Just because someone posts 300 stacks of material X in one whack doesn't really mean they got it from botting. I've done this, or close to this, many times. Most people despise farming and I can certainly understand the lack of appeal, but I don't really mind it. I have nights where I just go to a random area and farm the crap out of something just for the fun of it. I then send everything I farmed to my bank toon. After you do this a few times, you end up with quite a few stacks of things that you eventually dump on the AH. I guess my point is that just because it throws up all the red flags of a gold farmer doesn't mean it is one, and theres absolutely no way to tell one from the other. Unless, like previously mentioned, their name is some random combination of numbers and letters.

Also, I've noticed that most of the people advocating the "if you don't buy it your competition will" argument are getting replies like "So don't compete". It just doesn't really work like that. If you play the AH game to make gold the very nature of what you're doing is competing. To not compete would be to stop playing the meta game entirely. I personally enjoy playing the AH game, it's a big part of the reason I'm still paying for game time. Why should I have to stop just because I might at some point have supported a gold farmer but have no way to tell when I did? If there was a clear way to determine who is a gold farmer and who isn't, I'd be all for only supporting those who aren't. But since there isn't, I see no reason for it to ruin the fun of others.

^This. I have just started recently in the last month trying to accumulate wealth and have gotten up to just a bit under 500k. I both play the AH and farm (plus i have a crapton of alchemists running xmutes every day and every prof maxxed). There are lots of nights that I'll sit on the laptop in bed with the GF and watch movies or Family Guy while farming. It's easy to do and requires very little of my attention so that I can focus on her. I have farmed tens of thousands of stacks that way. On my server, elementium is going for 120 to 150g a stack, so sometimes its more worth it to sell stacks than prospect and I'll put up tons of stacks at a time.

There just is no real way to determine if the stacks you've gotten are from a botter or not unless you can communicate with the seller, which is rarely possible. Large amounts of stacks are in no way a viable method of telling if its legit ore (or herbs) or not. Sorry, but there's no way I'm going to let 100 stacks of ore go by at 40g a stack just because it MIGHT be a botter.

Also, to the guy above that posted how to spot a botter, sorry but that's just crap. I have been accused of botting several times because I didn't respond to whispers since I was watching a movie and completely ignoring chat. Plus, I have a toon thats an herber and I'm too cheap to buy the 280 mount yet, so she's still on the slow-ass mount. Please stop advocating parameters based on YOUR playing style as a way to spot bots. It's presumptuous and just simply not 100% accurate. I in no way support gold farming, or botting. If I see nodes disappear from under me and can hear the mining but see no one, I'll report as well as anyone, and have many times, but not just because they're not responding or flying a slow mount.