The Issue Regarding Non-Beyblade Users.

Hello everyone,

I’ve made this thread to discuss a situation that I believe needs to be dealt with. If you read the title, you know what I’m talking about.

Recently, I’ve been seeing multiple users who appear to not have any interest in Beyblades whatsoever. It’s one thing if a person who used to like Beyblade comes back to the website from time to time to talk about something that’s not beyblade, but those people are different. I’m talking about the users who join the website purely to talk about non-Beyblade related things.

The first time I saw this was a user who joined the WBO and had no interest for Beyblades whatsoever. I believe this was back when DC was a mod, not 100% sure though. Anyways, they ended up getting banned because, well, they didn’t come to this website with any intent to talk about Beyblades whatsoever. I don’t know what the ruling on this is, but the one case I’ve seen of it seems to rule that these users are not allowed.

I PM virtually every single one I see to confirm whether this is the case or not for them, but they have not replied. If it is indeed true that these users aren’t allowed on the WBO, then they all need to be banned. These users include but aren’t limited to: msavcenko813, TeddyBear84, lipav58, and cjlab9ihih.

I only listed names that haven’t been banned by the way. There are more, but those people have been banned. I make this thread to bring awareness to this situation and see what other people think.

Lemme know what you guys think of this. It’s strange because this has only began happening in the last couple of months or so.

Edit: I decided to add onto this, since users have pointed out some points that lead me to believe that the bots have now become more discreet, and in a sense evolved from what they used to be.

As most of you may know, bots used to post in random threads, or even create their own threads, about blatantly spam topics. These users were very obviously bots and were taken down as a result. Even now these kinds of bots plague the website from time to time, but they’re usually taken down pretty quickly.

Now though, I’ve been seeing more and more of these users that, at first glance, don’t seem to be a bot. That’s what I thought at well. It’s obvious now though that most of them probably are. From usernames to hiding links in their posts, I believe they’re trying to make it harder to get banned by not posting about blatant spam but instead be more discreet. Nonetheless, a little bit of digging is all that’s needed to see that they’re actually bots.

It seems staff is aware of this though since I’ve seen some of them banned, but I figured it would be important to mention them nonetheless because I want to make sure these kind of bots aren’t looked over.
Yes, ideally this is a place for Beyblade enthusiasts, but my question to you is whether a ban is even remotely necessary. If those off-topic threads exist, and a person is sufficiently interested in that discussion, who are we to stop them from having those discussions? Do we have to ban people just because they are not discussing Beyblades?

On the other hand, the suggestion to ban these people is also really impractical from a moderation viewpoint in my opinion. The moderation team would have to keep track of each post made by a user to see if it is Beyblade-related or not.

In all, it seems to be a non issue from my perspective.
This is a site for Beyblade fans specifically to talk about Beyblade, and even though there are other threads like Random Thoughts or Favorite Hobbies I think people who join this website should be more clear on the fact that they should only join if they are interested in Beyblade, or were. I’d say maybe before people sign up there should be a sign saying stuff like “Please join only if you were or are interested in Beyblade as this is a website created for Beyblade fans” and other important links and stuff
You somehow forgot kai edits in your list.

This isn't a major issue, none of the users you have listed have made more than 20 posts total, and most haven't posted in a while or have done so over a many month timeframe. If they're spamming the Discord with non-Beyblade talk, that's an entirely different issue; have the staff handle it on Discord.

Basically, if they were spamming every thread with stream of consciousness, like Godzillafan101, if they were at least talking about Beyblade in some capacity, they could stay, although they would be encouraged to tone it down a little. If it's only non-beyblade stuff they're talking about (extremely rare) then they're just spamming for the sake of spamming and should probably be made to leave, and they need a little push from the staff. Again, most of the users you pointed out are borderline completely inactive.

You can take it up with the current moderation staff. Everyone in staff has the power to tempban/warn/ban users, most of them just don't, and the current moderation staff will be active once every few days, at best.
Because they’re bots. 

Notice how they never speak the way regular humans would?

"For me, the fortnite project is a great project that we play with friends every day" - cjlab9ihih

Who calls Fortnite "the fortnite project", and what kind of a name is "cjlab9ihih"?

