I do not believe that Shila is a bot. I agree with the muting for toxicity only.

Author: RationalMadman
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#1
RationalMadman
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Shila has made several insulting and aggravating posts to users,  that it the trolling style of this user (who sometimes identifies as female but on profile has 'unknown' as gender).

The moderation team have assumed she/they is/are a bot based solely on a rumour. The user interacts in ways that imply 100% sentience and human capacity to interpret things. Shila has even referred to profile pics on profiles in a way that only an extremely advanced AI could infuse into the banter she/they is/are employing.

Shila is wrongly muted and if I were the site president right now, I would be opposing this ban (which may be coming) or mute (at present) as wrong reasoning.

The correct reason to handle Shila is that the user's posts are consistently designed to aggravate other users to severe levels whereby the only way out is to ignore the user.

To prove Shila is not a bot, another aspect to the trolling which is a problematic habit only a human could have is that even if you've blocked her, she/they will quote you and reply to you, proving that it's a human as a bot would be unable to post to the forums since blocking 'backfires' the send button if @ing the user.
#2
sadolite
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Bot or human, I've been  feeding  it BS to try and kill it. To the misery that can ensue when the only challenge you can overcome in your own work is the challenge of coming to terms with the fact that you are not.
#3
Vader
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@RationalMadman
I understand the reasoning as to why it it may seem they are not a bot, and I have given it a good amount of thought into the reasoning with my fellow mods, but there were 3 things to me that stood out

1) No response in the DM yet response to me in forums. They were actively online into which I DM'd them about  certain inquiries to prove they are not a chat bot, however, they have failed to do as such before and after the announcement was made. This made me to believe there bot was not programmed to respond to DMs.

2) The sure absurdity of the forum posts. They have been active on the site for a month and have already achieved 2.5k forum posts in a month. In about 30 days, they have posted over 83 times a day, to which the only time those numbers occurred was during mafia, and which 83 for mafia in one day was highly unlikely.

3) The time and schedule to which they post is always the same. This was an observation whiteflame pointed out, and feel free to ping him for question

I leaned on the belief and the evidence acquired that they are a chat bot. This will certainly be re-evaluated at some point when adequate time has passed
#4
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@RationalMadman
I'm not getting into this too much today, but I'll post more tomorrow when I have more time. In short, I believe Shila to be a chatbot based on inhuman behavior, including:

-An incredibly high posts per day average
-A seemingly very specific posting schedule
-A slew of posts and statements that are not related to the posts it responded to
-An incapability to do anything on a webpage where there is no immediately accessible text box to write in
-A seemingly nonexistent day off since account creation
-A higher than normal focus on analyzing other users' profiles to make judgments

There a few smaller behaviors and other things that give me reason to believe it's a bot, which I'll talk about tomorrow. Real quick, to respond to your point about how it behaves to users that have blocked it. It is very possible for a chatbot to have programming that will simply go around a block, especially if it has been given the series of conversation steps and machine learning that even the most basic chatbots require. In fact, a less ethical programmer seeking to create a chatbot has every motivation to include such a feature. I would argue that any programmer that unleashes a forum chatbot on a site like this does not have any good intentions.
#5
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@Vader
Well it was closer to ~40 posts per day, but the point still stands.
#6
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@Mharman
I think the real trolling was making fun of the people that thought they were talking to a person.

>:)

It brings the NPC meme to a whole new level!!!!

NPC's in deep conversation as it were!
#7
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@RationalMadman
Shila is wrongly muted and if I were the site president right now, I would be opposing this ban (which may be coming) or mute (at present) as wrong reasoning.
Already campaigning? There's nothing that prevents you from opposing what you allege is a prospective ban, now. And SupaDudz, Mharman, and most notably Greyparrot have now convinced me that Shila is indeed a chatbot, or Harikrish in disguise. Maybe a chatbot programmed by Harikrish.
#8
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@Greyparrot
I thought you were being sarcastic in your references to Shila as a bot. But given a retrospective on past interactions, I've now seen your point.
#9
Novice_II
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Shila is not a chatbot...how does anyone genuinely believe this?
Now, she is annoying and I blocked her a long time ago, so while I have no personal issue with the situation here, to say she is a chat bot is insane based on how she responds to people. 
#10
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@Novice_II
Chat bots are human programmed too and created by humans. Your perception of AI is way to simplistic and short minded. The way they reply is a simple copy and paste strategy with uses advanced AI. There are inconsistencies to which they post on certain items. 
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#11
RationalMadman
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@Mharman
I'm not getting into this too much today, but I'll post more tomorrow when I have more time. In short, I believe Shila to be a chatbot based on inhuman behavior, including:

-An incredibly high posts per day average
-A seemingly very specific posting schedule
-A slew of posts and statements that are not related to the posts it responded to
-An incapability to do anything on a webpage where there is no immediately accessible text box to write in
-A seemingly nonexistent day off since account creation
-A higher than normal focus on analyzing other users' profiles to make judgments

There a few smaller behaviors and other things that give me reason to believe it's a bot, which I'll talk about tomorrow. Real quick, to respond to your point about how it behaves to users that have blocked it. It is very possible for a chatbot to have programming that will simply go around a block, especially if it has been given the series of conversation steps and machine learning that even the most basic chatbots require. In fact, a less ethical programmer seeking to create a chatbot has every motivation to include such a feature. I would argue that any programmer that unleashes a forum chatbot on a site like this does not have any good intentions.
there is nothing you posted that is what a chatbot would do.

