EVE General Discussion

Is this an actual working feature in this game, or is it just something to pad up the drop-down menu in the character information window?

This is a mostly serious question.

Depends what you mean. If you mean does the information get recorded at CCP somewhere? Probably. If you mean will you see any timely action on your bot reports, then no, it doesn't work.

I have made multiple bot reports on confirmed bots, you know the kind that single-mindedly mine away for 16+h a day ignoring your actions completely, and undocking without repairing any damage you did, and never saw any effect. The bots were there for weeks and months after reporting them . Of course, I can't rule out they were eventually sanctioned or received slaps on the wrist in the form of short bans and then went back at it and I didn't notice, but on a practical level I saw no effect of my reports.

Now I have heard rumours that the button is broken, has been for years, and does nothing at all, but I don't believe that. Probably the data is dumped into a spreadsheet somewhere, and if CCP does decide to investigate a player they can look at it. But I seriously doubt CCP uses it to prioritize their investigations given you can't really use player reports to ban someone and I am sure the data is full of false and erroneous reports. I imagine Team Security focuses on combing the game logs they collect and looking for patterns that reflect botting, which from my experience they aren't 100% successful at nor do it on a regular basis judging from how long a poorly-written bot can operate in this game.

It's pretty frustrating I agree but It doesn't take long to report someone so I still recommend you do it. But if it really bothers you that much I suggest you take direct action and harass the botters until they at least move somewhere else. You are unlikely to see any action by CCP in response to your reports on any time scale you would find acceptable, if ever.

I am glad you are so sure of something you cannot possibly know. All I know is multiple times, I have seen clear, flagrant bots operating for months after I have repeatedly used the report bot feature to identify them to CCP. I have even emailed Team Security direct evidence of botting and seen no action taken.

In my book that means they are not acting. I don't buy your explanation that their inaction is part of some high-level RMT sting operation. The more likely explanation is they lack the resources or ability to stop all botting. I don't entirely blame them as I am sure it is a hard problem and one that requires effort to deal with and they probably are more focused on stamping out large-scale RMT operations than going after some dude that runs a mission, market or mining bot while he is at work. So therefore, if the OP thinks the 'report bot' function is going to make a botter go away, he is probably mistaken.

I'd love to be proven wrong however. Use the feature - it is easy to use - and see what happens.

Is there an alternate method to report a bot, such as through an e-mail? There's been this mining bot collective in Alakgur for the past two months stripping all the belts clean on a 24/7 basis, and I've been reporting them for nearly two months with no visible effect. It's very depressing.

Not so much anymore since bots wont cry sufficiantly in local

It is so sad. CCP has ruined it by trying to make everything perfect and balanced and then they join the outfit, skins, cosmetic industry thinking this will probably bring them more income.
I remember those times when you could see 40-50k people online. Now these days you can barley see 20k, and who knows how many of them are bots.
CCP has trade the old loyal pilots for the new temporary pilots with little knowledge about the system and created the bots paradise.
There were boots before but not that many.
When you create more income opportunities bots will arise.

There is a separate 'report bot' option you can find in the drop down menu of every character panel:

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/the-eve-security-taskforce-report-a-bot/

What that accomplishes is less clear, but the efficacy of doing so is the current topic of this reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/6l24bt/how_to_exploit_the_exploit/