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General discussion (archive)Dear Gog - About The Spammers(29 posts)(29 posts)
(29 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 29, 2010
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KickingSquid: Then what is your suggestion? They ban any account from the PRC? Or without an avatar? Or who haven't bought a game? How do you determine if it's a person or not? GOG has stated that CAPCHA is in the same class of annoyances as DRM. I'd rather put up with the occasional spam-bot, than deal with 'preventative' measures.
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bazilisek: See my post just a bit higher. I don't see anything wrong in employing a captcha to a very limited number of users. If you have paid for a game on GOG or have rep higher than, say, five, which is really easy to get under this new system, it's quite clear you're not a spambot. Otherwise, please waste two seconds on a simple captcha. Comparing this particular scheme to DRM would be downright silly.
I don’t really like the idea of baring people out because they haven’t bought a game. I think it’s better to base it of people’s activity and conduct within the forum such as having so much rep. I think sometimes interacting with the community makes people more inclined to actually buy games from here. I’m sure that includes some people who wonder in the first time.
Posted October 29, 2010
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KickingSquid: Then what is your suggestion? They ban any account from the PRC? Or without an avatar? Or who haven't bought a game? How do you determine if it's a person or not? GOG has stated that CAPCHA is in the same class of annoyances as DRM. I'd rather put up with the occasional spam-bot, than deal with 'preventative' measures.
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bazilisek: See my post just a bit higher. I don't see anything wrong in employing a captcha to a very limited number of users. If you have paid for a game on GOG or have rep higher than, say, five, which is really easy to get under this new system, it's quite clear you're not a spambot. Otherwise, please waste two seconds on a simple captcha. Comparing this particular scheme to DRM would be downright silly.
I didn't compare CAPCHA to DRM, venom from GOG did:

You could say, that captcha's are as good for preventing spam, as DRM is good for preventing software piracy. You only annoy your most loyal users :)

We're currently working on a few features that will help prevent spam-posts, and won't interfere with normal usage. And for now, we will just delete any unwanted content.

UPDATE:

bazililsek, you are one of the many who show why GOG hosts my favorite general forum. While we disagree in the discussed matter, we are both keeping this civil, proving that people of good will can disagree and act like rational human beings while doing so. :D
Post edited October 29, 2010 by KickingSquid
Posted October 29, 2010
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Aliasalpha: But if they're not bots but sad losers who spend their days copying & pasting spam into forums, captcha will only frustrate them for a few seconds
Doesn't look like it. They're only targeting the blue news posts, which seems robotic enough to me.

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KickingSquid: I didn't compare CAPCHA to DRM, venom from GOG did:
I'm aware of that. It's just that principles are nice and all, but in this case, the statement is quite absurd. We've all had to pass dozens, probably hundreds of captchas already, it's really not such a big deal; and seriously, how many people are active on these forums who have zero rep and no non-free game in their account? It definitely must be less than a percent.
Posted October 29, 2010
See, I said this to them as well on Twitter.

I seriously disagree with the statement that "captcha's are as good for preventing spam, as DRM is good for preventing software piracy." and find it extremely disappointing to see such a view when at this current time CAPTCHA's are the most proficient means of dealing with spam.

It's not hard at all to do an algorithm that balances things out, for example if the user is newer than x days & user posts more than z posts in y minutes then show the CAPTCHA on the post page. Then you can fine tune this even more and make things work.

To be honest I find it lazy and the motivation behind it to be bulshit, just as I find lack of support utterly disappointing. We love you guys, but you need to get your shit together and fast!
Posted October 29, 2010
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Lone3wolf: Unlikely a normal user will be making the exact same posting to more than 2 threads, like my suggestion....

Thanks for the link, though.
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Namur: Unlikely but not impossible, it happened quite a few times with folks cloning a post about a problem in a game specific board and on general. Like Venom said, no reason to risk annoying legit users if there's an alternative that only targets actuall spammers.

