How many bots are there in this forum?

N

Night Terror

Guest
I was logging in tonight, as always, and sometimes I visit the bottom of the main page (the index) before I check all the new posts that have been made on different areas during the day, and this time I noticed that there was a "diltbarazoorb" online, along with a few other members that I recognized right away. Anyway, I checked this diltbarazoorb's profile (mainly because he was being welcomed as a new member) and noticed that, on his "about me," he had exactly the same information as another person's profle I had seen before. I can't remember the name of this person I'm mentioning, but it also had a weird name like diltbarazoorb's.

Some examples of this info were:

Biography: Man.

Location: United Arab Emirates.

Interests: diltbarazoorb.

Favorite QL actors: google.com.

Occupation: diltbarazoorb.

Other things: United Arab Emirates (or 123456 in one case).

And so on, but always repeating these last two things. I saw that he could be contacted through ICQ and that he had an e-mail. I googled this e-mail and an anti-bot site appeared. This website basically listed all the bots that keep signing up to forums like this. Their objective is to create spam, pollute websites, etc., or at least that's what this page I found said. Mr. diltbarazoorb's e-mail was listed there, of course, along with its IP address and everything. I clicked on the specific IP address and there were like, I don't know, a bit more than 50 entries, perhaps (all of them with a different nickname and a different e-mail, each of them weirder than the last one). So I'm a bit concerned about this, but mostly I am very curious. According to the forum's statistics, there are currently 928 members, from which only 65 are active ones: How true is this? How many members (including active members) are actually real (Human Beings), and how many are bots? I believe that the majority are bots (even the ones listed as "active"; I mean, 65 active members, really? I've counted less than 15 :hmm). Now, they may not be dangerous, but can you actually trust them? Have any of the administrators noticed this? Now, I understand that there are spiders that crawl websites, but these are necessary, or the site wouldn't appear on search engines, etc., but what about the bots? They only create spam and make things work slower, and they keep signing up: I've seen that there's a new member almost every day, but they never post or anything, they always hide in the dark and that's it, and looks like they never get banned.
 
If we did a background check on everyone who registers, well, I think there would have to be a subscription fee for the site. The first post of each user is closely monitored and spam rarely gets through and those who do find themselves on the other side of the gate very quickly.
 
If we did a background check on everyone who registers, well, I think there would have to be a subscription fee for the site. The first post of each user is closely monitored and spam rarely gets through and those who do find themselves on the other side of the gate very quickly.

:hmm diltbarazoorb's still here... Hehe! Never mind.
 
Or, to save costs--and I think you'll appreciate this, Night Terror--we could act like we're in the Twilight Zone, and accuse each other of being bots by bringing up all of our quirks. :lol

Just joking. You are pretty observant, though.
 
Yes, happens all the time. But as Morgan said, the first post is monitored so we can quickly weed out the spammers. And no, I don't have time to background every person that signs up lol. When's the last time anyone saw spam on here? Over a year maybe? That's because I delete it on the random occasion before anyone ever sees it. :)
 
Or, to save costs--and I think you'll appreciate this, Night Terror--we could act like we're in the Twilight Zone, and accuse each other of being bots by bringing up all of our quirks. :lol

Just joking. You are pretty observant, though.

Actually, and I'm not kidding you here, I thought about writing a mystery/horror story. At least this served as an inspiration. Man, I must be crazy.