spam filter 6/5/2018 update bug

[PuppyMonkeyBabyJosephSayer]

saying or linking 2 things and hitting spam filter unable to use chat for several minutes on end, is either bug with item links or a bug causing people to hit spam filter after saying or linking literally 2 things

[PuppyMonkeyBabyJosephSayer]

commanders of squads are saying 2 things or linking 2 things and hitting the spam filter, unable to say anything for minutes on end

[Zaraki.5784]

Lol RIP the spawn of LIs in raids xD

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

You may find that adding one or two different words along with the link help you avoid being filtered for too many of the same thing being said.

[WESTCAT.5264]

It would be FANTASTIC if we could get some guidance on this, as there is nothing in the patch notes for this being a new thing.

HP trains for example; you have max 50 people in a squad and need everyone to rally at a WP. You ping it once. But, alas, the topic of cheesecake and brownies comes up by one hungry member in squad chat. RIP that WP ping, and you have 30+ people who were trying not to be eaten by that Veteran Hydra asking where they are supposed to be. They go to look at squad chat but must scroll up through 20 msgs of how amazing brownies are to find the ONE post by the comm because they can't ping the WP again due to 'excessive messaging'. I'm sure this can be worked around, hoping that you have other squad members that were not dying AND paying attention to be able to ping it again for you. This is only just one example I can think of.

[tehdras.1489]

perfectly agree with Westcat. when doing any kind of squad, if there is an actual discussion going on, the commander and lieutenants need to be able to spam waypoint links otherwise they get lost in the chat way too fast and then people get lost or die. and the suppression i got from 9:05AM EST is STILL HAPPENING at 9:54am EST. how long is this suppression supposed to even last??? please fix this anet?

[MHaastrup.6978]

The chat filter is more aggressive in some channels than others. Try posting your item in /d or /p.

[WESTCAT.5264]

@"MHaastrup.6978" said:The chat filter is more aggressive in some channels than others. Try posting your item in /d or /p.

It's not about posting an item, but more of linking WP's and locations. It is in the /d and /p where it is affected. Also adding something like "go here [WPlink]" instead of just the WP link flags as message suppressed

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@WESTCAT.5264 said:

@"MHaastrup.6978" said:The chat filter is more aggressive in some channels than others. Try posting your item in /d or /p.

It's not about posting an item, but more of linking WP's and locations. It is in the /d and /p where it is affected. Also adding something like "go here [WPlink]" instead of just the WP link flags as message suppressed

So, to be clear: you get suppressed even if you say:

• please go to [explosive waypoint]
• for the love of the six, head to [explosive waypoint]
• will you stop with the cookies already, and go to [explosive waypoint]

Is that correct?

[WESTCAT.5264]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@WESTCAT.5264 said:

@"MHaastrup.6978" said:The chat filter is more aggressive in some channels than others. Try posting your item in /d or /p.

It's not about posting an item, but more of linking WP's and locations. It is in the /d and /p where it is affected. Also adding something like "go here [WPlink]" instead of just the WP link flags as message suppressed

So, to be clear: you get suppressed even if you say:

• please go to [explosive waypoint]
• for the love of the six, head to [explosive waypoint]
• will you stop with the cookies already, and go to [explosive waypoint]

Is that correct?

Haha yes, I tried multiple combinations. However though, from reading on the Reddit thread I believe they are aware of the issue and are working on resolving it. Please correct me if I'm wrong though. fingers crossed

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Test results:

• Linking waypoints in /map: suppressed after two messages.
• Suppression persisted using /d (squad)
• Suppression persisted after using /p (party)

However, changing the message up does work. There was no suppression.

• Go to [link]
• [link] is our destination
• go to [link] & wait

However, eventually, the suppression returns.

---

Commanders can avoid the suppression by making trivial edits to the squad message. (e.g. adding and removing a space)

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Recommendation for players for the present:

• If leading HP or other train: make liberal use of the squad message to avoid suppression.
• When that's impractical (e.g. WvW commanders, some meta commanders, /map and /team)...
  • Mix up the text each time you type
  • Get a couple of other people to help out (as you would cycle reflects or stab: (a) goes first, then (b), then ©, then (d), then (a) again)
• Continue to provide constructive feedback to ANet about how much this disrupts the community aspects of the game

I do support ANet's goal in suppressing trolls, gold sellers, and other sorts of in-game spam, but I think they are being overzealous with this latest change. I would rather suffer the occasion e-peen war in LA or VIP areas 2-3 times a day tops, rather than see things made more difficult for those who really want to help us out (commanders, mentors, and those who are just providing helpful links).

