Questions about effective abuse reporting

[keruly]

When I was a newbie I didn't report because I didn't care. When I was a member I didn't report because I had nothing to report. Now that I've let my membership lapse for a few months, and have been playing in the cesspool that is f2p, the Report Abuse button has felt like my only (weak) weapon against a swarm of rule-breakers. I want to find out how best to wield it. Pmods have been officially recognised for having good reporting skills so I'd like their input primarily, though everyone is of course welcome to comment.

 

 

 

I've thought of a few questions for starters

 

 

 

Timing of the report:

 

How much of the backlog is saved when reporting? Is anything logged *after* you report?

 

Do you report as soon as you suspect something wrong? or do you wait hoping for more evidence, or to make sure it's real abuse?

 

I've heard "the last 60 seconds" rule of thumb, but that's such a small window it doesn't leave much time to make sure that a macroer isn't a skill pure. Or whether a swearer is only swearing once or actually being obnoxious. (If I reported everyone who swore once I'd report everyone I met!)

 

 

 

How much evidence do you look for

 

I'm always hearing of people discussing deals with other players that are surely scams, "follow me to double your cash/items", "give me your yews, I'll fletch them and pay you later (even though his character doesn't have any fletching lvl)", etc. Sometimes it's easy to tell the intention, but often it's unclear. Also, some guys won't go through with a scam with my high-level character watching, but they'd surely like to. Do you report behaviour that is simply "sketchy"?

 

 

 

Goldfarmers

 

Despite reports that autoing is dead after the engine update, you still see an awful lot of unspeaking, default-clothing, pure woodcutters, miners and fishermen in f2p. Macro discussion aside, even if they are real people and they aren't breaking rules yet, they're clearly goldfarmers who will sell the goods for money later. Is there a fair way to flag these accounts, even without any proof? Would reporting them for macroing or real-world trading be considered a bad report?

 

 

 

Auto-typers

 

This may be the greyest of all rules. Despite it being macroing AND offensive language (for flooding) many do it anyway and no one cares. It's the only abuse I noticed often even in p2p worlds. So have you ever reported this? Is it worth it at all?

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading this far, I'm wordy. Again, any comments are welcome but I'd especially like any player mods in the audience to give their 2 cents, since they've obviously made reports that jagex found useful. I would like to learn how to be useful too, and maybe help make a difference.

[ventuzz]

Speaking of abuse report. Is it ok to report on someone who saying "Grab that wine" (of zamarok)? So many new players died to that.

[i123i]

sweet someone actually read my post :) That aside, only worthy people to report are macroers that are autoing....reporting a spammer won't do much good on world 2 with the flurry of text, best it does is mute them for 48 hours if jagex does anything. And it's impossible for anyone to be macroing anymore unless they're using a mouse recorder in which using that itself will get them banned for clicking in the exact same spot dead on. I could go check in on some communities to see if anything's been done and report back.

[keruly]

I'm not so much interested in the macros themselves and how they work. I'll leave that up to jagex, since macros can be made pretty sophisticated. Eventually there will be bots that screengrab, recognise images on screen, move the mouse in human-like arcs and click on points with a normal random distribution. Outside the scope of discussion.

 

 

 

Anyway, to an observing player it's not obvious whether a goldfarmer is actually a script or just a person who is quiet. Maybe it IS a person and he's quiet because he's busy manually controlling 10 other lvl-3 yew cutters in separate windows. Either way, I think these accounts should be flagged, but I don't know how is best since there are no rules being broken that I can see.

 

 

 

As for the autotyping, yeah I figure it's pointless, as much as it aggravates me. I only bother reporting them if they're really bad (like 1/sec) in an otherwise quiet place. I notice some people use them while fishing to defeat the auto-logout, and I sometimes report that, if they make it obvious it's an autotyper.

[bestsob]

Mostly I only report obvious scams and offensive language.

