Suspicious followers on publishing websites (like fiction press, AO3 etc)

[pokeking123]

i have facebook! should i be messaging everyone on there to collab?

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I have experienced the same on another site. Posted a short story & had some really nice compliments immediately from 4 or 5 "people," but each of them also offered their services to illustrate my cover art and/or turn my story into a "graphic novel." That would be difficult to do, given that it is less than 3,000 words.

Yeah, the most common one I get is " Hello, I'm x and I am an artist who does commissions, I read your story and everything is just SO lovely I had to contact you out of the blue and give you my credentials! I want to hopefully work with you in much success' lol

I mean I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point, they're generally written in such a way that even *I* can tell it's a scam.

I might be more tempted to take the bait if they had described the work in any amount of detail (They never do) or perhaps talked about their favorite characters and moments in the story (also something they never do) but most of the time they don't. And the times that they do do it it smells of 'written by a bot' due to never mentioning any actual details of the story or characters. Just vague lavish praise.

The thing that really throws me off? The majority of my (currently posted) projects on fiction press AND AO3 are either incomplete or abandoned due to burnout, or both. So even if they did read the story, there wouldn't be a full story for them to publish. I'm not posting the five projects I'm working on currently anywhere (except maybe here for feedback) until I'm close to completion or even completely done so I can have a regular upload schedule.

 

[Michael Terrance]

Sounds like you have a strategy in place to attract readers and keep their interest; that's great. I've only just returned to writing after a very long time, but I am really just doing it for enjoyment, and as a way to engage with my daughter (she is an avid writer, and I'm writing a story with her).

 

[pmmg]

It is amazing, the number of people who think that just cause I wrote a book, I must want to give them my money. Um.........had to check again, the answer is still no.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

It is amazing, the number of people who think that just cause I wrote a book, I must want to give them my money. Um.........had to check again, the answer is still no.

I do want to publish a book at some point but I kinda...need to finish a project first to do that lol
That being said I am not giving money to obvious scams.

Sounds like you have a strategy in place to attract readers and keep their interest; that's great. I've only just returned to writing after a very long time, but I am really just doing it for enjoyment, and as a way to engage with my daughter (she is an avid writer, and I'm writing a story with her).

I'm mostly writing for myself (which is one of the reasons it takes me so long to finish anything lol) so I want to have a good number of chapters ready to go even if like, the 'entire' thing isn't complete yet. Though for one project I'd probably want to have all the chapters done so I can just schedule uploads

 

[The Dark One]

I notice here on Mythic Scribes, that the number of guests viewing us is up in the 500's, as if 500 non-logged in accounts are reading our message boards. That used to be a lot lower, closer to 50, and sometimes just in the teens. This changed with AI became a thing. So, I suspect its just 450 bots and a small number of RL People. But...it is noticeable.

I've said before that there are are handful of new members over the last year or so that don't seem like real people the way they talk/ask questions. And keep asking similar questions.

On another writers' forum I've seen discussions of bot forumites which ask similar generic questions which (apparently) are designed to scrape together a bunch of advice designed to create a "how to" writing book for sale.

Very sad if true.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I've said before that there are are handful of new members over the last year or so that don't seem like real people the way they talk/ask questions. And keep asking similar questions.

On another writers' forum I've seen discussions of bot forumites which ask similar generic questions which (apparently) are designed to scrape together a bunch of advice designed to create a "how to" writing book for sale.

Very sad if true.

*slowly raises hand* know that I at least am not a bot lol (even though I fall into that category sometimes on here of asking generic questions)

 

[The Dark One]

*slowly raises hand* know that I at least am not a bot lol (even though I fall into that category sometimes on here of asking generic questions)

That's exactly what a bot would say...

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

That's exactly what a bot would say...

Code red beep boop activating post deletion protocol beep boop /j

 

[pmmg]

"Intruder alert, intruder alert"
...Catch the intruder...

 

[Devor]

I've said before that there are are handful of new members over the last year or so that don't seem like real people the way they talk/ask questions. And keep asking similar questions.

I'll speak to that. There were two accounts that we believe were being run by a real person from a specific country, who was using AI to run the two accounts, but didn't intend any harm by it. Black Dragon spoke with them. I don't have the specifics, but I haven't seen either of the two accounts in a while.

If you believe an account is being run by AI, please ask yourself, "Am I sure? Is it just this one post or is it multiple posts?" and if so, please quietly report it. Just, don't make it a witch hunt.

 

[Prince of Spires]

If you believe an account is being run by AI, please ask yourself, "Am I sure? Is it just this one post or is it multiple posts?" and if so, please quietly report it. Just, don't make it a witch hunt.

Do keep in mind that non-native speakers tend to get labelled as AI faster (at least by AI detection software). And that it's reasonably likely that some non-native speakers are actually using AI to translate their posts. Which can make them genuine accounts but still have them sound like AI...

 

[Devor]

Do keep in mind that non-native speakers tend to get labelled as AI faster (at least by AI detection software). And that it's reasonably likely that some non-native speakers are actually using AI to translate their posts. Which can make them genuine accounts but still have them sound like AI...

Right. We really do not want a witch hunt. And, reporting a post does not mean we’re going to go ban them, unless it’s like spam. It means we’ll look at it, check the IP, maybe talk with them. We don’t want bots, but we also have not developed a policy on using AI here, and that will depend on what kind of cases we actually see.

I think I can safely say, please do not post fantasy writing that written by AI. Nobody wants to spend their time here reading or critiquing that stuff.