N4G: A Reminder About Rumors

Christopher writes: "With the Holiday Season over and no major gaming news event until late Spring, it's time to remind everyone of our policy regarding rumors, which have been increasing in regularity and will continue until May.

In this day and age it's easy to get carried away and mislead by any source on what might be happening in the industry. This is why we've used the following guidelines to limit the amount of non-credible rumors on N4G.

.

a) rumors are not allowed from anonymous sources unless the rumor is based on a photo or image;

b) spoken or written word rumors must come from a credible source with a history of being an insider in the industry or the like and not from any random Internet user;

c) video or image-based rumors that look easily faked are not allowed;

d) speculation is not a rumor and is not allowed, what someone 'thinks' is an opinion and not a statement that something will happen;

.

We encourage all users to use the submission reporting tools to share whether a rumor should be considered credible or not as well."

[blackblades]

Reminder I'm still getting viruses pop ups which I have to exit out the whole tab. Also hey look new video ad pop ups. This site is a pain in my hands.

[Sniperwithacause]

I would give you a million up votes if i could.

[NecrumOddBoy]

I thought this was just me. I get these spam pop-ups all the time when using this site. The websites end in .XYZ

[WilliamSheridan]

This is the reason I'm about to abandon this website... They may have single handedly destroyed my phone due to their inability to give a shit and take ad dollars from anyone who offers it...

[nveenio]

Ad block until they fix it. That's what AdBlocker is for. If a site is being abusive, they don't deserve the ad revenue. If, however, blocking ads doesn't help, then the problem is not the site. (I don't get any popups at all on this site.)

[DaDrunkenJester]

Same here, it is such a pain.

[Christopher]

From the owners, who I've brought this up with regularly:

"I know this is very damaging to the site, and we`ve constantly nagged the ad networks when we get reports of these kinds of ads. It seems like it's been much better during the holidays, though, so let's hope that lasts. What would really help is screenshots or url`s to these ads/redirects etc. I know it can be hard to get, but it makes the job of kicking them out of the network much easier. Feel free to send whatever you can find out to us."

So, take screenshots and send them to me by PM here or email at Christopher (at) havamedia (dot) com and I'll continue to pass them on.

[Jinger]

Most certainly was not better over the holidays. I have been getting multiple virus and ad pop ups and the ad pop ups, even when pressing the 'X', still selects the ad.

[rainslacker]

Does the owner know that it's possible to just outright block those ads without needing the url? There are very specific scripts which cause pop ups on phones, and they can be blocked server side. It means the ad wont display, but that's a problem for the ad server to deal with. I'd live to support n4g by not using ad blocker browsers or plug ins, but they have so many ads, it actually slows down my browsing. It's better since the update on the pc, but mobile is much worse now

[RememberThe357]

Literally in the middle of reading your comment I got redirected to the fake snap site. Took a screen shot, though I'm not sure how to send it.

[Lou Ferrigno]

if you don't know how to use an ad blocker by now, you've got bigger issues .

[darthv72]

is there an ad blocker for a phone browser? I use one on my PC and dont get the popups but on my phone i get them and the fake virus sites.

I found adblock plus for samsung browsers, but I use chrome on my galaxy phone. I installed it anyway to see if it works and sure enough... if i use the samsung browser I don't get the video pop up in the corner on my phone.

[blackblades]

Exactly darth, have a ad block for computer but I use Chrome on my phone. The ad blockers I seen even have ad on them. Does it block the fake virus pop up.

[trooper_]

You're serious, right? Ad blocker doesn't stop this crap.

[bloop]

That's not the point Lou Ferrigno. I never had to use ad blockers before on this site. And there was already plenty of advertisements on each page without having whack a mole video pop ups coming up all over the place. Has the site been taken over by EA or something?? If it isn't sorted soon I'll be visiting some other site to get my news.

[rainslacker]

Darth.

