Also, please let's give a big hand to GOG for announcing yet another important (and highly questionable to say the least) change that will affect everyone in no other way than a thread which isn't even a bloody sticky. Because everyone who uses chat is on the every day, all the time, and can in no way miss this announcement.

GOG TODAY

Understandable, with such things around(see Attachment).
At least it wasn't a "oh we fucked up and realized" with a setting like that not existing before.
Can understand the trouble through, especially with the NOTIFICATION SYSTEM still not being around outside of Galaxy which is being shoved down everyone's throat, so much about a Website Upgrade
(I do prefer the original design and some good things were done but it feels like Notifications simply won't be done)

I would assume that they probably cannot detect who have knowingly set (or left) said setting to "anyone" and who haven't understood that the setting exists or don't know what it does.

In this case, I would take GOG's side and say that it's better to change it for everyone with the setting to that value than to not change for anyone (those who know about it can change the setting back, and those who don't are safe from spam). It's a sensible default, in my opinion, and it's not that difficult to change, should you want to. (I'm still opposed to having "install Galaxy?" defaulting to "yes" in the stand-alone installer, mind you, because advertising for the client is already all over the damned site, so it's practically impossible to miss.)
Apparently, else they wouldn't continue.
Do realise, though, that only very few messages need to actually get to gullible enough targets. The messages barely cost anything to send, so one hit in a million is probably a gain.

I'd be much happier if they found it more sensible to implement a system detecting and blocking attempts to send private messages to a large number of users...

Maybe GOG should make this thread an announcement thread "a blue thread" because it's a change to the site itself, something important, and also announce this plus the double installers via e-mail and social media and pretty much everywhere.

Also it would be better if GOG left the settings like they are now and only defaulted them for the newbies.

I would only opt for a "Friends Only" setting if I would continuously receive such a large quantity of spam that I couldn't keep up with blocking users. By defaulting everyone to this, there will be frustration over the fact that you just cannot send the majority of people a private message and would have to ask them via the forum to include them in their friends list first. Sounds like a hassle to me, particularly when managing giveaways.

I just had a terrible thought. After this happens, and I set it back to "anyone"... will that unblock everyone, including people I have blocked now?

One issue that has occurred to me: What about communications relating to moderation?

1. Sometimes a user needs to report a post. Will that user need to change her settings just to report a particularly nasty post?

2. Sometimes the community manager needs to communicate with a user. How is that going to work if the user's setting is set to "friends only"?

(I'm thinking I may change my setting back to "anyone" when the change takes effect, but will be a bit more aggressive about blocking users.)

While i appreciate GOG is doing this 2 reduce spam & harassing by some trolls/scammers/spammers, they r still a minority. As mentioned by many other members here, making chat set as 'friends only' as default have more disadvantages to the majority while benefiting only a small amt of members in reality. Personally, i feel that hving the 'Block' function shd suffice & unless members specifically feel they r targeted 4 spam &/or harassment then shd they set chat 2 'friends only' themselves.

I suggest GOG carefully relook into this making this change & take note of all the helpful comments by the members here. If they still wish 2 proceed, pls set this as an Announcement thread so that all the members in the forum will take note & reset their settings if necessary.

These are all fair points. I think what GOG would really need is the concept of a "trusted user" - say anyone with over 50 rep or who's ever spent real money to buy a game. (Either measure by itself leaves out a small but significant number of people, due to rep system abuse or lack of payment methods and relying on friends to gift them games - but taken together they'd get pretty good coverage I think.) And then the default for chat could be "Only from friends and trusted users."

Would still be a very high barrier for spammers (and most scammers!), but should have almost negligible impact on regulars here, while still being something you'd comfortably want for new members who never participate in the forum. Any chance that something like the above could be considered? Preferably before the change to existing members starts being rolled out?

Don't you already need a minimum number of reputation/posts/time since you registered (I forgot which) before you can post links in the forum to avoid spam? The same could be done with private messages.

What I want to know is, how do these "idiots" manage to play the games they purchase? o.O

This is GOG we're talking about, here. If they really DID implement it, chances are they'd screw it up such that already-existing users would have to pay extra or get the extra rep.

Oh man... if ppl hv 2 start paying 2 get rep or extra rep i think this wld really be hilarious as that wld totally defeat the purpose of hving rep n the 1st place. They might as well scrap it all together.

This does reminds me of the bribe TinyE received though, lol. ;p