User:Doc Lithius/Gold Spam Amalgamation Article/Effectiveness of the Patch

This was originally a 15-day report on the effectiveness of the spam-stopping functions of Patch 2.1.0. It kind of fell apart on a lot of the days given my random playing schedule, but all and all, I think it proves that Blizzard is truly on the ball with their spam-stopping utilities!


 * Day 1: I was playing on Aerie Peak earlier today for about four hours and Sisters of Elune for about two hours. I had SpamSentry turned off.  Do you want to know exactly how many pieces of spam I saw in these durations?  Zero.  That's right, folks!  Blizzard seems to have really cracked down on spammers somethin' fierce!  Today, they were absolutely gone!  Either Blizzard's fixes worked better than anyone could have thought possible, or maybe all the spammers are simply biding their time...  Who can say but they spammers themselves?
 * Posted at 06:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Day 2: About seven hours of play today on Aerie Peak. About six hours in, I got a single gold spam whisper from some dude named "Majid".  For some site I've never heard of, no less!  Regardless, I right-clicked on his name and selected "Report Spam".  One confirmation later, the spam was reported with no GM message or prompt or anything.  Woot!  As I said before no spam is good spam.  One message isn't gonna ruin my day.  :3
 * Posted at 03:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Original Message
 * [18:03:14] [Majid] whispers: Buy your cheap WOW Gold at the RIGHT place. The cheapest price at www.(removed).com and speedy delivery!


 * Day 3: Nothing today. However...
 * Day 4: Today, my sister recieved a spam whisper from someone and reported them. This was very early in the morning.  She also just recently spotted a very noisy spammer in General Chat in Ironforge (Why?).  Also reported.  They're still comin' through...  Very much slowed, however!
 * Posted at 20:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Day 5 Once again, in the early AM of the morning, I got a spam message from one of those "Woet" folks. Reported, of course.  Looks like the patch isn't killing all of the spam.  Just...a lot of it.
 * Addendum: Looks like that "Report Spam" function is a very limited thing. I can't seem to Report Spam right now, for some reason.  Unless this is addressed, I will be going back to using SpamSentry and clogging the GM Tickets with reports again.
 * Second Addendum: Apparently, the missing "Report Spam" function is caused by one of my AddOns. Specifically "ChatLog".  I've left a message on the page at Curse Gaming.  The author said he'll look into it, seeing as there's a bug existing where you can't click on names in the log files anymore anyway.
 * Originally posted at 22:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * First addendum 03:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Second addendum Posted at 20:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Days 6-9: I sort of didn't play World of Warcraft on these days... Oops.  However...
 * Day 10: One spam message on Day 10 from a complete gibberish name. And of course...it was reported. (I recently disabled ChatLog, seeing as something it does makes it so I can't Report Spam, as mentioned above.)
 * Posted at 12:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Day 11: Once again, I skipped a day. But, once again...
 * Day 12: ...I got hit up by not one, but two spammersicers! Both of them invited me into a Raid Group and repeatedly spammed the same crapola over and over again.  Both were also immediately reported and a grin.  This is kind of like a fun game, at this point!
 * Posted at 05:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Day 13: How appropriate! Day 13 greets us with three additional spam messages via whisper!  I may consider putting SpamSentry back in action at this rate.  No more Peons4Hire messages, but as I predicted (see below), others have stepped up to bat now.  Little bohemian, renegade websites and the sort.  Oh well!  It was good while it lasted, yo.
 * Posted at 09:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Day 14: Another day I didn't play...but hey!
 * Day 15: I think I've made my point with these posts by now. If it wasn't obvious, I've been keeping track for my own personal curiousity and I've determined that spamming is about...I'd say...about 78% down from before v2.1.0.  Which is still pretty good!  I got one more spam whisper today, since we're on the topic.  But I'm done, seeing as I can't keep a consistant record due to my random playing schedule.  Heh heh.
 * Posted at 19:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Final 15-Day Stats for Aerie Peak Spam Messages
 * Whisper/Tell Messages: 7
 * "General Chat" Messages: 1 (Dun Morogh)
 * /say Messages: 1
 * Group Invites: 3
 * Total Spam Sighted: 12