vForums Support > System Improvements :: Suggestions :: Implemented Suggestions :: > BOTs Online

BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 23rd Dec 09 at 9:52pm
Show BOT guests as a pseudo-user instead of a guest, most of my guests are BOTs and I want my number of guests to be more accurate and not include BOTs

List of BOT IPs: http://iplists.com/

Edit: Also can it be possible to prevent the BOTs to get in member only areas? (PMs, Admin Panel, etc.)

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 24th Dec 09 at 12:37am
Bots see as much guests do. So I doubt they can see Member only area's. Unless you have the boards open to categories. and only staff members are allowed to see the Admin Panel.

But I think that would be good to show the names of Bots like on phpBB, Google[Bot]. {Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 24th Dec 09 at 2:07am
When I look at who's where I will see "guests" in PMs or Admin Panel

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 24th Dec 09 at 4:34am
I don't think that's true. I see the same thing, but as a guest you can't access those area's at all.

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 24th Dec 09 at 4:48am
They are crawler BOTs

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 24th Dec 09 at 5:29am
Yeah, but they are considered Guests. if you put your forum to member only or in Maintenance mode, guests (including Google) can only see the members only and MM part.

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Michael (wrighty) on 24th Dec 09 at 6:12am
If you go to the page that you would normally go to to see PMs as a guest, it'd show you an error but still register you as viewing that area. That's where the confusion lies.

There's no chance that a bot can see what a member can see, so don't worry. {Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 24th Dec 09 at 6:18am
What about Admin Panel?

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 24th Dec 09 at 6:19am
Same thing. No one other than staff can view the admin panel it's just as if you were a guest and tried to view http://support.virtualforums.co.uk/action/admin it's not possible.

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Ross (admin) on 24th Dec 09 at 9:36am
I have been considering this for a while. At least to identify the main bots such as Google Bot, Google Adsense, Bing etc.

And as said, there is no way bots can see member only areas. Those who say they're viewing PMs or admin areas are most likely ad-crawlers (trying to determine the best ads to display). They just see either an error message or a login form.

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 24th Dec 09 at 7:36pm
I would just like my guests online and my guests today to be more accurate so that BOTs would not be counted towards the total

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 29th Dec 09 at 10:26pm
I have something to add to this, if possible in the templates with showing of members add BOTs like:

Staff
Members
BOTs

Including which ones are online or have been online today in a separate list from Staff and Members

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Ross (admin) on 11th Jan 10 at 12:33pm
This is now being tried out on this support forum to see how well it works {Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 11th Jan 10 at 1:24pm
Nice

How do you have it?
Will it be like:
{staff_online}
{members_online}
{bots_online}
Or something along those lines?

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 11th Jan 10 at 8:59pm
I see the Yahoo[Bot] in the info center. Looks good to me! {Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By dog199200 (dog199200) on 11th Jan 10 at 10:28pm
{Tongue Out} this better be something called for a second tag or something, or can be turned off {Tongue Out} i think it would look tacky {Tongue Out}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Ross (admin) on 11th Jan 10 at 11:20pm
 
Nice

How do you have it?
Will it be like:
{staff_online}
{members_online}
{bots_online}
Or something along those lines?


It's not yet built into the templating system as separate tags, we're seeing how the detection goes first.

It's not yet decided how this would be used. There are a few options:

- Introduce a new template tag which lists the users online without bots
- Introduce a new template tag which lists just the bots online
- Have a Forum Settings which decides if bots are shown or not
- Only show bots to Staff Members

All opinions welcome {Smile}




Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Michael (wrighty) on 11th Jan 10 at 11:27pm
Forum Settings:
- Display Bots
-- Guests
-- Members
-- Staff
-- Off

{Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 11th Jan 10 at 11:31pm
A tag just for bots would work VERY well for how I have my info center set up

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Nick (nickb) on 11th Jan 10 at 11:32pm
I think it should be separate from online users. As you described it could have separate tags. Like {bots_online} or something, and the total for the bots should be different from regular guest/members total. Like {Bots_online_total} or something.

Or something like on the info center, [bots] and you can click on it, and it shows the bots that are online now and were online in a pop up box, like the guest box does.

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 12th Jan 10 at 12:06am
The first part is what I would like

In my info center have:

Staff Online
Members Online
-blank line-

I could have BOTs Online in that blank line

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 16th Jan 10 at 12:25am
It does seem that the info center of support has been changed to display BOTs differently

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Michael (wrighty) on 16th Jan 10 at 12:30am
 
It does seem that the info center of support has been changed to display BOTs differently



Yup, shows the bots online, and also lists them separately! {Smile}

Re: BOTs Online - Posted By Aiken (ionfortuna) on 16th Jan 10 at 2:41am
Which is similar to how I have my info center set up, I have members and staff separated and I'll also have BOTs separated