hotmail

[anoobowner]

When reading Tom's rant and the ongoing conversation, I couldn't help but think of Aragorn explaining to Frodo and the Hobbits what the Numenorian Rangers have to go through to keep the shire safe from wolves, trolls, and the agents of Mordor.

I'm glad the Shire is relatively safe, and that there are developers keeping my inbox clean. I just hope somebody's paying them.

[Penchant]

Tom's ban of hotmail is not keeping your mail box cleaner nor is it hurting hotmail. All Tom is doing is hurting BM due to his personal dislike of hotmail getting in the way of making the right decision for the game.

[Tom]

You obviously have no idea how many trolls and !@#$%^&s we had to put up with back before we banned hotmail, and with that about 2/3rd of them.

The other forum is still getting about 10 spam-bot sign-ups EVERY day, ALL of them from hotmail.com - if anyone knows how to teach SMF to blacklist domains, I'll gladly ban it from the forum as well.

It might not hurt them much, but I'm doing the right thing and if more people would do it, then it would hurt. But I can't change other people, I can only do what's right for me and hope others will do what's right as well.

[anoobowner]

I'm not a webmaster, but I fail to see how Tom is hurting his interests or our community by banning user accounts who are 99% likely to be spambots. Especially considering the choices are 'manually ban spammers in my free time' vs. 'not have the problem and help a cause I support'.

[De-Legro]

I'm not a webmaster, but I fail to see how Tom is hurting his interests or our community by banning user accounts who are 99% likely to be spambots. Especially considering the choices are 'manually ban spammers in my free time' vs. 'not have the problem and help a cause I support'.

Main reason is that we potentially never gain people as players that use hotmail legitimately. Of course this isn't an either or sort of debate. Little point getting these players in if then Tom shuts the entire thing game down due to frustrations dealing with spam

[anoobowner]

Main reason is that we potentially never gain people as players that use hotmail legitimately. Of course this isn't an either or sort of debate. Little point getting these players in if then Tom shuts the entire thing game down due to frustrations dealing with spam

That's not good...maybe in the sign up page there should be a little polite block of text that says 'Please register with an account that does not use the @Hotmail domain. It is our recommendation you do not use Hotmail in general because of numerous spam and security exploits in their system.' That way, the user registering with the account gets the idea that what he is using has problems, and Tom doesn't have to change anything with the anti-spam software BM uses that includes legit Hotmail users? Imperfect solution, but easy!

[Penchant]

I'm not a webmaster, but I fail to see how Tom is hurting his interests or our community by banning user accounts who are 99% likely to be spambots. Especially considering the choices are 'manually ban spammers in my free time' vs. 'not have the problem and help a cause I support'.

99% is complete BS.

You obviously have no idea how many trolls and !@#$%^&s we had to put up with back before we banned hotmail, and with that about 2/3rd of them.

The other forum is still getting about 10 spam-bot sign-ups EVERY day, ALL of them from hotmail.com - if anyone knows how to teach SMF to blacklist domains, I'll gladly ban it from the forum as well.

It might not hurt them much, but I'm doing the right thing and if more people would do it, then it would hurt. But I can't change other people, I can only do what's right for me and hope others will do what's right as well.

Spambots can be prevented with a decent Captcha. The trolls and !@#$%^&s thing is illogical because unless you literally kicked every user from the game who had a hotmail from the game the first time the ban went into effect, it could simply be a coincidence. As to you hurting hotmail, that's more or less an unintentional lie on your part as you aren't hurting hotmail. When a hotmail user comes to BM and finds out they have to make a new email account in order to play the game, more often than not, they just don't join the game because they don't have any real reason to suggest that BM is so much better than other games if they haven't already played. I probably wouldn't have joined if the ban was in effect when I joined.

I would say probably less than 1% would even consider, let alone actually dropping their email user because it was blocked by a website, so you have likely converted less than a handful of email users so saying it's a crusade against hotmail is a poor excuse. Saying that if you get enough websites to block hotmail you will maybe convert 1% of their users if you are lucky is also a poor excuse because it isn't going to happen due to the sheer number of websites.

I started to investigate this myself and it was harder to find more recent results, the ones I did suggest things different than what you are stating. With things like sweep and other anti-spam things I was getting that it was actually doing quite a lot better than previously. As well, I also found that free mails like hotmail are much less targeted than other "higher quality emails" because of free mails better anti-spam technology. Here

That's not good...maybe in the sign up page there should be a little polite block of text that says 'Please register with an account that does not use the @Hotmail domain. It is our recommendation you do not use Hotmail in general because of numerous spam and security exploits in their system.' That way, the user registering with the account gets the idea that what he is using has problems, and Tom doesn't have to change anything with the anti-spam software BM uses that includes legit Hotmail users? Imperfect solution, but easy!

AFAIK, no anti-spam software is used although I am far from 100% on that. He simply bans anyone with a hotmail email from joining the game with that email, legit or otherwise.

[Tom]

Spambots can be prevented with a decent Captcha.

Which is why we catch 99% of the spambots. The remaining 1% still cause manual cleanup work.

The trolls and !@#$%^&s thing is illogical because unless you literally kicked every user from the game who had a hotmail from the game the first time the ban went into effect, it could simply be a coincidence.

I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Early in the game we banned people individually. Only after we realized that the vast majority of them were hotmail users did we ban hotmail completely.

As to you hurting hotmail, that's more or less an unintentional lie on your part as you aren't hurting hotmail. When a hotmail user comes to BM and finds out they have to make a new email account in order to play the game, more often than not, they just don't join the game because they don't have any real reason to suggest that BM is so much better than other games if they haven't already played. I probably wouldn't have joined if the ban was in effect when I joined.

