# Best practices dealing with Spam users and GPT reply posts

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-dealing-with-spam-users-and-gpt-reply-posts/272525>\
**Category:** Community Building\
**Created:** [July 22, 2023, 10:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-dealing-with-spam-users-and-gpt-reply-posts/272525 "2023-07-22T22:38:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![merefield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/merefield/32/176214_2.png) [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2023, 4:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-dealing-with-spam-users-and-gpt-reply-posts/272525/3 "2023-07-23T04:30:18Z")

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> [@simon](#):
>
> The most obvious motivation I can think of for generating a post like the one in your screenshot is to gain some trust on the site in order to post spam links in the future

Exactly this.

There almost certainly has to be some agenda, even if it is not yet obvious.

> [@simon](#):
>
> it might be worth changing the value of your site’s `min trust to post links` setting from the setting’s default value of trust level 0 to either trust level 1 or 2

I recently had a user that was quite convincing and made it all the way to Trust Level 2 before becoming blatant about their product promotion, having just hinted originally.

The trust level link setting is useful and dodgy accounts will start to suggest people search for xyz via google in lieu of being able to post links: another red flag.

Sometimes you just have to wait until the amount of evidence mounts up to be sufficiently sure to ban an account.

Unfortunately delaying action does mean the clean up operation is more work later on.

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