I have started my own forum called www.decentdiscussions.com First I was using phpbb but two weeks ago I upgraded it to VBulletin, after the upgrade I am getting around 8-10 new registrations daily, but the weird thing is that NO one is starting posting on the forum, even they just register and go away... why? I mean if they registered on the forum, it means they like the forum but when they have registered why not any one of them starting posting? May be they are robots? is it possible that robots are registering on my forum? New members must have to validate their email address before joining the forum. Anybody have any idea what is going on?
I'm sure you'll find most of the new registrants are spammers, using bots to register automatically. Sometimes it can be months before they try to make a post on the forum. I check the email address and IP address of everyone who registers with my forum, if they are from Eastern Europe or Asia they're nearly always a spammer. It's worth Googling the user names too, sometimes you find someone using the same name has recently registered with hundreds of forums.
Just to let you know, on my forum CAPTCHA and Email Verification is ON. I know some members are spammers just by looking at their name, like BuyViagra, ViagraSeller...etc but I think some members are registering just to reserve their favorite username, and they might start posting when the forum will become active.
Spammers have no problem with Captcha these days. It's better to use vBulletin's question and answer system, so a human has to answer a question and it can't be automated.
Quite a few people join forums and don't post, this is the scenario everywhere. Have you check in your ACP whether or not those people are actually verifying their email address? Last thing you want is your email heading in to spam folder and users unable to verify the account and thus not able to post.
Can you please guide me how can I check if they have verified their email address or not? Do I have to check for every single user who recently registered or there is a system that tells all the users who have not verified?
Go to the admin control panel, then Usergroup Manager, find the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" group and select "Show All Primary Users". It will list everyone who hasn't verified their email address.
wow, I can see Users Awaiting Email Confirmation - 44 Many of them are spammers, I can tell by looking at their usernames. Now what should I do if my emails are going to their junk folders? or may be they are intentionally not activating their account, because they are lazy
That is normal. Based on my experience, only 5% of the total number of people who registered on our forum sites did actually post and make replies. Most would just visit every now and then and see what's new. They won't participate in the discussion until the thread talks about them or their friends.
It could be robots but if you enable Captcha Verification the chances would be minimal. Sometimes people register just for the heck of it, and never post. For example in sitepoint you will see many members participating in the marketplace with 0 posts in the forum. So, they might be after something else in your domain. Also, many people basically register in the forums and send mass PM Spam. I would install a mod for vbulletin to search PM for spam . Your forum looks pretty good, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Maybe they are spammers... Never know. Or! If it's real members. Maybe they arent really attracted to your site...