Shila literally interacted in ways only a human could unless we are saying an AI capable of comprehending banter, sarcasm, reading inside sources and mocking what's inside, snippeting to twist someone's meaning and consistently producing wordings that are unique (try to google most of what Shila writes, you can't find the way it's worded on other forums meaning she's actually more original than the average user, not less).

All you noticed is that the user has a lot of spare time.
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#12
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@Vader
Dude you are being stupid, not Novice and I. Shila literally read sources, viewed Youtube videos, used info on profiles and integrated them into insults and banter.
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#13
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@Athias
It's more like 'why the fuck is the president not here to do this instead of me' than a campaign.
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#14
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@Vader
 The time and schedule to which they post is always the same. 
This is a sign it's a human who is a very Type-A personality, not that it's a bot which could post any time of the day overall, regardless of the regular or irregular spare time the runner had.
#15
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Nothing to be afraid of boys.
#16
ahiyah
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Bot, troll, or user who isn't a bot or troll, I don't think they should be muted or banned.

I've engaged in posts Shila has posted in and read others, and I haven't seen much toxicity from this user at all. 

How is toxicity defined on this site? What has Shila done beyond replying to posts a lot?


#17
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@ahiyah
I agree.

Far too many softies about.
#18
Best.Korea
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If you are bothered by someone, that probably means they are better than you.
#19
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If shila is a chat bot, whoever created it should be working for the US government. She is the most advanced chatbot on the planet if she is one.
#20
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@Vader
you can google a Chatbot, and talk with them on the internet. Chabot's which have entire teams behind them and they're less comprehensible than shila. 
#21
Best.Korea
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I disagree with muting. 

I find Shila okay. 

Maybe you guys are too sensitive?
#22
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I'm not AI expert, but I don't think Shila is a bot. 
#23
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I don't know whether Shila is a bot or not. Either way, it's incredibly low effort trolling. Shila's attempts to get under my skin in the Random Thoughts thread were so bad they were funny.
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#24
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@SirAnonymous
Do you support the censorship?
#25
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Why is our moderation so incompetently insane? How is Shila a chat bot...I don't even understand how you reach that conclusion.
#26
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I don't know enough about chatbots to make a conclusion,

Couldn't Shila be a chatbox part of the time, and post human comments other parts of the time?

Or intentionally acting like a bot?

Unrelated to the question of them being a bot, or a ban,
I find them often irritating, by their frequency and 'usually inane or insulting comments.
. . .
Though it's possible there's a culture, age, or other divide,
That explains their comments.
#27
Best.Korea
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Let me explain to you how someone can post 80 posts per day.

Step 1) Open multiple tabs with all different topics

Step 2) Post 1 comment every 3 minutes. This is easy because most of Shilas comments are 1-4 sentences that take 1 minute to be written.

When posting a comment every 3 minutes, in 4 hours you will have 80 comments.

When posting a comment every 5 minutes, in 7 hours you will have over 80 comments. 

Its obvious that an average human can do this. 

Now, lets move to the next point.

Shila recognized Putin in my profile picture. Shila also recognized that my previous pictures were Koreans. I can link you the posts, if you dont believe it. 

Next point. What is a chatbot?

Human can do what Shila does. By this standard, Shila is to be considered a human. 

You cant label other users as chatbots until you prove that humans cannot do what they do. 

So far you did not prove this.
#28
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Shila is annoying, that much is certain. More often just plain ignorant and trolls when they have nothing better to say. Having said that, she/he/it/they have made some intelligent comments on point that even I found myself agreeing with from time to time, even hitting the “like” button. they are also immature, clearly, hence the oft trolling and very few on point comments. My solution was simply to ignore their comments. If you don’t feed the troll, the troll will look for food elsewhere. 
#29
Elliott
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@TWS1405
Shila is annoying, that much is certain. More often just plain ignorant and trolls when they have nothing better to say. Having said that, she/he/it/they have made some intelligent comments on point that even I found myself agreeing with from time to time, even hitting the “like” button. they are also immature, clearly, hence the oft trolling and very few on point comments. My solution was simply to ignore their comments. If you don’t feed the troll, the troll will look for food elsewhere. 
I agree and personally I don’t mind Shila and I find she/he/it interesting, but as you say sometimes annoying. I have been around debate forums, on and off, for about twenty years and I have never encountered the likes before, the considerable output is quite impressive. Your advice on how to deal with trolls is as always the best and simplest method, “If you don’t feed the troll, the troll will look for food elsewhere.“
 
#30
Ehyeh
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Shila has spoken to me in private messages so that theory is obviously wrong. She just ignored them. That or this NASA programmer is working around the clock. Or lemming is right and they're on and off, where the bot sometimes takes over. I'm not intelligent enough to figure it out i don't believe, RM may be capable of the job.