Could regular expressions that blacklist gold selling websites be made?

[brancinaed]

Every single day, all day, a gold selling site is being spammed in /say chat next to the main city aetherytes. These stupid, pointless, annoying messages are out of hand.

[8:40]Anselmdepx AckermanBehemoth: Cheap FFXIV Gil @ {(annoying).C0M} 24/7 Fast Delivery , Cheap FFXIV Gil @ {(annoying).C0M} Big Stock !&-908

I guess this isn't a new idea, nor do I know much about anything. However, I do feel increasingly annoyed by the SPAM. Stupid, pointless, annoying messages. They don't even have to obfuscate the site much to bypass any current filter! They're just posting the website in a way which can still easily be understood. Sometimes they have to replace an "o" with a "0" or a "w" with "\/\/", but come on.

It's as annoying as when they used to spam in /tell, I think. It hurts my desire to play seeing it in my chat box every time I'm in the city. Personally having to turn off local chat in cities is not a good solution.

What would such a regular expression even look like? Something containing word + gil + any website?

[Ravenblade1979]

Actually wish they would just update their dictionary in game with a new section for banned words but be accurate with it. You could easily stop that from happening via this method. Just gotta update it when the botters switch terms up to include those

[Local_Custard]

oh man every time I enter a main city (which my trips there last 5 minutes at most usually) I am absolutely bombarded by these messages. I too wish there was something done about it.

Actually wish they would just update their dictionary in game with a new section for banned words but be accurate with it. You could easily stop that from happening via this method. Just gotta update it when the botters switch terms up to include those

ooh! I like this idea! By having it be accurate I think it would likely make it much harder for botters peddling their horrible site.

[Makarovv]

as long as there is lazy people buying gil there's always gonna be botters/spammers in the game, in any game tbh. they'll have the funds and resources to make new accounts. DE from warframe somewhat does a decent job with it with their kickbot in their chat but they still get by by other means.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

They would just adapt with characters and other phrases. Offer isn't usually the root of the problems but demand.
The fact that all these years bots move and move gil means the demand is there and there is nothing no one can do about.

[Bacent]

Actually wish they would just update their dictionary in game with a new section for banned words but be accurate with it. You could easily stop that from happening via this method. Just gotta update it when the botters switch terms up to include those

That would involve using every single combination then. All they need to do is use characters in other languages

α β γ ε θ Θ

Those are just 6 letters in the Greek alphabet and you can do a lot in a single post with those alone.

It sounds like something simple to do, but others make sure it's a hard task


And don't forget that if someone managed to use one of those banned words they could possibly be in trouble as well from the system.

There's no better way to get these sites to go away by PLAYERS STOP BEING LAZYASSES BECAUSE THEY DONT WANT TO DO WORK THEMSELVES

[Jeeqbit]

Why do you think they are using spaces and strange characters?

It's because if SE does any sort of regex, they will just come up with a way to get around it using spaces and alternative symbols from other languages, or they will say to google a keyword they have done SEO for.

[Boblawblah]

Machine Learning could deal with a lot of gold selling spam if SE cared to look into that.

[Jojoya]

If you don't want to be bothered by gil sellers, then you need to get rid of the gil buyers.

Someone trying to sell will always appear when there are players happy to buy. It doesn't make any difference how many obstacles you try to put in the way of the seller. They will find a way around them if there is a profit to be made.

[Amarande]

Actually wish they would just update their dictionary in game with a new section for banned words but be accurate with it. You could easily stop that from happening via this method.

A noble thought, but sadly far too optimistic.

Spam is still omnipresent in pretty much every communication medium, even email which has been hammering away at it for a whole generation now.

Monetary costs don't help, and notably the less scrupulous the business, the less relevant costs are as a functional stick (especially with how often accounts used for spam are stolen, or paid for with stolen details - often stolen from RMT firms' own customers from what I hear - so it doesn't even create any actual overhead for the outfit).

About the only places that really manage to lick the spam problem are ones with extremely restrictive policies for initial registration (such as invite-only communities and a few forums with super strict rules on what kind of email you're allowed to sign up with), and a commercial service such as FFXIV would realistically never be able to afford that kind of policy (would you really want to go from critically acclaimed MMORPG with expanded free trial to having to tell your friend tearfully that they can't come play with you because you're out of new player invites for the month, anyway?).

As for the machine learning angle mentioned by a later poster as I composed this: think Facebook, X, and the like. How often do their automated moderation systems flop in negatively-impacting ways? You willing to take account marks out of the blue because you joked around in your FC or something like that because robot says guilty? 'Cause that's how Facebook Jail and the like work ...