Mass Quantities of New Players... Why?

[Karl]

It seems like every time I log onto this forum, there is a new registered user or two. It looks like we're getting several new players a day, a MUCH faster rate then the forum has grown at historically. (If it grew at this rate from the start, there'd be over a thousand registered users by now.) Too bad none of the new users seem to be posting anything.

But it all makes me wonder... where are these new users coming from? Transcendence must be getting some good exposure somewhere. Wherever it is being advertized, it's working. 8)

[Betelgeuse]

many seem to be bots signing up and never posting. (just look at most of there home pages)

[george moromisato]

many seem to be bots signing up and never posting. (just look at most of there home pages)

True--they are almost all bots.

I've switched the registration process to "manual" so that I have to approve every registration. It works so far because the traffic is pretty low (a few legitimate new users per week).

And it has definitely cut down on spam--I haven't had to delete a single spam entry in off-topic for months (I used to have to delete several per day).

Every once in a while I clean up the members list page by deleting all spam members. Also, I've set the robots.txt file to prevent Google from indexing the member list (otherwise, the site might get a bad reputation for endorsing spam).

BTW, there has been a modest increase in traffic over the last few months. Between the posting on Games for Windows and the Wikipedia entry, we've been getting a good stream of new players.

[goat not sheep]

Isn't that because of the advertising...on like, wiki and the 101 top games...thing.

[Karl]

Hmm, bots signing up and not posting... what's the point of that?

Isn't it the purpose of a spambot to... post spam?

[goat not sheep]

Check out their home page...or their website. I did...once. What did i find? Bad pictures. Also, some bots Send PMs.....though none did yet....

[Karl]

"Bad pictures", huh? You mean, like, they don't know how to focus the camera?

And some bots send PMS? I didn't know that that was a communicable disease...

[goat not sheep]

No, by bad pictures, I mean, they DO know how to focus a camera, but only pevs would buy such qualified pictures.

[Karl]

Goat, I was joking...

Hey, spot the best pornbot name among the new registered users.

My vote is for seemenaked.

[goat not sheep]

I am only eleven...btw.