I have noticed that the spam control in Wormnet has become far tighter over the last few months, too tight in fact.

It especially causes problems when hosting tournaments. You are unable to let people know that a tourney is taking place because chanserv boots you when you repeat yourself. Even after waiting 2 minutes between posts, it still boots and eventually bans you, very annoying!

It also bans and boots people when they are simply having a conversation, again very annoying. Many people would be grateful if you loosened the spam control back to how it was before, that was fine. It didnt cause major disruptions before, it does now.

On the topic of spam control, most players also dislike the auto ignore feature in games. I can see the thought behind it, but it really isnt necessary and all it ends up doing is disrupting games. If im playing a game with friends (or whoever), and they want to spam when they fail or make a great shot, then let it be! Its all good fun having a spam if somebody fails at a crucial time, and its just annoying having to "unignore" people.

I can see the good intentions behind this idea, but all it does is force people "unignore" people over and over again. It is of no real benefit, it just causes unnecessary effort having to "unignore" people.

Personally I have NEVER had to ignore anyone, there is no need for it. If people do wish to ignore somebody, they can always do it manually, its no big deal. My opinion is that of a very regular WA player, and reflects the thoughts of many others. It would be nice if the auto ignore feature was removed in the next update, or at least allow the feature to be turned on manually.

Thanks!

I agree completely with the latter section. Auto-ignore should definitely be off by default.

The WormNET spam control is very intuitive. I have been monitoring it for the past few months and the only people who get kicked are those who deserve it, aside from tournament notices, which I would consider legitimate. Your post is useful. I'm sure CyberShadow will respond with a thought about tournament notices.

Beyond this, if you see someone get kicked for what you would consider to be an unjust reason, please post the associated section of chat log.

Thank you for your feedback.I have noticed that the spam control in Wormnet has become far tighter over the last few months, too tight in fact.This January, SheriffBot's algorithms have been rewritten to minimize the number of false positives and false negatives. According to all tests (on live WormNET logs), its accuracy has improved by orders of magnitude.

Please note that SheriffBot's algorithms were tuned from the point of view of someone not interested in your chat lines, and will kick/ban at the point where they become decisively annoying from that point of view.It especially causes problems when hosting tournaments.You are not the only person who has been announcing tournaments since this January, yet are the second one to complain.

By the way, the WormNET news box has seen no use since the last Beta's release. It was designed exactly for the purpose of announcing WormNET events such as tournaments. If you'd like to get your event posted there, please contact me (but it'll have to be Mon-Fri at 9-5 GMT, because Team17 must currently update it manually).You are unable to let people know that a tourney is taking place because chanserv boots you when you repeat yourself. Even after waiting 2 minutes between posts, it still boots and eventually bans you, very annoying!Waiting 1 minute between every line is guaranteed not to kick/ban you. Sorry, I'm not going to believe that claim until you can point out some logs or an exact timestamp when it happened.It also bans and boots people when they are simply having a conversation, again very annoying.This is factually incorrect. SheriffBot's false positives have decreased dramatically after the rewrite. All of SheriffBot's actions are being constantly monitored by WormNET's moderators, and false positives are very rare.
It is only noticeable because now SheriffBot will issue incrementally longer bans (up to 10 minutes) if the person resumes spamming/flooding right after rejoining WormNET.

Good ways to get banned by SheriffBot by "simply having a conversation" are:
Swearing abundantly Using your Return key like it was a space bar Writing excessively long lines with lots of repeating characters or words Putting a smiley on its own line after every line of textMany people would be grateful if you loosened the spam control back to how it was before, that was fine.How many, exactly, do you speak for? Have you considered the majority of players who never have a problem with SheriffBot, and are probably thankful for a cleaner channel?On the topic of spam control, most players also dislike the auto ignore feature in games. I can see the thought behind it, but it really isnt necessary and all it ends up doing is disrupting games.I must guess that you play mostly with people you trust? It is of no real benefit, it just causes unnecessary effort having to "unignore" people.So, you're saying it's better to let griefers ruin the games of people who don't know how to ignore people? Don't forget, the in-game chat has no scrollbar. Have you considered asking your friends to just stop flooding the chat?

Thanks for replying.


