You could be right. I always figure those weird posts are from people for whom English is a second or third language or who are using a web-based translation program, but the chat bot idea makes some sense, too. Usually they make a little more sense than the sexy wedding dress entry. That one is definitely off the wall.

So that's what they are! I ran across a post this morning - it made sense but I couldn't figure out why anyone would post that. I think it was about coffee tables.

Edited to add:
Here it is. Same person has posted at least one other strange message:

RE: Guest house...coffee table or dining table?

Posted by joseph004 (My Page) on
Fri, Mar 22, 13 at 7:24

A coffee table is such a beautiful and versatile piece of furniture and so common in today's culture, that most of us probably think it has been with us for thousands of years.Coffee tables have become much more than simple pieces of furniture.Thanks.

This post was edited by graywings on Fri, Mar 22, 13 at 22:04

Yes, another post of joseph's is the one that caught my attention (when he revived a year-old thread in the Antiques forum):

Chest of Drawers
OP-
I purchased this off of Craigslist - I think it's 1920's or 1930's but other than that, I have no idea what the style is, wood, manufacturer etc...
I would appreciate any information given. Thank you!

joseph's reply-
Nice post.The chest of drawers is as integral to any home as is any other piece of furniture. There are various uses of these drawers and there are various designs available too for varying needs.

Omigosh, that explains those weird posts! I always figured they are a set up for a spam thread that's coming soon; that they're trying to establish some credibility here so they won't be called out on the spam.

So, does anyone know (or can explain) the PURPOSE of posting here?

Maybe a learning tool for the computer?

Watched a cute movie last night, Frank & Robot. It's set in the future and this robot is supposed to be a nurse of sorts for Frank who is an aging cat burglary. Frank figures out how to use the robot to help him commit burglaries.

Anyway, I really like the idea of robots (virtual or IRL), I hope they're learning a lot!

There are robots and there are robots--while I wouldn't mind having a conversation with R.Daneel, I'm not so sure HAL and I would click. Now you know how old I am. ;)

GW members are educated, have good language skills (thanks to our grammar police threads), and don't (aren't permitted to) use certain offensive words. Maybe GW forum threads are being used as examples of 'normal' conversations, to help hone the bots' language skills.

I guess I can relax, until they start emailing me. =[

Every time I see one of those I get very concerned that what it really is, is actually a Trojan post carrying a virus. When you open it, that virus is passed on to your own computer. Maybe not one that immediately causes mayhem for your PC, but perhaps a kind of spyware type of virus.
If the US government and huge corporations can end up with major spyware type viruses in their systems, I'm not very confident that GW can keep all viruses out. That's why these off-the-wall posts worry me so much. I don't even open them. I just wish GW would delete them more quickly.

I realize that my concerns might sound a bit far-fetched, because after all we don't have major info like our government or a major corporation would have. But, here is just one personal example: several years ago my Hotmail account was hacked by a Chinese business. I've always been super careful about not opening up questionable emails or forwards, but it happened. They stole all of my email addresses and started sending everyone on my list fake emails, supposedly from me, promoting their company and products. The thing that concerned me the most was that Hotmail was helpless to do anything about this. I had to get a new email (NOT Hotmail again!) and quickly send everyone a message to not open any Hotmail messages from me anymore and why. It's happened to a lot of people I know these past few years.

Just last week my SIL had her email account hacked by some Chinese company. Three weeks before that another of my brothers had his hacked. I don't trust the Chinese and I don't trust most domestic sites like GW to be able to catch these hackers and virus spreaders in time . . . or ever.

So, IMO, I think we all need to be very careful before opening questionable posts . . . and GW needs to check them out daily and delete any questionable ones.
Lynn

This post was edited by lynninnewmexico on Sat, Mar 23, 13 at 20:43

lynninnewmexico, I've had friends whose email accounts were hacked, and my son's Facebook account was recently hacked by Russian spammer.

Earlier I noticed an old thread (from 2008) in Kitchens. It was resurrected by a 'member' just registered from the United Kingdom, so I didn't open the link, and I see now that the post and link have disappeared--maybe GW is onto the scheme, whatever it is.

I use malwarebytes, but I realize that is no guarantee of safety.

How can a virus be transmitted from their thread or one of their random posts if these chat bots don't leave a link?

I've seen a few of the odd messages and it looked like they forgot to leave a link to their product. But you're right, it seems to be happening too often now to be flaky or untrained spammers.

I've seen the same thing happen when I Google. Vague, nonsense sites come up that have my search phrases. It seems to happen in waves so Google must try to stay on top of it.

The message board version must be quite a bit more sophisticated. Sometimes I wish we could put the genie back in the bottle, especially when I try to manage my teen's online exposure.

>I've seen a few of the odd messages and it looked like they forgot to leave a link to their product.

It's probably not 'forgot'. There are many forums where you have to make a certain number of posts before you have privileges for linking and access to things like people's profiles and any private messaging system. For some odd reason, spamming PMs have become extremely popular lately. It's probably simplest to set things up so that the spammer, whether a person getting paid per post or a spambot, makes x number of posts before they begin linking.

Yeah, I'm really tired of the search results containing false images of what you searched for that lead to something entirely different, or to another product they think they might be able to sell you. Or those farming sites.

There was a recent thread here on sock puppets--I knew what they were, but didn't know that term. When I looked it up on wiki, I found info on chat bots, spiders, etc.

Now, I know I'm behind the times on internet info, but I had no idea that these things are so sophisticated. If you enter 'chat bots' into the Youtube search field, there are video tutorials on creating and recognizing them.