[Malediktus.9250]

People shouldnt have to use workarounds like this, especially if they are using private chat channels like party, squad or guild. If this is an intended change Anet should feel ashamed

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Writing on Reddit, Chris Cleary said (emphasis added)

...this is a symptom of us fixing a bug in the suppression system that allowed players to bypass the suppression system in the first place. We might have set those thresholds too low.

...We're looking into options.

More technical details: Chat messages now go through an algorithm to analyze similarity and after reaching a certain similarity factor we suppress similar messages on specific channels. This rolled out as part of a fix to the issue of being able to bypass the previous suppression system and spam an infinite number of messages quickly in any chat channel.

Since almost all chat "Links" are actually a string that the client can interpolate as a "Link" (aka [&B4UFAAA=] becomes [Warrior's Sprint]), they all are triggering the algorithm for similarity and the suppression around them. This is working as intended for Public Channels (Map/Team/Say) but looks like it's too punishing for Moderated Channels (Squad/Party/Guild). The edge-case with self-whispering is one that we didn't account for in testing but is likely not going to need a fix if we fix the suppression threshold on Moderated Channels.

Edit 2: We are going to be testing some configuration changes internally soon. Likely also going to roll out some changes to how punishing LFG suppression is as well.

[Chris Cleary.8017]

This should be fixed now. We have also deployed a change to the LFG spam filter which should allow users to update their posts more often before being suppressed.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Chris Cleary.8017 said:This should be fixed now. We have also deployed a change to the LFG spam filter which should allow users to update their posts more often before being suppressed.

Thanks for getting on this ASAP and for letting us know in the forums, too.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Chris Cleary.8017I got suppressed in fractals trying to link the instabilities one at a time (so that they are easier to read), and accidentally clicking something else along the way (since the icons can move around a lot, that's pretty common).Doesn't that seem over-tuned to you?

(There's no problem linking three in a row; you can even make one mistake. I made two tho: one because I forgot I was in /whisper and the second as a misclick.)

[atheria.2837]

@"PuppyMonkeyBabyJosephSayer.3601" said:saying or linking 2 things and hitting spam filter unable to use chat for several minutes on end, is either bug with item links or a bug causing people to hit spam filter after saying or linking literally 2 things

When doing any guild missions, spamming links and wps is going to happen, but even when just commanding in WvW, two or three 'statements' can put up the spam blocker... that's not right... not in any mode.

[nottsgman.8206]

I don't know, whisper linking seems to be infinite, but all other channels seem to be capped at some arbitrarily low number (between 4 and 7 depending on the channel). skin linking (of all things) seem to be capped across the board at 4 in all chats apart from say (I hit the cap at 7) and whisper.

seems a bit harsh to me, and counterproductive. how is anyone supposed to help other people if they can't link things properly? and it still seems to have that ridiculous suppression system that lasts 10 minutes if you do nothing, but if you didn't wait EXACTLY 10 minutes before trying again, the timer is reset to 10 minutes.

[DivaCeryn.2673]

Doing serpents ire yesterday I was in Guild Chat say /sqjoin me for serpents ire with the wp was suppressed after 3 so i tried the /sqjoin me for serpents ire it went through then the wp it went through after that no matter what i changed i got suppressed.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Malediktus.9250 said:People shouldnt have to use workarounds like this, especially if they are using private chat channels like party, squad or guild.

Yeah, just for the record: I agree that workarounds are not good. I also think that they can be useful to players when they allow them to work around the bug that, eg, makes doing in-game coordination hard, while ANet investigate and fix the real problem.

Which, thank goodness, they say they have. I'm yet to test it myself, but fingers crossed, that'll be the end it. :)

[Gwaihir.1745]

Can't even link the 4 gifts before you forge a legendary.

[Vegeta.2563]

@Chris Cleary.8017 said:This should be fixed now. We have also deployed a change to the LFG spam filter which should allow users to update their posts more often before being suppressed.

This maybe fixed for LFG, but chat messages still suffer. Even waiting 1 minute between linking stuff it still suppresses.

[Player.9621]

what about mail?

for reals just tank the F2P and sub 20 level groups and leave everyone else alone

[tehdras.1489]

just tested and STILL not working. getting suppressed when sending whispers to guildies and when trying to post links in guild chat. can we get an updated timeline on when its actually corrected?