Please note that SheriffBot's algorithms were tuned from the point of view of someone not interested in your chat lines, and will kick/ban at the point where they become decisively annoying from that point of view.

From the point of view of a robot? Most people in Wormnet don't care if somebody is talking, thats what the chat is there for. Fair enough if someone is constantly spamming that's a nuisance, but not when people are having a fast paced conversation or advertising a tournament for players to participate in. Being kicked for typing 4 or 5 lines in a row is silly. The number of people who would actually be bothered by this are far outnumbered by the vast majority who are not.

Note that the chat page fills up pretty quickly, usually within a few seconds during peak times. I don't see how pasting a message every time the chat page fills up (for people who have just joined to see) could cause anyone any distress. Do you?

Do you honestly think people are that sensitive? 90% of the text in the channel are "Player has left/joined" messages. I dont think anyone is too bothered by regular bouts of text in between these messages.

What's more annoying is missing out on a tournament that you would have liked to play in by not seeing it being advertised in the channel because the tournament mod has been banned from Wormnet for advertising the tournament in the channel. Would you not agree?

You are not the only person who has been announcing tournaments since this January, yet are the second one to complain.

Yeh most people cant be bothered to complain, they just accept it and do nothing. Note this isn't a complaint, this is feedback from a regular worms player who has found a problem with the spam control, thats all.

I haven't had a major problem with it until hosting tournaments recently. I found it to be problematic and so posted here to let you know. I'm not trying to be argumentative.

By the way, the WormNET news box has seen no use since the last Beta's release. It was designed exactly for the purpose of announcing WormNET events such as tournaments. If you'd like to get your event posted there, please contact me (but it'll have to be Mon-Fri at 9-5 GMT, because Team17 must currently update it manually).

I'll bare that in mind next time I host a tournament.


Waiting 1 minute between every line is guaranteed not to kick/ban you. Sorry, I'm not going to believe that claim until you can point out some logs or an exact timestamp when it happened.

Im pretty sure it did, next time Ill copy a log for you.


I must guess that you play mostly with people you trust?

No, I've played WA pretty much everyday for the last five years. I play with everyone, people I know and people I don't.


So, you're saying it's better to let griefers ruin the games of people who don't know how to ignore people?

Griefers? This is WA, the vast majority of people don't give anyone grief. What you're forgetting is you can cause somebody far more grief by insulting them and being rude rather than spamming, and the person will not be put on auto ignore for doing that. You could explain how to ignore people at the beginning of each game in the chat box, alongside the "press pageup..." message.


Have you considered asking your friends to just stop flooding the chat?

Why would I do that? You can see I said I don't mind if someone spams, it doesn't cause me any distress at all, neither does it for the overwhelming majority of people I've played with on a daily basis over the course of five years.

Lex has also said he agrees with me about the auto ignore feature, do you respect his opinion more than mine?

From the point of view of a robot?From the point of view of persons who participated in tuning SheriffBot's algorithms.Most people in Wormnet don't care if somebody is talking, thats what the chat is there for.I don't understand what you could mean here (excluding any interpretations that would contradict yourself).Fair enough if someone is constantly spamming that's a nuisance, but not when people are having a fast paced conversation or advertising a tournament for players to participate in.I agree that being kicked for "having a fast paced conversation" (assuming you don't mean including any of the issues in my last post) would be a false positive, and should be eliminated. However, there are better ways to advertise tournaments than pasting the same line over and over, and people not interested in the tournament would find it annoying - especially if they're trying to have a conversation.

I would like to add that this is a decaying spiral: the less suited WormNET chat is for having a conversation, the less try to hold a conversation (and use the chat for flooding/spamming). I remember that about the time I joined in 2006, people would just chat in #AnythingGoes a lot more often. What happened?

