[trilljester]

Originally Posted by ScienceofSpock

Just a quick question/security concern:
How are you identifying SE bots? Are you using the user-agent?
If so, are bots allowed to post (considering they're regarded as regular members) ?
If so, What's to stop me loading up Opera, changing my user-agent to googlebot and posting on your forums?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, I'd really like to add this to my forum. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate and perform due diligence.

Yes, the modification uses the spiders_vbulletin.xml and checks the user-agent to determine if you're a bot or not. And if you follow the default installation, you'll be allowing bots or humans who are clever enough to change their user-agent to post on your site.

HOWEVER, you can set whatever group you want the bots/humans to be in. If you want the bots to be able to see your site but not post, create a new usergroup that doesn't allow posting, just viewing. Which is what I would recommend in any case, so nobody can spoof a bot and post on your forums.

To change to that group, just modify the code you added in init.php and change that group ID to whatever ID you have setup for that special group.