Bot Spam countermeasure - Help us clean the forum from 'the buggers'

[mawa]

Dear fellow Members,
You may have noticed (or not) that we are facing an increasing number of (AI-powered) bot spams in this forum. Sounds like our work is starting to raise interest

You can help us easier and faster identify these unwanted posts. It’s gonna take you just 10s. and is very ez:

• Add an avatar/image to your profile.

Spammers are just the lazy buggers. They never upload a profile image. It would require additional scripting and effort and upload from a source. So, if you are a regular (or not so regular) member, kindly just add an image/avatar to your profile . Any will do . You don’t have to be creative or expose yourself. It will just help make us understand that you are ‘real’.

Edit: When reading the forum posts or comments - if you have doubts about the origin, click on the profile and check the joining and reading time VS reply. It’s unlikely that a human who joined 2min ago will answer a complex topic with 30 lines of content Spammers often give only ‘high-level’ input. The form is commonly also very polite and clean (since from the AI). They usually also praise the poster saying it’s a ‘good question’ or a ‘nice topic’ (again from the AI form). Generally, they conclude by offering their help or add an external link to promote/follow.

In case you face one of these, MARK IT as spam or ask for MODERATION (if you are unsure).
Thanks for keeping this place safe and friendly

Meanwhile, have a great day (all of you, humans )

[Joe_Kerr]

To arms

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Also watch out for proper grammar, punctuation, no typos, clean paragraphs.

Moreover, I have seen a couple of posts that do not contain any links. I guess they want to build up trust before they drop their real spam links.

[mawa]

@Joe_Kerr

watch out for proper grammar

That’s how you can tell: “I’M NOT A BOT”

@Joe_Kerr

I have seen a couple of posts that do not contain any links. I guess they want to build up trust

True, links are less used (probably because they make it easier to detect). As for the assumption of ‘building trust’ I’m gonna leave this one to you Personally, I’ve given up trying to understand their means and purpose. In the end, I simply believe that there’s none. It would require a strategy, a structured approach, a tactic and … basically all these things that require thoughts and efforts… I doubt these people are in capacity for this (but I’ll keep an eye on it , just in case )