Yahoo!Abuse

So, Religion:1 [where I waste the vast majority of my time] has been having some problems with spillover from Islam:2 lately.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Okay, well, it would. I should know — I was a part of the last spillover problem, and that shit still gets bitched about. But…this was a very special, weird e-domestic-dispute containing spillover.

And it turned into a strange revenge-botting. By which I mean ‘some idiot fills the room with similarly named sockpuppets to prevent others from getting into the room, in order to ‘shut it down”.

Somehow, it had something to do with Islam:2 being full of bots, and…possibly someone from Islam:2 having looked at the chat list and noticing Religion:1 once. I honestly don’t know — there was zero sense being made.

I decided to go beyond zero sense, and into negative sense. I reported the user to Yahoo.

Subject: Auto Confirmation – Your Yahoo! Abuse support request was received
From: Yahoo! Customer Care [reportabuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com]
Date: 02-Mar-10 11:59

Hello,

This is an automated message regarding your recent request for Yahoo!
Abuse Customer Care support. We have received your message and will
respond within the next 48 hours with an answer.

Thank you for reaching out to us. We look forward to helping you!

Sincerely,

Yahoo! Customer Care

**Please do not respond to this message as no one will receive it.

That’d be their response. Also, there’s more:

Subject: Re: Other Abuse (Not Listed)
From: Yahoo! Customer Care [reportabuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com]
Date: 02-Mar-10 19:42

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Care.

We appreciate your report of abuse in Yahoo! Chat. I understand that you
would like to report abuse in Yahoo! Chat. However, I need some more
information from you first before I can further investigate your issue.

Please provide the following if you haven’t already:

– Exact Yahoo! ID that you are reporting

– Your Yahoo! ID

– Name of the Chat room involved

If possible (and if you haven’t already), please provide us a copy of
the harassment. You can do this by sending us a copy of the chat log
file. To do this you must turn on Chat Archiving in your Messenger
software.

While in Messenger:

1. Click on “Messenger” at the top of the client.

2. Click on “Preferences.”

3. Click on “Archive.”

4. Select “Yes, save all of my messages.”

5. Click the “Apply” button.

6. Click the “OK” button.

If the abuse occurs again, please copy and paste the contents of the
archive with that particular user into your email to us.

To view your archived chat:

While in Messenger:

1. Click on “Messenger” at the top of the client.

2. Click on “Preferences.”

3. Click on “Archive.”

4. Click on the “View Archive” button.

5. Select the user you are reporting from the list in the left window.

6. Copy and Paste the offending text into an email to us.

Once we have received the necessary information, we can continue to
investigate this issue.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Jay Tyler

Yahoo! Chat Abuse

69004043

http://www.yahoo.com/

Original Message Excluded:
————————–

Okay. I can do that. I reply, keeping everything intact — including the reference number in the subject line [which I’ve excluded here]. I find it a bit odd that I’m supposed to reply to this one, but not the other one, because they’re the same email addresses. I figure it has something to do with the reference number…in the subject line.

But, whatever. It’s Yahoo. There’s probably some sort of method by which emails are sorted, right?

Subject: Re: Other Abuse (Not Listed)
Date: 03-Mar-10 11:13

Exact Yahoo ID: leprinced_de_deutschland
My Yahoo ID: Hunter.the_CrazyChick
Name of Chatroom Involved: Religion:1 [and possibly Islam:2]

The bots leprinced_de_deutschland used followed a naming pattern. s##s_gizmo_# [where # represents a numerical digit]. ‘gizmo’ was sometimes ‘gizmodo’ or ‘gizmosaurus’. I think there were also instances of broken_gizmo. I can’t be sure, as they don’t show up in my logs.
Portions of the archive:

leprinced_de_deutschland: [15] we not play
dancingwithmisty: GO BACK TO IT, IF IT’S SO WONDERFUL
leprinced_de_deutschland: [16] LOCK
dancingwithmisty: R1 will NEVER be Islam2
demonrald: Mic ain’t workin’
leprinced_de_deutschland: [17] unrstand?
demonrald: Audiho is lying.
leprinced_de_deutschland: [18] r1 b close
leprinced_de_deutschland: [19] LOK
audiho: dem, fuck you.
demonrald: She studies aberrant psychology.
audiho: :-?
demonrald: Especially guys who have bunny fixations.
dancingwithmisty: Get OUT
leprinced_de_deutschland: [20] thank lava
leprinced_de_deutschland: [21] ur name get lok now
demonrald: damn it
dancingwithmisty: Lava isn’t even in here. GET OUT
audiho: oh, julio. :(
audiho: dem, your mic sucks, your life sucks, just kill yourself
leprinced_de_deutschland: [22] end of talk

