No longer active members

[X3M]

So there are 4 unknown members that liked a post that I have made. (Which is doubtful that they liked it :) )

But out of curiosity, I tried to check their page. It seems they are no longer active.

Have others noticed this too?

Are they kicked or banned?

Where they fake accounts for trolling?

Or where they auto regenerated accounts?

I rather have real opinions about my stuff ^^.

[Davidu]

Maybe it's people checking the forum once every year. Some people liked posts from YEARS ago just last week. Who knows?

[THE AQIB]

yup even i had likes from guys who hav no account. strange i thought they were kicked out cause they liked my post....

[X3M]

I haven't seen it here yet, but a little warning. If anyone of them sends you a link in a private message. Don't click on it.

[MrFlibble]

Which post of yours was liked by ghost account members? Most probably that was spambots.

[X3M]

Most (if not, all) in my RTS Board game thread.

[MrFlibble]

I've checked a few, and yes, those are spam accounts, I assume those are not displayed to regular users. Spambots prolly try to deceive the moderators by trying to act like real users, or maybe this is an attempt to attract other board members to their account page which is full of spam links.

Maybe we should disable the liking option for unapproved/first post users as well.

[X3M]

Something like getting approval points?

Example:

 

You may like posts when you yourself reach 50 posts.

You may private message other users when you yourself reach 100 posts.

You may start threads yourself when you reach 25 posts.

You may double post if you reach 75 posts. And there is a day between the 2.

 

So, what  do you think?

[Gobalopper]

I've just removed the ability for members that have no approved posts to vote/like/etc. That should stop this from happening in the future.

[MrFlibble]

You may like posts when you yourself reach 50 posts.

You may private message other users when you yourself reach 100 posts.

You may start threads yourself when you reach 25 posts.

You may double post if you reach 75 posts. And there is a day between the 2.

Nice ideas generally, although isn't a 100 post count for a PM a bit harsh? I'd rather have it at 10.

Also double-posting might be necessary sometimes, regardless of whether a user is new or not. Triple/quadruple/etc. posting, on the other hand, is something to watch for (especially in rapid succession).

BTW, some forum software automatically merges double-posts if they're made in a short period of time (like less than a day). I wonder if we have this option too.

[THE AQIB]

nice tht is out of the system... still why are these accounts created??? i mean all 31000 accounts cannot be human in tht way...

[X3M]

An automatic merging program would be nice.

With a 12 hour surveillance. Not a 24 hour. Those who sort of keep a blog aren't bothered by it then, especially when it is placed in the rules for "blog" keeping. And those who pout 5 posts in a row, will have 1 merged post.

 

There is a choice in doing it automatically by simply adding it to the previous post.

Or the poster automatically sees that he/she is going to edit his/her previous post.

It really doesn't matter which one it is.

[Gobalopper]

We already require any "first post" from a user to be approved before it becomes visible. So unless someone can trick the moderators with their first post you shouldn't see any spam posts. There is also a spam filter on signup that catches a large percentage of users before they can even make an account.

 

And there are only around 4000 accounts not 31000.

[THE AQIB]

well the last user i mean in the new user category has no 31000+ inthe url.... thts why i said tht...

[Gobalopper]

Oh, well every so often I clean out the user database of accounts that have never posted and have not visited recently. Since the site has been around for over 10 years having 31000+ accounts over that time period isn't odd.

[X3M]

They where all small children, weren't they?

 

Still it's odd that the bots keep trying to infiltrate.

[criver]

Bots don't tire lol - they are not human... I mean I can make a program repeat forever (as long as the hardware works and the software doesn't fail ) - the pc won't have any objections to it lol:

 

While(1){u+=1cout<<"Loop executed for the "<<u<<"th time."}

 

P.S. btw it will have a problem when the number in u surpasses the size of memory allocated for it (though u can have this cycle without the u variable and it will repeat forever - or until u turn it off).

[X3M]

I mean, the one who is always sending those bots. When will his/her stuff being confiscated?

[Gobalopper]

Well it isn't the same person. It is probably a program that searches for forums and has code written that knows how to register and make a post. A lot of the IP's also come from China and they have a rather large population. :)

[THE AQIB]

well thnks for tht info... the bots are seriously annoying i guess...

[Davidu]

I might have a Chinese IP because I'm working there now. Don't ban me. Pretty please.