This post by lipav58 in particular has a stealthy link to a gambling website.

Read their posts. They're hardly ever Beyblade related (whenever they do mention Beyblade it’s always in some generic way), and every now and again they'll "sneakily" promote some online service or game.
They rarely post links out in the open because that would make it too obvious, so they're made to appear like they're organically talking about their "interests."
They even have profile pictures to simulate real people, but they're always some random image that doesn't relate to anything.

They’re just bots posting in threads.
I 100% understand this situation Ive seen someone come here who only wanted to oddly talk about cancer cures
(Dec. 08, 2021  6:02 PM)Kaizoku Burst Wrote: Because they’re bots. 

Notice how they never speak the way regular humans would?

"For me, the fortnite project is a great project that we play with friends every day" - cjlab9ihih

Who calls Fortnite "the fortnite project", and what kind of a name is "cjlab9ihih"?

This post by lipav58 in particular has a stealthy link to a gambling website.

Read their posts. They're hardly ever Beyblade related (whenever they do mention Beyblade it’s always in some generic way), and every now and again they'll "sneakily" promote some online service or game.
They rarely post links out in the open because that would make it too obvious, so they're made to appear like they're organically talking about their "interests."
They even have profile pictures to simulate real people, but they're always some random image that doesn't relate to anything.

They’re just bots posting in threads.
Even more evidence:
.
"Most of all I hate paying taxes in my country, because I know that the money does not go into the budget of the country, but into the pockets of those nasty officials. It is for this reason I decided and registered a company in Singapore, and paid the skills development fee, which was calculated through the sdl calculator. After all, it is not for nothing that the World Bank consistently recognizes Singapore as the best place to do business." -cjlabihih
.
"We are all obsessed with something that does not depend on us. Most of all I hate paying taxes in my country, because I know that the money goes not to the budget of the country, but to the pockets of those nasty officials. This is the reason why I decided and registered a company in Singapore and paid the skills development fee, which I calculated through the sdl calculator. After all, it is not for nothing that the World Bank constantly recognizes Singapore as the best place to do business." -lipav58
.
.
The underlined text is the differences and the bold text is a link that I removed. I don't think it is a coincidence that both are almost the same. The other 2 users mentioned here seem not suspicious, but I didn't analyzed them yet
They're bots? Well why didn't you just say so! Why didn't you just call the thread the bot problem.

We have a bot problem. The staff have the power to one click annihilate these bot accounts and their threads all in one swoop. They do not appear to use that power. I will see the bot threads linger for days at a time. Take it up with staff.
(Dec. 08, 2021  6:38 PM)DeceasedCrab Wrote: They're bots? Well why didn't you just say so! Why didn't you just call the thread the bot problem.

We have a bot problem. The staff have the power to one click annihilate these bot accounts and their threads all in one swoop. They do not appear to use that power. I will see the bot threads linger for days at a time. Take it up with staff.

...Because Kaizoku isn't the thread owner? And yeah, staff should know about that.
(Dec. 08, 2021  6:38 PM)DeceasedCrab Wrote: They're bots? Well why didn't you just say so! Why didn't you just call the thread the bot problem.

We have a bot problem. The staff have the power to one click annihilate these bot accounts and their threads all in one swoop. They do not appear to use that power. I will see the bot threads linger for days at a time. Take it up with staff.

I think there's some confusion.

I didn't post this thread. I'm just trying to point out what no one is mentioning.

I try to watch the Latest Posts page whenever I can so I can spot them, but they can get buried in popular threads at times. When I do see them, I report them. All four of the accounts BuilderRob mentioned are bots. I think I actually reported a post by TeddyBear84 just the other day.
Why didn't Rob just call it the bot problem. Cripes, we didn't need 7 paragraphs saying "bots are bad" without mentioning bots.

Back in my day, you didn't have a bot problem; those bots were summarily executed.
(Dec. 08, 2021  6:51 PM)DeceasedCrab Wrote: Why didn't Rob just call it the bot problem. Cripes, we didn't need 7 paragraphs saying "bots are bad" without mentioning bots.

