ROBOTS
Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 4:12 am
So spambots are occasionally a problem on other forums. They certainly are here, though we don't see it because Kizyr does such a good job filtering them out.
On another board I'm on, there have been four posters who have signed up in the last couple of days. They all are similar.
1. Their English is rather stilted. It's like they are trying to make sense, but... for instance, one wrote, "Basically, I think that education would be one of the main reasons for women to get out of poverty." Education is not a reason to get out of poverty. It is a tool, an aid, an impetus... but people don't get out of poverty seeking education. They seek education to get out of poverty. They probably intended the latter, if they're human.
2. They respond pretty much only to each other's posts, and only on one forum. Two of them have posted in the Introductions section. I tried having a discussion with one of them, but felt pretty desperate when they seemed to be saying more general things and talking around my criticisms of a particular point. Again, not robotic by itself, since some of my students have had this tendency.
3. None have avatars.
4. Probably, none have read the FAQ. I know this because it has a series of questions for new posters to answer in the Introduction section. None do.
5. Their opinions are nearly indistinguishable from one another. It is sort of like... if you took a really broad category like feminism, where even two people identifying as feminists can disagree radically... and you had four people joining at the same time who all seemed to be naive first-wave (with some hints of second-wave) feminists. Or, for Lunar, having four people crazy about Kyle start posting posts lavishing on him.
6. Similar names. All are names of women. Two are lower-cased, two capital. Two of them sound similar to one another.
Now, best case scenario is that it's all a coincidence. Next best is that they know each other. The third best is that they're trolling. The fourth best is that there're only one or two people controlling them. But the worst, and what I fear, is that the spambots have gotten smart... only they haven't spammed yet.
Anyway, that's a whole lot of explanation to say one thing and ask another. One, y'all are awesome communicators. Two, how sophisticated are spambots? Could they post like this? Or am I just being curiously paranoid?
On another board I'm on, there have been four posters who have signed up in the last couple of days. They all are similar.
1. Their English is rather stilted. It's like they are trying to make sense, but... for instance, one wrote, "Basically, I think that education would be one of the main reasons for women to get out of poverty." Education is not a reason to get out of poverty. It is a tool, an aid, an impetus... but people don't get out of poverty seeking education. They seek education to get out of poverty. They probably intended the latter, if they're human.
2. They respond pretty much only to each other's posts, and only on one forum. Two of them have posted in the Introductions section. I tried having a discussion with one of them, but felt pretty desperate when they seemed to be saying more general things and talking around my criticisms of a particular point. Again, not robotic by itself, since some of my students have had this tendency.
3. None have avatars.
4. Probably, none have read the FAQ. I know this because it has a series of questions for new posters to answer in the Introduction section. None do.
5. Their opinions are nearly indistinguishable from one another. It is sort of like... if you took a really broad category like feminism, where even two people identifying as feminists can disagree radically... and you had four people joining at the same time who all seemed to be naive first-wave (with some hints of second-wave) feminists. Or, for Lunar, having four people crazy about Kyle start posting posts lavishing on him.
6. Similar names. All are names of women. Two are lower-cased, two capital. Two of them sound similar to one another.
Now, best case scenario is that it's all a coincidence. Next best is that they know each other. The third best is that they're trolling. The fourth best is that there're only one or two people controlling them. But the worst, and what I fear, is that the spambots have gotten smart... only they haven't spammed yet.
Anyway, that's a whole lot of explanation to say one thing and ask another. One, y'all are awesome communicators. Two, how sophisticated are spambots? Could they post like this? Or am I just being curiously paranoid?