Group Ban and Spam Control¶
GPat is a powerful METAbolt plug-in which provides:
1.
Permanent banning: Permanently ban any nuber of avatars from 1 or more groups. The list of avatars you enter is continuosly monitored and banned the moment they try to rejoin a group they were banned from.
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Spam Monitoring: A mathematical algorithm (AI sentiment) analyses all inbound IMs of the groups being monitored and decides what's spam and what isn't. The monitor works in two modes:
a. Reports all detected spam with time, name of group, avatar name, avatar UUID and message content so that you can take whatever action it is you wish to take
b. Optional parameter provides automated banning upon spam detection
Permanent Banning
This is a very straight forward feature. You simply key in the avatar UUID and the avatar name into the grid (see image below) named "Ban List" under the Ban Monitor tab. That's it...GPat will do the rest and keep those you have entered permanently banned. Each time a banned avatar tries to re-join your group/s they will be banned and the action will be reported under the "Activity" section on the left of the window
Spam Monitoring
To get the most out of this feature the engine needs training. There are 2 files:
1.
GPat_Good.txt: Contains IM content (excluding avatar name and time) that is normal or acceptable by you
2.
GPat_Bad.txt : Contains IM content which you consider as SPAM
The process is simple in that almost everyone keeps a log of all group IMs. You simply copy and paste what is normal/good into the "Good" text file. You then copy and paste what you consider as spam/bad into the "Bad" text file. The more the entries you make the more accurate the monitoring will be. It is important for each user to go through this process themselves purely because the nature of spam changes from person to person or from group to group e.g. a "sex" related content may be regarded as spam in a "fashion" group and may not be considered as such in a "sex" group.
With the plugin we have already provided general content in both the Good and Bad files which will get you started.
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Important
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IMPORTANT: ALL ENTRIES MUST BE ENTERED AS A SINGLE LINE INTO EACH FILE I.E. THERE CAN'T BE TAB OR NEW LINES. YOU MUST CONVERT EACH IM INTO A SINGLE LINE AND THEN ENTER THEM INTO THESE FILES.
BEFORE YOU START MONITORING A GROUP YOU MUST MAKE SURE THE GROUP IM TAB FOR THAT GROUP IS NOT ALREADY OPEN IN METABOLT...YOU CAN'T JOIN THE SAME GROUP IM TWICE WITH THE SAME AVATAR!
SPAM DOESN'T NECESSARILY NEED TO MEAN ONLY SPAM. AS YOU HAVE NOTICED WE HAVE CALLED THE FILTER FILES "GOOD" AND "BAD". THEY COULD CONTAIN ANYTHING THAT IS GOOD/BAD, NEGATIVE/POSITIVE. RIGHT/WRONG ETC. I.E. THE FILES CAN CONTAIN ANYTHING (SUBJECT, COMMENT, TERM, SWEARING ETC.) YOU DO WANT AND/OR DON'T WANT TO ALLOW IN YOUR GROUPS. USE YOUR IMAGINATION :)
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The Spam Monitor is disabled by default. You need to check the "Enable spam detection" for it to start monitoring. If you check the "Auto ban upon detection" option, as the title suggests it will auto ban all avatars whose comments it detects as spam. More on this subject later.
All detected spam are displayed in the area on top of the screen called "Detected Spam". Each notification will contain the time, group name, avatar name, avatar UUID and the IM content which has been detected as being spam.
The "Edit GOOD list" and "Edit BAD list" buttons give you access to the good and bad filter files so that you enter new entries and take out existing ones as you need. Content that has been identified as spam correctly should be copied and pasted into the BAD file. Normal/good content should be pasted into the Good file so that the engine keeps on learning and gets better and better.
The "indexes" displayed under each of the Good and Bad buttons are the spam indexes the engine has created from your entries in each individual file. IT IS NOT THE NUMBER OF ENTRIES IN EACH.
It is recommended that you don't use the "Auto ban dection" feature to begin with. Until such time that all detected spam is accurate. Until then you should watch what is being reported as spam (it is just reporting and no one will be banned or any sort of action taken unless you enable the auto-ban) and follow the level of correctness, at the same time copying and pasting good into the good file and bad into the bad file. The engine will auto adjust itself and it creates more indexes from your entries. Even without the auto-ban feature running what this offers you is the ability to spot spam all in one place without having to go through 100s of lines of IM logs.
If and when you decide to enable the auto-ban feature you are advised to inform your group members that it is in use and it can take a wrong decision sometimes and whatever they need to do in case it happens to one or more of them.
Installation of the GPat plug-in
1. Unzip the contents of the GPat.zip file
2. Copy the "GPat.exe" into the "Extensions" folder in the Data Dir (User roaming folder). If you don't know where this folder is, go into About METAbolt from the "Help" menu in METAbolt and you will find it there.
3. Copy the "MBsentiment.dll" into your METAbolt App Dir (normally c:\program files\metabolt)
4. Start METAbolt and after login select GPat from under the Plugins menu. If you wish to use the provided Good and bad text files then go to the Spam Monitor tab and click on the "Edit GOOD list" button. You will have an empty file. Open the provided Good text file and copy and paste the contents into the empty one then save your file. Repeat the same steps for the Bad file
5. Enable spam detection by checking the checkbox to load the filter files (Good and Bad text files). Enabling and disabling the "Enable spam detection" checkbox will reload the filter files each time.
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Warning
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INFORMATION and T&Cs¶
Plugins are not a part of the METAbolt application. They run within METAbolt when they are started and for as long as they are running. If a plugin e.g. GPat is running and you close it down, GPat's whole operation will stop and you will need to retstart it and set it up to continue what it was doing.
HOW YOU USE THIS PLUG-IN IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY AND METABOLT WILL ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY OVER YOUR ACTIONS UNDER WHATEVER OUTCOME OR CIRCUMSTANCE. BY DOWNLOADING AND USING THIS PLUG-IN YOU ARE ASSUMING FULL RESPONSIBILITY OVER YOUR ACTIONS AND AGREEING TO HOLD METABOLT AND/OR THE DEVELOPER/S OF THIS PLUG-IN FREE OF HARM IN ANY SENSE AND UNDER WHATEVER CIRCUMSTANCE AND/OR CONDITION.
BY DOWNLOADING AND USING THIS PLUG-IN YOU AGREEING TO THE METAbolt Freeware License |