leprinced_de_deutschland: [60] thank 2 lava
leprinced_de_deutschland: [61] n u r homo
leprinced_de_deutschland: [62] all ur name lok

leprinced_de_deutschland: [64] tel lave revove bot in islam chat and this bots leave

leprinced_de_deutschland: [84] when wickd pull bot from 2 I pill bot here
leprinced_de_deutschland: [85] this is deal no exce3ption

leprinced_de_deutschland: [89] gump name get loked now

leprinced_de_deutschland: [90] rel 1 closing down 2day
leprinced_de_deutschland: [91] find new rom
leprinced_de_deutschland: [92] hunter no talk
leprinced_de_deutschland: [93] name lok

Rough translation: he intended to shut down Religion:1 by filling it with bots. He also repeatedly threatened to lock other user names. He wasn’t able to, but this doesn’t change the threats or his intention to do so.

Apparently, he was back during the night, while I was asleep. It’s likely that he’ll also return today, but I probably won’t have any record of that as I’ve ignored him.
Thank you for not sending me an auto-response asking me to ignore the individual.

So, there you have it — my reply. Everything they asked for, right?

Subject: Re: Other Abuse (Not Listed)
From: reportabuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
Date: 03-Mar-10 19:35

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Care.

The Yahoo! Customer Care team that supports Chat issues is primarily
English-speaking.

Please forward a translation of the information and we will review the
situation further and take appropriate action.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Yahoo! Chat Abuse

69004043

http://www.yahoo.com/

Did you catch that?

If you’re beating your head on your desk right now, or executing the world’s largest and most emphatic facepalm, you’re reacting exactly how I reacted. Except…I don’t have a desk, so I couldn’t really ‘headdesk’. And I honestly couldn’t decide which was more…warranted. I think both. Or at least some image of something else doing it — a cute kitten with its face buried in its paws on the floor, or Puppet Angel, or, y’know, something less used than Picard. Maybe Jon Stewart.

Anyway, I replied:

Subject: Re: Other Abuse (Not Listed)
Date: 03-Mar-10 21:12

What I sent you *was* in English.

Which should’ve been the end of it.

Subject: Re: Other Abuse (Not Listed)
From: Yahoo! Chat chat-advocacy@cc.yahoo-inc.com
Date: 04-Mar-10 16:27

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Chat.

We appreciate your report of abuse in Yahoo! Chat. I understand that you
would like to report abuse in Yahoo! Chat. However, I need some more
information from you first before I can further investigate your issue.

Please provide the following if you haven’t already:

– Exact Yahoo! ID that you are reporting

– Your Yahoo! ID

– Name of the Chat room involved

If possible (and if you haven’t already), please provide us a copy of
the harassment. You can do this by sending us a copy of the chat log
file. To do this you must turn on Chat Archiving in your Messenger
software.

While in Messenger:

1. Click on “Messenger” at the top of the client.

2. Click on “Preferences.”

3. Click on “Archive.”

4. Select “Yes, save all of my messages.”

5. Click the “Apply” button.

6. Click the “OK” button.

If the abuse occurs again, please copy and paste the contents of the
archive with that particular user into your email to us.

To view your archived chat:

While in Messenger:

1. Click on “Messenger” at the top of the client.

2. Click on “Preferences.”

3. Click on “Archive.”

4. Click on the “View Archive” button.

5. Select the user you are reporting from the list in the left window.

6. Copy and Paste the offending text into an email to us.

Once we have received the necessary information, we can continue to
investigate this issue.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Chat.

Regards,

Jay Tyler

Yahoo! Chat Abuse

69004043

http://www.yahoo.com/

Original Message Excluded:
————————–

Yeah. That feeling you have? You have read this before. It’s pretty much the same, except for, y’know, the chat part.

So I sent them the same email as before, but with this line on the end:

That’s all in English. I can’t do much of anything to translate it into anything else, because ‘can’t type’ isn’t another language. This is pretty much what I’ve already sent to you before.

Their response? Scroll up to the last email they sent me. That was their response.

All I’ve learned from this is that the system that sorts their emails involves a beach pail of d100s on an uneven table and the Lemarchand Configuration.

Go on, say something....