One-click Spam Reporting in Warcraft
I’m sure I’m not the only player who’s delighted to hear that Blizzard has added a new one-click spam reporting feature. You can read up on it over on the official site, but here’s how it works in a nutshell. If someone sends you spam through chat, right click their name and click “Report Spam.” If someone sends you in-game mail, click the “Report Spam” button in the mail dialogue. It couldn’t be simpler.
Of course, how the spam reports are handled is anyone’s guess. Hopefully they are able to rule out false positives. For example, I know there’s one jerk on my server that could easily get reported as a spammer by several hundred people who’d love to see his account banned. Granted, he’s reprehensible, but he’s not a spammer and shouldn’t have his account deleted… at least not for that reason.
Whether or not this manages to weed out all spam in the short term, I have every expectation that it will rid us of it in the long term. Why? Because spammers only make money off of volume. They have to send out spam in bulk for incredibly low returns. Since any large volume of spam will now get the account banned, this system effectively makes it impossible for the spammers to make a profit peddling their gold and leveling services. They can try, but they’ll find it isn’t worth their time and effort.
Not that I have a personal vendetta against gold farmers, of course. I’ve weighed in on the WoW gold trade before, and I still think it’s Blizzard’s problem. I do, however, draw the line when I get mercilessly inundated with spam. This feature comes as a welcome blessing. I hope the spammers don’t find a way around it any time soon.