Follow-up from the OP
 

Is it just me, or is there a trend for more "One-Post Hit and Run" threads?

I am at least noticing more the new member who asks a question, never responds to the help offered or requests for clarification--and is never heard from again.

In some types of activities, there are specific events which will predictably cause an increase in "Looky-Loos", but I can't see how to apply that to this observation.

I think it's some newbies that are expecting a near instant response to anything they ask.
When they don't get that instant response they conclude that no-one likes them and go away.

I have taken to Googling for the first line of these types of post, and normally they have been posted in multiple places - normally in wildly inappropriate forums when you look at the question. I can't tell if someone is just being bored and mocking us all or if it's a spambot test.

I have also moved this to LQS&F to see if Jeremy has any insights on this issue.

No specific insight from me, but I'm interested in comments on the issue.

--jeremy

Of the (admittedly small) representation I have seen here, the Mod sense starts tingling when a thread title is spelt slightly wrong - the most recent was something like "Advise Wanted" instead of "Advice Wanted". I agree, that's not conclusive but it's stuff like this that catches your eye. The most recent batch of these that I have seen have all had very very minor flaws but have made me look at them twice.

They also tend to be the first posts from someone and have absolutely no follow up and, for me this is the obvious clincher, they don't use the LQ text wrap around. By which I mean that the lines:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Will be seen as:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute
irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia
deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Looking like a copy/paste job. Again, absolutely inconclusive, but it make me for one look again. The final clincher is a search for the first line of the post (with or without quote marks) and you can then see that the post has cropped up with that wording many many times.

The copy/paste bit is something I've noticed and is almost certainly a sign of spambots to come. They're getting quite advanced, and true contextual bots seems to be fairly common now.

--jeremy

If It's Bots, how about a captcha during login? Personally, I hate them, but I can deal with something like kittenauth.

what would spambots purpose be attacking this site?

We get huge amounts of spam attempts. We automatically block most and the mods diligently clean up the rest. At this point in the game, captcha's are mostly useless.

--jeremy

I have to praise the mods at this point, they are doing a very nice job at keeping this forum clean. Maybe you guys could right a script of some sort to prevent double posts of the same thing

Hmmm, did anyone notice how pixellany posted this and then never responded again? :p

I talk about this stuff too much already--just ask my wife...;)
Look at my posting history and you might just come back and tell me to put a sock in it....

so Tinkster is a spambot? i knew it!

Didn't you know? Check the mail archive, Jeremy and david_ross coded him a few years ago. :)

seriously?