Allow blacklist to hide spammers abusing Party Finder

Spammers are continuously abusing party finder, mislisting their spam as duties that sort first in the list with impossible ilevel reqs preventing anybody from joining. They all advertise out-of-game discord contacts because they are RMT.

You can frequently see the spam/RMT pfs crowding out real listings in the default party finder view. Players are forced to scroll past the spam or use filters to try and avoid it every time they look at the window.

https://i.imgur.com/iZYs7hR.png

There is no way to avoid these spammers: blacklisted PFs still appear in Party Finder with grey text, and you cannot blacklist them without joining (which they prevent).

SE ought to define a policy and police PF listings to stop this kind of abuse by spammers. Continuously mislisting duties that cannot be joined, with no intention to complete them, reduces the usability of Party Finder and harasses the entire community. But maybe that's too much work.

Please at least improve the blacklist feature so we can avoid these spammers like we do other RMT spam in chat.
Completely hide blacklisted PF listings, and allow us to add them to blacklist without joining.

Agreed, its ridiculous.

Seconded. I've no issue if they want to move any negotiations to Discord, but to purposely clog up the PF with constant advertisements is extremely annoying. Even using the Blacklisting option is completely flawed so there is just no way to avoid them at the moment.

To add to this, it's kind of abusing the PF if you advertise certain content (i.e. Expert Roulette,) but have no intention to do them or aren't even advertising for them like OP mentioned just so they can get more visibility. Probably if they listed the activity under "Other" I might not care so much but what can you do. Honestly I'd prefer a moderator to log in randomly throughout the day and check for such parties, should they be listed as a duty that's not intended to be done at that time then the mod asks the host to either relist it under something more appropriate (like "Other") or to take out down out of the PF. That's probably unlikely to happen though unfortunately...

Thirded.

Its started to get annoying to have to scroll down everytime I open PF or refresh it.

Great idea, this should be done.

Yes please.

Would like 1000 times if i could

I don't mind people selling clears but obnoxious PF advertising needs to be addressed.

Better idea: why not add filters to PF messages? For example, a player adding a group to PF would not be able to list their group if they put the word "selling" into it. They'd get a message saying they have one or more words not allowed in PF and will be forced to edit it to list their group.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Better idea: why not add filters to PF messages? For example, a player adding a group to PF would not be able to list their group if they put the word "selling" into it. They'd get a message saying they have one or more words not allowed in PF and will be forced to edit it to list their group.

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They'll just work around that.

Sel. Ling.

S E L L I N G

etc.

+1, did notice this issue, something should be done about it

And while they are at it, include the amount of people who can be blacklisted. If they ever implemented what the OP's asking for, heaven knows we'll need more slot.

Very much agree!

At this point it should be bannable honestly. I've seen screenshots where people were demanding money on paypal or pushing people to buy from gil sillers and deliver it to them on other servers.

Yeah, this real cash for clears trash needs to end yesterday.

even something as simple as a report button for miscategorized party finders would be a massive step in the right direction.

Agreed 100%. Every time I open PF, I see 5-7 posts advertising raid and primal clears and it's been seriously getting on my nerves. I have no problems with people selling clears provided it's gil-only, but abusing PF just to get some extra attention is just annoying to see.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

They'll just work around that.

Sel. Ling.

S E L L I N G

etc.

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And you think they can't work around blacklisting the party maker? Works both ways. If it were such a simple solution RMT advertisers in public chat would no longer be a thing, or as easily ignored as simply blacklisting them.

As far as a solution without a workaround goes, SE could always remove the capability of putting a comment period, thus removing incentive to use PF as an advertisement page.

Wouldn't mind a new filter that allows you to mark PFs yourself that has the lowest priority. Anything that you tag by right clicking the PF (or menu for controller) will get changed to this filter that has a priority lower than the current "None" category and get cycled to the bottom of the list, blanking out the comment until you relog or you can right click/menu and remove the filter to restore it. Make a toggle to automatically apply the filter to players on blacklist.

I asked for this years ago on the forums and got little support. Nevertheless, I still support the idea.

I agree. I am so sick of seeing this. We all know those people RMT too because they give their discord and only want to talk there. You would think it would be bannable doing that but apparently not, because i reported someone for it before and they just kept doing it still so obviously the GM took no action, ToS or not abusing the PF like that should atleast get a warning or something.

Just Aether DC things

It seems like it's only getting worse too. I don't remember it being anywhere near this bad back in HW also i don't remember it being put as expert roulette in the past either. Now days its all over the pf and listed under expert so they can get prioritized to the top. I remember i talked to one of the people doing it once and told them to stop and that its not right to the community and all they could come up with in return was a dumb statement like "who uses expert in the pf for actually doing expert anyway" and i was like "well i do for one so yes people actually do run expert from the pf" or something along those lines. People who RMT only destroy our game and while others white knight SE saying its not that easy to get rid of RMT i have to still disagree because i feel like SE isn't even trying, the least they could do is try.

I agree to this as well. At the very least, put the ones who are blacklisted on at the very end of the list in the same manner locked duties are.

I actually took action on one of these I saw earlier today...
Content selling, cross server, discord contact for info.


I took the effort to go to the website support page for the RMT report I submitted.
The ones from the webpage are supposedly going to the special task force for RMT, rather than the game masters.