There are some ad free browsers on the Google store. I use one for n4g, because the site keeps redirecting me to phishing sites unless I do. It doesn't solve the problem 100%, but it's significantly less frequent than not using one. Without one, I'd get one for every article I clicked on

[343_Guilty_Spark]

I have a suspicion the owners get a kickback from the redirects. Not like it would be difficult to get rid off. What other gaming site has them?

[trooper_]

It's incredibly annoying.

[Fist4achin]

I think the actual close is timed because i press the X to close it and it sends me to the advertisers websites instead of closing it. It finally works after a good 5 seconds. Sucks!!!

[guywazeldatatt]

I legitimately got porn as I was sitting with my family playing SNES classic looking something up and had to come up with some explanation. And still getting things of the like. It's horrible.

[mkis007]

Happens when I browse on phone. Immediately takes you to a " google chrome galaxy s8 has a virus" . Have to close the phone browser to avoid any bad stuff.

[TallonIV]

Get Adblock for Google Chrome and you'll be sorted.

[FernDiggidy]

adblock

[sprinterboy]

Yeah I get the same viruses and that bottom pop up 🤬

[Professor_K]

YESS, SOMEONE FINALY SAID IT

and got first coment too.

[Prem8tuaProcrastin8a]

Thank you m8, I was worried it was just me. Pop ups masquerading as chrome system warnings, claiming you've recently visited a site that has given your phone a virus have become commonplace.

[Nu]

On mobile and I get a message of a virus on my phone. I simply close all tabs and the message goes away. Can viruses actually infect phones?

[obidanshinobi]

Adblock
Not only is it useful for getting rid of adverts but it's also essential now for internet security IMO.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Yea so about those pop ups that have been going on for weeks..

[Christopher]

See reply above.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I have flags on Chrome that blocks them from automatically opening, so there's nothing I can do about grabbing a URL. However, recently, there's a new kind of ad, for me at least, that slides on top of my screen on mobile, and plays a video. This is not the same type of ad that was a problem for a few months.

[Goldby]

^ yup, makes typing a pain in the a$$ when you have big thumbs

[PiCOSMOiP]

Yea still not working. We get it. You need to make money 😂

[1Victor]

I use ad blocker and never ad on my iPhone together and they block all the pop up ads here

[KwietStorm_BLM]

k

[Knushwood Butt]

Can't see this as there's some video ad in the way.

[morganfell]

"With the Holiday Season over and no major gaming news event until late Spring,..."

Actually...there is a big gaming event in early Spring. Spring begins on March 21st and GDC is set for March 19 - 23.

[NecrumOddBoy]

Events announced they mean, because everyone is expected a Nintendo Direct soon.

[morganfell]

GDC is announced. And if you look at the context of the statement it leads to a fairly direct conclusion. He isn't talking about rumors of a Nintendo Direct event. He is discussing Industry Events and the rumors that are generated concerning announcements that may be made or items revealed at said events. Like GDC.

[Christopher]

GDC is a developer event, not a gaming news event.

[morganfell]

But it still generates a boatload of gaming news.

[Gardenia]

Will things like clickbait articles and spam comments taken down faster? If I can see them someone at N4G is not doing their job

[MasterCornholio]

The Spam comments are extremely difficult to deal with. I've talked to some of the spammers myself and the methods that they use allow them to keep creating new accounts on this website.

All we can do is report them and when the moderators get on they will take care of the issue. It would be nice to have moderators on the site 24/7 that only deal with those spam accounts and alts however that isn't feasible.

[UltraNova]

Then maybe N4G should recruit some regular users and give them a daily quota on spam account reporting/takedown.

I remember some MOD talking about how few the mods are on here and that they do their best but they cant be on top of everything. Well there's ^^^ a suggestion.

[ravinash]

I would be happy to throw my hat in and do that (removing the spam comments).
It should only be accounts that have been on here for years.

[MasterCornholio]

@Ravinash

I'm pretty good at spotting those types of accounts plus I'm used to helping take down alts and abusive users on a daily basis. It would be cool if they allowed some trusty N4G users to help take down those accounts.