For what it's worth, I regret not having time to add a button to hide channel joins/quits in the last Beta.The number of people who would actually be bothered by this are far outnumbered by the vast majority who are not.How do you know that?Note that the chat page fills up pretty quickly, usually within a few seconds during peak times. I don't see how pasting a message every time the chat page fills up (for people who have just joined to see) could cause anyone any distress.Distress is a strong word, I don't think either side would be annoyed to that extent.What's more annoying is missing out on a tournament that you would have liked to play in by not seeing it being advertised in the channel because the tournament mod has been banned from Wormnet for advertising the tournament in the channel. Would you not agree?I think that relying on #AnythingGoes spam to announce a tournament is inherently wrong, and we must seek a better solution (such as the one we already discussed).I haven't had a major problem with it until hosting tournaments recently. I found it to be problematic and so posted here to let you know. I'm not trying to be argumentative.No explanation is required. This discussion is constructive.Griefers? This is WA, the vast majority of people don't give anyone grief. The change was caused by a real complaint: someone kept joining games and using a macro tool to flood the chat enough to make it unusable. Even worse, people who knew about the ignore command couldn't tell others about it because their message would scroll so quickly off the screen that there wouldn't be enough time to read it.What you're forget is you can cause somebody far more grief by insulting them and being rude rather than spamming, and the person will not be put on auto ignore for doing that.I assure you I'm aware of that, however existence of greater problems is not a reason not to fix smaller ones.You could explain how to ignore people at the beginning of each game in the chat box, alongside the "press pageup..." message.There are many things we could ask people to read, but then even less people would read it. There still occasionally are English-speaking people who have no clue how to open the in-game chat.Lex has also said he agrees with me about the auto ignore feature, do you respect his opinion more than mine?Lex's opinion (and your initial one) reflects his personal views, and does not account for the reason this feature was added.

P.S. SheriffBot actually has a whitelist of tournament websites. I've noticed that tus-wa.com wasn't in the list, which I've just rectified.

P.S. SheriffBot actually has a whitelist of tournament websites. I've noticed that tus-wa.com wasn't in the list, which I've just rectified.

Thanks, so what does this mean?

People posting links to TUS tournaments will be much less likely to be kicked/banned just for doing that.

I know this undermines some of the points I was arguing for, but it is a more practical solution for the time-being.

So I will be less likely to be kicked if I post the link on its own? Or can I also put text alongside the link? How does the sherif recognise that the post is in relation to a TUS tournament?

Yes, you can write some text before/after the link. Lines containing "tus-wa.com/tournaments/" receive a "negative" score multiplier.

I'll add PartyTime and RopersHeaven to the list too.

Thanks a lot!

What about the auto ignore, gonna keep it? Its just that every single player I've talked about it with doesnt like it, and thats hundreds of players.

My feedback is that of a regular worms player. Not bragging (as if its something to brag about). Just letting you know I'm not just a forum dweller, I play this game day in day out and so thought you might find my opinion useful.

If we'll have another Beta before 4.0, there'll be an option to disable it entirely - but it'll be enabled by default, to protect those who don't know about /ignore or the option.

We can also look into relaxing it. Currently, it'll auto-ignore someone if they send 5 or more lines within the same second.

What's more annoying is missing out on a tournament that you would have liked to play in by not seeing it being advertised in the channel because the tournament mod has been banned from Wormnet for advertising the tournament in the channel. Would you not agree?SheriffBot will now never ban (only kick) people flooding with lines containing whitelisted words.

I think there's such a thing as being over-protective, and the auto-ignore feature is that. When people play games on the internet, they expect some level of nonsense from other players. Also, some quick spamming is relaxing sometimes. Auto-ignoring feels like oppression. If the point of the auto-ignore feature is to prevent something like DDoSing, the limit should be ~50 lines rather than 5. At least, the auto-ignore feature ignoring StepS when I wouldn't personally choose to ignore his goofy flooding after he messed up feels wrong. I remember way back when, the boredom between turns some games was relieved by messing with the chat system with flooding smileys back and forth ("=)" -> "(=" -> "=)" -> "(=", etc.). KRD did this, and it was cool.

This is still my personal opinion.

The logical limit to the auto-ignore feature is to block persons who flood the chat so quickly, that you don't have time to read others' lines at the default chat height. 5 lines per second is already past that limit.

Ah. I see. To me, that's not enough reason to implement auto-ignoring by default and users who find that to be a problem should be allowed to enable auto-ignoring. I still think it should be disabled by default. I have no problem with some chat scrolling by quickly in a fun games with friends. It usually happens for silly/fun reasons anyway.

