chat.

bebynnag · May 2017

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Shadow_Viper_vX wrote: »

Aye, and also; Technically, selling items via chat is against the ToS

Could easily be rectified with a Trade Channel. Then they could come down hard on anyone who doesnt place their items in the appropriate channel as thered be no excuse.

half the players on my server yell reply to a whisper, their brains would implode if these changes were brought in! LOL

personally in favour of the changes, but console would also need the option to select which channels they do/dont view.

slumber_sandb16_ESO · May 2017

Global trade channel
Global guild recruitment channel

Kay1 · May 2017

slumber_sandb16_ESO wrote: »

Global trade channel
Global guild recruitment channel

Aurie · May 2017

nhisso wrote: »

Have strict channels like warframe. The end. Not that hard, and is inexcusable that we dont have lfg chat, trade chat and a zone chat.

This.

Shadow_Viper_vX · May 2017

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Shadow_Viper_vX wrote: »

Aye, and also; Technically, selling items via chat is against the ToS

Could easily be rectified with a Trade Channel. Then they could come down hard on anyone who doesnt place their items in the appropriate channel as thered be no excuse.

But ZOS would need to follow through, because inconsiderate players would still be spamming other chats while justifying it with "not enough people use trade chat"

Almar · May 2017

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Shadow_Viper_vX wrote: »

Aye, and also; Technically, selling items via chat is against the ToS

Could easily be rectified with a Trade Channel. Then they could come down hard on anyone who doesnt place their items in the appropriate channel as thered be no excuse.

I agree we need a trade channel that would fix the issue!

Almar · May 2017

In fact im gonna start advocating for this, get petition going or something. Ill start by asking everyone in all 5 of my guilds to sign it.

Rinmaethodain · May 2017

This is very bad rule but what's worse, its completely out of touch with game.

Rules should be adjusted to in game reality and how players do things in game. It is common thing to travel from zone to zone and post things to increase its visibility because of chat being at most zone wide (even not zone wide, its instance wide).

It would be logical that rules adapt to game as it evolves, instead of staying behind.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Rinmaethodain · May 2017

As for someone mentioning that ESO should have a trade chat. For reminder currently eso uses following channels/filters:

- say (/s or /say)
- tell (/t /tell /w or /whisper)
- emote (/e /emote or /me)
- yell (/y or /yell)
- group (/g /group /p or /party)
- common zone (/z or /zone)
- english speaking zone (/enz or /enzone)
- german speking zone (/dez or /dezone)
- french speaking zone (/frz or /frzone)
- japanese speaking zone (/jpz or /jpzone)
- 1 to 5 guild and officer chats (/g# /guild# and /o# /officer#)

Basically, players can use these zones all the time but each player individually can filter out messages sent in these places. What is proposed here is to add another zone which would be used for WTS, WTB and WTT offers (most likely /trade because /t would conflict with /tell even tho im not sure anyone calls it that any more when people say whisper).

This trade chat would be global, people in every zone would see it. Also it would have hard-coded cool-down. Each character would not be allowed to post more often than 1/2/5/10/x minutes (whatever ZOS will decide) to prevent spamming.

Yeah sure you will say "but there are addons already that can filter out WTB and WTS" or "people can just ignore players" or "just move to other zone" or "just use guild stores" or "people will still post wtb/wts in common zone".

1st. Not everyone wants to run every possible addon.
2nd. Ignore is option is in my opinion most lame feature of every communication media. Not to mention a lot of people will ignore someone because they have bad day but will never bother to unignore them which can later cause problems if they happen to meet in a dungeon/trial group or it will disturb guild communication.
3rd. Again maybe someone wants to be in that specific zone + sellers/buyers usually travel amongst all zones.
4th. Not everyone have access to guild store. Not to mention there are things that simply cant be listed in guild stores. Firstly because they are not items (advertisement of services and ones capabilities in crafting). Secondly guild store have limit of 30 items, what if someone's offer is greater than that (both in quantity of items and number of types of items) and advertisement requires additional explanation?
5th. And? With proper set of rules, people who will insist on posting WTB/WTS on common chat (with brand new trade chat) will be treated just like spammers, getting minor warning and/or social bans preventing them from use public chats for X time. One or minority of players breaking the rules cant be used as an argument against feature that will benefit the majority.

So now, here are benefits of introducing trade channel/filter. Firstly common zone chat would be cleaner with only game communication, no more WTB/WTS walls interrupting discussion anybody can opt in or out of it or even create special tab in their default eso chat just for buy/sell ads.

Next thing requires some explanation. As you may know there is character limit on how many characters can be posted in single message. Its exactly 350 symbols. Because of that limit, when you attempt to link more than 5 items you cant do it or 5th/6th link gets cut in half (because something like [Plume Dazzler] does not take 15 characters space, it takes in real 61 characters of space since real link looks like this |H1:item:114947:175:1:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0|h|h).

Introducing separate trade channel with anti spam cool-down would allow to increase character limit just in that channel so people could link more goods at once. At the same time character limit in zone chats and non-trade chats could be reduced (no need to write poems there, right?).

There is a third benefit to trade chat. As i mentioned above, that chat would be global. You post it in Reapers March and people in Mournhold see it too. This would mean that people dont have to wayshrine from zone to zone to advertise their goods. Not only it will make it more convenient but i believe this could reduce some server load caused by people using wayshrine in rapid succession, forcing game engine to constantly relocate them from instance to instance.

