PONE-D-24-40137Research on Social Bot Identification through Behavioral Feature AnalysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Kind regards,

Sudipta Chowdhury

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This research paper presents “ introduces a diverse array of behavioral features specific to social bots, drawing on the discernible disparities between their behaviors and those of human accounts. To refine the constructed feature set, an Out-of-Bag (OOB) estimation-based feature selection method is enlisted to eliminate redundant features. Concurrently, the study harnesses the Random Forest algorithm for its notable attributes of high accuracy, fast processing speed, and stable performance, thereby circumventing the inherent limitations of decision boundaries in standalone decision tree classifiers. Experimental findings highlight that the refined set of indicators sourced through the OOB estimation-based feature selection process contributes to enhancing the model’s overall stability. Notably, the Social Bot Identification model, built on the Random Forest framework, emerges as a superior alternative when contrasted with decision tree and neural network models in terms of accuracy and stability”

Good work keeps up

besides that, I have few minor comments which could further improve the quality of the manuscript

1. Provide quantitative remarks of the impact of the proposed method in the abstract.

2. need to rewrite clearly the contribution, motivation, challenges, your paper work.

3. write clear section for the literature review, and summarize it in table.

4. it is better to include a flow chart / pseudocode for your work.

5. The superiority performance of the proposed method could be achieved at what cost?

6.A detailed analysis of the limitations and potential failure scenarios of the proposed model is missing

7. Additional comparative analysis, around computational requirements and robustness of the model with other SOTA methods

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is robust and addresses a highly relevant topic; however, there are areas that could be improved to enhance its overall impact. The writing style could benefit from greater conciseness to reduce redundancy and ensure clarity, particularly in sections with dense technical descriptions. Simplifying these parts or providing additional context would make the study more accessible to readers outside the field. In addition, the introduction and literature review could be streamlined to focus more on directly relevant content and improve coherence.

Furthermore, the discussion of the results would be strengthened by elaborating on the practical implications and real-world applications of the proposed model. Ensuring that all figures and tables are paired with clear captions and well-integrated explanations within the text will also aid comprehension. Finally, a more focused conclusion that reiterates the key contributions of the study and suggests specific directions for future research would provide a stronger conclusion. These refinements will improve the clarity and attractiveness of the manuscript, bringing it into line with the standards of a high-impact journal.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Research on Social Bot Identification through Behavioral Feature Analysis

PONE-D-24-40137R1

Dear Dr. Zhang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Sudipta Chowdhury

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: good work keep up

all the comments are fulfilled but small comments must be addressed, which are submitted to the editor

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

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