AO3 Comment Bots

Related terms:	AO3, Commenting, AI Generated Content
See also:	Harassment, troll
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Bots and spam have been seen in the comments sections of fanworks or otherwise 'interacting' with fanworks on Archive of Our Own for many years, but there was a noticeable increase from around 2021 onward, first with bots that came to be referred to as kudos bots, followed by more sophisticated comment bots than had previously been present. The latter became more prevalent from 2023.

The cause of the increase remains unclear, but elements such as AO3 becoming much better known outside of more traditional fan circles and the accessibility of tools to assist in building bots, such as those making use of generative AI, have been posited as contributing factors, especially as AI tools were mentioned in some spam comments.

Comment bot types

There have been varying types of comment bots on AO3 fanworks over the years, but some can be broadly grouped under being similar types.

Nonsense or copy-paste spam with links

Like the majority of internet spaces where guest commenting was an option, AO3 comments sections had seen instances of the more traditional spam comments that people were used to seeing on the internet, such as those either with identical copy-pasted text or a random string of letters followed by a link, often created with a url shortener. These links often led to malicious websites, with the shortened url being used to disguise comments.

Praise bots

Praise bots promoting a website

Some bot comments opened with something complementary about the fanwork — usually offering praise that was broad enough that it could be applied to many fanworks — and then directed the creator of the work to go to a website, upload their fanwork to another website, or join a Discord server. Webnovel was a regular platform amongst these comments, so much so that as the bots attempted to get around filters of the word, the name would become spelt out using alternatives for letters to try and bypass the filter. Eventually, the words Webnovel and Discord were dropped from a number of the comments, likely due to their presence leading to the comments being filtered out automatically.

Generic praise bots

There were also a large number of bot comments left on fanworks from 2023 onwards which were generic praising commentary of fanworks which did not have urls or suggestions to join other platforms. The purpose of these comments was less clear; some felt it was an attempt to test AO3's spam filters or settings ahead of a more malicious bot campaign, while others wondered if someone had made an original praise bot with good intentions without considering the consequences.

Comments are typically 1-3 sentences of vague, broad praise which could be applicable to a wide range of different fanfics, left by guest commenters. Initially, the guest comment names were quite recognisable as being 'bot-like' such as MrJohnBrown.1654 or Dr-DianeSmith_2022, but over time people noticed that the guest commenters were using actual AO3 users names instead of their more generic guest names. Comments about praise bots on the subreddit r/AO3 became so common that a quick-response was set up that could be called by a user in the comments section to explain the praise bot:

Hey OP! This is an automated response because your post may be about the newest praise bots to hit AO3. If it is not, please ignore this comment. If it is, here is what you need to know about these bots and how to discern the difference between what is a bot comment and what is a real comment.

These bot comments have only been guest comments. They use a variety of names, ranging from something formal like MisterJohnSmith-92, or Doctor-Jane_Smith92, but they have also been seen copying actual usernames from people on AO3 as well.

The comments, while positive, are also quite generic and not personal to the work they were left on. They may also be out of context. For example, they may say things like, “I’m rooting for these characters,” and your story’s characters are implied to be dead. Or, “This made me smile,” on a fic that is pure angst with no happy ending.

The comments are also quite vague and can be applied to most if not all works. For example, the bot may say, “This deserves all recognition,” or “This is pure genius, I’m in awe of your world-building.” The purpose of these bots is unknown at this time, though there have been many theories. Here are some things you can do to prevent them going forward:

• Lock your works so that only registered users can see your works.

• Lock your comments so that only registered users can comment.

• Turn on comment moderation.

• Mark these comments as spam when you see them so you can help train AO3’s spam filters to recognize these comments as spam in the future. Additionally, this is not to say that every guest comment is a bot comment nor is it saying that every short “generic” praise is a bot. Use your best judgement. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide how you would like to handle these comments.

AutoModerator summoned by !praisebot on r/AO3 

The response to the praise bots varied. Some authors felt despondent about getting comments only to ultimately find out they weren't from real people, others were annoyed that AO3 was being used to mess with authors, and others took amusement from how at odds the praise was compared to the story being commented on.

[Otherwise_Notice6421]
A bot commented about how heart warming my fic was....boy, everyone died and was stuck helpless as the earth around them shattered. How is that heart warming??

[Pure_ad_8647]

Maybe that's what bots want

Some readers and commenters also expressed concerns that the way they commented on works seemed similar to the praise bots, and became anxious that their genuine comments would be seen as being spam.

AI Use Accusation Bots

Some bot comments made accusations towards the author using generative text AI tools to write their fanworks. These seemed to come about around the time that discussions about AI generated content on AO3 were most prevalent and there was a lot of frustration and annoyance over generative AI in creative spaces. The comments seemed to start out as single sentence accusations of the author using AI to write their work, such as 'ChatGPT patterns detected' and discussions of it became widespread on the AO3 subreddit on 1st April 2023, leading some to wonder if it was an April Fools troll.

The comments then seemed to change to trying to promote so-called 'AI detection' tools, encouraging AO3 users to put fanworks through an AI detector to be able to conclude if it was written by a person or not. This seemed to be an attempt to feed more material into the AI tools in question, where the text would be used to train the tool.

Abusive Comment Bots

Another type of comment bot was one that posted generic, vague hate comments to a large number of works in a short space of time. Like the praise bot, the comments were so broad that they could be applied to fanfic in almost any fandom.

I realise that many folks won't see this. But on the off chance this helps someone, there is a negative comment bot doing the rounds at the moment. Comments are generic, two sentences in length, and tend to be things like:

"It's like you didn't even try. This is beyond awful" or

"You've single-handly lowered the bar for fanfiction. This is a new low, even for amateur writing" or

"This fanfic is proof that not everyone should be allowed to write. It's that bad."

Mark them as spam so that AO3 can start filtering them out.

Serious_Session7574 

Impact on fan spaces and fan commentary

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Discussions and Meta

• [Question] I am fairly new to AO3 (bit over a year), and these bot comments started popping up on my recent work. Why do these happen?, r/AO3, 15 June 2023, ^{Archived version}