[BloodAngel]

Speaking of abuse report. Is it ok to report on someone who saying "Grab that wine" (of zamarok)? So many new players died to that.

 

 

 

Yes you can report that because it is a trick to gain items.

 

 

 

-Bloodangel

[Stallion4589]

you wanted an answer from a pmod, so here it is:

 

 

 

 

Timing of the report:

 

How much of the backlog is saved when reporting? Is anything logged *after* you report? the previous 60 seconds is recorded in the report, nothing after

 

Do you report as soon as you suspect something wrong? or do you wait hoping for more evidence, or to make sure it's real abuse? if you do not have genuine evidence, there is no point reporting them. so, of course you would wait for further evidence

 

I've heard "the last 60 seconds" rule of thumb, but that's such a small window it doesn't leave much time to make sure that a macroer isn't a skill pure. Or whether a swearer is only swearing once or actually being obnoxious. (If I reported everyone who swore once I'd report everyone I met!) the 60 second rule counts, its not just a rule of thumb. so, if you dont think will get them in the previous 60 seconds, wait for more evidence. in regards to macroers: reporting for macroing works in a different way to normal reporting. rather than sending the report to jmods, your macroing report alerts jagex's super-top-secret anti-macroing program. so, you do not need solid evidence against macroers, the program does all that for jagex

 

 

 

How much evidence do you look for

 

I'm always hearing of people discussing deals with other players that are surely scams, "follow me to double your cash/items", "give me your yews, I'll fletch them and pay you later (even though his character doesn't have any fletching lvl)", etc. Sometimes it's easy to tell the intention, but often it's unclear. Also, some guys won't go through with a scam with my high-level character watching, but they'd surely like to. Do you report behaviour that is simply "sketchy"? "sketchy" behaviour doesnt cut it. you need genuine evidence before reporting someone

 

 

 

Goldfarmers

 

Despite reports that autoing is dead after the engine update, you still see an awful lot of unspeaking, default-clothing, pure woodcutters, miners and fishermen in f2p. Macro discussion aside, even if they are real people and they aren't breaking rules yet, they're clearly goldfarmers who will sell the goods for money later. Is there a fair way to flag these accounts, even without any proof? Would reporting them for macroing or real-world trading be considered a bad report? reporting goldfarmers would be a very hard thing to do, as they are no longer macroing, and you cannot have any immediate proof that they are (unless they admit to it). thus, i would avoid reporting suspected goldfarmers, and let jmods investigate and deal with them instead

 

 

 

Auto-typers

 

This may be the greyest of all rules. Despite it being macroing AND offensive language (for flooding) many do it anyway and no one cares. It's the only abuse I noticed often even in p2p worlds. So have you ever reported this? Is it worth it at all? if they are obviously using an autotyper, are constantly spamming the chat box with nonsense, or are distrupting the gaming of others, then report them for either offensive language or macroing (whichever is applicable)

[aznmidget448]

I just completely forgot what I was going to say, but here's something that i just remembered...

 

 

 

I was talking to a pmod... he said that if you think the person is breaking the rules, then report. So even without evidence like getting killed by a random or something, you should still report and jagex will just file through the people who are and aren't macroing...

[KCHughes]

For scams, if you see somebody say something that sounds a little suspicious, wait for further evidence. Most likely, the person will give you enough evidence to report if you wait long enough.

 

 

 

For autotyping, don't report it under macroing. If you suspect an autotyper is being used, and the user is spamming the chat box, report it under offensive language. That way, even if the person isn't using an autotyper, they're still spamming, which is a reportable offense.

 

 

 

As far as macroers go, leave them alone. It's impossible to really tell who's a macroer and who isn't, unless you know what you're doing. Sooner or later, Jagex's detectors will find the macroers and ban them.

