Auctionbot - Out of hand

[BGumble]

Stupid spamming thing. You cant read whats being sold in trade anymore. Stupid bot puts out so much spam, most of it for rubbish items, 2 lines per item plus its own advertising every couple of seconds.

I'm sure its a wonderful idea but it will only work if it gets its own channel.

Whoever runs it, turn it down, its a nuisance.

[_____________Barakon]

Why don't you just type /ignore auctionbot?

[Paffy]

I have given some thought of ignoring auctionbot myself but shop bot is great...

I dont know if it needs to advetise itself as often as it now does though.

Zarch and bunch of other chars between 5 and 140

[BGumble]

Mainly because then I'll never see if it has anything interesting for sale. Just want its spam rate turned down.

[Ellusion]

Auctionbot is truly great. Coppled with the other bots that look through the channels for me. I haven't even been to the trade channels since it arrived.

No more excessive "selling Q3 metaplast helmet!!!1" spam, yay.

[______________MKaath]

AuctionBot is down for the time being, there are quite a few bugs leftover from old chat code that causes some pretty bad issues on my home machine.

I'm sorry if the spam bothers people, I reduced it after the initial release, but apparently need to reduce it more if I bring it back up.

One thing to remember about the advertising spam is that if AuctionBot weren't spamming it, whoever selling would be.

The AuctionBot spam algorithm goes something like this:

Spam an advertisement every 5 minutes(to keep the socket alive if things are dead if nothing else).

For each item, spam it as it is 1/4 of the time to auction closing, putting out no more than one ad every 30 seconds, and each item no closer than 2 minutes.

For example, you auction something that closes in 1 hour.
AuctionBot will advertise that item when it is posted(if it meets QL and value requirements for a "neat" item). It will then advertise it at:
45 Minutes to close
34 Minutes to close
26 Minutes to close
20 Minutes to close
15 Minutes to close
12 Minutes to close
9 Minutes to close
7 Minutes to close
5 Minutes to close
3 Minutes to close
1 Minute to close

That list looks like a lot, but just take a guess how often someone trying to sell an item themselves would spam... I'd bet it's more than 11 times in an hour... more likely 11 times in 5 minutes.

Also, a lot of items are dropped, since it always spams the one closest to close, and never more than once every 30 seconds, so some items just plain lose in the advertising department.

Any suggestions as to how to adjust AuctionBots acceptance parameters(right now it's just over QL50, which not only lets in a lot of trash, but excludes the "Special" QL items that could be valuable), or the spam algorithm are always welcome. Also suggestions on the messages to make them shorter, I tried to put in the information that I would like from a seller(I get tired of seeing "xxx Biomech Pants" only to click on it, and see that it's 20 QLs lower than what I want).

Feel free to flame AuctionBot's existence or ask me to hurry up and fix it at mkaath@yahoo.com. If enough people flame, I'll leave it dead, if enough want it back, I'll get on it.

MKaath

[BigGreen]

I think we should give MKaath a hand, this is a free service that he has provided the community. Don't want spam? Ignore auctionbot.