Bots

[ScotL]

New to the forum, so please accept my apologies if this has been discussed before. On the front page, what’s with the bots? Are they really bots or clever names ?


Registered users: Ahrefs [Bot], Bing [Bot], BLEXBot, Faldaguy, K_Highlander, Magpie [Crawler], ScotL
Legend: Administrators, Global moderators, Newly registered users

[Myopic Bookworm]

There are probably experts who can explain in more detail, but most such things are essentially indexers for search engines. A search engine can only list a page if it knows about it, and to do that it sends automated software (a bot) to check it out.

[crfriend]

There are probably experts who can explain in more detail, but most such things are essentially indexers for search engines. A search engine can only list a page if it knows about it, and to do that it sends automated software (a bot) to check it out.

MB got it in a nutshell. The ones you see in the list of active users are various web-crawlers, indexers, search-engines, and the like that at least identify their presence and the software that runs the "board" announce their presence. There are others -- used for more pernicious purposes -- that don't identify themselves and are usually used for posting "spam" and unsolicited advertising. These are frequently run by criminal gangs for profit.

The various bots can see a subsection of the community posts, but not all. For instance, at least two entire sub-forums completely block anonymous access and all known 'bots. Spam-bots are fairly readily spotted and terminated with prejudice upon detection, sometimes before they even drop their payloads; some of this is automatic, some requires moderator/administrative interaction. Spam-squashing is by far and away the largest workload in any public forum.

[Sinned]

And a very fine job you do of it. Never seen a site so clean of all sorts of litter. Thank you Carl, your tireless efforts, while not recognised, are much appreciated.

[crfriend]

And a very fine job you do of it. Never seen a site so clean of all sorts of litter.

Uncle Al and Denimini are both integral parts of that effort, and they deserve accolades, too.

I'm proud of the work I do, and I'm proud of the other guys for stepping up. It's very much a team effort.

[ScotL]

And a very fine job you do of it. Never seen a site so clean of all sorts of litter.

Uncle Al and Denimini are both integral parts of that effort, and they deserve accolades, too.

I'm proud of the work I do, and I'm proud of the other guys for stepping up. It's very much a team effort.

Dutifully impressed as well. The internet is chalk full of shady, slimy places where weirdos expose themselves. This is a clean site and that’s one of the bigger reasons I joined. That’s and it’s about men who want to be men who wear skirts

[Spirou003]

Now you're speaking about it, I realize it's in fact one of the very rare website I know which has not any trace of annoying bot. A big thank for the moderation team for that!

[ScotL]

Now you're speaking about it, I realize it's in fact one of the very rare website I know which has not any trace of annoying bot. A big thank for the moderation team for that!

Are you sure there ain’t bots? Cause every time I log in there seem to be some in The Who’s online. I’m not computer savvy so I don’t know what these bots could really be doing but seems odd to me

[Uncle Al]

<snip>
Are you sure there ain’t bots? Cause every time I log in there seem to be some in The Who’s online.
I’m not computer savvy so I don’t know what these bots could really be doing but seems odd to me

Underlined portion = ** See post # 2 and 3 of this thread **

Uncle Al

[ScotL]

<snip>
Are you sure there ain’t bots? Cause every time I log in there seem to be some in The Who’s online.
I’m not computer savvy so I don’t know what these bots could really be doing but seems odd to me

Underlined portion = ** See post # 2 and 3 of this thread **

Uncle Al

Yep, got that. Was wondering if people knew what kind of bots the ones on here are specifically. Some seem web crawler like say the google bot but the others? I’m more curious than anything.

[crfriend]

Was wondering if people knew what kind of bots the ones on here are specifically. Some seem web crawler like say the google bot but the others? I’m more curious than anything.

We know what we know based on the way the various bots identify themselves in the "User-Agent" HTTP request header (which users never see). Those are the "benign" ones; the virus and bot-net types never identify themselves (or lie about it) so go "undetected" and have to be identified by other means.

[Sinned]

7Sorry guys, I didn't mean to lessen the contributions of the other Moderators. Well done guys.

[crfriend]

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to lessen the contributions of the other Moderators. Well done guys.

No, no. Credit where credit is due. I didn't take it as a "lessening" in the least, I just wanted to clarify the waters a bit.

[Spirou003]

Now you're speaking about it, I realize it's in fact one of the very rare website I know which has not any trace of annoying bot. A big thank for the moderation team for that!

Are you sure there ain’t bots? (...)

This is not what I said. I was saying that bots acting on the website, posting commercial bullshit or political propaganda for example, are not visible. This does not imply there's not any there

[ScotL]

Now you're speaking about it, I realize it's in fact one of the very rare website I know which has not any trace of annoying bot. A big thank for the moderation team for that!

Are you sure there ain’t bots? (...)

This is not what I said. I was saying that bots acting on the website, posting commercial bullshit or political propaganda for example, are not visible. This does not imply there's not any there

Ok, thanks for the explanation