Home
Welcome to the Scambuster wiki!
- For installation instructions see Installation.
- For a list of Provider data addons see List of Provider addons.
- For help configuing Scambuster see Configuring Scambuster.
Scambuster is an addon and a framework for dealing with scammers in-game. It works by running a set of scans on your in-game interactions with other players, and checking those players and their identifying information against a database which records previous incidents where players have committed scams.
Scambuster's database is populated by Provider addons, which are curated by organisations or Providers (usually realm discords), and detail incidents where players scammed other players in that community, complete with links to case discussions and evidence.
Once a provider addon is installed alongside Scambuster, the addon will read its scammer data and record identifying characteristics like Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs), names, factions, etc. It will then run in the background, carrying out configurable scans on your interactions with other players in-game.
When you encounter a scammer, the addon will alert you of this in several configurable ways, and allow you to broadcast the scammer's history and a link to the evidence against them online to your party or raid group.
Pretty much anything is possible in WeakAuras these days, and packaging lists into a WeakAura has been the usual way to carry out this kind of scam protection.
The primary advantage over moving to an addon is that weak auras are much easier to slip out-of-date, which can result in out-dated data being used to broadcast scammer warnings when e.g. the actual scammer may have changed names and a new player takes the now-vacant name. While there do exist ways to keep addons updated via. the WeakAuras Companion, the uptake for this tool among the commmunity is low, and the updating process is arguably less simple than for addons.
Most WoW users maintain their addons through one or more addon-manager applications like the Curse client, and it's much easier to keep data up-to-date with this framework over WeakAuras.
WeakAuras is also at its best when an aura is responsible for a set of small set of operations, like showing boss mechanic cooldowns, or helping players with their rotation. Any larger and more complex sets of operations like scanning user interactions, building databases, presenting configuration menus etc., is arguably better-served by a discrete addon that is decoupled from the WeakAuras codebase.
Decoupling the list data from the central addon allows for a few advantages:
- users can only subscribe to scammer data that is relevant to them and their realm, which keeps the database size low and results in more efficient operation.
- decoupling the lists allows for improvements to be made to the framework more easily without interfering with the maintenance of scammer lists by providers.
- this results in fewer addon updates required for each user.