Back in my day, you didn't have a bot problem; those bots were summarily executed.


(Dec. 08, 2021  4:21 PM)BuilderROB Wrote: The first time I saw this was a user who joined the WBO and had no interest for Beyblades whatsoever. I believe this was back when DC was a mod, not 100% sure though. Anyways, they ended up getting banned because, well, they didn’t come to this website with any intent to talk about Beyblades whatsoever. I don’t know what the ruling on this is, but the one case I’ve seen of it seems to rule that these users are not allowed.

I PM virtually every single one I see to confirm whether this is the case or not for them, but they have not replied. If it is indeed true that these users aren’t allowed on the WBO, then they all need to be banned. These users include but aren’t limited to: msavcenko813, TeddyBear84, lipav58, and cjlab9ihih.

I don't think he knew these were bots, which is why the thread was started in the first place. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't bother PMing any of them.
(Dec. 08, 2021  5:54 PM)DeceasedCrab Wrote: You somehow forgot kai edits in your list.

This isn't a major issue, none of the users you have listed have made more than 20 posts total, and most haven't posted in a while or have done so over a many month timeframe. If they're spamming the Discord with non-Beyblade talk, that's an entirely different issue; have the staff handle it on Discord.

Basically, if they were spamming every thread with stream of consciousness, like Godzillafan101, if they were at least talking about Beyblade in some capacity, they could stay, although they would be encouraged to tone it down a little. If it's only non-beyblade stuff they're talking about (extremely rare) then they're just spamming for the sake of spamming and should probably be made to leave, and they need a little push from the staff. Again, most of the users you pointed out are borderline completely inactive.

You can take it up with the current moderation staff. Everyone in staff has the power to tempban/warn/ban users, most of them just don't, and the current moderation staff will be active once every few days, at best.

I mean, I do agree Kai Edits should be banned, though I’m not sure if he quite falls into this category. And I do think that these are different from usual bots. Most bots create threads that have spam content, and although it appears one I mentioned did post spam worthy posts, I still think these users don’t always show bot like behavior.

If you want to call them bots, that’s fine, but I think they’re different from your usual bots and shouldn’t be considered as such.

(Dec. 08, 2021  6:02 PM)Kaizoku Burst Wrote: Because they’re bots. 

Notice how they never speak the way regular humans would?

"For me, the fortnite project is a great project that we play with friends every day" - cjlab9ihih

Who calls Fortnite "the fortnite project", and what kind of a name is "cjlab9ihih"?

This post by lipav58 in particular has a stealthy link to a gambling website.

Read their posts. They're hardly ever Beyblade related (whenever they do mention Beyblade it’s always in some generic way), and every now and again they'll "sneakily" promote some online service or game.
They rarely post links out in the open because that would make it too obvious, so they're made to appear like they're organically talking about their "interests."
They even have profile pictures to simulate real people, but they're always some random image that doesn't relate to anything.

They’re just bots posting in threads.

This seems like an interesting way to look at it. Does this mean bots have evolved on this website then?
(Dec. 08, 2021  7:00 PM)BuilderROB Wrote: This seems like an interesting way to look at it. Does this mean bots have evolved on this website then?

I think "evolved" is a little strong. They're not advanced AI, if that's what you're thinking is happening.

They're not real people (there's no person behind the account), but their posts are most likely getting pulled from a huge bank of pre-written phrases or paragraphs. There are often even spots that get replaced with certain keywords. That's why they only post in generic threads, and never engage with anyone. Not directly, anyway.

The bot searches for keywords implying that the thread isn't for any particularly specific topic - like the word "hobbies" or "music." Then it just dumps text related to those keywords that's written to sound like natural speech (i.e. "I love riding bicycles, my dad and I used to do that all the time").

Every now and again, it'll sneak a link or the name of some product or service in hopes that somebody will click on it.

