The new members and their 1st horrific posts.

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

SF VIP
Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I've been a member since 2015. I noticed over and over that someone joins at 3:15, and posts at 3:16. The post is always some kind of horrific thing. Like: " my boyfriend makes me rob stores". They stay on line for awhile, and their story changes and gets stranger. Then they are gone forever.
I can understand someone playing around, once. But it amazes me that it keeps happening over and over.
No complaint or anything, just an observation.
 
Pepper said:
What amazes me are the people here who give them credence; jumping in to "help" someone who is, to me at least, obviously pulling our collective
Click to expand...
Yep. There was one last week who set my BS meter off from the first sentence he wrote. I asked some questions like why he started following me immediately after he joined, etc. but then everyone else was being nice and thinking the dude was really in trouble, so I backed down and edited, not wanting to be "the mean girl." Turned out he WAS a scammer. Gotta trust my intuition again and sharpen my mean girl skills! 😁
 
I'm a Moderator on a Jeep forum. We get 'bot' posts all the time. The front end on that sight polices them reasonably well, flagging them for Mod approval before users see it. This site uses the same forum software as my other site. I don't know if Matrix uses that policing front end or not.

If these first time bad things get through, users just Report them and Mods look into it, likely do what is called 'spam clean', which deletes the post and bans the user.
 
That happened to me recently on a large veteran's web site. We don't even know if it actually was a post from a veteran.

They seemed to be in quite an anxious state but never let any repliers know what they were so upset about.

I never respond to posts like that. Sometimes I think it is done because the poster just wants attention. And if I notice any posts on any site that are anti -Christian, or anti -any religion, I just keep in mind who those posters are and will not allow them to draw me into their rhetoric. And of course we have an Ignore button.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I've been a member since 2015. I noticed over and over that someone joins at 3:15, and posts at 3:16. The post is always some kind of horrific thing. Like: " my boyfriend makes me rob stores". They stay on line for awhile, and their story changes and gets stranger. Then they are gone forever.
I can understand someone playing around, once. But it amazes me that it keeps happening over and over.
No complaint or anything, just an observation.
Click to expand...

I see this on a lot of message boards, I'm starting to think they're bots
 
Widow of Vietnam Vet said:
And if I notice any posts on any site that are anti -Christian, or anti -any religion, I just keep in mind who those posters are and will not allow them to draw me into their rhetoric. And of course we have an Ignore button.
Click to expand...
I was a member of the Roman Catholic Church and I am an atheist now. Nevertheless I'd never try to convince other people to leave their church. If and what someone believes is only the business of this person.
 
CallMeKate said:
To the naughty corner for you, missy! 👉
Click to expand...
360_F_127735980_MBTD64UifqinJo4A4CDKQX7jzK7jvbE7.jpg
:D
 
This isn't a private site. Anyone can find it. Most of the forums I go to require you to log in with a password each time you visit. This site is open ended, always readable. That certainly would cut down on random anonymous posts.
 
jlhog said:
One of the best places for scammers to jump into is SENIOR anything forum They think they have slow, vulnerable, frail lonely old folks. Maybe it would be safe to rename this group something like "the youngster's group that knows it all"
Click to expand...
I agree. Some probably think we are naive and vulnerable but we stick together and have a neighbourhood type watch. We watch out for each other.
NewlySenior said:
I see this on a lot of message boards, I'm starting to think they're bots
Click to expand...
I’ve noticed bot like membership.
 
Devi said:
My understanding is that, while you may be able to find threads in a search engine and read them, in order to actually post, you have to sign up (register) as a member, with your email address and a password. Otherwise, not possible to post.
Click to expand...
I don't claim to know much about bots, so this is just what my crazy cynical brain has come up with. A lot of forums like this have people sign up, stick around for an hour or so, maybe throw up a more or less meaningless post to get people to respond and then seemingly disappear. This does a couple of things; first, the account can now be used to spam message boards. It could also be used as an "in" for a hacker to harvest user data or passwords (so many people use the same password on several accounts) and it might also be used to help facilitate DDOS attacks against a site.

Now, could some of these accounts be actual people who decided they weren't into it and never came back? Of course, but I doubt all of them are.
 
Jules said:
If a new poster only has 5 or fewer posts, they obviously aren’t interested. If I see that, I don’t read any further. Some new posts are so far fetched, it’s ludicrous. It’s not just here; every forum has these hit and run posters.
Click to expand...


how can you tell how many posts a poster has on here?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top