Intro: Understand why you should never reply to a spambot.
Spambots, of course, thrive on views. They're designed for the most part to be seen. (This is not 100% true, as some are designed rather to simply change search engine behaviour. None the less, it's true enough.) If you reply to a thread, it grants it legitimacy and increases the number of people who will view it. So: Never reply to a spambot. But how do you spot one?
Step 1: Getting Suspicious
The following things are good reasons to be suspicious that a post may be a spam bot.
- Can you pronounce the poster's handle? A lot of spambots randomly generate usernames, and choose unusual combinations to maximise the chance it hasn't already been taken. If the name seems generally unpronounceable, it's probably a spambot.
- Low post-count. Generally, spambots aren't going to survive making a few hundred posts without blowing their cover, no matter how good they are at blending in. Also, their controllers want quick results. So, distrust low post-counts.
- Is their thread topic devoid of punctuation? For some reason, spambots have real problems with punctuation. A thread entitled, "Worried about buying games on GOG.com" is a lot less likely to be a spambot than "worried about buying games on gog com" or even "worried about buying games on gog.com". This is far from 100%, but it's the first sign that raises my hackles.
- Is it in the wrong forum? A thread about viruses in the game discussion forum? Seems odd, right? Nearly all the spam posts seem to be in General or Videogame Discussion, as they get the most traffic and ergo the most eyeballs. Again, not 100%, but worth watching out for.
Step 2: Verifying
Once your suspicions are raised, it's time to verify.
- Has the poster flubbed the 'first video' field? The most reliable trick LRR.com has is the first video field. It seems to bewilder spambots. If you suspect a spambot, check this field in their profile. If it says something like "ddj" or "smurf", you have a spambot.
- Check their (few) other posts. Remember above, how low post counts are harder to trust? Well, we all start at one post. Still, if it's a bot, it can't be as clever as a human being. If you see a post made by someone with less than five posts, quickly review them before replying. Do they seem unusually vague? Have they not posted in the 'introduce yourself' thread? If so, you may be dealing with a spambot.
- Go with Google. Take a string of the text and google it. A lot of spambots pull all their text from Yahoo Answers or something similar. You may be able to verify them with nothing more than a quick Google.
- Just be cautious. As Kapol says, "And if you're not sure, just don't post until you're confident it's not a spam bot. There doesn't need to be an answer right away." Very true.
Step 3: Correct response.
Hit the report button; the little "!" button in the lower right hand corner. And then leave the thread the hell alone.
Step 3b: Correct response to a Spam Wave.
Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, you will encounter Spammegadon. This irritating event is when spammers try a brute force effort to be noticed by just flooding a forum. It's not very effective (hence, the rarity) but it's irritating as hell and needs to be jumped on right away. As such, it's worth contacting one of the spam-mods by twitter.
Spam-Mods and their Twitters
Metcarfre: @Metcarfre
AlexanderDitto: @Proprietous
I hope this has been helpful. Any other tips?