robots in this forum?

[ssspinball]

Has anyone else noticed there appears to be robots or paid shills in this forum? The prevalence of one line posts saying things like "Thanks for posting this in the Chevy Bolt forum" comes across as extremely odd to me. And I've noticed this pattern quite a lot here.

I am a member of several makes of car forums and this is simply not how real people post. A typical way of posting that message would be "Interesting--Thanks for posting!" There is no need to say "in the Chevy Bolt forum" each time because everyone reading this is aware what forum they are in!

It's like this full phrase "Chevy Bolt" is included solely for search engine optimization. "Real" people don't care about SEO when they post in a forum.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

I had noticed these posts, and I take it as someone trying to encourage people to post, and to promote civility, too.

 

[new2evs]

Some people are shopping around for information as well. They may belong to a few forums and to mention each forum by name is just in their own mindset. Helps them separate the information to the car they are researching right at that moment

 

[sam]

Some posts seem odd but that also includes mine. It's correct to say some of us are shopping around and are on other sites. A person can only read n watch so many manufacturers reviews. A friend of mine encouraged me to check out the forums as they supply us with better real life reviews. Also it's important to understand that some people are from an older generation and their etiquette may be much different than ours

 

[JimmYK]

Shouldn't automated posts always be the same?

 

[Devin]

Yes, I've had my eye on these posts for a while now and it has been brought up with the owner of the site. There's nothing these posters are doing that explicitly break the rules, however, so they remain. There's a lot of suspicious activity, including accounts created within minutes of each other and similar oddly written posts published within minutes and at consistent times of day - indicating many of these accounts are operated by the same entity.

The ownership of the forum has chosen to take the approach of letting them be unless they actually break rules - so that's how I'm moderating. If there are posts that really stand out as inappropriate and/or rule-breaking please report them so they can be addressed.

 

[ssspinball]

Yes, I've had my eye on these posts for a while now and it has been brought up with the owner of the site. There's nothing these posters are doing that explicitly break the rules, however, so they remain. There's a lot of suspicious activity, including accounts created within minutes of each other and similar oddly written posts published within minutes and at consistent times of day - indicating many of these accounts are operated by the same entity.

The ownership of the forum has chosen to take the approach of letting them be unless they actually break rules - so that's how I'm moderating. If there are posts that really stand out as inappropriate and/or rule-breaking please report them so they can be addressed.

Cool, Devin. Thanks for the insight about the suspicious account creations and the confirmation that I'm not simply losing my mind! :mrgreen:

 

[Diggle]

I think I might have used that phrase as well. I thought it was the thing for this forum, like how they thank people for posting in this forum! :?