Does Blizzard have a published policy for the selling of content for gold (often known as “LFG spam”, “WTS spam”) in the LFG tool? The first time I check the tool every day, I typically make ~10 reports but the posts with the exact same subject and description continue. When I look the players up, they are level 60 characters in greens This pattern has been consistent for over 12 months now so I’d like to understand how these reports lead to an actual reduction in spam posts. Blizzard have actually taken steps to make it more difficult to report players by modifying the addon API to prevent automatic reporting of spam posts (I can dig up the details if requested), so it could be the case that these are not against any rules and I’m wasting time manually submitting reports every single day.
First off, remove the character name as naming and shaming is against the rules. Second, the policy is that the character advertising MUST participate in the run. Other than that, I am not sure on the full policy, but reporting them is the correct thing to do. It might take awhile, but they will eventually be dealt with.
Are you sure? Individual accounts may be actioned eventually (there’s of course no way to know) but the pattern is a chronic problem and players manually reporting accounts every day doesn’t scale and appears ineffective on the whole. I can only speak to how long I’ve been playing again (roughly 12 months) but surely banning the business names and associated domains would be the bare minimum.
I’m positive. Investigations take time. Blizzard tends to do things called ban waves to deal with a great many of the violations once a way is figured out how to do so effectively.
This is kind of a blergh area, but the policy as it stands now, and as I under stand it is as follows:
-One is allowed to advise runs/boosts for gold.
-The advertiser has to be advertising run for that realm (no xreal, but kinda grey too in retail at least now).
-They have to at least be (theoretically/sorta) capable of doing the runs. This means at the least max level for raids and what not. So all those low lvl ad bots are just disposable accounts, report 'em and they come back with more (but keep reporting them, please).
-They have to stick to the appropriate channel or they can get hammered.
-They have to not ‘spam’ the ads. There is no set frequency for this, but it basically goes if your previous ad is still up, wait.
-No outside links/websites/discord in the ads.
No one I know likes the booster ads, but it is how it is pretty much for now. I think I got it all.
So, if low lvl, do report, they get hammered (and they get replaced with similar named bots). If they are in the wrong channel they get hammered faster. If they are max level and in the right channel and still sus as heck, they stay around for longer than I’d like…but again, it is what it is.
Edit: I should note, that at least on retail the boosting spam is mostly low lvl ad bots that get hammered. But, they do tend to stay in Services. If the Services channel did not exist, they would be in Trade. I assume it is the same for Classic. I think I heard Service channel is coming to fresh, so maybe a help to clear up channels?
Individuals and guilds selling boost or assistance in raiding, dungeon, or PvP activities for gold is allowed but can only be advertised in-game through the Trade Services chat channel.
Translation, if they are within the premade group finder adversitizing, right click on the listing, and report as adversitizement.
Also,
Remove the name of the character and the link. Call outs are not allowed anywhere on the forums, and is considered as harassment.
Holy moly, thank you finding the link Ayukama! I was going by memory on most of what I wrote. I should have searched for the link before posting.
In Classic, Trade is where to advertise, not LFG. (Is Services coming to Fresh Classic?)
In Retail, it is (Trade) Services for ads, not Trade.
I will say, though, that I remember a Blue kinda giving some leeway for characters doing the advertsing/boosts. It was kinda of, if they were max level and probably could do the run type of thing. And in my reporting low lvl ad bots experience, the max level advertisers tend to stay up for much longer. That is just memory and anecdotal, though. The rules say have to do run pretty clearly.
One more edit: Yes remove the name from your post.
Unfortunately that doesn’t help much. The spammy and scammy ones have lots of disposable accounts, characters, and even domains. If you ban WeBoost domain, tomorrow they’ll be back as WeBoo$t, the next day as WeBoóst, and so on. And if someone clever comes up with a filter that catches most of those variations, they’ll just switch to BoostsRUs.
(For the record, all names here are invented. No public callouts.)
So I’m not sure how to best get traction on this problem so I’ll just post how many groups I have to report when I remember to highlight the issue is still there.
Note: the report saved to bugsack is a result of addon API changes that make it harder to submit reports. TLDR: addons that modify the right click menu (eg. raider .io) taint the window but the report API was changed to require it be untainted.
Blizzard knows this is a problem, and it’s being worked on.
The most effective thing you can do is get a large number of unique Bnet accounts to report those listings, as that can result in the accounts being squelched (temp silence until GM review), and silenced players cannot have groups listed in LFG, so I’d figure that it should work the same way for squelched.
I appreciate the replies but that doing this every day is not a medium term let alone long term solution. This has not changed over 12+ months.
You won an auction for Adorning Ribbon (x1)
You won an auction for Gleaming Shard (x3)
You won an auction for Exquisite Weavercloth Bolt (x12)
You receive item: [Exquisite Weavercloth Bolt ]x12
You receive item: [Gleaming Shard ]x3
You receive item: [Adorning Ribbon]
Crafting order placed.
Complaint Registered.
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Herald Breccia yells: The Theater Troupe is performing soon. Visit the Proscenium outside Dornogal!
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Complaint Registered.
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A buyer has been found for your auction of Deep Sea Satin.
Complaint Registered.
Complaint Registered.
Please note that only one report from your Bnet account is processed. The system does not take multiple reports from the same account. Not sure if you are doing that, but just as an FYI.
I can’t dispute whether it has changed over the past year, but I can say this with certainty: That tool was absolutely packed with advertisements in SL, it was approaching the point where it’d be unusable. Now, I see 2 or 3 of those listings in there when I am running keys instead of at least a dozen each time. It’s been extremely improved specifically through the reporting functions and Blizzard acting on them, in my personal experience.
Please only report and move along as doing any more like call outs in chat or whatever even getting guild members to flag complaints about scammers /bots could get all of them in hot water and I know you wouldn’t like to see any fellow guildies banned. While wrong yes all you can do is report.
Thanks, I only report once and they do seem to disappear temporarily. Relogging may make them appear again leading to confusion as to whether or not the reports are having any effect. Or maybe they’re different people I’m not keeping too close a track of character names.
When you report someone, the system will temporary ignore that reported account for your character for the rest of that login session. If you log out, or switch chars, it resets that. So you see that reported person again. You can report them again and it goes through, and puts them on temp ignore again, but system does not count the report twice. If that makes sense.
