Just curious....do these questions that have recently posted in the last

couple of weeks feel AI to you? Maybe it's my imagination but they seem off for some reason.

Stephanie G
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9 Comments

Nancy May 15, 2023
Related issue - over the past weekend (May 13-14) someone has labelled about six or eight o of recent questions or comments here at "bot posts."

Example, in question "there are ingredients are missing" from May 9, which I answered the next day. On May 13, Whiteantlers (new member) called it a bot post.

As a result, some people aren't getting answers or are discrediting the answers provided by humans.

Could you please look into this?
 
Nicole D. May 15, 2023
Thank you for flagging this, Nancy. I'm addressing these posts now. —[email protected], Community Editor
 
Nancy May 15, 2023
Great, thanks!
 
702551 May 15, 2023
Contrary to what Nancy posted, the Whiteantlers account is *NOT* new. Why this previously quiet person suddenly started publicly flagging posts as bot submissions is a question that needs to be asked.

Brand new users posing poorly worded inquiries or asking nonsensical questions has been going on for several years with increasing regularity, not just here at Food52 but pretty much all Q&A forums.

Some of these questions are typical one-off "post and run" inquiries by a person who just wants a question (that frequently is better answered by a judicious search engine query) right now and will never contribute to the community. Sadly, the concept of netiquette (from the Internet of twenty years ago) is extinct. These people asking these questions never come back 24-48 hours later to thank respondents nor do they say what worked (or what didn't work).

Food52 shares the same challenges as all online services in the relentless degradation of community and thoughtful discourse. Not sure if anyone in the Food52 staff has the answers for this general problem. For sure, ignoring it won't make it go away.

Best of luck.
 
Nancy May 15, 2023
702551 - thanks for the correction.

(I mistook the sudden flurry of messages as an indication of joining.)
 
Nicole D. May 15, 2023
Hi 702551! I just joined Food52 as Community Editor last week, and I've begun to remove some of these misleading bot comments. In the process, I've been happily surprised by the quick responses back. For instance, a member who joined just a week ago to ask a question about sourdough starters responded immediately with a friendly thanks after I posted an answer. (https://food52.com/hotline/51760-sarah-said-she-put-a-little-white-starter-princes-in-all-the-batter-would-you-define-a-little-h). Netiquette is alive, though I agree it's changed over the years! —[email protected], Community Editor
 
702551 May 15, 2023
Acknowledgements with gratitude are an endangered species on the Internet. Hopefully Austin's rare thank you note marks a trend reversal here at Food52.

You registered at Food52 in 2016, you have seen the evolution of both this site and the Internet in general.

We all know that no one here can change the overall behavior of how the general population lives their daily lives, online or off. Online behavior has changed in the 30 years I've been online: a food Q&A forum isn't a particularly good place to hold a long discussion about this so I'll bow out of this here.

Best wishes to you in your new role here at Food52!
 
Stephanie G. May 11, 2023
I noticed a substanial increase in the number of questions on the hotline lately and they just seem too artificial. The content is relevant but the content seems inauthentic to me. Maybe I'm a bit of a skeptic but there has been an increase in the questions and they seem artificially generated to me.
 
Hi Stephanie, great question. We certainly want to keep the shared content relevant to the Food52 Community and are keeping an eye out for questions and comments that appear to be spam or AI populated! Feel free to contact us at [email protected] to report inappropriate messaging.
 
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