The Lemon Fool

I find quite distasteful the playground-style piss-taking of LemonFool user robertbanking in this thread. I reported all the off-topic responses but the mods decided not to take action.

I see no reason to treat robertbanking in this way -- I have found all his posts to be perfectly polite (though culturally off-key perhaps) and topical and they have prompted some interesting follow-ups. If people have a problem with a particular user the correct action to take is to bring it to the attention of the mods and let them make a judgement.

In the meantime can people kindly assume good faith and treat new posters with respect and civility, especially when they are doing no-one any harm and respecting the rules of the site.

GS

GoSeigen wrote:I find quite distasteful the playground-style piss-taking of LemonFool user robertbanking in this thread. I reported all the off-topic responses but the mods decided not to take action.

I see no reason to treat robertbanking in this way -- I have found all his posts to be perfectly polite (though culturally off-key perhaps) and topical and they have prompted some interesting follow-ups. If people have a problem with a particular user the correct action to take is to bring it to the attention of the mods and let them make a judgement.

In the meantime can people kindly assume good faith and treat new posters with respect and civility, especially when they are doing no-one any harm and respecting the rules of the site.

GS

Personally I cannot be bothered with said posters style and have given up reading them. After the number of posts he has made in this style I have to assume that they are genuine but I must say, his mind works very differently from mine. But that I think is the point. They do no harm and if you do not like them well just ignore them.

Dod

GoSeigen wrote:I find quite distasteful the playground-style piss-taking of LemonFool user robertbanking in this thread. I reported all the off-topic responses but the mods decided not to take action.

I see no reason to treat robertbanking in this way -- I have found all his posts to be perfectly polite (though culturally off-key perhaps) and topical and they have prompted some interesting follow-ups. If people have a problem with a particular user the correct action to take is to bring it to the attention of the mods and let them make a judgement.

In the meantime can people kindly assume good faith and treat new posters with respect and civility, especially when they are doing no-one any harm and respecting the rules of the site.

GS

Completely agree.

GoSeigen wrote:I see no reason to treat robertbanking in this way -- I have found all his posts to be perfectly polite (though culturally off-key perhaps) and topical and they have prompted some interesting follow-ups. If people have a problem with a particular user the correct action to take is to bring it to the attention of the mods and let them make a judgement.

In the meantime can people kindly assume good faith and treat new posters with respect and civility, especially when they are doing no-one any harm and respecting the rules of the site.

GS

I sadly feel that it reflects more upon them than the poster concerned.

I do happen to have doubts, given that the poster simply inserts the new topic into a boiler plate question and has never posted any opinions of their own, debate or elaboration. However I feel that the correct response is simply to ignore their questions until they do more. A boiler plate thank you doesn't quite cut it. If they want to be part of the community, then they need to BE part of the community.

Ps, it's a simple matter to view all their posts. Almost all questions, though the occasional thank you. Nothing more.

Urbandreamer wrote:
I do happen to have doubts, given that the poster simply inserts the new topic into a boiler plate question and has never posted any opinions of their own, debate or elaboration. However I feel that the correct response is simply to ignore their questions until they do more.

A boiler plate thank you doesn't quite cut it. If they want to be part of the community, then they need to BE part of the community.

Ps, it's a simple matter to view all their posts. Almost all questions, though the occasional thank you. Nothing more.

We can see the same activity patterns on the Trading212 forum -

https://community.trading212.com/u/robertbanking/activity

And also the same on the Black Hat World forum -

https://archive.is/cPOek

I agree that the best approach is to just ignore such stuff if people don't see any value in engaging, but with the recent rise of public-facing AI, there's naturally going to be a high level of scepticism where a refusal to properly engage in a more natural way is seen over long periods of time, and it's interesting to note that there's been no actual reply to direct AI-related queries at this stage...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

GoSeigen wrote:I find quite distasteful the playground-style piss-taking of LemonFool user robertbanking in this thread. I reported all the off-topic responses but the mods decided not to take action.

I see no reason to treat robertbanking in this way -- I have found all his posts to be perfectly polite (though culturally off-key perhaps) and topical and they have prompted some interesting follow-ups. If people have a problem with a particular user the correct action to take is to bring it to the attention of the mods and let them make a judgement.

Isn't there a reasonably obvious open question here? Has it been definitively answered? If 'Yes', what is that answer?

Or is it still 'Undecided'? [ ]

If so, the next question would be: How may it be decided?

We live in strange times...

There is a strong case that robertbanking is a bot, and should be blocked.

JohnB wrote:There is a strong case that robertbanking is a bot, and should be blocked.

I agree. I decided from the very first post "he" wasn't human. Problem is, what will happen when the majority of new users are bots? I am afraid there's no option but to ban anything that's not human. And that's going to get more and more difficult as AI gets better and better.

I am convinced that the poster in question is an AI system, posting investment related questions to harvest the hive mind of TLF so that it can monetise the information in the future.

Reading the posts made by this "individual" they have a frankly unbelievable commonality in language, content and layout that any human would struggle to maintain. They include virtually no personal information other than the most anodyne and generic. "He/she/it" must have seen the debates regarding their humanity, but made no comment - odd in the extreme.

