Tutorial for how to report spambot comment accounts on AO3
There's been an uptick in spambots on AO3 recently, and I think most of us are getting good at spotting them now. I realized recently that while I had been blocking these bots and deleting their comments as they came up, I hadn't been reporting them to AO3. Because I didn't know how.
Turns out it's really easy.
Go to AO3's abuse reports page linked here for your convenience, and fill it out. It asks for
A link to the page you are reporting (the bot's profile)
A summary of your report (think email subject line)
A description of what you are reporting and why. For spambots, AO3 requests that in your description, you include both the username of the spambot, and the word "spambot," itself.
Maybe I'm late and everyone else was doing this the whole time, but if you are like me and didn't remember to do this/realize it was an option—here you go. Have fun smacking bots with hammers!