Noticed a pair of rather random looking new users started following me out of the blue this week. New accounts, no posts or activity and both [FirstName][Initial][LastName] username formats, and looking a tad 'bottish' - Figured I would toss a post up on the off chance there is something more suspicious going on with the site as a whole, but could totally just be random chance and totally unrelated to anything.

No idea what they might be up to if they are bots. Just seemed mildly suspicious for some reason.

Both accounts were automatically marked as suspicious, and one has already been flagged as a spammer.

4 minutes ago, Luckless said:

No idea what they might be up to if they are bots. Just seemed mildly suspicious for some reason.

Bots and bad accounts actually happen on a pretty regular basis. I could fill a blog post with what the public doesn't see going on with regard to spammers, bots, etc.

So if you're seeing this, the best thing to do is report it through the reporting function. We have the tools to figure out if these are just new users leveraging the social functions of the site (that are kind of hidden), or if these are legit spammers and bots.

Is there a "Report user Profile" functionality I missed somewhere? The ones in question had no posts or messages or anything I could find with a report button linked to it, and I'm not seeing one on their profile pages.

Figured a post was the easiest way to bring it up, and the "Follow a user with zero other visible action" that seemed weird and new to me for a bot's actions. Hadn't seen that behaviour in a bot before as an opening move. 

On a semi-unrelated note, blog posts on bot activity on the site would be rather interesting to read if anyone on staff has the time and desire to write such things, but sadly that also sounds like the kind of info bot writers could use to fuel their creativity. 

I also have a couple of newly subscribed followers. Both have somewhat similar names and no posts.
So I guess this is a new kind of trick - no idea what they're trying to gain by that.

1 minute ago, Scouting Ninja said:

@MarkESherman

 Already flagged as a spammer.

Hrm, maybe something off with their permissions, they definitely can't post content or anything. 

JeremyJSquires

Under personal website, a super spammy looking link is posted. Still no Report User button anywhere, or am I just missing it?