Anways, this is initial idea, feel free to add your own 2 cents what could be changed or modified. Or if you think there is absolutely no need for such trade chat, explain it to us why.

colig · May 2017

Separate trade channels never work. Everyone just posts their wtb/wts on the most popular channel and they get away with it because no one will enforce the rules to keep it in trade chat.

Rinmaethodain · May 2017

colig wrote: »

Separate trade channels never work. Everyone just posts their wtb/wts on the most popular channel and they get away with it because no one will enforce the rules to keep it in trade chat.

Report button, new policy rule to not post WTB/WTS outside trade channel, limit number of characters in regular channels (nobody writes essays in there) while at the same time increase number of characters in trade channels (so people can post more links) - so many ideas instead of overgeneralised "trade channels never work".

Almar · May 2017

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that finds this rule vague and out of touch. I brought it up in a couple of zone conversations and the people there found it to be so outrageous that, until they looked it, up they thought I was lying. Guilds especially found it to be unrealistic.

Shadow_Viper_vX · May 2017

MaximusDargus wrote: »

This is very bad rule but what's worse, its completely out of touch with game.

Rules should be adjusted to in game reality and how players do things in game. It is common thing to travel from zone to zone and post things to increase its visibility because of chat being at most zone wide (even not zone wide, its instance wide).

It would be logical that rules adapt to game as it evolves, instead of staying behind.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

If it was a common thing for everyone to be jumping off a bridge, would that make it okay?

Almar · May 2017

Shadow_Viper_vX wrote: »

MaximusDargus wrote: »

This is very bad rule but what's worse, its completely out of touch with game.

Rules should be adjusted to in game reality and how players do things in game. It is common thing to travel from zone to zone and post things to increase its visibility because of chat being at most zone wide (even not zone wide, its instance wide).

It would be logical that rules adapt to game as it evolves, instead of staying behind.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

If it was a common thing for everyone to be jumping off a bridge, would that make it okay?

I think comparing the advertising of goods, and guilds, to "jumping off of bridges" is a bit extreme. In order to get visibility in those 2 categories advertising is necessary. Jumping off a bridge rarely is . . unless you are suicidal. 8-}

Almar · May 2017

I reiterate that if they wont dedicate a channel to trading and other advertising, then simply set a time/character limit rule in zone chats. For Example: 300 characters once every 60 mins per zone for duplicate messages.

Darlgon · May 2017

Almar wrote: »

I reiterate that if they wont dedicate a channel to trading and other advertising, then simply set a time/character limit rule in zone chats. For Example: 300 characters once every 60 mins per zone for duplicate messages.

Wow.. you definitely are new to the game and out of touch with reality.

Commanders in Cyrodiil would be unable to command the troops except for 5 min out of every hour.

Also.. that would require ZoS to actually monitor for duplicate messages.

Almar · May 2017

Darlgon wrote: »

Almar wrote: »

I reiterate that if they wont dedicate a channel to trading and other advertising, then simply set a time/character limit rule in zone chats. For Example: 300 characters once every 60 mins per zone for duplicate messages.

Wow.. you definitely are new to the game and out of touch with reality.

Commanders in Cyrodiil would be unable to command the troops except for 5 min out of every hour.

Also.. that would require ZoS to actually monitor for duplicate messages.

So they simply state that it is against the rules to post the same message twice . . . EVER?

Reverb · May 2017

Point 1: Hyperbole. Not "every guild in the game" is spamming recruitment messages. Not even close.

Point 2: Benefit vs. burden. You only get the "spamming" smackdown by Zeni if there have been player complaints about your messages. If the frequency or length of your message (or both) is such that it is a pure disruption to zone chat, rather than adding to it, you are annoying people and they will report you. Make sure your recruitment messages are concise, no more than 4 lines of text in the box. Watch zone for a minute before posting. If there are several guild recruitment posted in that time, yours runs a higher risk of adding to the irritation of your target audience. It also means that many players will be ignoring chat (as most of us do when the recruitment messages make zone convos impossible), and your message won't reach many people anyway.

ParaNostram · May 2017

Okay sugar time to take a step back, take off the tin foil hat, and put on our thinking caps.

Has anyone ever been banned for promoting a guild or selling in zone chat? No? Then clearly ZOS is applying common sense in application of this rule but have the language the way it is so they can catch any problematic person down the road should the need arise.

Almar · May 2017

Reverb wrote: »

Point 1: Hyperbole. Not "every guild in the game" is spamming recruitment messages. Not even close.

Point 2: Benefit vs. burden. You only get the "spamming" smackdown by Zeni if there have been player complaints about your messages. If the frequency or length of your message (or both) is such that it is a pure disruption to zone chat, rather than adding to it, you are annoying people and they will report you. Make sure your recruitment messages are concise, no more than 4 lines of text in the box. Watch zone for a minute before posting. If there are several guild recruitment posted in that time, yours runs a higher risk of adding to the irritation of your target audience. It also means that many players will be ignoring chat (as most of us do when the recruitment messages make zone convos impossible), and your message won't reach many people anyway.

They may selectively enforce it, but the rule states it is spamming if you repeat something even once or post the same message in 2 zones: 7. SPAM, 7.1 You may not post messages or any other disruptive messaging. This includes posting messages more than once, and posting messages to multiple locations.

Almar · May 2017

ParaNostram wrote: »

Okay sugar time to take a step back, take off the tin foil hat, and put on our thinking caps.

Has anyone ever been banned for promoting a guild or selling in zone chat? No? Then clearly ZOS is applying common sense in application of this rule but have the language the way it is so they can catch any problematic person down the road should the need arise.

2 of our guild recruiters were given "official spam warnings" for a recruitment message that was posted once per hour per zone.