Popularity Depends on How You Define It: How 700 RSS Bot Posts Took Over DEV's Community Hub π€π₯
Dhruv Jani on November 05, 2026
A few days ago, I opened the Forem mobile app and navigated over to the Community Hub (/community) π±.
Naturally, you expect the "Popular Community...
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
AI testing storyteller. Writing the 36 Stratagems series β ancient Chinese military tactics meet modern AI system meltdowns. 16yr QA β building AI test framework.
Bro, this is amazing! There are tons of accounts spamming bulk posts nonstop. As someone with a compulsion to clear notification red dots and a likingβforβlikes habit, I was honestly getting overwhelmed. Congrats on fixing the issue and gaining great insights along the way!π
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Yeah really!
I mean 720, 250, 350 these are like insane numbers!
Nobody can type this much! I really wanted to fix this issue to ensure atleast we don't give spotlight to bots.
AI testing storyteller. Writing the 36 Stratagems series β ancient Chinese military tactics meet modern AI system meltdowns. 16yr QA β building AI test framework.
Totally agree, those volumes are clearly impossible for human writers. Itβs such a meaningful fix to keep real creators visible! As a QA person, I can easily imagine how many edge cases you needed to cover for this ranking logic. Have a good one ποΈππ
This is absolutely fantastic! You're addressing the problem that has been driving me crazy. Like I don't even know what's real anymore.
I'm really tired of reading comments that are apparently written by bots. This platform is amazing, but it also has this problem that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
Hey, I'm Hema π
Developer, writer, and creator of Dev Opportunity Radar, a weekly series published every Friday on DEV, helping people discover opportunities they might otherwise miss.
Bhai, seriously, thanks a lot for fixing this! Seeing actual people who put real effort into writing finally get highlighted instead of random spam bots feels like a huge win π
Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Hey Dhruv! I actually saw you contribute to this in real time! Good work on getting this in!
I do recommend to making it span over 6 months than having it in a single month. I am not sure if this is the use case, but there can be cases where a user makes a lot of posts and all of them are bot engagements. Something you might need to consider (not sure if you cover that already).
Otherwise, good work and thanks for the mention :D
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Actually Sir @francistrdev, that's the thing. Bot posts are RSS feeds for which you don't need to go to dev.to to create post.
So in short I removed those posts into popularity consideration which were RSS feed posts and were from flagged users.
Also, keeping it in month helps cause over span of 6 months people can have a lot of posts and I've seen people post like 3 times a week. And we definitely want quality stats of posts for popularity.
But we can have something like popularity leaderboard for fun! But that'll probably ruin the fun of interactions and everyone will be posting, commenting for the sake of it.
Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Ahh that makes sense! I don't think we need a leaderboard, though it's an idea.
Did you also have a use case where popularity is also based on the number of gems you have? I mention this because I notice that it does also count into your visibility as you become trustworthy.
That could help with the 6 month extension since it contributes to it and since it can't be rigged, according to @ben, I think it should work and would solve most cases. Unless the team chooses a Curator that turns out to be a bot, that's our fault lol.
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Senior Full-Stack Developer and a Community Curator on DEV!
"α΄ κ±α΄α΄α΄α΄Κ κ±α΄α΄ Ι΄α΄α΄ α΄Κ α΄α΄α΄ α΄ α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚΚα΄α΄ κ±α΄ΙͺΚα΄Κ" - κ°Κα΄Ι΄α΄ΚΙͺΙ΄ α΄ . Κα΄α΄κ±α΄α΄ α΄Κα΄
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
π€ 779 posts in a month. Almost zero reactions. And somehow, that's what popularity looked like.
What started as a random visit to DEV's Community Hub turned into a rabbit hole involving RSS bots, ActiveRecord, PostgreSQL query plans, and a rather unexpected 4.4x performance regression in my first attempted fix.
The best part? The final solution wasn't just about filtering bots. It was about understanding what the database was actually doing under the hood.
Huge thanks to @mikeydorje Sir who reviewed and helped get the fix merged into Forem! π€
Now I'm curious: Have you ever found a leaderboard, ranking system, or popularity metric being completely gamed by automation? I'd love to hear the story!
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Na I meant, "Diwali" is on Sunday. Since its a 5 day festival, today is what we call in Gujarat: ΰͺ ΰͺΰͺΏΰͺ―ΰͺΎΰͺ°ΰͺΈ
But the festival and vacations have started!
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Here, we're celebrating Gyaras and I think(can be wrong) We cook rice but not khichdi during Diwali.
Tomorrow is dhanteras probably, cause its like 2 tithi are together on some day. Probably Baras and dhanteras tomorrow or Gyaras and baras today. But today is definitely Gyaras and tomorrow is dhanteras, Baras comes in between but doesn't stay for a whole day! and Chaudash on satursay and finally Diwali on Sunday.
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
Upcoming Trainee Engineer @ Simform π
Building, experimenting, and writing my way through tech.
