tl;dr Can someone confirm that the usernames shown below are not Discourse-generated (so they’re likely spam accounts)? We have a low activity forum that got a wave of AI spam and bot activity that I am struggling to clean up. There are many new accounts that are unconfirmed and haven’t posted. Some of them have “unusual” usernames: [image] They do, however, have readable “names”, just not “usernames”. Can someone please confirm that Discourse will never auto-generate such usernames, so that I can ensure I don’t accidentally delete legitimate users? It’s been a long time since I signed up for any Discourse forum so I no longer remember the process.

They’re spam. See the discussion here. At this rate I really think a greater solution should be considered by the platform.

Werden Benutzernamen automatisch generiert?

Produktunterstützung

putty (putty) 5. November 2026 um 13:50 2

Das sind Spam-Nachrichten. Siehe die Diskussion hier.

Bei diesem Tempo glaube ich wirklich, dass die Plattform eine umfassendere Lösung in Betracht ziehen sollte.

Thema		Antworten	Aufrufe
Generic “userN” usernames Product Support	12	2688	27. Oktober 2021
Auto-assign random, anonymous usernames Product Support	12	2170	9. Mai 2025
Potential spammer accounts being created General	5	515	27. April 2024
Features to encourage "nice" usernames? Feature	9	1172	2. März 2022
What are these? Product Support	2	68	3. November 2026