WEBSITE users mystery....

[revelarts]

every once in a while i look down at the bottom of the front page and i see something like this.



What's Going On?

http://www.debatepolicy.com/images/debate_policy/misc/users_online.pngCurrently Active Users

There are currently 55 users online (http://www.debatepolicy.com/online.php). 5 members and 50 guests

"There are currently 55 users online. 5 members and 50 guests"

really? are there 50 bots? or sometime 100+ bots?
Or are there that many people always lurking?

Anyone know what's up with those numbers?

[NightTrain]

Yeah, I've looked into it a few times.

Some are lurkers, most are bots for Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

At one time we were the test bed for Chinese bots, there were thousands at a time, then those died off.

They still have a spambot program with us that finally seems to have died off. For a while there I was banning 10 - 12 per day, running out of China and Vietnam. I think their goal was to develop propaganda & commercial bots. They never did perfect it because there were human steps involved that they couldn't figure out how to automate.

[AHZ]

every once in a while i look down at the bottom of the front page and i see something like this.




"There are currently 55 users online. 5 members and 50 guests"

really? are there 50 bots? or sometime 100+ bots?
Or are there that many people always lurking?

Anyone know what's up with those numbers?


lurkers, webcrawlers, bots, ccp bots collecting your subversive opinions.

[AHZ]

Yeah, I've looked into it a few times.

Some are lurkers, most are bots for Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

At one time we were the test bed for Chinese bots, there were thousands at a time, then those died off.

They still have a spambot program with us that finally seems to have died off. For a while there I was banning 10 - 12 per day, running out of China and Vietnam. I think their goal was to develop propaganda & commercial bots. They never did perfect it because there were human steps involved that they couldn't figure out how to automate.


basically us old crackpots spewing our old timer talk are not worth figuring it out.


the future is already XXXX

Edit: racist word removed