Be on the Lookout for AI Bots in Our Forums and Our DM's

[pmmg]

Well, writers are not known for being rich but they are after money. Maybe they want to steal a written story but…. If i cant sell it, neither can they. Maybe they’d do me a favor. Plus, they can just steal my story from KDP and i would never know.

Just say no. It the only practical policy.

 

[ThinkerX]

In my (painfully gleaned) experience, they are after fees for their fake book club, optimization, reviewers, or whatnot. The best will put forth just enough effort to keep the fees rolling in.

Big giveaways: They will insist on bank transfers or extremely suspect PayPal accounts. The Nigerian ones are fond of words like 'kindly.'

 

[pmmg]

Ah...they got their hooks into you once?

I've been zapped by things in my life, but so far, not a book scammer.

 

[ThinkerX]

Ah...they got their hooks into you once?

I've been zapped by things in my life, but so far, not a book scammer.

Twice, to my shame. I was naive and they were expert manipulators, proving the illusion of progress.

I almost lost my Facebook because of one, but I did get the wensite and a few reviews from the other.

 

[pmmg]

Live and learn, without mistakes, we cant really do that.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

You guys know I've said for years that no one is going to steal our work? Yeah. These guys are not only after the money in our pockets, they want our WIPs and finished manuscripts. Why? Because they want to publish our work as theirs and get the money. Sometimes they will change titles and names and that makes them harder to find, but it gets better. When we do get to where we're ready to publish, Amazon refuses the upload because they already have the book, but now you get to prove it's yours.

 

[Karlin]

I've had Festus, who was stupid, and rose1, who was slightly more convincing

 

[Diana Silver]

In my (painfully gleaned) experience, they are after fees for their fake book club, optimization, reviewers, or whatnot. The best will put forth just enough effort to keep the fees rolling in.

Big giveaways: They will insist on bank transfers or extremely suspect PayPal accounts. The Nigerian ones are fond of words like 'kindly.'

Oh, that sucks! I'm sorry this happened to you, and thank you for sharing!

 

[SamazonE]

They are like most monsters. Their weakness is waffles and plastic.

 

[cornu aspersum]

precious thomas.

 

[pmmg]

Talk about failing to read the room.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Six new members joined all on Monday alone. I'm willing to bet they all might be bots.

 

[Mad Swede]

And now we have the next oneSheilawisz: precious thomas

 

[ThinkerX]

And now we have the next oneSheilawisz: precious thomas

From the Nigerian group. They are fond of quasi-religious names.

 

[skip.knox]

You guys know I've said for years that no one is going to steal our work? Yeah. These guys are not only after the money in our pockets, they want our WIPs and finished manuscripts. Why? Because they want to publish our work as theirs and get the money. Sometimes they will change titles and names and that makes them harder to find, but it gets better. When we do get to where we're ready to publish, Amazon refuses the upload because they already have the book, but now you get to prove it's yours.

I for one would be astonished if pirates could sell my books. I certainly can't!

But I do take the point that if I give a WIP and the pirate publishes, then at Amazon--and presumably D2D--would reject my genuine book as the duplicate. That would be beyond disheartening. I would never hand an unpublished manuscript to anyone I did not know, so it's not a problem for me, but thank you A.E. Lowan for reminding us all of this danger.

 

[pmmg]

I can point the Ban Hammer where it needs to go, but I can't actually ban anyone myself. My job is a little different. So, I'm really not sure how this will be addressed, but address it we will.

Incidentally, why dont you have this ability? I think you would be fine with the Mod tools.

When I look at the staff of MS, there are a lot of members who are mods, and they have not been here for years. Probably the staff could be cleaned up a little.