In any case, they're working on it so let's hope gog becomes spam free soon ;)

Edit: I missed the 'MORE than two threads'. That way my example would be covered and the possibilty of disrupting a legit user's posting would be minimal indeed.
Well, we [read "gog"] could make it slightly more restrictive : same post in more than 3-5 threads...plus I kinda like the 0 or -ve rep addition, although that might annoy people like Gamerager (you guys seriously need to get of your elitist prick horses :P ), he does have a different slant on things, and that's not necessarily as bad as you lot seem to think...this is *supposed* to be a classy community - not a jump-all-over-the-dissenter community.

[aimed at no one in particular, just a general observation].
Posted October 29, 2010
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Lone3wolf: Well, we [read "gog"] could make it slightly more restrictive : same post in more than 3-5 threads...plus I kinda like the 0 or -ve rep addition, although that might annoy people like Gamerager (you guys seriously need to get of your elitist prick horses :P ), he does have a different slant on things, and that's not necessarily as bad as you lot seem to think...this is *supposed* to be a classy community - not a jump-all-over-the-dissenter community.

[aimed at no one in particular, just a general observation].
Definitely agree with you on the GameRager aspect, seems folks are just downvoting some his posts out of habit or because it's funny. In all fairness though, the nega rep should have been capped from start, so it's not like gog doesn't share some of the responsability in his current rep value.

I already stated (quite) a few times that nega rep should be capped, that having a community member with that kind of negarep is bs and that he (and all others where it applies) should have rep reset to zero or to whatever the cap for negarep is set at.
Post edited October 29, 2010 by Namur
Posted October 29, 2010
The best solution I could think of for spam is implementing a report post button, However that would hinge on GOG.com providing a support staff that is at least somewhat active.
Post edited October 29, 2010 by the_redstar_swl
Posted October 29, 2010
Or appoint moderators from the user-base.
Posted October 29, 2010
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AndrewC: CAPTCHA's are the most proficient means of dealing with spam.
With automated spam, sure, captcha might work great, but this is no automated spam... the devs looked into the recent spam situations we had here, and this is just few folks from China doing copy-paste, topic after topic, until they get bored. So yeah, I'm sure they can solve captchas too :).

Anyway, guys, the devs are currently working on this and it's one of their top priorities. Soon you will see a new "mark as spam" option, that will appear once you downrank a post. This, with some other algorithms to detect and throttle spamming, will make the life on this forum very very hard for spammers and their spam while not affecting normal users. Please bear with us as the system is put in place. I will ask devs to update you about this in the next few days.

In the meantime I'd like to thank everyone who downrated such spam posts and therefore made the forums cleaner for others. We really appreciate this!

PS: as for captcha/drm analogy - what Venom was saying is that forcing captcha by default on every users to make life harder for one spammer is just as stupid as forcing DRM on all customers to make life harder for few pirates, that's it.
Post edited October 29, 2010 by Destro
Posted October 29, 2010
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Destro: SnIP!
Hey please check the support emails mucho importanto

(my spanish spelling sucks... so Very Important)
Post edited October 29, 2010 by akwater
Posted October 29, 2010
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Destro: I will ask devs to update you about this in the next few days.
Good to know you guys are working on it.
I'm guessing you've all thought of how this might work if a spammer gets control of a legitimate customer's account?
Post edited October 29, 2010 by Tyler62092
Posted October 29, 2010
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Tyler62092: I'm guessing you've all thought of how this might work if a spammer gets control of a legitimate customer's account?
yup :)
Posted October 29, 2010
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Destro: yup :)
Great! Now I don't have to be afraid of losing all my games from having my account closed because of a spammer.

Gogdammit you guys are awesome.
Posted October 29, 2010
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Destro: <snip>
Just wanted to thank you guys for addressing the spam issue, and for putting in the time to find an effective solution that doesn't annoy regular users at the same time.
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)Dear Gog - About The Spammers(29 posts)(29 posts)
(29 posts)