So many new members! Please introduce yourselves!

[adawn]

Originally Posted by muggle

I never understood bots. What’s the point? What is there to gain? I just don’t get it? WHY?!?!

In my experience on other forums, the bots almost always eventually make spam posts that link to products, etc. Or they'll PM members links to products and websites. Sometimes they will modify their profile and/or signature to include ad-type stuff too. They sometimes are a bit tricky and actually take the time to tailor their posts and product links to sort of match what the forum is about--so their posts may sound somewhat legit at first glance. Other times they don't bother with that kind of tailoring/pretext and just spam spam spam the same kind of junk we all see in our email inboxes like for male performance, etc. no matter if it's an all women's forum or what (although perhaps some women care about helping their male partners' "performance" and "enhancements" ). In those cases of just frank, undisguised spam, it's usually "word salad" gobbledygook that's posted along with the links.

FWIW, I'm a mod on another forum and I have to manually activate everyone. It's very rare a bot actually gets through. Most of the time you can tell immediately from their username or email address if it's a bot so it's pretty quick to delete them in large batches. But you have to be careful because every once in a while a username will look "spammy" (i.e. it has some of the tell-tale signs of an obvious bot username) but if the email address looks like a "maybe-not-spam", it's best to research further before deleting it.

As for all the "hopefully real people" that seem legit, I still check them all against https://stopforumspam.com/search and https://www.iplocation.net/ . You occasionally have to use some judgement because sometimes someone's IP will show up in stopforumspam, but if it's only listed once or twice or it's from a year ago or they're clearly using a different, legit-looking email address than the ones in stopforumspam, then they're probably not a bot...assuming the IP address also checked out via IPlocation and isn't in Russia, Finland, etc.

[yogapam]

IIRC, anyone can browse the forum without joining, but you can’t post. Correct me if I’m wrong. I find it hard to believe that all these similar names are individuals. Not sure what they have to gain by hanging out here as there isn’t much personal information available. Their profiles are not accessible which I find odd and they aren’t listed in the members list. I wonder if Wendy is aware and if it’s worth contacting her?

[Messe]

Among other things, malicious/bad bots can harvest email addresses and then send phishing emails. And as the numbers of bots increase, they can affect the performance of the site. Would an up-to-date version of vBulletin have prevented the invasion of the bots? Probably.

[TinaT]

This thread is one reason I don't post as much. Mainly because Wendy is choosing to let the site go. I'm always getting notices about this site not being secure when clicking on the link. I know there's another thread going about updating the site. I would contribute if I knew it would actually happen.

I want to know I'm chatting with real human beings and not a computer. VF has be a great place for so many years. I hate to see it being neglected/forgotten about.

[adawn]

Originally Posted by TinaT

This thread is one reason I don't post as much. Mainly because Wendy is choosing to let the site go. I'm always getting notices about this site not being secure when clicking on the link. I know there's another thread going about updating the site. I would contribute if I knew it would actually happen.

I want to know I'm chatting with real human beings and not a computer. VF has be a great place for so many years. I hate to see it being neglected/forgotten about.

Wendy has explained the security certificate thing previously:

Originally Posted by WWWendy

Hi, as stated above the “insecure site” message appears because we use a free shared SSL certificate provided by our web hosting company. We DO have site security, but I have not purchased a separate VF owned SSL certificate with our name on it because VF does not sell anything, capture credit card info etc. so the cost is not worth it. The free shared certificate provides the same security except the name on the security certificate belongs to our hosting company. Because the name does not match videofitness.com the browser error message appears. This is a good thing in the case of a phishing situation / you would not want to log in to a site pretending to be amazon with your amazon credentials (for example). But in our case the mismatch goes not mean we are insecure, just that we use a shared security certificate.

It is always good practice to use a unique password here or anywhere else, however.

I will consult with the hosting company to see if there is a way to stop the warnings besides buying our own SSL.

[TinaT]

Thank you adawn for sharing this. That explains the security part of all this.

[fanofladyvols]

Originally Posted by yogapam

IIRC, anyone can browse the forum without joining, but you can’t post. Correct me if I’m wrong. I find it hard to believe that all these similar names are individuals. Not sure what they have to gain by hanging out here as there isn’t much personal information available. Their profiles are not accessible which I find odd and they aren’t listed in the members list. I wonder if Wendy is aware and if it’s worth contacting her?

I sent a PM to Wendy about some "member" when I first noticed how they were hidden from the community but she never responded.

[fanofladyvols]

Originally Posted by Messe

Among other things, malicious/bad bots can harvest email addresses and then send phishing emails. And as the numbers of bots increase, they can affect the performance of the site. Would an up-to-date version of vBulletin have prevented the invasion of the bots? Probably.

I think I may quote your post here and add to the abandonware thread

[yogapam]

Originally Posted by fanofladyvols

I sent a PM to Wendy about some "member" when I first noticed how they were hidden from the community but she never responded.

Not surprised to hear that Linda. Perhaps this thread will discourage them from lurking?

[Usia]

At 5:45 am I find that there are 12 "new" members logged on and only 4 old members. Most of the 12 "new" ones have been logged on continuously for days and none of their profiles are available for viewing. Sad.