Bots: who what why and how?!??

Might not be the right place to put this but I’m extremely confused about all the robits on this site. While I do think some of the accused are probably just new climbers, there are definitely some legitimate bot posts floating around. My questions: what’s the point of these? Advertisement? Generating engagement on this site? How are they being made? Somebody mentioned cross posting from various other climbing websites- are topics being scraped? Do people notice specific types bot posts can be typically broken into? Identifying features? Have y’all noticed an increase in quality since sites like ChatGPT and bard have released? I’m really curious and confused about all of this. Also, no, this is itself not a bot post. 

I've found bots usually start posts, they don't really comment and try to further the post. Any user with an account created today with only one post and it's a comment is generslly a newbie user. Bots starting topics are fairly easy to spot, at least for now. My one cent right there

edit- every troll started out as a brand new account, we actually all did and most of us sucked at first. Many of us still do lol

They may or may not be actually "bots" in the traditional sense. A lot of the time it's just a low paid slave halfway across the world who manually does CAPTCHAs and posts crap. It's just a little more related now because of AI. That's why normal bot detection doesn't work.

Later on they come back and insert a link somewhere to some shite product.

Their focus is quantity over quality, that's why they'll never respond to replies. It's not worth the time.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

Might not be the right place to put this but I’m extremely confused about all the robits on this site. While I do think some of the accused are probably just new climbers, there are definitely some legitimate bot posts floating around. My questions: what’s the point of these? Advertisement? Generating engagement on this site? How are they being made? Somebody mentioned cross posting from various other climbing websites- are topics being scraped? Do people notice specific types bot posts can be typically broken into? Identifying features? Have y’all noticed an increase in quality since sites like ChatGPT and bard have released? I’m really curious and confused about all of this. Also, no, this is itself not a bot post. 

Funny, this is exactly what a bot would say….

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

Funny, this is exactly what a bot would say….

No, a bit would say: 

01010111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000

Climbing Weasel wrote:

No, a bit would say: 

01010111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000

You’re not very convincing…

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

You’re not very convincing…

Why don’t you see what that says and then get back to me

I am also interested in a serious answer to this question - what is the point of these bots?

Devin Hanes wrote:

Mountain Project is likely considering monetizing the platform with ad revenue which requires user activity, and growth would obviously increase ad revenue and sustainability, so they enlist cheap bots to garner more engagement.

No they aren't newford.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

No, a bit would say: 

01010111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000

Love the rickroll, nicely done, nicely done…

Cocoapuffs 1000 wrote:

I am also interested in a serious answer to this question - what is the point of these bots?

They link out to other websites, and search engines consider these "backlinks" valuable for SEO.

Spammers will do it even if you signal that the link is user generated content and shouldn't count as a back link.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

No, a bit would say: 

01010111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000

We're no strangers to love\nYou know the rules and so do I

Devin Hanes wrote:

Donations from climbing companies are likely based on traffic as well.

I guess that I could see, though I have no way of knowing. Admins have a "Private Forum" where we gripe about, and solve, lots of things. Nobody including the bigwigs are into bots though. Left unattended, bots would ruin this forum and would shut down everything here real fast as climber participation would plummet.

If bots were a thing the bigwigs were remotely into, I'd resign in a minute. I like climbers and real climber talk, even the trolls as long as there's a real person behind the crap.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

Why don’t you see what that says and then get back to me

I’m not falling for your spam, Bot! 

I asked this question in this month's Changelog post, and in 2 other bot-related Forum posts:

Can you all there in computer expert world suggest the best way to deal with the spam/bot accounts?

I have been using various approaches:

1. flag the post and report it as spam/bot.

2. comment in the thread that so-and-so is a bot.

3. Quote the bot post, and comment that it is a bot.

4. Quote the bot post but delete all the nonsense content, and mention it is a bot.

Are any of these approaches preferable in terms of thwarting the bots goal, which is not comprehensible to me?

So far the 2 answers I've gotten have been, resistance is futile, and there are fewer bots than you think.  I still don't feel like I've gotten an clear answer - Julian, if I understand what you are saying, we should report these as spam as quickly as possible so the user account and post is removed ASAP?

People, we've all seen The Terminator.  We know how this can go.  I refuse to believe resistance is futile and I will fight these bots to the last keystroke! 

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/124576233/bots#ForumMessage-124843637

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/124416232/flagging-bot-posts

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/124811418/the-changelog-august-2023

Devin Hanes wrote:

 If it's backlinks you all should put a time limit on post edits, or use reCAPTCHA.

Actually, yes, that would solve the issue immediately or at least render it easier to detect as they would have to edit their post much sooner.

ReCAPTCHA, no, as they can be circumvented via manual solves if the price is right... and given you're seeing climbing related spam, I definitely think SOMEONE thinks MP is worth the money to spam.

Even something as small as denying edits and disallowing links in new posts, should do it. If there's no incentive, then the spam will stop.

One would hope.

As for what we can do as users of the forum? Not much except report I guess. Maybe put up warning posts so people don't waste brain cells (however precious few we have left   ) responding to a bot.

Cocoapuffs 1000 wrote:

I am also interested in a serious answer to this question - what is the point of these bots?

From what I can tell the bots are asking general climbing questions which there will be a variety replies that then can be mined.

My suggestion is before replying to any post look at the poster and if from an account that was just created think twice about replying. It is pretty easy to spot a posed question. If a bot, do not reply but report the post and user.

Edit to add: The rattlesnake bot question is an interesting one. MP appears to have locked/deleted the bot account but left bot name and question active. Most likely because the thread was quite popular so click bait. That IMHO that was bad idea as it shows a bot survived. Bots will learn from that. MP should have shut everything down.

At least we're not seeing posts selling CBD anymore 

Allen Sanderson wrote:

From what I can tell the bots are asking general climbing questions which there will a variety replies that then can be mined.

My suggestion is before replying to any post look at the poster and if from an account that was just created think twice about replying. It is pretty easy to spot a posed question. If a bot, do not reply but report the post and user.

I'm just imagining AI trained from responses that answers any climbing related questions with "First you have to consider how you feel about bots."

“As for what we can do as users of the forum?”

Not replying to them is a good start…

apogee wrote:

“As for what we can do as users of the forum?”

Not replying to them is a good start…

Have you seen the snake thread? Lol and the account has been deleted too