I noticed lately on the forum statistics that there a couple of '-bots' showing up with some regularity. Is it just because of the latest forum updates that these are being recognized? And have they always been around but just not showing uop until recently?

In particular Googlebot and Hotbot.

I see a "Hot Bot" in the member list right now, as a matter of fact. If these bots are trying to be discreet in their presence, I think it's funny that they are getting a "flag stuck in them" by showing up in the logged-in-list.

So are these kind of things usually benign, such as seeking popular topics by someone with good intentions? Or are they usually malevolent by, for example, enabling advertising, or worse...? Have there been any automated postings/responses here by any bots?

And if these are RIAA spybots, I'm gonna be pi**ed!!!

Invision Board 1.2 is so to say "searchbot friendly". Bots have been here before but now the board makes it easier for them to index topics. Not sure why the admins here opted to make them visible to all users