Right the title says most of it. It seems lately that a lot of people have automated scripts to advertise what they are selling. The scripts run on 100 of course. It wasn't so bad when one person was doing it every 15 minutes but it was still annoying. Now more and more people are doing it and cluttering up the channel. Some just put all they want to say in one line and run it frequently, others have the message broken up in two or three lines and spam the channel. I'm all letting player businesses advertise but maybe it would be best to move it off to a designated channel, rather than spamming 100 all day long constantly.

Some people aren't running scripts, but manually typing it, or just hitting a bind that says it instead.

I still agree with Mecha that these advertisements should be moved to another channel, perhaps an un-used one such as 411* (the number to dial for "Information" on US and Canada phones).

Yes, I know 411 is "offically" the EnB events channel, but EnB is pretty much dead right now; I doubt anyone will mind it being used for this.

I agree. Are there still plans for a news ticker? It would be neat to ban ads from chat channels, and instead sell add space in the station news and news ticker.

Tourias: as for me, I type those messages in by hand, there is no automated script for me (only the up-arrow), I am low-tech. And, the logs will show, you published more lines on [100] (from the <IRC> relay), than I did to announce my service, this evening (which was about 10 times, over an extended period of time, greater than 5hrs).
Why then do you seek to censor me? you could just use /ignore if you like.
*Disagree*

hahahahaha. Whatcha gonna do to people who advertise with scripts or bots? Ban them? A lark! Mute them? Easy enough to have a trial account bot then!

I agree...and I think just asking would work fine for now. the only people I know that do this are Jess and Nauty, and I'm sure they would both be fine moving it.

If your going to spam 100, be sure and do it on a bot. That way every one doesn't put your main character on ignore.

It would be my wish that those selling arms, ships, etc... broadcast on 300, the RP channel. If that is not possible due to increased RPing on that channel, maybe 301 for RP ads.

I would think the two players currently doing ads would take it upon themselves to do something to lessen the strain on players who do not appreciate their announcements on 100. It could also go a long way towards increasing their sales if they were cooperative with the community.

Ok the purpose of the ads is to get prospective customers to get the information about your business. If we move it to any other channel it defeats the purpose of advertising at all.

Right now there are 4 people advertising things that i know of Me, Foo, Naut and caragea. Caragea can easily move his message to chan 1 where it belongs because hes interested in providing services to noobs. We will still see the message but it won't be on chan 100.

If you haven't noticed I personally am putting less ads on chan 100. Most people know about my service already so advertising is less important for me. People just message me directly if they want something.

Keep in mind Foo is starting up something new. And needs to advertise alot so people know about it. But I agree every 10 to 15 mins can be excessive.

The rest of us need to get be on chan 100, though. But I propose a compromise. Lets say no more then one ad every hour per advertiser. That way we can still advertise to the people that may need our services, but it doesn't take up all of chan 100. (That one hour should include sector chat ads to)

(Now before you respond, remember this is the General forum. I'm not in character and neither should you be. Please consider the compromise carefully before you respond. Its not coming from Jess, but from Thurman. I don't want to start a war here and get the thread locked before its even started.)

Thurman

RelayeR: I/We don't have access to that forum you linked too :)

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/200/8678

It's true. Did you WANT it in the trash, Relayer?

RelayeR makes a sound suggestion--the only issue is that nobody uses 300 for roleplay chat because nobody else is there. Everyone uses 100 for everything, be it roleplay or just chat about the crap you did at work today. If people want to move to 300 for that sort of thing, and put ads on 301, that's cool, and I'd be one of the first people to step up and support such a move.

However, I've had 300 active for ages, and to date I have seen a total of maybe five or six lines of chat in there in over a year (and all from one single person, mind). Part of the issue is that people are just lazy, and don't feel like doing the channel-swapping all the time. The other part might just be that the roleplaying sub-community within VO's populace is just too small for a whole separate channel. I dunno. But if people want to move to 300 for this stuff that's fine by me, I'll drag my butt over there as well.

Another reason is plain ignorance. I was unaware of the fact that 300 is RP, and I have been playing for quite some time now. Perhaps I also forgot it again, who knows. In any case, awareness should be raised.

Fragmenting an already small community in a game that is... lacking in content of it's own (ie, driven by players) is Bad(tm).

Similar to what Impavid suggested, what if people could buy space on the holograms that float around stations, possibly bidding for time on each station? Not sure how difficult that would be to support.

The premium space to advertise would be near wormholes, though you'd probably need a bot or something to display it from (which could be shot of course).

[stamp of approval]

well, I think that folk should advertise their services by cargo writing ........it would certainally keep them quiet .....

On a more practical note , I hope that no-one minds me reading the nation war rules a few times in the hour or so before a NW .

Ecka

Ecka:

hehe
Of course we don't mind. Keep up the good work.
That, and Deneb Run (and any other player run events).
It's all content, really.

Of course if someone is spamming [100] a lot it gets on my tits (and people do it all the time, a lot more than the commercials you see), but then I can just /ignore them.

No, I think you'll find this thread was started specifically to have a go at myself and the other two advertisers - even though we are basically offering services / creating content in V.O.

Re: [300] that is basically a non-starter as virtually nobody is listening on that channel, it would be pointless to advertise there.

If I could buy a hologram, I would. RelayeR? Devs?

I believe use of [100] by advertisers should be self-regulating, we are using it sparingly of course. It's not broken, there is nothing to fix.

-- FF

I'm sorry, I didn't realize such a valuable reference was in the trash. It contains stuff I refer to all the time (so much for me reading the search results properly).

Personally, I'm not bothered by the ads on 100 and I usually am the first to complain when excessive (read spam) chat is going on as I have to read it all. I also don't have the luxury of ignoring anyone.

If the advertisers keep a lid on how often they broadcast, I'm sure this will quickly become a non-issue.

FF, if I could do anything for you concerning the holograms, REI would already have one. ;-)

I propose that this activity be self-regulating by the advertisers concerned.
For my service, I undertake to :
- Not broadcast my service more than 24 times a day
- Broadcast my service _less_ than 3.0 times in any given hour-long period, averaged over the said period
- Nevertheless reserving the right to reply to any public inquiries for quotes.