Amy in NH Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 (edited) I have noticed, as I'm sure you have too, all of the zombie threads that keep popping up. I think I know why: When I'm on my mobile phone, the button to move to the next page is very close to the >> to get to the last (oldest) page. It is easy to accidentally touch ">>" when I thought I selected "next", and not notice that the dates are off. I am not logged in on my mobile phone, so I haven't made the mistake of responding to one of those old threads, but I see how it could easily happen. It is a mobile page design flaw - not sure if it can be fixed? Edited June 14, 2021 by Amy in NH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldcrest Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 I do not think the zombie threads are people who joined and then found the threads, rather that they were searching for the topic on a search engine and were led to the forum, then registered and posted. These aren't posters who join to interact with the community, they seemingly join simply for the searched content which is generally old, as there seems to be more old content than newly generated content. Also, bots are a thing. That's the downside of public forums. Everything is public and you generally have more readers than participants. I remember a glitch here during one board change over when even the social groups and their content went public. I don't think it's people simply clicking the wrong page arrow, or else they would be posting on other threads additionally. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 19 minutes ago, Amy in NH said: I have noticed, as I'm sure you have too, all of the zombie threads that keep popping up. I think I know why: When I'm on my mobile phone, the button to move to the next page is very close to the >> to get to the last (oldest) page. It is easy to accidentally touch ">>" when I thought I selected "next", and not notice that the dates are off. I am not logged in on my mobile phone, so I haven't made the mistake of responding to one of those old threads, but I see how it could easily happen. It is a mobile page design flaw - not sure if it can be fixed? I don’t think people are finding the zombie threads by accident, because it’s almost always the case that the “new member” posts one time in that one thread and then disappears. It seems intentional to me. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldcrest Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 5 minutes ago, Catwoman said: I don’t think people are finding the zombie threads by accident, because it’s almost always the case that the “new member” posts one time in that one thread and then disappears. It seems intentional to me. Imagine how much worse it would be if the whole catalogue were available to search from the inception of the old boards! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Not_a_Number Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 I'm pretty sure these are almost all bots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 31 minutes ago, Holmesschooler said: Imagine how much worse it would be if the whole catalogue were available to search from the inception of the old boards! But so informative! 15 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said: I'm pretty sure these are almost all bots. Can you help me understand how that works? Is the bot able to make an account by itself and then auto-generate a post or two? Or are some of those tasks done by a human? To what end is this done? Just annoyance? Machine-learning that is preparing to take over society and keep us out of their hair by trying to correct the internet? It is harder for me to understand the world these days. Perhaps i should start pricing porch rockers for retirement. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Not_a_Number Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 28 minutes ago, SusanC said: But so informative! Can you help me understand how that works? Is the bot able to make an account by itself and then auto-generate a post or two? Or are some of those tasks done by a human? To what end is this done? Just annoyance? Machine-learning that is preparing to take over society and keep us out of their hair by trying to correct the internet? It is harder for me to understand the world these days. Perhaps i should start pricing porch rockers for retirement. I am sure bots are able to make accounts and then auto-generate posts. They do so for advertising reasons, I believe. I think it's a way to try to sell things. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.