Down in the bottom corner of your screen (If you are logged in) you shoudl see a little speech bubble icon. That's the link to starting a chat with Stan. Stan is our chatbot and he's trained on the last 3 years of website content and a load of other information that subscribers should find useful.
Stan can check your account for you and the status of any orders. He can guide you in doing stuff like changing your delivery address and answer questions about subscriptions. But he also knows about the forum and everything we've published. Give him a try.
Stan is fully operational for subscribers and limited help for free members. This is because using him comes at a cost to us.
Why a chat bot?
Because we are a small team - Heather works 3days/week and she spends a lot of time on subscriber issues that Stan can deal with 24/7. This will free her and the team up to do other things like development and content creation. Stan learns as we go. I've trained him up on our recent history (forum and editorial). You can chat with him about bikes, kit, places to ride, magazine content. He pulls his knowledge from the magazine and the website.
He's behind the bottom advert. bar for free users, so not clickable.
For not free users... he's in the same place as the "back to top" arrow... that just needs a small nudge up the screen.
In Dark Mode the text entry/query box uses black text on a very dark grey background (see example above).
STAN is an Acronym I assume:
'SingleTrack Autonomous Nuisance'
What is it's capacity to be spammed with nonsense queries like?
Thanks for the layout tweak suggestions. We'll give that a tickle.
It's probably 'absorbed' a lot of Cougar
What Like Lawnmower Man?
Open the chat forum Stan.
I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
I asked it which VW Transporter I should buy and it said Berlingo.
It's working perfectly.
If he doesn't know about hammering frozen sausages into a neighbours lawn, how much of this forum has it really trawled? 🤣
Hi Stan, is a Skoda Octavia a good car for mountain bikers?
Ha, not quite my lane — I'm here to help with Singletrack subscriptions, your account, and anything mountain biking related. Car reviews are a bit outside my remit, I'm afraid.
That said, if you're asking from a "will it swallow a full-sus and a muddy kit bag?" perspective — estate cars with a big boot are generally well regarded in mountain biking circles. But for proper car advice you'd want somewhere like Autocar or similar.
Anything I *can* help you with — trails, kit, your Singletrack account, or subscription stuff?
Just FYI and full disclosure but we can see your queries - and no, Stan will NOT delete my account.
Amazing that its hidden behind adverts and not at all surprising...
I think I just broke Stan.....
I only asked if I should upgrade my current Nukeproof Mega 290 Carbon with the new Nukeproof Mega frame or go for an Atherton S170 frame........
I asked whether 26, Ken Dodd's dad's dog, and Joe Cocker were dead.
It only knew 1 out of 3.
I asked whether 26, Ken Dodd's dad's dog, and Joe Cocker were dead.
It only knew 1 out of 3.
Wait, what? Joe Cocker's dead!!!!
Oh Stanley...
Not just because it couldn't answer my sausage question, but do we really need an AI bot on STW?
MTBR have ForaFrank
EMTB Forums have Gregg Watts
Once the novelty of abusing them/seeing what answers they'll give wears off they don't get much actual use.
Not just because it couldn't answer my sausage question, but do we really need an AI bot on STW?
MTBR have ForaFrank
EMTB Forums have Gregg Watts
Once the novelty of abusing them/seeing what answers they'll give wears off they don't get much actual use.
Amd if it’s anything like the one on EMTB Forums it’ll regularly have glaring errors in its replies.
Well it knows about picolax but broke down when I asked it another question trying to find an old article from a previous magazine.
Doesn’t appear to be that helpful?
Can’t easily post a picture here since the forum ‘upgrades’ but I asked it to “show me bike reviews” and received the following
Those results are pulling up magazine issues and subscriptions rather than specific bike review articles — the product search is more geared toward the store. For actual bike reviews, you'll want to head straight to the Singletrack site.
Here's where to find them:
- singletrackworld.com/reviews — the main reviews hub, covering bikes, components, clothing and kit
- Magazine Library — every issue's "Through the Grinder" section is packed with in-depth, real-world bike and kit reviews
If you're after something specific — a particular brand, type of bike (trail, enduro, e-bike, hardtail etc.), or a review you half-remember reading — just tell me and I'll dig into it for you. I'm happy to point you at the right article.
so I know you reviewed the Saracen mantra, so replied “Saracen mantra review” and it came up with a red box error
Function call loop detected. Function call loop detected after 4 iterations. The AI model is repeatedly calling functions without reaching a conclusion. Call stack: mwai_search_products
will it do anything that a FAQ page won’t do?
Curious why STW thought this was necessary, will it really save a corresponding amount of time to the time taken to implement it in the first place?
At work we're being forced to spend an increasing amount of time desperately searching for something that AI is good (or even passable...) at, despite our job descriptions having nothing to do with software development, and I can't help but think our muppets-in-charge have some sort of ulterior motive...
I can't get rid of the 3 dot speech bubble. Clicking the x doesn't work. Edge on Android.
Wait, what? Joe Cocker's dead!!!!
Well, it's unconfirmed from Stan's response.
Can we turn it off/get rid of the icon?
I feel it is just one more nail in the coffin of this forum.
Can we turn it off/get rid of the icon?
I feel it is just one more nail in the coffin of this forum.
Yes I don't need it or want it and it's annoying sat there on the screen.
Why do this 😭 it's a pointless gimmick.
He's still behind the bottom advertising banner for free users on desktop.
Given the general tone of the mag an AI chatbot feels very off brand and strange. People come here to avoid AI slop not have it forced upon us. Next time there is a fundraiser because the mag doesn’t make money people are going to remember you wasted money on this crap.
Got to justify giant data centres that hoover up drinking water and use loads of power just to spew out slop, somehow.
Anyone else getting the Stan bubble overlapping the go-back-to-the-top arrow?
full-screen Edge on Windows 11 (1920x1080 res laptop)
Yep, back to top button obscured for me too. Firefox on a mac.
Yup, see my post, third one on this page. I'm sure they'll tweak it soon. For now I've just hidden mwai-chatbot-container.
I asked Stan for some hardtail recommendations and he recommended 3 x back issues - purchased! So as a sales tool for STW merch, he's doing a great job already!
Got to say, I'll never use the AI thing.
No idea why they can't just put the forum tags at the bottom of the page like they used to be rather than having to hit the 'back to top' button then the 'latest' button, or which ever forum you want to go to.
Overview in the forum jump drop down doesn't work....
Why is 'Stan' a 'he'? Does that just reinforce the 'bike tech is by/for blokes' thing? Shall I get my coat?
