Old Jita Local: SpamCentral
Anyone who's been to Jita knows it, check the local comm channel and you get floored by advertisements. To top it off, practically all of those are false advertisements, offering non-existent or fraudulent services or showing lower prices or more valuable items then what they actually offer! It's been so worse most people just closed the channel, or just block it outright.
For a long time, the Caldari State has tried to combat these illegal advertisements ever since they started to hurt profits. The mass spamming of false advertisements caused honest traders to look for other hubs, usually Amarr, Dodoxie, Rens or Hek.
A while back, the State realized they could never win this spamwar, as they barely had any jurisdiction over Capsuleers, who caused this mass volume of spam. So to resolve this situation, the Caldari State turned to the one entity that had authority over Capsuleers, Concord...
The Great Cleansing!
About a week ago it happened, Concord agreed to support the State in culling the illegal and false advertisement spam in the Jita Local comm channel. 3 members of the Communication Control and Protection division of Concord showed up in Jita.
Their arrival didn't go unnoticed, as these CCP personnel flew the latest in Concord technology, the Enigma Polaris frigate! Using these high tech ships, undoubtly equipped in the latest technology to combat unlawful use of commchannels, the CCP crew was able to make quick work of the most obnoxious capsuleerspammers. Using the authority of Concord, they arrested many of these capsuleers on grounds of abusing the right of Free advertising in Jita by using bots(programs that abuse the capsuleer Comm privilege to spam automated messages) or excessive spamming of advertisements, preventing a good working of the Jita local channel.
We provide with a direct commentary of one of the CCP commanders, Stillman:*Botting is not ok, and spamming like mad isn't OK either. Chat is supposed to be for chat. We'll take appropriate action in each case. Don't push it. Spammers and bots are why we can't have nice things.*
Shortly after the CCP ships took care of the excessive spams, the effect was noticeable. Jita comm channel was silent... People had gotten so used to the spam that they initially were unsure what to do now that their Jita Local channel wasn't spewing hundreds of advertisements per minute. Once reality set in, the channel exploded in chatter! Many congratulated CCP's actions in the matter, and began talking amongst themselves on how great a clear channel for communications is.
Temporary effect or lasting?
Initially it was tought to have just a single day effect, but now a week has passed, and while some false advertisers have returned, it's a far cry of the old days. The disbelief of a manageable Jita Local still gets mentioned on the comms, but people are happy with this new take on things. Alot more chatter between folks happens now, exchanging the latest news on various events and things!
The effect on the local population was also noticeable. Ever since Jita local got cleansed of these mass-spammers, freeing up communication bandwidth for regular capsuleers, it has seen an increase in numbers. And more visitors means more customers, so the goal of the State has been achieved with this intervention of Concord!
All in all, everyone's happy about the new and clean(er) Local commchannel in Jita. The esteemed Capsuleer Chribba has also provided statistics on the changes, showing a major reduction in communication bandwith usage ever since the spammers got arrested : Jita Local: Bandwidth usage/hour.
Ever since CCP's succesful operation in Jita Local Comms, requests have been made to do something similar in other tradehubs, especially Amarr as these get plagued with excessive advertisement as well.
One can only hope that in due time, this will happen, allowing proper trade to happen through the local comms once more!
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