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Occasionally I go into chatrooms designed for testing bots and have a play around with them. Then I leave. The problem I sometimes have is receiving nonsense pings at random intervals. For example this set of messages had several pings with no other messages in between.

Is it ever appropriate to flag chatbot pings as spam and if so, how long after you stop being active?

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  • 1
    Doesn't leaving the room make you unpingable? Sep 16, 2016 at 18:59
  • You know what, I'm not sure. I'd hope not because I'd want to be able to be pinged when I'm not in a room
    – muddyfish
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:02
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    @Gothdo if you posted in the room even a single message, you'll be pingable for whole week every time you visit the room, even if you leave the room after a second. Sep 16, 2016 at 19:32

2 Answers 2

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The problem I sometimes have is receiving nonsense pings at random intervals.

If you enter a room used by bots for testing stuff, the bots cease their opportunity to test their functionality. One of the bots pings members of the room. You (deliberately?) entered the room, so you get then pings. Maybe ask the bot-owner if you can opt-out of that, you can assist with testing once pushed ;)

Is it ever appropriate to flag chatbot pings as spam.

Never. Don't bring more work to moderators due to some test with a bot failing. If the bot is abusive in a normal operation, then it can be handled as any inappropriate message.

how long after you stop being active?

After you pressed the leave link you will be pingable for seven days. Just wait it out but don't enter that room again because then another 7 days of pings is waiting for you.

You can determine if you're pingable by running this in the Developer Console of your webbrowser:

$.get('http://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/rooms/pingable/721', 
      function(d) {
         for(var i=0;i<d.length;i++){ 
           console.log(d[i][1] + ' ' + new Date(d[i][2]*1000).toString() ); 
         }
      });

Where you have to change the url to the chatserver you're on and 721 to the room number you're interested in

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  • You sure its 7 days? this links says 48 hours: meta.stackexchange.com/a/268007/215067
    – Ferrybig
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:04
  • @Ferrybig I thought the 48 hours was for how long you remain in the pingable list that pops up when you try to @- a user. Beyond that 48 hours it won't autocomplete but you still get the notifcation. But that might have changed
    – rene
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:08
  • @Ferrybig looks like it is 7 days, based on testing in the Den.
    – rene
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:50
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I'm going to disagree with rene's answer, at least on the part about flagging as spam.

In this case, the bot responded to the same message multiple times in rapid succession. (Rapid, in this case, is defined as appearing in the same monologue div). If a user were to do this to three separate users, I'd fully expect the user to be scolded and/or flagged. This type of activity was discussed in a previous post


On another note, I'm not sure what this bot is testing, but the multiple "I'm not a jew" messages don't bode well for this bot's future. That's going to raise flags all over the place - whether they are justified or not.

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  • I was also going to question that but again I'm not sure on the policy for bots
    – muddyfish
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:12
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    There are no special rules for bots. They should be treated like any other user on the network. If a user couldn't do it, a bot can't either.
    – Andy
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:14
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    Are you saying that as a user I'm not allowed to send multiple message in a short time, despite that I stay within the throttle limit imposed by the system? And if I do so i get flagged? Let's try it ...
    – rene
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:21
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    I'm saying annoy users at your own risk.
    – Andy
    Sep 16, 2016 at 19:45

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