I have reported several of the posts. Today, in response to the latest boiler-plate "Dear clever people, please tell me all the facts" post, asked for bot to be banned.

Boots wrote:I am convinced that the poster in question is an AI system, posting investment related questions to harvest the hive mind of TLF so that it can monetise the information in the future.

That's one theory. One of the first things I considered as a possible explanation. There are more complex and more interesting theories... at least, I have a few.

On another thread the mods said that they were looking into whether robertbanking is a bot, I wonder if they have formed an opinion. It's strange that the question needs to be asked at all and I think we can assume that the Turing test has been passed. One oddity is the consistent use in these posts of the lower case 'i', unless at the beginning of a sentence, it's almost algorithmic.

RC

BullDog wrote:

JohnB wrote:There is a strong case that robertbanking is a bot, and should be blocked.

I agree. I decided from the very first post "he" wasn't human. Problem is, what will happen when the majority of new users are bots? I am afraid there's no option but to ban anything that's not human. And that's going to get more and more difficult as AI gets better and better.

So... There's a "theory", right there!

ReformedCharacter wrote:On another thread the mods said that they were looking into whether robertbanking is a bot, I wonder if they have formed an opinion. It's strange that the question needs to be asked at all and I think we can assume that the Turing test has been passed. One oddity is the consistent use in these posts of the lower case 'i', unless at the beginning of a sentence, it's almost algorithmic.

Ah yes! That interested me, too.

One theory (they are multiplying!): It is a deliberately imperfect 'bot'? So some people will go one way, other people the other way (as on TLF). How then does the community react and decide? Perhaps observing THAT, is the project.

If project there be...

I had not thought of the posts being a ‘bot’ not that I have any idea what that means anyway. I think on balance that the site should ban robertbanking.
They have always struck me as being an artificial construct anyway. No one writes like that, at least no one know does anyway.
Dod

I have no problem with mods, or site owners, investigating any member to discover if they are a bot, or not. And, if so, whether banning is appropriate.

However this is about the behaviour of others, responding, and in doing so themselves being in breach of site rules, and whether as a result they should also face sanctions.

Manners, and rule following, are easy. Reporting as requested is not only the appropriate thing to do, but also creates less work for the moderators, giving their time freely to make this community a nicer and functioning place. Posting what amounts to abuse debases this community and leads to the possibility of other users to leave it, which can only result in this being a poorer place.

dealtn wrote:I have no problem with mods, or site owners, investigating any member to discover if they are a bot, or not. And, if so, whether banning is appropriate.

However this is about the behaviour of others, responding, and in doing so themselves being in breach of site rules, and whether as a result they should also face sanctions.

Manners, and rule following, are easy. Reporting as requested is not only the appropriate thing to do, but also creates less work for the moderators, giving their time freely to make this community a nicer and functioning place. Posting what amounts to abuse debases this community and leads to the possibility of other users to leave it, which can only result in this being a poorer place.

Where is this "abuse" you speak of?

Show us.

XFool wrote:

ReformedCharacter wrote:On another thread the mods said that they were looking into whether robertbanking is a bot, I wonder if they have formed an opinion. It's strange that the question needs to be asked at all and I think we can assume that the Turing test has been passed. One oddity is the consistent use in these posts of the lower case 'i', unless at the beginning of a sentence, it's almost algorithmic.

Ah yes! That interested me, too.
One theory (they are multiplying!): It is a deliberately imperfect 'bot'? So some people will go one way, other people the other way (as on TLF). How then does the community react and decide? Perhaps observing THAT, is the project.
If project there be...

If it is a bot, it would be interesting to observe the evolution of its abilities.

Perhaps when it posts, one of 'us' could flag it as a bot and then we could watch its performance.
After all, there is going to be more and more of this stuff.

Did you see a recent article about a computer that incorporates human brain tissue? A real computer that is, not a figment. We are living in a chapter of a sc-fi book.

V8

Itsallaguess wrote:
We can see the same activity patterns on the Trading212 forum -

https://community.trading212.com/u/robertbanking/activity

And also the same on the Black Hat World forum -

https://archive.is/cPOek

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

It's a very busy bot....

https://www.affiliatefix.com/threads/le ... ng.175289/
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threa ... cks.37883/
https://beta.reddit.com/r/adrenalfatigu ... digestion/
https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articl ... c961b68bb1
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/di ... redictions
https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/thre ... le.424316/

--kiloran

88V8 wrote:

XFool wrote:Ah yes! That interested me, too.
One theory (they are multiplying!): It is a deliberately imperfect 'bot'? So some people will go one way, other people the other way (as on TLF). How then does the community react and decide? Perhaps observing THAT, is the project.
If project there be...

If it is a bot, it would be interesting to observe the evolution of its abilities.

Perhaps when it posts, one of 'us' could flag it as a bot and then we could watch its performance.

Ah yes, but then there will be those on here who will accuse 'us' of "abuse"...

88V8 wrote:After all, there is going to be more and more of this stuff.

There surely will be.

88V8 wrote:Did you see a recent article about a computer that incorporates human brain tissue?

I couldn't possibly comment.

The good bots are among you, the clumsy ones you've spotted are decoys.