There is a poster that seems to be here just to harvest replies. What should I do?

[Another2Cats]

Very much as the title.

There is a poster here who made her (their?) first post on 25th April.

Since then, she (they) has made 57 posts, of which 55 are starting threads that appear to be just there for soliciting engagement. This is done by way of asking a question and providing a three or four word opening post. Or sometimes only a single word in the opening post.

Should I highlight this to @MNHQ and, if so, should I link to all the 55 threads that they have started since 25th April?

For context, I am often on the Genealogy board and it was only after seeing two threads started by this person there that I took notice and realised that they had also started multiple threads on other boards as well.

This included Chat, Other Subjects, Tech Tips, AIBU, Property/DIY, Music, Sports, UK Travel, Education, Baby Names, Living Overseas, Style and Beauty, True crime and unsolved mysteries, Bullying, Parenting, Pets, Food/Recipes, Wildlife nature & conservation, and Telly Addicts.

Starting 55 new threads in the space of two and a half weeks which appear to be very much about soliciting engagement doesn't seem to really be in line with what MN is really all about.

Just to add to that, the username of this person is a direct reference to a thread that the newspapers back then picked up on. It was a thread from 2013 that people who were here then would likely remember and the poster is likely purporting to be somebody with a history dating back to then (despite their first post being on the 25th April this year).

Without giving the name of this poster, it would be like if she had called herself something like "Isle of Wight bollards" or "stacking goats".

Am I even right to call out this sort of harvesting of replies?

Are MNHQ likely to do anything about this even if I do make a complaint?

😂😂😂

& people will STILL answer!!

@ChocolateAddictAlways

Hopefully this will help. .

People asking intrusive questions on message forums sometimes do it to harvest personal information, and it is a common form of social engineering. They often try to build a profile of you to facilitate identity theft, account takeovers, or phishing attacks.

Here is how to identify and deal with this behavior:

Common Info-Harvesting Techniques

The "Slow Burn" Build: They ask innocent, non-intrusive questions over time to gain trust, eventually moving on to deeper personal details.
Fake Relatability: They mimic your situation (e.g., "I'm going through the same thing, what bank do you use?") to trick you into sharing sensitive info.
The "Why" Game: They act overly interested in your daily routines, location, workplace, or family to map out your digital footprint.
Contradictory Probing: They may post controversial takes to make you angry, hoping you will reveal personal details in a defensive, emotional rant.

How to Handle Intrusive Questions

Flip the Script: Ask them back: "What’s your intent in asking that?" or "Why do you want to know?".
Use Humor/Vagueness: Deflect with a smile. "Why? Are you writing a biography?" or "That’s top-secret information".
Set Firm Boundaries: It is acceptable to say, "I prefer not to discuss that," or "I keep my private life off this forum".
"Brutal" Honesty: If they are persistent, give an absurdly awkward or detailed answer that makes them uncomfortable, such as "I only discuss my credit score with my accountant and my psychic".

Protecting Yourself Online

Use Pseudonyms: Never use your real name, birthday, or location in usernames or bios.
Report and Block: If a user persistently asks intrusive questions, report them to the forum moderators and use the block function immediately.
Check Privacy Settings: Ensure your profile, post history, and contact information are not public.
Assume Everyone is a Stranger: Treat everyone on a public forum as a stranger, regardless of how long they have been active.

There have been a few I assumed were AI.

I would not be answering anything like my middle name, DOB etc... It's like they are trying to collate profiles.

People asking intrusive questions on message forums sometimes do it to harvest personal information, and it is a common form of social engineering. They often try to build a profile of you to facilitate identity theft, account takeovers, or phishing attacks.

Yes, this is a better expressed version of what i was thinking in my post above ...

Why not just hide and ignore

Others might have a different answers, I think... They could be trying to harvest information about posters which could be used if MN was hacked and usernames were linked to email addresses, then you've got a bunch of useful info about those people. I think that's fairly low risk but you never know. Some of the questions are the same or similar to security questions for online systems etc. name of first pet for example.
Second, and what I think this is, is AI bot traffic. Which will be for machine learning purposes. Or to drive traffic as MN sells advertising and will need engagement stats for that. Now I'm not saying it's MN doing this, to be clear, I think it's just machine learning bots.
Third, it's someone who is actually trying to identify another user. If they have suspicions and that particular user gives the right answers to the questions then they could be identified.
Lastly it's someone who is very very bored but also doesn't have anything interesting to talk about.

Does anyone know if you can just block a user so you can't see their posts anymore?

This is one very good reason for tweaking immaterial details: make your ds a dd, your DB a DSis etc ...

@Smallorveryfaraway no you can't block individual users, despite quite a few requests in the past. You can hide threads but not posters.

Some of the TRA political activists who are on and off (and around) Feminism:Sex & Gender Discussions (aka FWR) board have been open about wanting to identify posters on MN. A few do seem to be from tech backgrounds. Other boards have the odd ‘bad actor’, too.

Or it’s a social experiment of some sort.

Anyone who’s worried: de-register from MN, get yourself a free, ‘throwaway’ email address on somewhere like Proton, and/or a VPN, and then register if you want to. Also change username frequently.

Because it helps those who are innocently taken in

I’m almost certain it’s AI being trained. That should be incredibly alarming for everyone here, given proven Russian interference in our online public discourse.
if I were MN I’d be blocking that kind of nonsense.

They've been here for aaaages. Serial name-changer. Will sometimes revert to numbercolourbird type names.

It's my only 'hide thread' poster.

I call them the question plopper. Plop a question and then sit back and watch the replies come flooding in.

I have reported, but the only deletion is when they strayed into bereavement. Even MN could agree that is not a place for meaningless engagement, so they sacrificed the clicks in favour of deletion.

I do think there should be deletions for obvious disingenous posters tbf, but then...it would all be dustballs around here.

It isn’t, AI doesn’t need to ask people about their pets, it’s already trained on huge amounts of existing text from the internet.

It depends, could be a bit, could be someone home sick with nothing else to do. I’m shocked sometimes how much I’m on here on a day off!

Anyone care to explain what the problem is, please?

Ooh - news incoming..

A thread I've been looking at has just been hidden...

RTFT.🙂

Ditto....they are either clickbait threads or ignorant posters, either way, best ignored.

Maybe they're just lonely/bored and looking for interaction.

Just report it. Troll hunting is against the rules as well

They don't interact at all, that's the thing. Just start a thread and then never come back.

Genuine question. How would it be really easy?

I find this unsettling. These aren’t innocent questions and I’m sure most users here realize that, but a few won’t. These questions are designed to illicit answers that can be put together to break passwords or security questions - favourite school subject, middle name - did they ask for favourite number or names of childhood pets as well?

Yes, unfortunately many of us voluntarily give up a terrifying amount of information to have social media and use ready-built AI, but that doesn’t make it right or okay. If these posts are as you describe in this comment, I have to assume either MN knows this user well enough behind the scenes to say they’re not data harvesting OR they’re just ignoring obvious data harvesting. Very strange as it sounds like a bot trying to break usernames’ passwords. Could be someone testing an AI out?

On the ‘What is your maiden name’ thread, I replied it’s ‘Reported’.

Exact same thing happened to me the other day and I've been on x maybe about 3 times in years.