8

I'm just curious about why (not how) metasmoke and SmokeDetector can get reputation. Their profiles state that they are bots, but SmokeDetector even asked a question on Stack Overflow.

I thought bots aren't supposed to get reputation, like Community. The Community user does a lot of stuff but doesn't get any reputation for doing things such as randomly bumping old unanswered questions. I felt that this was ridiculous and a bit suspicious: How could a bot ask human questions on SE? What's going on here? Thanks!

Improve this question
6
  • 5
    Somewhat related: How should a bot earn enough reputation to perform the actions necessary for that bot? – Martin Oct 19 '20 at 18:54
  • @AntonMenshov Thanks, but my question was about how Smoke Detector was able to ask a question on Stack Overflow, since I thought that they were just computer programs on the SE servers, and I thought that it was ridiculous (and potentially suspicious) that Smokey could ask a question. I was also curious about how metasmoke could make edits if it were a bot. Thanks for all of the help! – Tech Expert Wizard Oct 19 '20 at 20:19
  • 1
    The dupe target is only related, not really a duplicate as to how is it possible for a bot account to have rep, is only to be deducted from that. – Luuklag Oct 19 '20 at 20:40
  • 1
    @TheTechExpertGuy it's listed in the revisions page. – Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating Oct 19 '20 at 20:47
  • 1
    You can see that in the timeline of your question @TheTechExpertGuy – Luuklag Oct 19 '20 at 20:47
  • 1
    Separately, they're not running on SE servers, they're hosted by members of the Charcoal project, who are just regular users (...well, almost all of them are moderators now, but that's not relevant to the hosting). – Ryan M Feb 16 at 10:13
18

Well, they're not really bots.
They are just regular user accounts, like yours and mine. So there was a user that at some point wrote this question, and manages these accounts. It is not illegal to have multiple accounts, as long as you abide by the rules.

For these accounts to have any use as "bots", they need to earn some reputation to be able to do the required interactions. They need to earn enough reputation to join chat, for example.

The Community user is a special type of account. It's already set apart by its curious userID, which is -1. This is really an account designed by the Stack Exchange team to handle all sort of routine processes and scripts. Other "bots" are simply "abused" regular users. There have been feature requests in the past to have a dedicated type of account especially for bots.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    Oh, thanks, I understand. Someone had to ask a good question to give the bot the reputation it needed to perform its functions, right? Thanks! – Tech Expert Wizard Oct 19 '20 at 18:57
  • 2
    Yes, other ways would be to suggest edits, but thats tedious. Asking a good question is the best approach IMHO, also see the question @Martin linked under your OP. – Luuklag Oct 19 '20 at 18:58
  • 2
    @TheTechExpertGuy my bot account here on MSE is an example for gaining rep from edits initially : meta.stackexchange.com/users/269324/… – rene Oct 19 '20 at 20:55

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .