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I'm relieved. It never occurred to me that horse_ebooks was a spam bot until I started reading other people stating with certainty that it is a spambot. It always struck me as a human posing as a spambot because it was too clever and poetic.

It also surprises me that so many people think we're more likely to encounter a legitimately clever spam bot than a clever human impersonating a spambot.



> It always struck me as a human posing as a spambot because it was too clever and poetic

I dunno, I've seen some pretty clever and poetic quotes from my own markov-chain powered IRC bot:

http://quotes.shishnet.org/quotes?search=MrCuddlemews

(#cuddles on darkmyst to poke him yourself; hilight by name or by starting a line with "@")

And the inspiration: http://www.jibble.org/montyquotes.php


I agree. The phrases consistently end in a way that is never completely resolved. See:

"In less than three weeks you can be looking at things differently, more creatively, if you"

"Why many people achieve very little despite spending most of their time"

"The interviews can be shorter since you would have many"


I only ever saw retweeted or starred tweets from it (as I quit direct twitter a while back, deciding instead to view it only through Stellar).

I had assumed that what I saw was a tiny proportion of tweets — those that were funny and/or poetic. If I'd know they all were than I'm sure I would have never thought it was a bot.




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