[OB1Biker]

Maybe the issue is about how easy it is to create a new account and post a first comment.
I suppose it shouldnt be to difficult to make sure a new acc is genuine before allowing it to comment?

[rainslacker]

Assistant mods wouldn't be a bad idea. If only to deal with the spammers. Obviously, it'd have to be set up to review such accounts by the mods at some point, so they don't auto-ban a reputable user. Although I suppose if a few regulars were picked that were responsible, they wouldn't abuse the privaledge. Possibly make it so they can't ban accounts over a certain age....like I wouldn't be able to say you're a spammer since you've been on here for years.

I know one thing that I used to have on one of my older discussion boards(before the WWW was a thing), was that users who had been there for a while could flag spammers, and if it accumulated enough flags, it'd auto-ban that user.

[gangsta_red]

"It would be cool if they allowed some trusty N4G users to help take down those accounts."

The problem is who could they 'trust' and would these assistants be able to fairly take down spammers/alts across all platform articles or would these assistants monitor their favorite brand more closely.

[MasterCornholio]

@gangsta

I would only go after the obvious ones like the Wasim, Strangecolors and scammer type of accounts. But I do agree that if a crazy fan gets that type of power he would use it to attack other fanbase. I can't imagine what would happen if someone like Rookie_Monster or Mariahelfutura had that type of power. It could destroy this site fairly quickly.

[RememberThe357]

Me and you Black Falcon! We'll regulate all these weirdo fanboys

[rainslacker]

I would think their ability to flag accounts would have to be severely limited. Say me, for instance. I wouldn't go around banning someone like Rookie, or anyone discussing the topic here, because despite my confrontations with them on a regular basis, I know they aren't necessarily spamming. I also feel giving even those who appear responsible the ability to determine who's a troll to be too much power, because if I were to have such power, I can think of several people who would fall into that category. On top of that, I'm sure there are some on here who may see me as a troll.....as I've been called out on it before.

That's why some checks and balances would be needed. But I do believe a responsible user could easily handle the spammers like "basically I make so much money every month" type spammers, which is really the biggest spam problem outside the ads, which is a server side issue.

Dealing with alt accounts would be much better handled by the regular mods, who have more resources to determine if they actually are alt accounts. I'm not even sure if alt accounts are prohibited, but I do know that some people probably have been falsely accused of being alts of banned users, so I wouldn't place that power on an assistent mod.

I'm more curious if the mods here would actually see other users of the site who would make good mods, so maybe they could increase their ranks. I wouldn't want that responsibility myself, but surely there are responsible users around here who want to make the site better. Truth be told, I never would have thought Christopher would have been selected....much less made head mod back when he was just a lowly user.:)

[rainslacker]

Problem is, the clickbait articles, like gamingbolt, actually do fall within the guidelines for what is acceptable on N4G. Even if it wasn't developers saying stuff, GB could just put them up as opinion pieces. For the most part, opinion pieces are pretty inclusive of stuff that is mostly pointless.

The approval process doesn't require many users to get things approved, and about the only way to prevent those kinds of articles is to increase the requirements to have them approved.

The old site rating system was pointless. So, despite a lot of people on here not liking some sites content, there are maybe 3-4 people who go through and approve that work.

As far as spam, I think just putting a flag on people's accounts that they can't post a URL link within a certain time frame from joining up would probably solve a lot of that. There are also 3rd party bots that the site could employ to prevent them until they come up with new things to say. Since most of those things are actually bots posting, it wouldn't prevent it all the time, but you'd see a lot less of it. Easiest way to do it is to prevent a comment from being copied and pasted across multiple articles from a single person. Maybe remove the restriction once a certain time has passed, since there are some people who do repost the same comment like that and aren't doing it as spam.

[gangsta_red]

The problem is what counts as clickbait, as i have seen people here label articles they personally don't like as Clickbait.