"LOL, hiding your strats!"

Users who will be aware of the option and would know how to enable it can just ignore people manually.

I think there's such a thing as being over-protective, and the auto-ignore feature is that. When people play games on the internet, they expect some level of nonsense from other players. Also, some quick spamming is relaxing sometimes. Auto-ignoring feels like oppression. If the point of the auto-ignore feature is to prevent something like DDoSing, the limit should be ~50 lines rather than 5. At least, the auto-ignore feature ignoring StepS when I wouldn't personally choose to ignore his goofy flooding after he messed up feels wrong. I remember way back when, the boredom between turns some games was relieved by messing with the chat system with flooding smileys back and forth ("=)" -> "(=" -> "=)" -> "(=", etc.). KRD did this, and it was cool.

This is still my personal opinion.

This is exactly how I feel. You are taking away some of the enjoyment of in game chat by implementing auto ignore as the default setting.

If someone is spamming purposely to remove somebody's text, then the user can be ignored manually. There is no harm in repeating what you have said if this happens, and if it continues to create a problem the user can be ignored manually.

CS, when I suggested you explain how to ignore people manually at the start of each game in the chat box, you argued that many players cannot read English and so would not understand how to ignore people manually. Thing is, if they don't understand how to ignore people manually, then they are also not going to understand how to unignore people manually either. This creates a bigger problem.

Also it really isn't hard to understand the words "mute", "ctrl" and "F2-6". I think most players with limited English skills will be able to make sense of these basic key words. Yet if they cannot, it is still a bigger problem not being able to unignore someone than it is to ignore someone, considering in the vast majority of games you will not need to ignore anyone.

As I said before, I see the good intentions behind this feature, but all it does is take out some of the enjoyment of in game chat. You said you had "a" complaint about a macro thing... In rare instances like that yes the feature would be useful, but in 99% of games, all this feature does is oppress, restrict enjoyment, and force people to continually unignore people.

Even if in the extremely rare instance that you find yourself of the company of a griefer with a macro thing, 5 lines in the space of a second is still far too small a limit. Especially when you consider the fact that you can extend the chatbox to display maybe 30 or 40 lines of text (not sure on the exact number).

As I have already said, I understand that the intentions for this feature were good, but this feature is completely unnecessary in 99% of games hosted on Wormnet. All it does is hinder the enjoyment of an online game of worms. I want this game to be as enjoyable as anyone else, and this feature restricts levels of enjoyment, it should definitely be changed!

(we've continued the conversation with Lex on IRC)

If someone is spamming purposely to remove somebody's text, then the user can be ignored manually. There is no harm in repeating what you have said if this happens, and if it continues to create a problem the user can be ignored manually. The same points apply to my side of the argument, as well.CS, when I suggested you explain how to ignore people manually at the start of each game in the chat box, you argued that many players cannot read English and so would not understand how to ignore people manually. Thing is, if they don't understand how to ignore people manually, then they are also not going to understand how to unignore people manually either.The problem is information overload. You can't expect people to absorb and remember information that doesn't apply at the given moment. "Press Ctrl+F?" to do something now is more direct and simpler to understand than "press something when something specific happens". Furthermore, your suggestion forces the user to type or figure out the corresponding F key by themselves. This creates a bigger problem.This is arguable.

I completely fail to see how anyone can seriously consider that auto-ignoring flooders by default is bad. How is flooding anything but an impulsive, feral display of frustration?

You've mentioned swearing a few posts above. W:A has a swear filter, which is enabled by default. If this filter hadn't existed and I'd have added it and turned it on by default in the latest update, wouldn't there be a much bigger backlash over that? And yet, nobody has asked to disable the filter by default. If flood auto-ignore had existed from the very beginning, would anyone have asked that it were removed, or disabled by default?Yet if they cannot, it is still a bigger problem not being able to unignore someone than it is to ignore someone, considering in the vast majority of games you will not need to ignore anyone.Would a person who doesn't know how to do either have a better experience where malicious flooders are not auto-ignored, or when players without self-restraint get auto-ignored? Even if in the extremely rare instance that you find yourself of the company of a griefer with a macro thing, 5 lines in the space of a second is still far too small a limit. Especially when you consider the fact that you can extend the chatbox to display maybe 30 or 40 lines of text (not sure on the exact number).Whether a macro tool is used or not is besides the point. Someone mashing a letter and Enter is equally disruptive.

