Tolerating several days of incessant smega spams, I have decided to make this thread hoping for a better solution than to turn off my smegas, for it has its other usages as well. When is it considered a "spam"? I believe the usage of megaphones have been rather ambiguous, be it the content or the quantity. Would 20+ smegas for congratulating a lvl 200 character be spam? Someone writing down the whole song lyrics using several smegas? Continuous smegas in short interval to sell an item/recruit pq or boss runs? Sending lots of smegas to giveaway items? Using smegas non-stop to ask people random questions and their favorite anime? I think it is up to one's (and the GM's) judgement to decide when it crosses the line. For me though, I would like to think of three factors: the frequency of smegas (whether it is a one-off case), the intention behind those smegas, and whether people are bothered by it (in a negative way). For example, someone reaching lvl 200 is uncommon, and certainly a joyous moment, both for the individual and his/her friends. I would like to think most people, even those not involved would be ok with multiple smega despite the spam, since it is after all, a one-off event, and the intention behind the smega is to congratulate the lvl 200 player. Similar arguments can be made for other cases, but I just want to dive right into the one i'm bothered about the most: How about using smega to ask people random questions in short intervals while picking fights with others who wants the individual to stop spamming? I would categorize it as spam, because the frequency of smegas is too high (several per minute), and certain individuals such as HeroicSoul have been going at it for days/weeks, and the intentions behind such smegas seems more than likely to be to garner attention and spread hate. Most people whom I've talked to are quite upset by the spam, and would wish he could just talk in his all/buddy/guild chat instead of bothering everyone else in the server. I haven't been around to witness another commonly brought-up name: TomBrady so I can't say much, but I have been around since Gardian has been smega-ing his usual stuffs, and personally i'm alright with him as I think the frequency of his smega is although consistent, low. Also if you pull some mental gymnastics you could claim that he's anti-feminist but otherwise his smegas are quite harmless and actually pretty funny/memeable. The same cannot be said for HeroicSoul's smegas, however. Possible solutions? I believe this is not the first time it has been brought up, and upon searching, unsurprisingly there's threads such as: this, this, this, this and there are ideas already bought up, among others: 1) cooldown time per smega 2) cooldown time after a few smega 3) Blocking certain individual's smega 4) Revising rules on smega spams Personally I think (3) is the best option, although I do recall reading somewhere that it is not possible to be added, as the block system in maple is rather flawed/limited. To which I am hoping for (4) to be discussed, where we have rules to prevent incessant spamming of smegas, meaning the quantity should also be taken into account, not just the questionable content. If smega spammers are smart enough, they can always avoid saying stuffs that might get them banned, but still go on and annoy a lot of people with their amount of spams. (1) and (2) will certainly help, but the problem is still the individual's intention to bother the rest of the people, and it will only serve to delay that annoyance. As of now, the quantity of smega doesnt matter unless the person starts saying questionable stuffs, and if you try to report such spammers, the reply would simply be that it is not harassment (Fyi I did not report heroicsoul). Which I disagree because if it is not harassment, the person would not find a need to broadcast his messages incessantly to everyone in this server, and could simply use other channels such as all/buddy/guild/alliance chat, anything else. Why is the current disable megaphone setting not good enough? It indiscriminately prevents you from seeing any smega, and it should be seen as a temporary resort, not the only resort. This is as smega has its own useful benefits, such as spotting for good bargain on items, recruiting boss runs/pq or wanting to be recruited into one, seeking quick advice on something, or simply just to meme around. I think most players are matured enough to know when it starts to annoy other people, and stop it at there. The rest of the server population should not need to be forced to turn off their smegaphone settings, lose out on the benefits described above and be severely inconvenienced just because of one guy. Sorry for the long post, and thank you for reading.
As somebody who rarely SMegas and finds the SMega whores to be both annoying and childish. We don’t need more over policing. It’s already bad enough that the staff get to determine what words we can use and where we can use them, who we can defame and how many times, what our IGNs can or cannot be, etc. More freedom less unnecessary restrictions. Have the staff focus their time on things that actually matter - development, events and major rule breaking.
yo why u nitpicking on everything? its just a game bro. just ignore the childish ppl who do this kind of shit. its not that hard.
Why u gotta be hating on OP... I agree with @NTR that people should minimally have the option just to block certain individuals on smega. Sometimes you just wanna keep the drama out of your chatbox lol
I don't think placing a cooldown seems like a viable idea. Once a spammer, always a spammer. No amount of cooldown can deter them. At most they spam on alternating characters. We will definitely enforce the T&C on players who abuse smegas in-game, provided players do their part by reporting them (staffs are not always around, so we might not know what's going on). There's a clause on objectional behavior - disruption which we will normally ban them for.
Apologies if some of my recent posts rub you the wrong way, but I still feel it is important to at least try to voice one's opinion instead of sitting and waiting for the problem to go away. To quote a line that I hugely agree with (let's assume Albert Einstein actually said it because obv every quote comes from him ): "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."
I don't want to block all smegas, because there is sometimes smegas of interest to me (e.g. boss runs), but I do get sick of all the stupid spammy shit, and the answer-my-question-first-and-get-x shit.
I'm sure the GMs wish they didn't have to over-police and waste their resources on dumb things people do. However, when given the freedom, people often take it for granted and overstep the line, forcing GMs to take necessary actions to curb such behaviours. For example, if there are no botters, we might still have pet loot by summon kills today. If people weren't dicks, there wouldn't be a need for harassment rules to be in place. If some idiot did not spam smegas and disrupt the peace of the community, OP wouldn't create this thread. I can't say I know much about law, but I'm pretty sure every legislation is a result of someone's action to warrant it's existence.
I'd only agree to policy changes if smega spams would be proven to either be objectively made to annoy, or if its an extreme case of many repeated spamming. We can't have the GMs deal with every small smega feude and trolling session.
