Beware of spam posts - please flag

we have noticed a rise of AI generated spam posts.

they take the form of a new user asking for help, the help requested looks completely reasonable as its using AI domain knowledge. it can be very convincing !

the tell-tale is, ofc, that they will/need to include a link, that’ll take you offsite.
however, this may be ‘disguised’ by appearing to be a link to another topic on this site, or just an annotated topic. e.g. I read on this topic, (here I link to google.com)

what I dislike about these ‘attacks’, is that our helpful users have tried to help these ‘bots’ because the topic looks credible - and I don’t want you wasting your time :slight_smile:

the moderators are aware, and we have been pretty fast to pick them up, but I thought it was time to let you know - for more awareness.

so, if you see a new topic asking from help from a new user, with a link, check the link, and flag topic if its inappropriate - don’t engage/click link.
we will then delete the topic and the user.

ofc, the vast majority of new users to the forum asking questions etc, are legitimate, and we want to be open and helpful, so do not want to impact them with new ‘measures’.

currently this issue is very manageable, so we are refraining from imposing further limitations on new users - I think community vigilance will be enough.

ofc, we will monitor the situation, and take action as necessary.

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