Group Spammers

You know the sort. The fucktards that pop into a group and puke up some spam. Then everyone in the group starts screaming spam and other people are yelling for them to shut up, cause they're causing more spam. It's all a vicious cycle. Your screen fills up with garbage...and there's nothing you can do if you don't own the group. I have to add that this happens regularly in some of the groups that I belong and most of them are groups that I will not leave.

Now...

This weekend, one of the spammed suggested something I found really funny so about 6 of us gave it a whirl. Copy and search the spammer's name. Then copy the spam that they puked in the group. IM the spammer and paste it back to them, then click the mute button. If several people do this at once, it might deter the spammer if this is what he/she gets everytime they spam....maybe...

If you don't think so, tell me why please. Also any other methods of spanking spammers would be welcome.

Only problem I see is that it could be taken as harassment.

I thought this might be as well...but one spam back to a spammer could hardly be considered harrassment. Especially if you copy the entire message which includes their name and the time of their initial spam. Then perhaps you could tag on the end PLEASE DON'T SPAM THE SO AND SO GROUP.

This drives me crazy when people spam groups. I think the point above is good ... maybe with the rejoinder "I wanted to let you know that I personally object to being spammed in a group, therefore I have muted you to ensure that I don't have to see more spam again".

Spam once, spam all the time is quite common.

There was the case of one person kept spamming a musician's group here ... his group took direct action by visiting the venue she was spamming about and ... letting her know they weren't pleased. The musician got banned for a day after she AR'd him, however she was banned for at least a week after the multiple ARs sent in by all the group members.

Obviously she had been at this for weeks and weeks to get so much ire.

I agree. If someone is just looking for a L$25 loan, opening a new shop, or looking for a sexual encounter, why would you want to bombard them with bouncebacks? It's horrible to even think of such a response.

You said this happens pretty regularly--then you will be doing this to many, many people.

Wouldn't it take the same amount of energy to help them (send them money, visit their shop, shag them) then id does to go through the entire process you explained? I'm surprized you didn't think of this positive solution before you tried to think of a way to make everyone feel bad.

Can somebody lend me L$25..?

Only if you shag me at my new shop

[edit]
Amy Stork
Way past used by date

ROFLMAO. Love the title. I wish I had thought of it.

I prefer to just quietly AR them for spam anymore.

I really don't want group chats to end up looking like my GMail spam box, so it's best to take some sort of action to discourage the behavior before it becomes the accepted norm.

City of Heroes got so bad with spam that they actually added commands to the interface to auto-report it.

LMAO I think you're serious! Hells no! I absolutely refuse to visit a shop of someone who spammed a group with garbage that has nothing to do with the group they're spamming.
The spam we returned was actually someone selling their land. Here's the odd thing...the person selling the land had no payment info used. Strange indeed.

Oh good grief, I read that as "Way past due date". It must have been because you were talking naughty to Amy.

TJ started it.

But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'd rather give it away for free than twenty five linden - better a sl*pper than a cheap wh*re any day.

Way to go - hijacking a thread about group spam... with spam!

Meanwhile I have left groups that constantly send me updates and spam I get fed up with clicking all the decline buttons when i log in.

Oooh, yes! /ignore_spammer is the greatest thing an MMO ever did against spammers. Unfortunately, they then had to limit the in-game email to level 10's or higher. Level 10 takes like what, 2 hours to get? Slows them down on that end, but my lvl 30's tend to get spammed like crazy. Kinda silly to spam the 50's, since you can easily get 1 million inf just running a mission or two.

Usually, I just AR, while the owner of the group deals with said idiot in the fastest way possible.

I always AR a spammer... and I think everyone that is tired of group spam should do the same thing.

And, group owners don't usually get to do anything besides AR'ing also, because the spammers usually just join the group to spam, then leave it so they can join the next one.

Would love to see an option where a group owner can set up a group so that a new member has to belong to a group for xx hours before they can post group IM's.

Not quite the same, but I think it would be good:

Group Role Permission For Group Chat
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-731

I know what you mean you get a Group IM then lots of complaining responses.
What I want to know seeing this topic started what this Group IM feature for?
Never seen it used for anything other than complaining about it being used.
Love
June

I AR them as well.

This is an area where LL should be adding new features. We definitely need more control on who within a group can post to Group IM's. Although that won't do anything to deter the other form of Spam - the random notecard. :-/

I don't mind real group-related convo. I mean, that's why I'm in SL and why I join groups... to socialize and find things of interest to me.

Is there a problem with the new update? Usually, when I see chat that doesn't interest me, I close it and never see another peep. Has something changed again?

Same here. Group spammers are a little bit easier to AR since you can just copy and paste their name from the IM window (as opposed to getting spammed in a blue dialog pop-up where you'd have to hand-jam the name).


--Hugsy

Go MoxZ! Group Spam is the worst! I quit a group a few days ago, I couldn't take it anymore. If anyone pulls that crap in my Group, they will be tied up and forced to listen to the Bee Gee's for 2 Hours straight!

Just like the IM and chat spammers in World of Warcraft, many of the group spammers in SL are bots. Sending them annoying IMs won't phase them one bit.

Mass (legitimate) ARing them will.

It will likely take a little time as well. By the time someone looks at the AR, that named account is abandoned and the next one is in the works. Each individual bot/alt gets banned until a pattern can be verified and then LL can ban the IP address or even the whole IP range.

Sucks, but if the group is open enrollment you are open for spamers. What's worst is if the group does not have any officers/owners (as mentioned can happen in another thread) you can not change the group to invite only.

My experience has been that they are actual people doing the spamming. At least the one's that I've taken the time to track down. Usually it's someone that's been tricked into thinking it's an acceptable practice by the business owner paying them to spam. Whenever I'm online and bored and someone does that in one of my groups, I track them down, usually at the location they spammed for, and start demanding a $500L fee for unauthorized advertising. It's occasionally worked. Most often, they can't afford to pay, but they learn very clearly that spamming other people's groups is not acceptable.

"You stole advertising from my group! Pay up, thief!"

Several groups I'm in ban spammers ASAP. This is a good thing. Whether the admins AR I do not know, but I think they should. Otherwise, all group chat will soon become all spam all the time. Think bots. O.O

Someone spammed my update group once, and I ejected them and ARd.

But that was when I was online... what about the many hours when I'm offline? I don't know if someone is spamming the group unless someone tells me. So as well as ARing the offending person, it is probably helpful to copy/paste the spam into a notecard and drop it on the group owner (with an explanation, of course )