Here's one that completely missed it in the Recent Purchases thread:
(Nov. 14, 2021  5:08 PM)msavcenko813 Wrote: I just bought a few things and a few games. Naraka, also bought Battlefield 2042, I was really looking forward to that game.  I also decided to try Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Besides games I bought cbd gummies to help relieve headaches and I also bought myself a Microsoft Xbox One Controller. Hopefully I'll have enough free time to try and play all the games.
The thread title is so generic that the bot mistook it for a suitable place to post, and snuck in a link where I underlined. It used markdown (which is a fairly universal formatting language) to color the text black so it wouldn't be as obvious.
Bots for sure, your best bet is to contact a moderator about it and have them deal with it. Very odd post style.
One interesting thing is you can basically go through the member list by newest added and a majority of them are clear spam accounts like matrimonials omertainvest olympusroofing unfmarketing sensualpleasure thietkeweb2409

That's just a couple of really obvious ones from the most recent regs (many with spam in their profiles already). I know mybb has issues but is there nothing more we can do? Almost all of the new accounts bear similarity to the weird cryptic posting bots in terms of names.

I believe Mana is aware of this, but the sheer volume of sleeper accounts is really worrying... Idk if we need to have someone do the painful job of manually vetting new regs for this stuff, but if we can't prevent it then it might need to be looked at.

As for actual users who are here but either not into blading any more or just like the community, if they aren't trolling they are fine honestly.
I agree with this, but some people like BurningSands don't blade but aren't bots and like the WBO because they think it's a friendly enviroment.
(Dec. 10, 2021  11:01 AM)GhostFox Wrote: I agree with this, but some people like BurningSands don't blade but aren't bots and like the WBO because they think it's a friendly enviroment.

true also you can tell if they are bots depening on the completey random stuff they might say
(Dec. 10, 2021  11:01 AM)GhostFox Wrote: I agree with this, but some people like BurningSands don't blade but aren't bots and like the WBO because they think it's a friendly enviroment.

As far as I know BurningSands actually Blades and she knows quite a lot about Beyblade and I agree it's annoying when people come here with No Intrest whatsoever in Beyblade. It's specifically labeled a Beyblade Website so why would you join if you don't like the Game?
(Dec. 10, 2021  3:42 PM)UnseenBurst Wrote:
(Dec. 10, 2021  11:01 AM)GhostFox Wrote: I agree with this, but some people like BurningSands don't blade but aren't bots and like the WBO because they think it's a friendly enviroment.

As far as I know BurningSands actually Blades and she knows quite a lot about Beyblade and I agree it's annoying when people come here with No Intrest whatsoever in Beyblade. It's specifically labeled a Beyblade Website so why would you join if you don't like the Game?

No, I do not play with Beyblade toys whatsoever. Dont know who mentioned that to you

Im mostly a Beyblade anime fan and is apart of its community, a still very-much valued/valid part of the fandom. That still makes me a Beyblade fan and I am not apart of the problem presented in the thesis of the main post

(Dec. 10, 2021  11:01 AM)GhostFox Wrote: I agree with this, but some people like BurningSands don't blade but aren't bots and like the WBO because they think it's a friendly enviroment.

First of all, the thesis of the post is about non-Beyblade fans. I participate on the WBO Discord a lot through the anime community and evidently am a Beyblade fan

I suggest you actually get to know me before making assumptions that mislead people, thanks
Sorry for the second post. I only had enough time yesterday to tell two users to stop making assumptions about me. Now that its the weekend, I can now contribute more thoughts on this topic

My only area of concern is the usage of Your Creations. Ive talked about this a couple of times with other people on the WBO Discord server. A couple users and I noticed how the subforum occasionally gets cluttered with non-Beyblade content. A lot of users already felt like that subforum has poor content, and seeing non-Beyblade content rubs wrong. You could use Wattpad, DeviantArt, fanfiction.net, etc. any other site to post really off topic fan content

I remember seeing one user who would post a lot of fanfictions about a certain video game here. I dont see them a lot anymore; but during the time, I felt like that was odd in a midst of Beyblade content. Its clear that some users dont use the subforum with a Beyblade interest in mind

Though, I admit, the description of Your Creations never outright banned non-Beyblade content. But since, awhile back, the staff considered decluttering/revamping the subforum, Id say they should look over the non-Beyblade fanfictions and whatnot. Thats the type of content I feel like should be hosted somewhere else