[AdonisIsBeast]

This policy/article was absolutely Microsoft contacting whomever runs N4G’s site, based off the rumors that were uploaded regarding the coding found on the internet. Of course rumors with images would be permitted because then Publishers can have a better shot at pinpointing who took said video/screenshot. If you think about it why would it matter if an article based on a false rumor was uploaded, unless of course users are abusing the system. But in my opinion as of today it has not been abused at all.

[gangsta_red]

I think it also has to do with not letting any and every article be approved on this site by just any random person on the internet.

There has to be at least some form of credibility for a story that way we're not just here discussing some out of the ordinary game because some random fan wants it to happen and then wrote a blog about it and submitted it here.

[Christopher]

I like that people think N4G is even a blip on any industry person's mind, let alone that they would know or care to contact me. These conspiracies only elevate me way above just being another person on the Internet.

[gangsta_red]

You're bigger than Tom from myspace!

[TheColbertinator]

You are the Snowden of the gaming industry,Chris

[rainslacker]

@Chris

You shouldn't think that N4G is so insignificant. While developers themselves don't publicly come out and talk here, N4G is a pretty good place to see a general feel for what is going on in the community. It wouldn't be the first place to look, as it tends to be behind a day or so, but N4G has enough users for developers to actually pay attention to what people are saying here.

There are also quite a few developers who lurk around the forums, or even come here for news. But unlike me, most of them have learned that talking about most of this stuff as a developer is pretty pointless without any kind of affirmation that they are really in the industry. Which is why I don't get that upset if people don't believe that I work on tools.:)

However, yeah, I don't think there's any conspiracy here, because this isn't the first time I've seen the rumor policies be reasserted, and quite often unsubstantiated rumors will be failed.

I doubt anyone in the industry itself is going to try and get any site to take down any kind of rumor though. For the most part, rumors and leaks are planned more than they're accidental, because most insiders don't talk publicly out of respect for the industry who shares confidential information, and the one's that do regularly talk about it without it being expected, usually don't stay insiders for very long. It's not hard at all to track down who said what.

[PiCOSMOiP]

N4G is actually known as the cancer of gaming sites. I wouldn’t let that get into your head it’s a blip. If it gets a blips, it’s because of that. It would be nice if the culture changes, but I don’t doubt that’s being worked out. It creates controversy and click and money.

[bumbleforce]

Wait isn't n4g a rumors sight? That's why I come here

[Christopher]

Rumors account for less than 1% of submissions on N4G.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

1% our of how many articles per day?

[rainslacker]

Now if we could just get those opinion pieces down to less than 1%.:)

[PiCOSMOiP]

Rumors and a crap ton of opinion pieces. Both should be banned.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Okay Christopher !

[Bismarn]

I wish they'd do something similar to the opinion pages, and the ads pretending to be news articles.

[G20WLY]

But money!!

[Heart-hat-ack]

I literally do not understand why my initial comment was marked as inappropriate? It only received up votes, no negative. Therefore I can only assume this site doesn't really want constructive comments, just any old rubbish posted, is considered better than nothing. Well, this site will dig it's own grave

[ISHU]

The AD and pop ins are irritating. Plus they don't even have contests like before

[MatrixxGT]

The pop up ads that literally make my btowser go berserk need to be taken care of. Till then i will get my news elsewhere, i cant read a single article or click any link 99.8% of the time.
If i read through comments i have to make it fast as after about 3 minutes my phone will erupt into 98 "virus"(s).
This site needs upkeep, bad enough filtering through the toxic fanboy crap here i cannot tolerate the ads anymore. I shouldnt have to root my phone to install a ad block just to view gaming news.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Any good alternatives?

[MatrixxGT]

So i found a ad block for the samsung browser that has been working pretty decent so far. I hate this browser and i like chrome better. For now when im on mobile and i'll just use the samsung browser for N4G.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

@MatrixXGT

No I Meant n4g alternatives

[Last_Boss]

Bring back the bubble system while you're at it, but just keep it at 3.