How can you say that it is too small of a limit? It's not possible to type 5 meaningful lines within the same second.All it does is hinder the enjoyment of an online game of worms.Can you explain why do you think that flooding the chat is crucial to "the enjoyment of an online game of worms"?

I went around and asked a few people (leaders of Worms-related projects, you'd know them - also active players, of course) about this feature. None of them have even heard of it.

Are you sure you're not complaining because you're the one flooding and mad because everyone has to constantly unignore you? ;)

You're biased by the beauty of your implementation. Others don't like text appearing telling them the computer has decided something for them.

Also, no, Nail is not an annoying person in any way.

StepS floods sometimes, but I don't consider that annoying. It's just his personality. I wouldn't plug my ears if someone was screaming in frustration in real life. I don't mind crying babies on an airplane. Maybe many people do, but those people need to relax.

I take offense at that unbased accusation. Please point out where my arguments are illogical.

This whole discussion isn't logic-based. It's about what people like.

That is factually incorrect. There are many constructive arguments in this discussion. I formulated the subjective part of it a few posts above:Would a person who doesn't know how to do either have a better experience where malicious flooders are not auto-ignored, or when players without self-restraint get auto-ignored?

Also, no, Nail is not an annoying person in any way.According to NAiL, flooding isn't annoying - thus, you don't need to be annoying to be a flooder.StepS floods sometimes, but I don't consider that annoying. It's just his personality. I wouldn't plug my ears if someone was screaming in frustration in real life. I don't mind crying babies on an airplane. Maybe many people do, but those people need to relax.So, you impose your subjective opinion on others. That makes you biased.

Instead of arguing something that's clearly impossible to argue, I'll just respond to the quoted string.

If that person was me (in some other game where I don't know how to ignore someone), I would have a better experience if the computer didn't decide what to do with the flooder. I would just handle the chat being flooded while I continued having fun with the game, considering the "malicious flooder" lame but also funny, since it's funny to see someone who considers their chat-flooding to be substantial, when it's really not since it's just text.

I would definitely never want the computer to decide that I think that person's chat-flooding angers me enough to ignore them. It really doesn't. It's like putting words in my mouth, like Windows did with "My Documents", "My Music", and "My Videos". It feels wrong and I reject it.

It's like the computer is saying, "Wow, you must be annoyed by this guy! I'll just set him to ignore for you so you're not mad." My response to that would be, "I'm not mad! Flooding doesn't matter. I can handle it. Don't bother ignoring him."

It's like that paperclip in Microsoft Word who decided what you were writing and wanted to assert his formatting method which wasn't necessarily right. At least he asked you before asserting it though. He gave the user a choice. Auto-ignore doesn't.

Edit: This post is in response to the post 2 posts above.

Also, I realize we discussed all this on IRC, but Nail deserves to see both sides, since he brought up the topic in the first place. He deserves to see someone else with his opinion so it doesn't just seem like Nail vs. The Logical Community Who Decides What's Right.

Also, note that I don't really care either way since I don't play WA much any more, as you already know. I'm just speaking from experience playing recently when auto-ignore has been a false positive 100% of the times I've seen it, which has been far too often.

OK then, let's weigh the arguments.

Why auto-ignore by default is good:

Flooding completely incapacitates chat
Flooding causes any lines sent during the flood to be almost unreadable, and once scrolled off the screen they're gone (no scrolling)
Flooding creates a distraction, even if the chat is closed (red telephone)
Un-ignoring someone is more accessible than manually ignoring them


Why auto-ignore by default is bad:

Some people would supposedly be annoyed because W:A made a decision for them (even though they can disable that behavior)
Non-flood lines sent before the flooder is manually unignored are gone


Did I forget anything?

