# Vendor markup artifacts Part of [The AI Tells Index](https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells). A tell signals low effort. It does not identify an author. Skilled writers produce every shape listed here, some of them daily, and automated detectors misread those writers for it at rates measured above 60 percent on non-native English prose. Nothing in this index proves that a machine wrote anything. Read an entry as one piece of evidence to weigh against the false-positive notes printed beside it. ## Facts - Id: vendor-markup-artifact - Category: Formatting (formatting) - Subcategory: tool-leak - Also known as: oaicite, turn0search0, contentReference, grok_card, lenticular bracket leak, utm_source=chatgpt.com - Status: Active. Currently signals low-effort writing. - Severity: high - Evidence grade: corroborated (named independently by multiple credible secondary sources) - Languages: en - Added: 2026-08-15 - Updated: 2026-08-17 - Page: https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells/vendor-markup-artifact ## Description A tool's internal citation token published as text. The marker was never meant to leave the product window, and it names the product that made it. What a hit establishes is that the draft went out without a read-through. Raw markdown syntax in a surface that does not render it is a separate entry, because a person drafting in a Markdown editor produces that by hand. ## Why it reads as machine-written These tokens come from a citation layer that renders as a link inside the product and as raw text everywhere else. Wikipedia's editors catalogue them per vendor, listing the ChatGPT reference and search markers, the Grok card tags and the DeepSeek bracket markers, and they treat the presence of one as grounds for speedy deletion under criterion G15, which covers pages published with no human review. Nobody types these by hand. ## Detection Type: deterministic (a regular expression, run as written) Scope: document ECMAScript regular expression. The build validator compiles it and tests it against this entry's own specimens. ```regex (?::contentReference\[oaicite:|oai_citation|\bciteturn\d|\bturn\d+search\d|grok_render_citation_card_json| Our numbers this quarter are in line with the sector average :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}, which is broadly what we had modelled at this point in the cycle. Performance from here will be a function of execution rather than of market conditions, and execution is the variable we have the most control over. Full methodology is here: https://example.com/method?utm_source=chatgpt.com After, repaired: > Our Q2 revenue grew 4 percent against a sector average of 6 percent, which is the first quarter we have trailed it. The methodology is on the blog, and the sector figure comes from the trade association survey of 210 firms published in May. Note: Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. The tell is the citation token, not the emptiness around it. The sentence it props up says nothing checkable, which is the state a draft is in when nobody read it to the end. ### Specimen 2 Before, exhibiting the tell: > Vacancy rates on the high street were about 6.2 percent last year【85†L261-269】, broadly in line with what observers had expected. Retail has been changing for a long time, in ways that are easier to describe after the fact than before it. Whether that is a recovery or a plateau depends largely on who is asked. After, repaired: > Vacancy rates on the high street were 6.2 percent last year against a national average of 16 percent. The council publishes the count every March, and the 2026 figure is the first since 2019 that did not rise. Note: Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. The bracket form is the DeepSeek variant Wikipedia records. ## False positives Who legitimately writes this way. Researchers, editors and pages like this one quote these tokens on purpose, so quoted and code-fenced examples have to be excluded before a hit counts. The tracking parameter is the softest member of the family: someone who copies a link out of a chat window and pastes it into a draft carries the parameter across without generating a word of the text, and analytics teams add their own source parameters that look much the same. Read a hit as a statement about the review process rather than about the writer. It says the draft reached publication without anyone reading it to the end. ## Model attribution Per vendor, which is what makes this family legible. Wikipedia catalogues the ChatGPT reference and search markers, the Grok card tags and the DeepSeek bracket markers separately, and records the tracking parameter each product appends to links. The token names the tool. It says nothing about whether a person wrote the sentence around it. ## Platform notes - wikipedia: Criterion G15 lists these markers among the signs that make a page eligible for speedy deletion, on the stated ground that it was generated and published with no human review. ## Sources 1. Wikipedia: Criteria for speedy deletion, G15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) 2. Wikipedia: Signs of AI writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) ## Status history Ids are permanent. A retired tell keeps its id and its page. - 2026-08-15, Active: Active and high severity. Wikipedia catalogues the token families per vendor with dated article examples, and criterion G15 makes their presence grounds for speedy deletion because the page reached publication with no human review. The pattern is anchored to the full artifact rather than the bare word, so an article about these tokens does not register. Regex verified on 2026-08-15 against both specimens and three negatives, one of which mentions a token by name in ordinary prose. ## License CC BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Attribution: The AI Tells Index, feedsquad.com/ai-tells Reuse the data, including commercially. Keep the attribution line. --- Dataset version 1.0.0. Schema version 1. Part of [FeedSquad](https://feedsquad.com). Built by [Herman Foundry](https://hermanfoundry.com) from Levi, Finnish Lapland.