[All_Bogs]

 

Auto-typers

 

This may be the greyest of all rules. Despite it being macroing AND offensive language (for flooding) many do it anyway and no one cares. It's the only abuse I noticed often even in p2p worlds. So have you ever reported this? Is it worth it at all? if they are obviously using an autotyper, are constantly spamming the chat box with nonsense, or are distrupting the gaming of others, then report them for either offensive language or macroing (whichever is applicable)

 

 

 

Keep in mind, only gibberish. If they're aggresively advertising rune scimitars or telling that Ghjjf is team@@@ there's no need to report it.

 

 

 

On the subject of macroing, it never hurts to report someone you suspect for it. If they're clean, nothing bad will happen. But if those goldfarmers are actually human-controlled players, it's rather pointless.

 

 

 

Also, "Follow me to double your cash and items" is pretty solid evidence against a scammer :P but if you feel it's still pretty vague, or as you said, sketchy, don't report. Hang around to gather better evidence, or simply leave them be if you don't feel like spending time on it, because nobody's making you.

[joecool280]

I normally take a "its non of my buisness" aproach and just ignore any rulebreaking but if I am annoyed, I will report people breaking rules as a kind of anger management

[keruly]

Thanks for replying to everything Stallion, even though the answers are different from what I was hoping for. :) "Hard proof is needed except for macroers" will let a lot of clever scammers slip through the cracks.

 

 

 

The "previous 60 seconds" thing also disappoints me a little. It does not mention any hard time limit anymore in the knowledge base, I had hoped they would have come up with something more sophisticated in the last few years. I've seen people space out their PMs for example, so it's hard to get solid evidence in 60 secs and still type in their complicated SN and find the right rule to click on, even though it's all still in my chat log.

 

 

 

However it's the just kind of answer I was seeking! but that doesn't close the the discussion. I'd like more comments that confirm or deny what has been said.

 

 

 

Keep in mind, only gibberish. If they're aggresively advertising rune scimitars or telling that Ghjjf is team@@@ there's no need to report it.

If they're advertising rune scimitars on a fishing dock every two seconds with flashy text, there's no need to report? I disagree.

 

 

 

Also, "Follow me to double your cash and items" is pretty solid evidence against a scammer :P

Yeah, that was a bad example. But something like "give me all your yews, I have a p2p friend who will fletch and alch them for you" could be believable. It only gets suspicious when his 'friend' isn't online and he'll 'pay you back tomorrow.'

 

 

 

As far as macroers go, leave them alone.

On the subject of macroing, it never hurts to report someone you suspect for it.

I just like the contrast here. :)

[mchainmail]

Not trying to hijack your thread, but:

 

 

 

Is it allowed to specifically ASK a password scammer if they are Jagex staff, and report them for staff impersonation?

 

 

 

Also, can I keep reporting someone if they continue breaking a rule after 60 secs?

[God_is_love]

you will probably get reported for encouraging other players to break rules...so it isnt a good idea. if you want to be a mod then play honest.

[The_Piperess]

 

Is it allowed to specifically ASK a password scammer if they are Jagex staff, and report them for staff impersonation?

 

 

 

Also, can I keep reporting someone if they continue breaking a rule after 60 secs?

 

Why don't you report password scammers under Rule 3 (password scamming)? Avoid asking players to make them admit to breaking rules as that can easily be seen as 'encouraging others to break rules' (Rule 9).

 

 

 

One abuse report for every offence should be enough. If they break a different rule after 60 seconds, I am sure that's worth reporting too.

 

 

 

 

But something like "give me all your yews, I have a p2p friend who will fletch and alch them for you" could be believable. It only gets suspicious when his 'friend' isn't online and he'll 'pay you back tomorrow.'

 

 

Make the other players aware of what might happen, maybe? ;)

 

An abuse report would probably be pointless to look at since it would contian no proof.

 

 

 

 

As far as macroers go, leave them alone.

On the subject of macroing, it never hurts to report someone you suspect for it.

I just like the contrast here. :)

 

If your suspicion is justified, I would say it doesn't hurt to send in an abuse report. That goes for every rule.