Add "Flood lines sent before the flooder is manually unignored are gone. Purists don't like this. Some people actually want to see the entirety of what happened." and "Having to unignore a friend makes it feel like you ignored them in the first place, as if you're admitting something is wrong with them." and "Having your thought process and fun groove interrupted by having to unignore someone is disheartening." Auto-ignore is a buzzkill. You're watching someone rope and you suddenly have to unignore someone who shouldn't have been ignored in the first place, distracting you. The flooding isn't distracting. It's a normal event on WA.

No. I could add a dozen such arguments to my side, as well.Some people actually want to see the entirety of what happened.This is invalid anyway, unless you can read the entirety of scrolling text.

Edit: more synonyms for "it contradicts my personal philosophy and world view" are not helpful.

What if I'm keeping the list? Anyway, I don't care. It's fine as long as others are okay with it. If more Nails come and complain, you'll know why. At least you know what some of us think about it.

So, basically, what we'd like to see implemented is a toggle for the automatic in-game ignore, like Vladimir already has planned, yes? Then the experienced players that Lex and NAiL represent here will again be allowed to choose for themselves The Full WA Experience, while players new to the game, unaccustomed to the many keyboard shortcuts, won't be left confused and angry because someone's spamming the chat up.

Yes, but more than half of this thread is arguing what the default value of that toggle should be.

I think it's pretty obvious that the default should be on.

So, basically, what we'd like to see implemented is a toggle for the automatic in-game ignore

agreed, CS?

I still disagree that it should be on by default, and ill post a huge post with example replays justifying my reasoning after ive done this essay, been up for 36 hours already.

Also note that the other half of my "complaint" was to do with the spam control preventing tournaments from being advertised as well as they have been traditionally.

You seem to agree with me in that respect and have taken measures to lessen this problem, for which I am grateful.

StepS
:eek: Why the h did you take me as an example? When did I flood and where did it take place? I don't understand, what's wrong with me in this important discussion? :eek:
Back on the topic, I'd like to thank the auto ignoring feature. I know few but true people flooding in the in-game chat. Thanks. Would be also nice to have that at the pre-game lobby, but I apologize there's no ignores at all.:confused:

Stop flooding please, StepS

agreed, CS?Huh?

The option was my idea.

Huh?

The option was my idea.

Well in that case I agree, its a fair compromise.

Edit:

Good job I brought it up. Now you know that the auto ignore feature is not liked by everyone. Just like stereo effects, offline rope knocking and that annoying phone thing.

Its good to see you accommodating other peoples preferred ways of using the game.

:eek: Why the h did you take me as an example? When did I flood and where did it take place? I don't understand, what's wrong with me in this important discussion? :eek:
Back on the topic, I'd like to thank the auto ignoring feature. I know few but true people flooding in the in-game chat. Thanks. Would be also nice to have that at the pre-game lobby, but I apologize there's no ignores at all.:confused:Nothing's wrong with you, StepS. I think you're okay. I quoted you as an example because I distinctly remembered having to unignore you after the auto-ignore feature ignored you in that huge RR game recently (remember? I think you were tired). I didn't tell you that it auto-ignored you because I didn't want that interrupting our session.

Hey, I've read your discussions here and may I post my own comments?

- 5 line per second is really a good limit to me. Have yourself playing a 300 beat-per-minute music and tap the Enter key with the beat, and you'll know the rate.

- No matter the auto-ignore is on by default or not, the user should hear an immediate notice of who has been auto-ignored. Am I right?

No matter the auto-ignore is on by default or not, the user should hear an immediate notice of who has been auto-ignored.W:A currently prints this message when auto-ignoring someone:


Automatically ignoring Player due to flood, type "/unignore Player" or press Ctrl+F# to unignore

W:A currently prints this message when auto-ignoring someone:
Automatically ignoring Player due to flood, type "/unignore Player" or press Ctrl+F# to unignore

Oh. I see.

- 5 line per second is really a good limit to me. Have yourself playing a 300 beat-per-minute music and tap the Enter key with the beat, and you'll know the rate.

Wait. I changed my mind.
I would prefer to use the limit of 15 line per 3 seconds instead of 5 line per second. This is not to ignore people who accidentally reach the limit (probably because he is too bored that he tap the Enter key at that rate, or other reasons).

The logical limit to the auto-ignore feature is to block persons who flood the chat so quickly, that you don't have time to read others' lines at the default chat height. 5 lines per second is already past that limit.