AI β’ Web β’ Open Source β’ Challenges
If I find something interesting, I'll probably write about it. π
And lets hear from the popular guys on DEV:
Sir @francistrdev, Sir @georgekobaidze, Ma'am @sylwia-lask, my fav @xulingfeng, @hemapriya_kanagala di, @technogamerz di and our beloved and currently most popular: @heyitsjem, Did it help?
Have A Great Day Everybody!
Bro, this is amazing! There are tons of accounts spamming bulk posts nonstop. As someone with a compulsion to clear notification red dots and a likingβforβlikes habit, I was honestly getting overwhelmed. Congrats on fixing the issue and gaining great insights along the way!π
Yeah really!
I mean 720, 250, 350 these are like insane numbers!
Nobody can type this much! I really wanted to fix this issue to ensure atleast we don't give spotlight to bots.
And thanks! Have A Great Day(or Night)! π
Totally agree, those volumes are clearly impossible for human writers. Itβs such a meaningful fix to keep real creators visible! As a QA person, I can easily imagine how many edge cases you needed to cover for this ranking logic. Have a good one ποΈππ
This is absolutely fantastic! You're addressing the problem that has been driving me crazy. Like I don't even know what's real anymore.
I'm really tired of reading comments that are apparently written by bots. This platform is amazing, but it also has this problem that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
Thanks for this!
Bhai, seriously, thanks a lot for fixing this! Seeing actual people who put real effort into writing finally get highlighted instead of random spam bots feels like a huge win π
Hey Dhruv! I actually saw you contribute to this in real time! Good work on getting this in!
I do recommend to making it span over 6 months than having it in a single month. I am not sure if this is the use case, but there can be cases where a user makes a lot of posts and all of them are bot engagements. Something you might need to consider (not sure if you cover that already).
Otherwise, good work and thanks for the mention :D
Actually Sir @francistrdev, that's the thing. Bot posts are RSS feeds for which you don't need to go to dev.to to create post.
Also, keeping it in month helps cause over span of 6 months people can have a lot of posts and I've seen people post like 3 times a week. And we definitely want quality stats of posts for popularity.
But we can have something like popularity leaderboard for fun! But that'll probably ruin the fun of interactions and everyone will be posting, commenting for the sake of it.
I might be wrong but this is what I feel.
Now over to you.π
Ahh that makes sense! I don't think we need a leaderboard, though it's an idea.
Did you also have a use case where popularity is also based on the number of gems you have? I mention this because I notice that it does also count into your visibility as you become trustworthy.
That could help with the 6 month extension since it contributes to it and since it can't be rigged, according to @ben, I think it should work and would solve most cases. Unless the team chooses a Curator that turns out to be a bot, that's our fault lol.
Yeah we can do that, maybe give the week, 1 month, 6 month filter like we have for posts.
But for now, from my knowledge, it isn't taken into account. We can do that.
Sounds good! Also, I think you will be a great DEVenger. Don't you think?
cc: @itsugo @georgekobaidze @hemapriya_kanagala @codingwithjiro
Sure!!! Will be an honor.π
π€ 779 posts in a month. Almost zero reactions. And somehow, that's what popularity looked like.
What started as a random visit to DEV's Community Hub turned into a rabbit hole involving RSS bots, ActiveRecord, PostgreSQL query plans, and a rather unexpected 4.4x performance regression in my first attempted fix.
The best part? The final solution wasn't just about filtering bots. It was about understanding what the database was actually doing under the hood.
Huge thanks to @mikeydorje Sir who reviewed and helped get the fix merged into Forem! π€
Now I'm curious: Have you ever found a leaderboard, ranking system, or popularity metric being completely gamed by automation? I'd love to hear the story!
Dhruv, youβve done a really wonderful job! Thank you so much for this. Have a Great night, and by the way, Happy Diwali! πͺβ¨
Thanks di.
For a moment I was like: I missed Diwali?π
But yeah, Have A Great Night!
And Happy Diwali! πͺβ¨
You missed Diwali?! Really?
If you work with your headphones on, that's good otherwise, Diwali firecrackers will definitely give you a mini jumpscare!
Na I meant, "Diwali" is on Sunday. Since its a 5 day festival, today is what we call in Gujarat: ΰͺ ΰͺΰͺΏΰͺ―ΰͺΎΰͺ°ΰͺΈ
But the festival and vacations have started!
Have A Great Night, di.
Is today Gyaras or Baras here? I mean, can I cook rice today? Tomorrow is Teras (Dhanteras), right?π€
Here, we're celebrating Gyaras and I think(can be wrong) We cook rice but not khichdi during Diwali.
Tomorrow is dhanteras probably, cause its like 2 tithi are together on some day. Probably Baras and dhanteras tomorrow or Gyaras and baras today. But today is definitely Gyaras and tomorrow is dhanteras, Baras comes in between but doesn't stay for a whole day! and Chaudash on satursay and finally Diwali on Sunday.
Hope that helps, Di.π
Good point! π
Thanks!
Have A Great Day!
Great bro! keep going.
Thanks!