Please do something about Duplicative Party Finder posts

Crystal Data Center has a big RP community and I love that about it, and party finder is a common way to advertise events. However, in recent months the party finder has been subject to a changing standard of duplicative posts. As I type this, there are 16 rp events advertised on the party finder, of which 12 of those events have two or more posts advertising the same event.

Accidents happen, but this is quickly becoming the new norm. At times, the same event may have as many as 12 different posts up at the same time, many if not all of which contain identical language. The clutter this causes is a detriment to the community because it makes party finder more difficult to navigate.

I have a proposed solution!

Enforce a no spam rule.

I've reported excessive ads in the past, but no action has been taken. This perpetuates the problem because as there is no action, more and more people feel they need to spam the party finder to be seen.

If players had an option to right click a post and report for spam, I'm certain the party finder would clear up tremendously. I realize this may be a problem specific to servers with big RP communities, but it's still a problem that's interfering with the function of an otherwise very useful tool.

While it's not spam, I think another way to keep party finder organized may be to add a Role-play tab!

well, its a party finder duplicate should be allowed,
however, why not just create RP finder.. this should be better,,
separate both i guess, new system RP Finder that can be used to post,search and join RP group\parties

I support the notion that spam posts should not be tolerated on the Party Finder, at least when it comes to the category "Other" - I understand that "duplicate" posts for dungeon runs are needed, but they are not what #1 is describing as a problem.
The problem is people abusing the other category, and other categories, to spam-advertise for the same RP event or the same EX Farm Sale with exactly the same words across multiple characters.
I believe it should not be tolerated to abuse categories for what they are not meant for, just because they are naturally at the top, and I do not believe that it duplicate posts with the same spam advertisement should be tolerated. This should be reportable and people who do it should have their ads removed. If this is not restricted we will end up with a situation where the party finder cannot be used well for it's intended purpose- finding a party to participate in content with (Should that be PVE or RP doesn't matter), because things will be drowned out by duplicate posts. I certainly don't like having to spend time sifting through the partyfinder for what I want, when even the filters do not help.
I would also like to see the addition of an RP filter, just like we have RP status tags.

I think an RP Finder could be a solution, particularly because part of the reason I think the repetitive posts are created is because RP posts share a space with all the "other" posts, which ends up being the largest category. As a result, RP posts are mixed in with a variety of ads on subjects such as omni crafting services, offers to purchase phantasmagoria for gil, requests to purchase/sell/trade housing, a few posts soliciting romantic partners, and usually one or two ads that's not advertising anything at all. I think this is likely one of the reasons contributing to RP venues feeling they need to re-post the same ad with multiple characters at the same time to be seen.

I agree completely, and misuse via spam making party finder too cluttered to functionally use is my main concern. It's disorienting and confusing to see the same advertisements repeatedly posted over and over at the same time, and it makes the party finder difficult to use. If the trend continues, and people increasingly feel the need to post 2-5 ads at a time, it will stop being a useful tool for everyone.

Th party finder could use a rework in terms of tabs, I think. I don't know if I've ever seen an ad posted for someone looking for more to join them in a guildhest. The addition of a RP tab would be wonderful, but I could also see a "Recruitment" and "Commerce" tab getting a lot of use. As it stands, the "other" tab has the most posts on the PF, and most of those posts fall into those categories.

Last night an RP venue posted 8 posts advertising the same event on party finder, 6 of which used identical language. Another ran 5 ads for their own venue, which made a total of 13 posts for 2 venues.

The party finder would not have extended to two pages had they each only posted one ad. This harms new party finder posts because not everyone thinks to flip the pages to look at ads beyond the first page.

Recently a club allowed their members to show support by running their ad in the party finder, leading to 12 identical ads posted at once.

There also has been a small but rising surge of players using the party finder to advertise sexual favors in exchange for gil that reporting doesn't seem to have an effect on.

I wanted to update this to say I began blacklisting players who posted duplicate adult RP venue ads on the party finder. I did this so that I could try and keep the party finder manageable, and still be able to read ads without being inundated with dozens upon dozens of ads for just a few RP adult night clubs. I did not blacklist all people who posted duplicate identical ads, only the ones who posted the duplicate ads after the first on the list, so that if an adult night club venue had 8 ads up advertising their single venue, I would blacklist 7 characters. In a day I blacklisted some 40 characters or so, and it took under 3 weeks of on-and-off play to reach the cap of 200.

It has not been a full day since I reached the cap, and there are already 8 duplicate ads on party finder that I can see, and many more I cannot.

This is a problem that is growing worse and worse, and already there are repercussions. I know for certain that some RP venues do not post their ads on the party finder any longer not just because they know it will be drowned out, but also because they hesitate with the growing reputation that the party finder as an "adult friend finder."

Some adult RP venues incentivize their members to post ads with favor and rewards because it increases how many ads they have, which circumvents the blacklists of players like me who have already blacklisted dozens of characters affiliated with the adult RP venue for spamming.

If SE determines this is behavior is acceptable, please at least increase our blacklist capacity so that we can continue to use shared community tools without being completely overwhelmed by a flood of repeat adult content ads.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WorstOne

well, its a party finder duplicate should be allowed,
however, why not just create RP finder.. this should be better,,
separate both i guess, new system RP Finder that can be used to post,search and join RP group\parties

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There is the "other" tab and we got that new comunity features... waht was it called again? xD


And yes we need an report spam button... my blacklist is filled with all the "INFO ON DISCORD" rmt content sellers....

Report the players directly... not the Ads.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CaitlinRainn

Report the players directly... not the Ads.

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It's the same form, there is no option to report an ad directly from the party finder. Like with harassment, you need to open a ticket, list the player name, and why you are reporting them.

Last June I started a project called Crystal Shouts. It's turned into partyfinder but for roleplaying and I probably spend too much time working on it...but I hope people find it useful! Also, I work with a lot of the smaller venues who are tired of being snuffed out by these big venues that seem to not care who they step on :(

www.crystalshouts.com <3