I asked on mavii if they have mavii bots posting posting on forums and the answer was yes.
Btw, the other thread started by this user is about immersion blenders.
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Perhaps the bot discussion could be split off into it’s own thread? I, for one, could stand to educate myself more about spotting bots and dealing with them, and a thermometer thread is not the best place for it! Not to mention that a question about choosing a meat thermometer is legitimate and probably shouldn’t be bogged down with all the bot stuff.
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That discussion exists here:
AFAIK, things haven’t changed since the last post from 2024. If you suspect bot activity, flag & alert the mods & let them deal with it.
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There is a separate discussion in the Site Discussion section. But it doesn’t have an identifiable title which includes the word bot. It is just called something like ‘wondering about this post’.
I suppose this raises the ethical question: even though discussions about the best meat thermometer or immersion blender are legitimate, would you be happy to be feeding free data to a bot in an AI information farm that it will then use without your consent for clicks and possibly for the profit of individuals controlling the bots?
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Thanks, I’ll have to read it. All I can say for now is that I was wondering why one poster was so doggedly accusing another of being a bot and what were the tells, because I didn’t see any red flags.
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No, I would not. That’s why I need to raise my game a little. Maybe a lot. Thanks.
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This thread has some information on how to spot bots, I think
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I linked that very discussion in my reply to @ricepad 
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Well that very same user assumed @CCE and I were cashing in on sharing gift links… bc we don’t have any friends or some such. It didn’t make any sense, and it’s gone now.
I suspected the OP to possibly be a bot, but as I stated in the discussion I linked, flagging & alerting the mods is preferred over randomly yelling at users.
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So you did!
(was immediately obvious to me as well, and I flagged, but I work with this technology in my own work, so.)
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I used to have a patient in the early 90’s I called “the downloader”. I can’t clearly recall the state of the Internet at the time, but I remember he brought in reams of dot matrix printouts.
Seems like what he found was more reliable than what is out there now
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It’s helpful to me to see this stated clearly and plainly.
And as the bots get more sophisticated, I welcome the info that helps me understand how to spot them. Which is to say: Thanks for sharing your insights @medgirl and @ElsieDee.
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AFAIK the mods prefer this to be everyone’s MO — not just with suspicious posts, but also contentious posts. Instead of engaging we are supposed to flag & alert the mods.
Keeps the site clean, friendly, and welcoming to old and new users alike
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that poster has very similar questions about smart lights, kitchen cookers on numerous other sites.
it is a bot, no question about it.
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Back in the early 90’s, certainly before the World Wide Web, all that was available to me was through Compuserve: PubMed (part of the database maintained by NIH)- and it cost money to search and to download. Of course, it’s a prime source but you really had to know how to research - a skill that’s no longer necessary when Dr. TIkTok has office hours all the time.
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I was wondering about that! I remember being on a CompuServe listserv around that time.
ETA If we can still talk about thermometers, my oven checking thermometer was wrong when the actual. oven temp was right!
I checked with a few of my collection.
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Inkbird Waterproof Instant Read Thermometer is excellent and under $25. I check it frequently in ice water and boiling water-- fast and accurate. I prefer it to the Thermapen despite it not being as fancy. I also have a Thermoworks Smoke which measures oven temp and internal temp simultaneously with multiple probes and a wireless component. I doubt I ever need anything else.