 

 

 

My 2 cents!

[Marco]

As it says in the Runescape guide, just report abuse when you see it..

 

As far as successful reporting goes.. In my experiance I think only one player has been banned as a result of Offensive Languange despite it being the most common thing I'd report when I first started the game. Now I never report people for Offensive Language unless the person avoids the censor and says something of great offense to the people around, by great offense I mean... Well.. Very very bad things.

 

 

 

The most successful report that I send which so far has had 100% rate in action being taken is Advetising. Although I've only actually reported about 7 people for this everyone of them resulted in them being banned. Not one of those idiots that reports people for saying "try searching on tip.it" or similar, I only report this when a player advertises a macro bot site. For exaple "Go to (macrosite) to get Yew bots". If I see anyone saying "Search Google" or "Check your Hotmail, I e-mailed 30 mins ago" I'll never report.

 

 

 

Reporting Macroing very rarely ends up in bans and neither does Password Scamming. Impersonating Jagex Staff has an almost 100% success rate for me.

 

 

 

So far I've had.. *checks*..17 messages from Jagex thanking me for reporting, when I told a Pmod this he said I should have been a Mod ages ago and Recommended me or something but alas, nothing happened.

 

 

 

If you try the Knowledge Base now it gives more detail on what and when you should report abuse.

[KCHughes]

 

As far as macroers go, leave them alone.

On the subject of macroing, it never hurts to report someone you suspect for it.

I just like the contrast here. :)

 

If your suspicion is justified, I would say it doesn't hurt to send in an abuse report. That goes for every rule.

 

 

 

My 2 cents!

 

 

 

You can't call the police and report somebody who "looks like they could be a murderer." The same way, you can't report somebody for macroing because they "look like a macroer." The only way to prove that somebody is macroing is by using a macro-detecting macro. Jagex's update has a new tool that already does this, so let them handle it.

[The_Piperess]

I can see your point, but I wouldn't say sending an abuse report is like calling the police.

 

 

 

If players were not supposed to report bots, they wouldn't be able to do it to begin with. Of course, this does not mean that they could run around and report every unresponsive low (combat) level player which is what many seem to be doing. However, when there is a good reason for their suspicion (and that isn't merely what the character "looks like"), I personally see no problem in sending in an abuse report, particularly for 'macroing' as it still seems to be quite a problem at the moment.

 

 

 

As you already know, none of the reported characters would get banned without evidence from the detection system, so reporting someone who appears to be macroing can be helpful in speeding up the process.

[All_Bogs]

You can't call the police and report somebody who "looks like they could be a murderer." The same way, you can't report somebody for macroing because they "look like a macroer." The only way to prove that somebody is macroing is by using a macro-detecting macro. Jagex's update has a new tool that already does this, so let them handle it.

 

 

 

Reporting them simply turns the macro-detection tool's attention toward them.

 

 

 

Is it allowed to specifically ASK a password scammer if they are Jagex staff, and report them for staff impersonation?

 

 

 

Also, can I keep reporting someone if they continue breaking a rule after 60 secs?

 

 

 

As for the first question, no, don't. The second, yes, sure, but I'd only do that if they're actually getting worse, eg just verbal abuse at first, then turning into password scamming. It's rather pointless to report somebody for password scamming every 60 seconds though.

[keruly]

I'm surprised everyone thinks it's "encouraging other to break rules" to ask someone if they're jagex staff. You're not encouraging them. You might be laying a bit of a trap for them to fall into, but they've already decided to break the rule...

 

 

 

It's like if you hear someone say "buying drag b axe 1 mil!", you know it's probably a scam but you trade them anyway to watch them change 1000k to 10004. Is trading them encouraging them to break the rules?

 

 

 

But I'm just rambling, it's a moot point anyway. If someone is already password scamming you can just report for that, there's no need to get an explicit staff impersonation.