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johnrellis
johnrellis
Genius
October 25, 2023

P: Bots generating bogus upvotes

  • October 25, 2023
  • 17 replies
  • 2143 views

Beware that bots (human or artificial) are generating large numbers of bogus upvotes, including in the Bugs and Ideas section, devaluing the usefulness of vote totals. These bogus upvotes, at least on my posts, have exploded in the last few weeks, perhaps driven by my increased rate of bug reports for LR 13.

 

I'm one of the more prolific participants here, especially in Bugs and Ideas, and I've been noticing upvote notifications have been increasing for many months.  And after I reply in Bugs or Ideas, upvotes can arrive within a few minutes, even for one-sentence replies not really deserving of a vote. A random sample of the votes suggests that most but not all are for my posts in Bugs and Ideas. (It's not easy to extract the forum section from my emails.)

 

Here are the total number of upvotes my posts have received by week since 2/3/22:

I was offline for a week in July and a week in September.

 

Here are the users generating the most votes who have made a total of 0 or 1 posts themselves:

 

 

 

 

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    johnrellis
    johnrellisAuthor
    Genius
    November 19, 2023

    The vote counts in Bugs and Ideas look thoroughly polluted and are no longer useful.  Since 8/1, when the bot flood was fully underway:

     

    - 94% of the bots' votes were for my Bugs and Ideas posts; 6% were for Discussions.

    - 68% of the upvotes on my Bugs and Ideas posts were by bots. 

     

     

     

    15 of the 26 identified bots all stopped voting on 11/7/23. Only 9 bots have voted in the last week, though from the graph above, the rate of total bot votes is unchanged:

     

     

    DdeGannes
    Community Expert
    DdeGannesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 5, 2023

    I have also been experiencing this issue.

    Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
    johnrellis
    johnrellisAuthor
    Genius
    November 5, 2023

    70 - 80% of the upvotes on my posts are now bot-generated:

     

     

    I've identified many more bots by looking at when they voted relative to the time of the post. Some of these accounts were created by real users and apparently hacked by the bot owners (e.g. "tmickow" was Tom Mickow, who made a couple hundred legitimate posts in years past, ending over a year ago).  

     

     

     

    C.Cella
    C.Cella
    Inspiring
    November 5, 2023

    Bots upvoting is getting very frustrating.

    After this comment I will instantly get upvotes for naught from the bots.

     

    I will post the screenshots of who's upvoting me.

    If you are human don't upvote this.

    Sean McCormack
    Community Expert
    Sean McCormackCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 26, 2023

    I spoke to Rikk about it last week and they were looking into then. Definitely not as detailed as this though John. I was prime WILKE territory and almost immediately. Because sometimes the posts were questions on a bug report, it was immediately obvious that it was bogus. 

     

     

    Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.
      C.Cella
      C.Cella
      Inspiring
      October 25, 2023

      @johnrellis

       

      Indeed I get regularly upvotes vote as soon as I post form those users.

       

       

        C.Cella
        C.Cella
        Inspiring
        October 26, 2023

        @Rikk Flohr: Photography 

         

        Bots upvoting is getting out of hand now.

        Even now every FR I make is upvoted basically instantly...I might as well request for a LrC inspired cheeseburger and I would get a few votes.

         

        As much as I like to have my FR voted I do not want fake votes,  can you do something to get rid of the bots/fake voters.

         

        .

         

          dj_paige
          dj_paige
          Legend
          October 25, 2023

          There was a similar problem at the SAS Communities (which I believe uses the same software), where there appeared to be posts getting immediate up-votes, within seconds of the post. That problem was solved by the moderators, it seems to be gone now. Perhaps the moderators here at Adobe would like to talk to SAS about this, the moderator's name is Chris Hemedinger.

            JohanElzenga
            Community Expert
            JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            October 25, 2023

            Bummer! I thought I was finally getting popular...

             

            -- Johan W. Elzenga
              D Fosse
              Community Expert
              D FosseCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              October 25, 2023

              Yes, I've noticed it too. I have had two or three of these ghosts on my tail for a long time. The account names will vary, usually one will be active for two to four weeks, then disappear and another one pops up.

               

              They are immediatly recognizable by upvoting within seconds of your post.

               

              There's also an increase in obviously ChatGPT-generated posts.

               

              What I don't get is - why? Someone must have initiated this. What's the purpose?

                Keith Reeder
                Keith Reeder
                Participating Frequently
                December 29, 2023

                Yep, the reason behind this is a complete mystery to me, too - what on Earth is being gained by the perpetrators?

                 

                johnrellis
                johnrellisAuthor
                Genius
                December 30, 2023

                Speculation: I wonder if it's some AI-based effort at collecting data on user-generated content.  Given Adobe's passivity and lack of acknowledgement of the issue, I wonder if it's internally generated or otherwise endorsed by Adobe.  

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