Copybots, Offlines, etc...

I'm getting really tired of these.  I'm sure you all are.

There was another thread posted a few minutes ago.  The content is very vague and general.  The poster doesn't mention autism or anything else specific, and doesn't have a proper username.  Is it worth spending time on a reply?  Or should I first spend time searching to see if it's actually a copy of an earlier thread?  I really don't feel I have the time to waste for either. 

And now I can't even post this yet because I've been 'temporarily disconnected' - which happens an awful lot, too.  It's all doing my head in.

Until this gets sorted out properly, I'm going to be taking time out.

All the best, folks.

Tom

Parents
  • I know what you mean Tom.

    This 'copybot' thing seems to be a little out of hand.  Part of the problem seems to be the 'number' identity of the copybots.  They don't have proper identities.  I know some 'number' identities are genuine, but perhaps it should be a requ frirement to use a 'proper' alias, (if there is such a thing).  I don't  know whether this would drive the copybots away but they would be more memorable perhaps.

    As well as 'copybots' there are the strange few word statements made by some posters.  I feel very uneasy about these, they do not make much sense and replies from the same person always seem to be very cryptic and often contradictory.  I am not going to name the person, I am sure we all know who it is.  Yes, it may be someone who doesn't understand English but another possiblity is someone having their joke at our expense. 

    We just don't know as there is never much response from the perpetrator, just a few disjointed words which do not make sense to me and in another post the statement appears to be at odds with what was posted before.

  • I think the requirement for an alias or profile or avatar would be a very good idea and would drive Copybot away. At least until they bring out Copybot 2.0 who says he's Geoffrey from Hove and likes abseiling, cross-stitch and meringues.

    I think the person you're talking about is a genuine person with communication difficulties. I can't know for sure, but I'm beginning to build up a consistent idea of her.

  • I think the requirement for an alias or profile or avatar would be a very good idea and would drive Copybot away.

    I like this idea, too (sorry to bother you)! Might WebPM soon be reading, although it is the weekend now. (I am just posting support.) A unique picture or UserName would delay for the longest time.

Reply Children
  • I'm hoping not to annoy people with too much techie stuff, particularly Tom who started this thread.

    I've done a bit more research into Copybot (and posted it under 'What is...' and 'Technical countermeasures' here). Having found Copybot spamming other forums, I now think requiring a username would only be a short-term stopgap, and I'm not sure there's even an option for requiring it or an avatar on this forum, although requiring a profile or banning IP ranges may be possible. It's something we could ask @WebPM to look into, as we've been getting about two deceptive posts per day over the last week. It's clear to me now that copying threads is preparation for posting spam, and that there are automated ways of screening new posts better.

    Chatbots - Not sure if there are any here anymore... There are still many suspicious Posts though, as you say.

    Were there ever any Chatbots on this site? I think it was just spammers, Copybot and one suspected replicant who turned out to be human after all.

    Write your post off-line in an editor. 

    I wish I'd done something like that when I wrote a very long response on 'my' thread about sleep. Rather discouraged to add to it now. What I do sometimes is when I realise I've written a lot, copy and paste it all to an email window. A 'clipboard manager' is also a useful thing for keeping multiple bits of text - there seem to be Ditto and Shapeshifter for Windows.

    The 'trying to reconnect' pop-up is a bit oversensitive (i get it with iffy wi-fi), but I can't see it can be adjusted in the documentation. What does the main page of the forum show when this is happening?

    would use Linux, but I am waiting as if for-ever for them to bring out Hardware dedicated to it

    I think Dell do some with Ubuntu GNU/Linux preinstalled. You could also ask anyone techie to install it on your old hardware - one of the great things about particularly Lubuntu or Xubuntu is you can keep old hardware running securely for several extra years without spending more money or all the natural resources that go into a new laptop (and you don't need to wipe off Windows or MacOS if you still want it).

    I think we should raise Copybot on the copybot thread with NAS people next week, like  to ask if there's anything the web team can do.