This is the main reason, why it should stay, how it is. And it should stay ON by default.

I haven't read the second page of this yet but what would possibly be a nicer way of approaching an "auto-ignore" feature would be to, on detecting multiple identical lines, remove the repeats and append (x5) to the end of the spammed line.
In the case of chat such as:

dsa
dsdsa
fdfds
sdadsa
dsad

where the lines differ, they could be concatonated with a coloured line break symbol to show where the intended and of lines were.

In theory, you could even count the number of times such events have occureed and print up a message after a threshold explaining how to manually ignore people. (line with the page down comment at game start)

Such a thing would require a buffer/delay before showing the message to everyone so that it can process multiple lines of text and determine if they are the same or not. Also 5 lines per second is a pretty bad filter, it wouldn't filter out like 90% of the spam if someone were to intentionally spam (Same with 15 lines per 3 seconds)

Not at all, the first version of the message apears as normal, when the second arrives it just compares it to the first and either displays it as normal or adds the (x2) to the first one. For differing lines, you just need a time stamp per line, if the time is short appaend it to previous instead (unless someone else has spoken since).

By the way, the WormNET news box has seen no use since the last Beta's release. It was designed exactly for the purpose of announcing WormNET events such as tournaments. If you'd like to get your event posted there, please contact me (but it'll have to be Mon-Fri at 9-5 GMT, because Team17 must currently update it manually).Looks like this won't be happening :( Team17 won't allocate resources to manually approve announcements for all minor events, and delegating the responsibility of allowing me to update the contents of the news window myself is out of the question.

(08:55:19) [NAiL`bOr] your spam control only disrupts conversations
(08:55:23) [NAiL`bOr] fix it(08:36:02) [27] <NAiL`bOr> ill cut you!
(08:36:06) [29] <NAiL`bOr> lol
(08:36:20) [27] <NAiL`bOr> i thought u quit worms neway?
(08:37:01) [25] <NAiL`bOr> ohhh
(08:37:06) [27] <NAiL`bOr> yes good to make time for that
(08:37:46) [26] <NAiL`bOr> ohhh
(08:37:52) [28] <NAiL`bOr> dair enough
(08:37:54) [37] <NAiL`bOr> fair enough
(08:38:16) [32] <NAiL`bOr> your parents are christian?
(08:38:27) [33] <NAiL`bOr> ohhh
(08:38:52) [26] <NAiL`bOr> yes computer is a big distraction
(08:42:34) [29] <NAiL`bOr> if he is all powerful, then he is not all loving
(08:42:51) [25] <NAiL`bOr> yes maybe
(08:42:52) [29] <NAiL`bOr> but
(08:42:58) [31] <NAiL`bOr> well man
(08:43:10) [29] <NAiL`bOr> lol
(08:43:56) [27] <NAiL`bOr> you cannot deny that there MAY be a god
(08:44:00) [30] <NAiL`bOr> but not as the bible says it
(08:44:03) [33] <NAiL`bOr> or the quran
(08:44:05) [37] <NAiL`bOr> or whatever
(08:44:28) [32] <NAiL`bOr> but Ghost, billions of people belive the word of another holy book
(08:44:40) [31] <NAiL`bOr> muslims
(08:44:43) [33] <NAiL`bOr> sikhs
(08:44:44) [37] <NAiL`bOr> hindus
(08:44:48) [41] <NAiL`bOr> buddhists
(08:44:49) [44] <NAiL`bOr> etc
(08:44:56) [45] <NAiL`bOr> hews
(08:44:57) [50] <NAiL`bOr> jews
(08:44:57) Kicking NAiL`bOrGood ways to get banned by SheriffBot by "simply having a conversation" are:
Swearing abundantly Using your Return key like it was a space bar Writing excessively long lines with lots of repeating characters or words Putting a smiley on its own line after every line of texthttp://thecybershadow.net/track.gif

SheriffBot was updated today to incorporate some tweaks done based on data collected for the past week. False positives should be further reduced.

Thanks for realising I had a point and taking steps to improve SheriffBot after what I said to you CS.

People posting links to TUS tournaments will be much less likely to be kicked/banned just for doing that.