After all, we wouldn't want to hurt their feelings.

 

I don't know if bots are quite at this stage yet, but if you ignore them, presumably your status in their friends list changes to offline. After receiving 12 such advertisements in a period of only a few minutes last night, a thought occurred to me. If the bots are paying attention, they could act on this information by saying

 

a) This person got our private message, so we have a live fish. Quick, spam them with 20 more! (This is happening with SMS spam and many other types when some sort of verification is provided, which is needed because random strings of numbers are generated.)

b) This person is likely reporting us, so we better watch out.

 

This could be used to formulate a list of high-risk potential customers. They could then spam messages to everyone on this list and cause as much grievance as possible during the number of hours it takes for reports to be processed, while saving the fresh accounts for new people or for players who appear not to report them.

 

A similar argument could be made for muting them, but that's more of an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" dilemma.

 

So should we just report these bots, without adding them to our ignore list?

Turn friendslist to friends

I know I can do that to avoid spammers, but I would rather have it on; besides, that was not my main point.

They spam me once every like 3 hours. I just report all of them.

Recent Q&A says that reporting those PM ad-bots are helpful for helping them improve their chat filter which auto-mutes these type of bots.

 

I'll find the post for you.

 

EDIT:

 

14-15-509-63683909 Page 5.

A similar argument could be made for muting them, but that's more of an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" dilemma.

I've been muting them and have actually been getting a few more per day. Now up to 5. Not sure if they're paying that much attention.

The number is under 10,000...but is it still over 9,000?!

 

Joking aside, thanks Piu.

I think it's entirely random, it's probably unlikely you'll receive the same PM from the same bot as it is. So I'm not sure how beneficial it will be to ignore them. I mute them, but still get plenty every day. Sometimes Ii'll get 5-6 in the space of a few seconds.

I think it's entirely random, it's probably unlikely you'll receive the same PM from the same bot as it is. So I'm not sure how beneficial it will be to ignore them. I mute them, but still get plenty every day. Sometimes Ii'll get 5-6 in the space of a few seconds.

 

And I love how the prices of gold are different for the same website.

A remarkably easy way to detect the bots would be to flag accounts that send the majority of their PM's to other users who the have 1) never interacted with before and 2) the user does not have the bot on their friends list.

And I love how the prices of gold are different for the same website.

I was greatly amused yesterday when I got 5 PMs in seconds and the prices were in ascending order :mrgreen:

It is quite sad that i have to choose between leaving private chat on friends, and miss out on talking to people i have deleted due to inactivity/people i never added but they added me/potential PVM partners... OR deal with these spam bots that are getting more and more frequent.

 

But i don't see what there is to gain from discussing it. Bots suck, yep. Jagex should do something about it as they are already aware of the problem, yep. ... Ok. Now what? Continue repeating the complaint about how much they suck? That sounds worse than being spammed by bots.

a) This person got our private message, so we have a live fish. Quick, spam them with 20 more! (This is happening with SMS spam and many other types when some sort of verification is provided, which is needed because random strings of numbers are generated.)

b) This person is likely reporting us, so we better watch out.

 

As to a), if they know you've ignored their spam message then they also know that you're not a likely customer. As to b), I think it's safe to assume that they expect to be reported. I think you may be overthinking the spammer business model.

When you ignore them, I don't think your status turns into offline.

When you ignore them, I don't think your status turns into offline.

This. Unless they changed it, ignoring only works on one side, which is actually kind of terrible because it means someone can keep trying to talk to you and not know you've ignored them, because you still appear as online. Would be a nicer system if it just changed it to offline, and more useful for blocking the dedicated casual stalker from following you across worlds (that's dedicated enough to world hop, but not enough to use multiple accounts that the stalkee doesn't know about).

When you ignore them, I don't think your status turns into offline.

This. Unless they changed it, ignoring only works on one side, which is actually kind of terrible because it means someone can keep trying to talk to you and not know you've ignored them, because you still appear as online. Would be a nicer system if it just changed it to offline, and more useful for blocking the dedicated casual stalker from following you across worlds (that's dedicated enough to world hop, but not enough to use multiple accounts that the stalkee doesn't know about).

