Members disappearing - not really

Just wanted to inform you that if you see members disappear from the bottom of the index page who 'appear' to have joined, they are being deleted by myself.  The reason being as with elsewhere, there seem to be an inordinate amount of 'bots' somehow registering.  They are easy to spot mostly anyway, they have first name and surname joined and many have numbers after them.  I am deleting these as they serve no purpose and I am not interested in them being here and falsely inflating the forum numbers.
 This past few days I have deleted around 10 or so, some don't even bother to click link on email so they are deleted before even appearing on the forum.

Just to add a bit more information for those who are interested, I do not use the Captcha method here as people were finding it difficult to decipher the letters and numbers..... I may have to bring it back though. The forum registrations have to be verified by forumotion by clicking on a link in their email, but obviously some get through, some forums do not use this and everyone gets through. If there are no precautions then of course all get through, that is if you do not have to verify a link in an email.

Some info here re the bots.

https://www.drupal.org/node/137775

Is new member Toby a 'bot' then.... lots of numbers after his name.

Canada12 hasn't posted for a bit.... Hope she hasn't been accidentally deleted.

Canada12 was online this morning.

Toby Wotsit is online now - sorry but you do sound a bit bot-like!

Hello there.

Freedom wrote:Canada12 was online this morning.

Toby Wotsit is online now - sorry but you do sound a bit bot-like!

Hello there.

Yes isn't it odd that a member joins with a name like that after my post....... what a coincidence.

@Andrew , best not bring back Andrew77 then

Still not very clued up with all this 'bot' stuff and to be honest I don't really understand it all.

You forgot the R after the 77, so I might of been ok.

Have done a bit more pruning this morning The usual bots joining as elsewhere, just making number appear more than it really is, so have deleted them. Where do these bots come from?

Admin wrote:Have done a bit more pruning this morning   The usual bots joining as elsewhere, just making number appear more than it really is, so have deleted them.  Where do these bots come from?

Probably advertising agencies who'll then use them to post messages extolling the virtues of their client's products

I've never seen that happen though or indeed for any of them to post anything.

I have tried to log on all day on my mobile and failed to do so.....its soooo frustrating. When I got the forum up it shows it in its other form.....will not let me view in classic mode and will not let me sign in! I pad was the same this morning but....as you can see.....I can log on now......really irritating!!!! Any thoughts anyone?
I even opened a new name "bampots help" but the email account is so old I can't open up emails to confirm.....

Bampots wrote:I have tried to log on all day on my mobile and failed to do so.....its soooo frustrating. When I got the forum up it shows it  in its other form.....will not let me view in classic mode and will not let me sign in! I pad was the same this morning but....as you can see.....I can log on now......really irritating!!!! Any thoughts anyone?
I even opened a new name "bampots help" but the email account is so old I can't open up emails to confirm.....

I know forumotion were experiencing problems and the forums were down last night and some into this morning, but don't know why you could not see the forum in classic mode, or sign in, very strange, and I have no idea Bampots.

I'm sure I'll kick myself when someone tells me but what is the forum's other form when not in classic mode?

Shite!

It can look like Jatyk2 or really smooth blog style with no page numbers and is difficult to navigate. You don't want to see or know it freedom!!!

Classic or Mobile.... I'm on my phone now and earlier I couldn't log on as normal. An advert / banner type thing was on top of the log in details. Could'nt get rid of it. Went to mobile version at the bottom and logged on there. Then had to change it to classic as, as you say the mobile version layout is rubbish.

Probably my phone has a virus as never happened before.

That's just happened to me Andrew, I had to log in through Google instead of through the emails, some advert blocking it?

Sorry, ddl. Just seen this... See other thread. A few of us have had some issues by the looks of it...

In case those hawk eyed members have spotted a change in memberships, (Andrew )I have deleted quite a few and also many waiting to be activated, around 40 or more, it looks like bots are joining up in force again. You have to have a valid email in order to activate yourself and these obviously were not.

I didn't notice to be fair.

You should let all the bots join. Then within a couple of months we'd have more 'members' that CMoMM.

Andrew wrote:I didn't notice to be fair.

You should let all the bots join. Then within a couple of months we'd have more 'members' that CMoMM.

In my short stay over there it struck me that the statistics being shown were the number of new joiners every month, added together.

Now maybe I am being daft here, but I don't think that number of members equals total number of people joining, surely you have to take off any that have left?

It just struck me as a very odd way to show the statistics, but then maybe I misunderstood what they were showing.

It still surprises me how fast the membership numbers increase over there - 7,350 as we speak.

I would like to state firmly that the latest member isn't me; if it was, there would be spaces between the words!

MadOldNag.

It wouldn't be possible to deduct those who have left as you would never know if they intended to return.

There's no virtue in a giant membership anyway.

Even the most popular forums in any field only have low single figures of active posters. This isn't Facebook!

Yes, as they say - size isn't everything!

Quality is better than quantity.

I keep looking at new members and there are 397 now, just 3 away from 400. I really hope we can get three more and make 400!

                        

What's_up_doc? wrote:I keep looking at new members and there are 397 now, just 3 away from 400. I really hope we can get three more and make 400!

                        

Do what CMoMM do and just make some up, doc.

I've just noticed that the total there has passed 7,500!