People said the same thing about IE users back when BM started to be intentionally hostile to them. Maybe we lost some players, but that is what a free game can afford and a commercial one can't (without the stakeholders whining about lost profits): Have ethics. Not in some high-level meaning-of-life sense, but in the simple sense of considering things to be right or wrong.

I am not hurting hotmail because it loses users. Even if 5 people switched away from hotmail due in small part to BM (e.g. being so interested they sign up with some other service just to test out BM and then find that other service is better) that's not something hotmail even notices.

But you can say the same thing about the one guy standing up to the injustice in his country. It's got millions of people and his one act won't make a difference. And yet, it does. Because it's about doing the right thing, not about maximizing ROI.

I also found that free mails like hotmail are much less targeted than other "higher quality emails" because of free mails better anti-spam technology. Here

That may be true for their analysis.

Again, I see the actual spambot registrations. That's not an abstract statistics. Here's the spambots that the anti-spam gate blocked for manual investigation just in the past 12 hours:



Now stop telling me I'm seeing ghosts.

[De-Legro]

I started to investigate this myself and it was harder to find more recent results, the ones I did suggest things different than what you are stating. With things like sweep and other anti-spam things I was getting that it was actually doing quite a lot better than previously. As well, I also found that free mails like hotmail are much less targeted than other "higher quality emails" because of free mails better anti-spam technology. Here

From my reading of that article, they are talking mostly email scams. Moving away from Hotmail makes sense here for a few reasons, one being that people in general have learnt to treat emails from companies like Hotmail with a BIT more suspicion. That is different from using hotmail accounts to sign up to wiki's/Forums etc for spam bot activity. Most of the "targets" in this case will likely never see or register the email address, they will just see the spam posts, so it is not worth the effort to secure high quality emails when easily accessible free ones.

[Penchant]

Which is why we catch 99% of the spambots. The remaining 1% still cause manual cleanup work.


I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Early in the game we banned people individually. Only after we realized that the vast majority of them were hotmail users did we ban hotmail completely.


People said the same thing about IE users back when BM started to be intentionally hostile to them. Maybe we lost some players, but that is what a free game can afford and a commercial one can't (without the stakeholders whining about lost profits): Have ethics. Not in some high-level meaning-of-life sense, but in the simple sense of considering things to be right or wrong.

I am not hurting hotmail because it loses users. Even if 5 people switched away from hotmail due in small part to BM (e.g. being so interested they sign up with some other service just to test out BM and then find that other service is better) that's not something hotmail even notices.

But you can say the same thing about the one guy standing up to the injustice in his country. It's got millions of people and his one act won't make a difference. And yet, it does. Because it's about doing the right thing, not about maximizing ROI.



That may be true for their analysis.

Again, I see the actual spambot registrations. That's not an abstract statistics. Here's the spambots that the anti-spam gate blocked for manual investigation just in the past 12 hours:



Now stop telling me I'm seeing ghosts.

I can't argue against that directly, but provide a solution at the same time. Why not looking into using the spam blocker that the forum uses on Battlemaster? While the email was flagged on a few, the IP address was flagged on all of them,  thus you could filter away the spam bots and still get the legitimate users. (Checking still for legitimate users being blocked and even if you don't, at least you are letting in more legitimate users while still preventing spam. As to calling blocking hotmail ethics, I disagree. It is not at all analogous to standing up to injustice IMO, because you are demanding bullet proof glass in all cars and complaining hotmail doesn't have that to protect people, and calling it an injustice.

I hate spam, but I like battlemaster and you are hurting battlemaster significantly because we need all the legitimate users we can get and you don't care. You are not just hurting yourself by blocking hotmail as the man standing up for injustice would  by potentially making himself a target, you are hurting everyone who plays the game. I would venture to say that while  hotmail wouldn't have "saved" battlemaster, it certainly would have slowed the need to sink islands for instance.

[Tom]

Why not looking into using the spam blocker that the forum uses on Battlemaster?

I do. The spam blocker is what catches these guys. It blocks most of them (look at the number bottom!) automatically, but when it's not really sure, it throws them up for manual review.

It is not at all analogous to standing up to injustice IMO,

Not in content. The point with the injustice was that one guy standing up against a police state won't change a thing. He won't hurt the dictator, not even a tiny bit. And STILL it is the right thing to do. And it's not his actions that might change the world, it is the fact that he is acting at all.

Same with Internet !@#$%^&s like AOL or hotmail or others, who disrespect the rest of the net, ignore standards (see far above on that) and generally act like the guy you wouldn't invite again to your parties. As long as everyone accepts their behaviour, nothing will change.


I'm not going to be "everyone". I don't accept !@#$%^&s pissing on my front door, why should I accept !@#$%^&s pissing on my mail server?

[trying]

So why haven't you blocked IE since they

disrespect the rest of the net, ignore standards and generally act like the guy you wouldn't invite again to your parties.

especially those old versions.

[Tom]

So why haven't you blocked IE

You must be new here. BM is intentionally hostile to IE users and will repeatedly tell them to go and use a real browser.

[trying]

Yes I've seen those messages but there is a difference between just having an annoying warning and outright blocking them from the site.

[Tom]

Yes I've seen those messages but there is a difference between just having an annoying warning and outright blocking them from the site.

Funnily enough the army flags in regions.php doesn't work in Mozilla(a 'real browser') but they work in IE.

We don't intentionally break IE - we just don't support it. It's a PITA to support (so we don't), but it's not sending spam.