New member ROBOTS?

[Allhallowsday]

When I come here I notice lots of members "logged in" who don't seem to have ever posted anything...

[claws]

"Who's Online" is showing these "new members" posting something, but they never do. Seems like quite a few signed up on July 16th.

[claws]

Example

DavinMix    11:58:10 AM    Posting a new topic in Off Topic Discussion.

Keganhype    11:59:59 AM    Posting a new topic in Off Topic Discussion.

Brianvax    12:06:12 PM    Posting a new topic in Off Topic Discussion.

[Rev. Powell]

Yep. As long as they don't successfully post spam, we just ignore them. Since you have to have 10 posts to post a link, a lot of them just try to post spam but are automatically blocked. They rarely get through the automated defenses.

[RCMerchant]

We are the Robots!

http://youtu.be/D_8Pma1vHmw

[Allhallowsday]

Yep. As long as they don't successfully post spam, we just ignore them. Since you have to have 10 posts to post a link, a lot of them just try to post spam but are automatically blocked. They rarely get through the automated defenses.

Maybe they should be banned? 
I always look at who is online when I come to this forum.  It is now another feature that no longer works.

[Rev. Powell]

Yep. As long as they don't successfully post spam, we just ignore them. Since you have to have 10 posts to post a link, a lot of them just try to post spam but are automatically blocked. They rarely get through the automated defenses.

Maybe they should be banned? 
I always look at who is online when I come to this forum.  It is now another feature that no longer works.

I don't want to spend my free time banning annoyance bots. Ban one, another registers tomorrow. It may be possible to ban registrations from certain problematic ips or email domains, however. There probably aren't any legitimate users here using "mail.ru" addresses. I'll look into it.

[Rev. Powell]

I tried a filter that may keep a large number (not all) from registering.

[Allhallowsday]

I haven't seen several "members" unknown to me as "active" ever before until just recently.  "Members" as it turned out aren't "active" at all.  I understand the state of things and felt I should report it.  Thanks, Rev!   

[Trevor]

There's quite a few bots that come on as being online here: I even messaged one a while back, no reply though.

[ER]

I did a double-take when I thought I saw one of the bots had my son's name.