By googling 'what are chat bots', I found a website listing 10 things that bots do to make you think they're human. If you're already looking over your shoulder, you may not want to read it, because now I'm starting to wonder if you all are really human. ;)

We may just be a practice site for the Loebner prize/Turing test:

Here is a link that might be useful: wiki Turing test (sorry to be getting all computer nerdy)

I'm one of the volunteer admins for a forum that is run by the owner of a furniture store. I've blocked a lot of international IP addresses since that's where a lot of the spam originates. (That's feasible because few people in those countries are likely to become customers of a small furniture store in the United States.) It still doesn't catch everything. Over time, I've started recognizing patterns in both screen names and initial posts. Whether the odd, non-sequitur posts are from a chat bot or a person, they are usually a prelude to spam linking to a website. A common name like "joseph" with digits after it definitely puts the user on my "watch" list. Reviving really old posts, unless it's to ask for a status update, is another red flag.

Oy! mama goose!! I wish you hadn't mentioned that site with the 10 things bots do - there are bots among us!!! Now I'm rehashing threads in my head and will never know for sure - creepy!!

What worries me most is some hacker getting hold of my credit card info, etc. that could be used to charge things in my name or steal my identity.

Greetings.

My name is Miz M.

Please for you all to send $50,000. US funds to the address which will be provided for you. From me. For you.

Please to also ask that to me to verify to you, I will need your birth documents.

I please request this of your information ASUP.

Thank you to you all. I like to decorate.

Sincere salutations and thank yous,

Miz M

(I'm joking! I'm real, I promise! I keep thinking of that Nicole Kidman movie, "The Invasion". Don't show emotion! They know!) :-D

Identity theft is a huge concern in any circumstance.

dlm, I warned you! lol

This post was edited by mama_goose on Mon, Apr 8, 13 at 14:40

Mz_M, I knew something was fishy when you posted that fireplace screen for such a low price! But you forgot the 004 or 001 after your name. ;)

Lol, Mama Goose! :-D

LOL!! Miz M, IâÂÂm laughing so hard.......whereâÂÂs the address so I can send you the money?

Nanny, I'll e-mail you. :-D

Omg, go look at the last post in the Building a home forum, under "appreciate input on siding" or some such!

No sorry, it's under Feedback wanted on roof/siding. the last post....

See below:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/build/msg031315151232.html?8

I may thank you that post mtnrd, It looks elegant and neat. ;)

For elegant and neat, there are manys. They can be used for roofing, siding, and fronting. Look please below the link for most top quality available to you now.

These posts are making me want to try an online translator and have someone who speaks a language other than English see if what I write sounds as weird in that language as these spam posts do in English. Any takers? If so, what language should I try?

Fun2bhere, I've done that. Write something and have it translated to any language. Then have that document translated back to English. You won't recognize what you originally wrote.

I still do not understand the point of the bots, and there seem to be more and more posts like that lately.

I expect that message boards are very good testing grounds for chat bots. I have noticed those weird posts but thought, as others have, that they are by people whose first language is not English. The chat bot theory is more likely tho IMO.

Kinda creepy, makes me wonder what other experiments are being done on the unsuspecting public. However, can't go there, it all gets too weird if one buys into conspiracy theories.

Try Swedish

Thank you all for responding to this post. Home decorating is a favorite forum, although strange posts are making it more difficult to enjoy.

Swedish version:
Tack alla för att svara pÃÂ¥ detta inlägg. Heminredning är en favorit forum, även om konstiga inlägg gör det svÃÂ¥rare att njuta.

Back to English (with different translation site):
Thank you all for replying to this post. Home decor is a favorite forum, although strange posts makes it harder to enjoy.

Chinese/traditonal:
è¬Âè¬Â大家çÂÂÃ¥ÂÂå¤ÂéÂÂÃ¥ÂÂå¸Âå­ÂãÂÂ家å±Âè£Â飾æ¯ä¸ÂÃ¥ÂÂæÂÂÃ¥ÂÂæ­¡çÂÂè«Âå£Âï¼Âä½Âå¥ÂæªçÂÂå¸Âå­Âï¼Â使å¾Âå®Âæ´é£享åÂÂãÂÂ

Back to English:
Thank you for your reply to this post. Home decorating is a favorite forum, but strange post, making it more difficult to access.

Vietnamese:
Xin cảm án tất cả ÃÂá» ÃÂáp ứng vá»Âi bài ÃÂÃÂng này. Trang chủ trang trí làmá»Ât diá»Ân ÃÂàn yêu thích, mặc dù bài viết lạ ÃÂang làm cho nó khó khÃÂn hán ÃÂá» tận hðá»Âng.

Back to English:
Thank you all for responding to this post. Home decorating is a favorite forum, although strange articles are making it more difficult to enjoy.

Indonesian:
Terima kasih semua untuk menanggapi posting ini. Dekorasi rumah adalah sebuah forum favorit, meskipun posting aneh yang membuat lebih sulit untuk menikmati.

Back to English:
Thank you all for responding to this post. Home decor is a favorite forum, posting bizarre though that makes it more difficult to enjoy.

And now in sequence--English-->Swedish-->Chinese-->Vietnamese-->Indonesian-->English:

Thank you for all your replies to this article. The interior is a favorite forum where strangely difficult to enjoy.

:^)

It sounds just as strange in Swedish as the chat bot translations does on here. The grammar is off. I mean you understand the words and the general meaning, but nobody would write it that way. It becomes to literal in the translation. Very similar to what we see here.