Bots in Forums - Real World Data

[ugimports]

Some background on the thread I'm about to post... I am highly suspecting a bot...however, it's possible the 1st account was a real person and the 2nd account is the bot, but copying the interaction of the 1st account.. or the 2nd account is a person just effing around...you make your own decision...

Thread in question:

Help! Oil drain plug just spinning

I'm in the middle of an oil change and I can't get the plug out. It spins and spins and spins, in both directions. I'm trying to use pliers to pull and spin but no dice there. This is a 2015 Macan Turbo. Any ideas?

www.macanforum.com

Note the replies starting on post 17...

No idea if the forum owner is aware...it's a somewhat innocuous subject, but obviously it generates forum traffic (and eyeballs at the time).. I remember seeing a video about some people who do tik tok videos with some stupid conclusion like (well obviously 1+1 = 3)... purposely...because they want all the flaming comments to come in....because each of those comments translates into something monetarily for them...

It makes me wonder how some accounts on forums maybe utilized the same way...and it makes me wonder more who is a "real" account sometimes...

Maybe bots hack into accounts (vs created that waledonald account) which explains the time between "joined" to the 1st and only thread post by that "person" (suspected bot)....

Just an FYI -- i know lots of times we suspect certain accounts of being a bot.., but that thread above was interesting to read...

 

[Pewpewwagon]

That’s funny.

 

[ikeo1]

Some background on the thread I'm about to post... I am highly suspecting a bot...however, it's possible the 1st account was a real person and the 2nd account is the bot, but copying the interaction of the 1st account.. or the 2nd account is a person just effing around...you make your own decision...

Thread in question:

Help! Oil drain plug just spinning

I'm in the middle of an oil change and I can't get the plug out. It spins and spins and spins, in both directions. I'm trying to use pliers to pull and spin but no dice there. This is a 2015 Macan Turbo. Any ideas?

www.macanforum.com

Note the replies starting on post 17...

No idea if the forum owner is aware...it's a somewhat innocuous subject, but obviously it generates forum traffic (and eyeballs at the time).. I remember seeing a video about some people who do tik tok videos with some stupid conclusion like (well obviously 1+1 = 3)... purposely...because they want all the flaming comments to come in....because each of those comments translates into something monetarily for them...

It makes me wonder how some accounts on forums maybe utilized the same way...and it makes me wonder more who is a "real" account sometimes...

Maybe bots hack into accounts (vs created that waledonald account) which explains the time between "joined" to the 1st and only thread post by that "person" (suspected bot)....

Just an FYI -- i know lots of times we suspect certain accounts of being a bot.., but that thread above was interesting to read...

This could be a couple of things. One it could be a bot, but I can also be a copy of the migration data if they moved over to fora from a different platform.

I suspect the original CGN forum has a number of older bots and foreign accounts. We’ve had attempts here for several but put a lot of effort into our security layer. When we first started we had a lot of traffic from Russia and China and a lot of attempts to create accounts.

 

[ugimports]

This could be a couple of things. One it could be a bot, but I can also be a copy of the migration data if they moved over to fora from a different platform.

I suspect the original CGN forum has a number of older bots and foreign accounts. We’ve had attempts here for several but put a lot of effort into our security layer. When we first started we had a lot of traffic from Russia and China and a lot of attempts to create accounts.

The duplicate data doesn't make sense...because the suspected bot account was responding to different interaction...the responses from others in that thread were different from the original thread...it wasn't until one of the members posted the link to the old thread that the discover was made from the OP having the exact same word for word posts... the rest of both threads are unique..