Some of you come from Wordpress, where this type of spam is most prevalent - pointless, general comments, linking to a spam site. They are handwritten, often use poor English, and are automatically posted by bots across the net. The bot creators are either from Eastern Europe or most commonly Asia, and India in particular.
I see the spam bot creators have adapted their database of polite but stupid comments for use on Steemit. Every time I post a photo, I get several comments of the type:
General comment, not having anything to do with my post content, myusername.
The last couple of examples, under my photo collection from the first week of July:
I just joined but i was wondering is there any referral system in place here on steemit? @dek
The post is very interesting. thanks for sharing @dek
Of course, there are others, which don't follow the same format, but are just as bad. You can also spot them easily, by checking whether the commenter has upvoted the article they claim they've liked so much - bots don't upvote user content (at least, at the moment). They are also low level accounts, as they are still new on Steemit and don't post much (if anything).
So what's the deal with these bots?
Well, many authors, including myself, upvote comments under their articles, as a way of saying "thank you for taking the time to post a comment under my publication, given that there are hundreds of other posts posted every second on Steemit." This results in thousands of clueless authors rewarding bots for crappy comments, even though no one has read their article. Of course, the bot creators make a pretty penny.
So my request to the (still sane part of the) Steemit community:
Do not upvote comments, which don't reference your content!
If you see a comment "That's a great post!" or "More of this, please!", well fuck you bot! Next time ask your programmer to read my content first!
My last posts:
- DEK Photography: My Photos from the First Week of July
- DEK Photography: Abandoned Architecture
- DEK Photography: You Are My Family
- DEK Photography: A Tug Under the Sky
- S7 Photography: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Church
- DEK Photography: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Church
- DEK Photography: The Burgas Railway Station
- S7 Photography: Battle Armor Unit 01
- S7 Photography: Some Rain Drops
- DEK Photography: It's Windy Today
- DEK Photography Mega Post: My Photos From June 2017
Sometimes it is hard to know if it is a bot that commented or just an inexperienced user. Some people will comment but not vote for an article yet provide valuable insights.
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I always check their other comments before I flag. The obvious ones have the exact same spam comment multiple times on the same post!
I dislike flagging but it is getting a bit much and, it's a tool in our toolbox designed for dealing with this exact issue, so I feel a little less guilty now when I flag someone's comment.
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I've yet to flag but I've come pretty close on occasion for some obvious trolling. For this kind of thing I'm tolerant but I don't upvote if I think it is not worthwhile.
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Please flag bots, especially if you can lower their rewards
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I agree, however it's difficult to believe a user won't upvote after commenting "That's amazing", "You are an incredible photographer" and "I've never seen something so cool."
You get my point :)
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Yup, it happens like that sometimes.
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Great post man ! Like this ? Ahaha I hate those too but they are easily recognizable sadly my name sounds like a bot
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You must be one of the bots which are good at reading! :)
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hahaha
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Also good at laughing! :D
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One is not a robot. One is a human.
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It's a bit of a plague these days. @steevc has begun to flag the most obvious ones - he said so in a comment under one of my posts... one which he had read.
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I've flagged one myself, today, and saw another one flagged by someone else, under my publication. I guess a spam war is starting :)
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I am not even sure they are all bots. Sometimes I think it's just users posting the same comments over and over again. The weird thing is, I think most people are more likely to upvote the spammers, if they put in the effort of reading posts and having a bit of meaningful input.
It's always a bit disheartening seeing that red "1" by replies, and then it's just junk. I usually just ignore it though.
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I've seen users post the same comments over and over again, yes.
Ha! But if a spammer reads your post and comments in a meaningful way, is he a spammer anymore? :D
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He was - but he would indeed be no more :P
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Yeah, I just started cross checking these against the botes on my posts and was wtf, I think I will be bringing the flags out soon as its kinda annoying
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I've already started flagging obvious spam comments. We'll see if that will have any effect!
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Can only hope it has some effect!!
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Clearly there is a problem . It's not within my power to find a solution though .
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We can always ignore such comments :)
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I have also noticed quite a few recently...
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Haha :D These are people trained by Facebook and Twitter!
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Haha.. sometimes I don't know whether to reply or not. I just end up replying with "Thank You". Don't want to invest with my usual long replies. 😅
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