we have had 152 new users in 7 days…which is extremely unlikely. There is clearly an automated bot creating usernames and accounts. Due to the advanced antispam controls, they are rarely able to post spam, Of course the very odd one gets through and thanks to everyone who flags those few posts.
I’m thinking about reconfiguring the forum so they cannot actually register, because although it makes us look mega busy with loads of users (CFUK had 27K users of which 28K had never posted). They couldn’t be deleted because Tait the old owner wanted the forum to look really big and busy.
I simply want the forum to be clean and easy to manage…we don’t need to pretend to be busy, we already are. I may well delete this current flurry of machine related accounts, as once the bot tries to post spam and can’t, it simply never uses that ID again. It also can’t put anything in it’s Bio or other irritating things these bots do.
I never wanted to introduce verification controls, but it’s something I may have to consider (there is a server side implication).