Instead of having to blacklist how about SE changing its policy and start banning these blatant RMT that are free to run rampant because they are using discord and maybe they will stop spamming them in game

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

Instead of having to blacklist how about SE changing its policy and start banning these blatant RMT that are free to run rampant because they are using discord and maybe they will stop spamming them in game

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I 100% agree. In my opinion SE doesnt try hard enough or inflate RMT or abuse of the PF to as big of a deal as it should be. It's pretty obvious people who do pf abuse and RMT should be banned. Those things are not good for the game or the community.

I totally agree something needs to be done either the option to hide listings via blacklist or report.

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Originally Posted by Mizunoko

It seems like it\\'s only getting worse too. I don\\'t remember it being anywhere near this bad back in HW also i don\\'t remember it being put as expert roulette in the past either

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I think people only started doing it once cross server PF was added which was pretty late in HW even then though I agree I only started seeing it when Omega dropped I guess the RMT caught on that the GMs don’t moderate PF

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

Instead of having to blacklist how about SE changing its policy and start banning these blatant RMT that are free to run rampant because they are using discord and maybe they will stop spamming them in game

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Alas, SE has a horrible track record when it comes to taking action against hackers, botters and RMT such as this. They won't do anything.

No reason to blacklist, nor will that ever happen.

Just give people an additional tool to advertise stuff ingame. ;) But even that will probably not happen.

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Originally Posted by AmaSagahl

No reason to blacklist, nor will that ever happen.

Just give people an additional tool to advertise stuff ingame. ;) But even that will probably not happen.

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Hell no. We want to discourage it, not encourage it.

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Originally Posted by AmaSagahl

No reason to blacklist, nor will that ever happen.

Just give people an additional tool to advertise stuff ingame. ;) But even that will probably not happen.

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One already exists. It's labelled "Other." Notice how often it's used? They don't care because they're trying to make their adverts appear first on the list.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

One already exists. It's labelled "Other." Notice how often it's used? They don't care because they're trying to make their adverts appear first on the list.

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Yeah if this stuff was being listed under other no one would care(I know I wouldn’t) the fact that they are mislisting to get to the top of the list and some days flooding the top of the list (as demonstrated by the OP’s screenshot) shows this warrants GM action or at least some sort of UI change since it’s becoming disruptive to PF

I made a thread about this very thing back on 01-04-2015 09:37 PM and like 99% of the people in the thread absolutely disagreed with me when I was suggesting making a separate section for buying/selling stuff whether it'd be content or for crafters.


My how the times have changed.


Proof:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Addressed-This

Ability to "Right click > Report RTM/Illicit activity" please!...

If selling plots of land was considered illegal then selling "content" should also be considered illegal and yet they've been on the PF for the longest time without being punished, SE must change this abuse!...

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Originally Posted by zeth07

I made a thread about this very thing back on 01-04-2015 09:37 PM and like 99% of the people in the thread absolutely disagreed with me when I was suggesting making a separate section for buying/selling stuff whether it'd be content or for crafters.


My how the times have changed.


Proof:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Addressed-This

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I don't think you have actually read this thread

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Originally Posted by zeth07

I made a thread about this very thing back on 01-04-2015 09:37 PM and like 99% of the people in the thread absolutely disagreed with me when I was suggesting making a separate section for buying/selling stuff whether it'd be content or for crafters.


My how the times have changed.


Proof:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Addressed-This

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There was a thread only a couple months ago too and most people were supporting/defending it, I pointed out that I’d nothing is done it will end up flooding the PF when people find out they can get away with it and behold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zeth07

I made a thread about this very thing back on 01-04-2015 09:37 PM and like 99% of the people in the thread absolutely disagreed with me when I was suggesting making a separate section for buying/selling stuff whether it'd be content or for crafters.


My how the times have changed.


Proof:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Addressed-This

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The difference is there was no Cross World Party Finder when you created this. This is effecting players all on a data centre and not just single worlds.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

I don't think you have actually read this thread

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I'm not really sure what you mean? I definitely read this thread. People seem to mostly agree that something should be done about the PF with all those people selling content and how it disrupts the purpose of the party finder.


When I mentioned it, nearly every single person hated the idea of even adding an OPTION to separate the two types of things, not even saying that it shouldn't exist (it shouldn't) and people still gave me hell for even suggesting it.

Now here we are and other people seem to be in agreement that those types of party finders shouldn't exist. Just take two seconds to read the posts in the thread I made/linked and see the difference when I'm talking about quite literally the same types of things.


I'll even give a pass for crafters advertising / and static recruiting but even back then people were advertising selling content and it cluttered the party finder even before we got cross server and all those category tabs.


The excuse back then was that it was "Party Finder" and it didn't matter what they put since you could put anything in your comment and as along as the people who joined followed it it was a non-issue, which is what someone tried to reference a GM saying.


Maybe you didn't read the thread I linked? And just seeing what those people were saying in reference to basically the exact same scenario here.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

I agree to this as well. At the very least, put the ones who are blacklisted on at the very end of the list in the same manner locked duties are.

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This is a pretty good idea too :o

Spammers abusing Party Finder aren't even content with a single listing at time.
Please give us the tools to blacklist and hide these RMT spammers that junk up PF for the whole datacenter.

https://i.imgur.com/7KXbdpi.png