 

That is really just terrible.

a) This person got our private message, so we have a live fish. Quick, spam them with 20 more! (This is happening with SMS spam and many other types when some sort of verification is provided, which is needed because random strings of numbers are generated.)

b) This person is likely reporting us, so we better watch out.

 

As to a), if they know you've ignored their spam message then they also know that you're not a likely customer. As to b), I think it's safe to assume that they expect to be reported. I think you may be overthinking the spammer business model.

 

I think their aim is to keep bombarding you anyway, even if they know you're ignoring it. Why else do I get 20 emails/day of (non-RuneScape related) spam I never even think of buying?

Advertisement works by bombarding you with images you don't want. It isn't the best model, (figuring out what you want and showing you that is probably more effective) but it works very well and has lots of precedent.

 

My guess is that they aren't likely to be sophisticated enough to implement that method though..

I don't know I'll probably just continue reporting and ignoring them. It really is annoying that I have to choose between missing messages from friends that I've deleted which is a lot my list is almost always full or getting spammed by these dumb bots and then I can't press tab to respond to a friend I was talking too.

The number is under 10,000...but is it still over 9,000?!

 

Joking aside, thanks Piu.

Nice.

 

I've was getting spammed with probably 5 at a time every few hours but it has really died off the last 2 days. I used to report and temp mute them all!

I get this stuff every day, but I still can't even read their messages. It's just a huge mess with ---#¤#% 343 RS GOLD ----..-as.d-..343 cheap prices343&¤%¤%"------!"# kind of message that just confuse me. Not that I would read them anyways.

I feel like you are way overthinking this. Odds are, the spambots just look for usernames around and spam them. I'm sure they don't have any ban prevantive measures....

 

It's a nice thought, however....

I feel like you are way overthinking this. Odds are, the spambots just look for usernames around and spam them. I'm sure they don't have any ban prevantive measures....

 

It's a nice thought, however....

 

Pretty sure they have two bots, one that scans for names (not necessarily in game) and one that PMs. There are also ones that spam anyone who runs through crowded areas.

I feel like you are way overthinking this. Odds are, the spambots just look for usernames around and spam them. I'm sure they don't have any ban prevantive measures....

 

It's a nice thought, however....

 

Pretty sure they have two bots, one that scans for names (not necessarily in game) and one that PMs. There are also ones that spam anyone who runs through crowded areas.

This would be about right I think.

 

Normally they trawl for names in popular fc's, or by running a bot through a crowded area like the GE, and then forward the list of names to other bots. At least I think they send it to other bots because that explains why you get spammed by a whole bunch in waves (all working off the same name finder).

I feel like you are way overthinking this. Odds are, the spambots just look for usernames around and spam them. I'm sure they don't have any ban prevantive measures....

 

It's a nice thought, however....

 

Pretty sure they have two bots, one that scans for names (not necessarily in game) and one that PMs. There are also ones that spam anyone who runs through crowded areas.

This would be about right I think.

 

Normally they trawl for names in popular fc's, or by running a bot through a crowded area like the GE, and then forward the list of names to other bots. At least I think they send it to other bots because that explains why you get spammed by a whole bunch in waves (all working off the same name finder).

 

Sounds about right. Usually if I do get the spam its because I'm in one of those two locations (a popular fc or the GE). My record was 8 in 30 seconds once during an event in a popular fc which led me into the ge, and it was just about everyone there who instantly started complaining so I know I wasn't the only target.

 

I wonder about muting these sometimes as surely they pm just about everyone all at once so by the time the mute hits they've done their damage, but then again it does take them out of commission for a few while they hop to a new account to continue. At least Private messages set to friends resolves it (although I really do hate doing that).

Yeah, the mutes even from pmods probably don't do much. At best, it forces them to use another account for the next round, which actually probably just creates more work on the back end in the long run with no difference front end.

 

Unless the spam filter has been designed to quash people who try to pm 100 people in 5 seconds, in which case they would have to slow them down to human speed, in which case a mute might do a bit of good.