Member Search Not Working

No, not if you're talking about the search of posts in the Community by UserID. I've been able to do that since well after the newsfeed went away. I know I've done it multiple times in the web browser version of the Community, in fact just did it right now with your ID successfully. I can't recall if I've done it in the Android app version of the Community since the newsfeed went away, and definitely haven't in Apple.

In the past, I've found this (Community search by UserID) to be a thing that mysteriously and periodically just doesn't work for a while, then does. Note that this search is 100% the Vanilla forums application that's used for the Community, not MFP proper at all.

You probably know this, but a person who signs up for MFP but never reads/posts in the Community will be not found by UserID in the Community. AFAIK that's always been true. (It's one of the things that makes me suspicious someone is a likely creeper, if they FR me but have no Community history - not the only thing I look at, though.)

I don't know about member search within MFP proper (i.e., not Community). I never do that, if it even exists.

springlering62 wrote: »

I hadn’t even thought of that. I’ve had a whole bunch of male requests in a row, a couple of whom are the fake military profiles. None of them were showing up.


So, if they visit community, should they show up even if they don’t post? Presumably they’re opening threads to harvest profiles for friend requests?

In the web version of Community, when I start to type in a user name in the search filter, I get a list of names that start with those characters. I have to pick the right one from the list (even if it's only a list of one) in order to get it to fill the search box with that ID. Sometimes there is no result in that drop-down that matches the ID I'm looking for. Sometimes if there is an ID on the drop down list then I pick it and do the search, there are no results.

This is my inference (no proof): If they've logged into the Community (which is a separate login behind the scenes because Community is a whole separate app from MFP), then their ID will show up on the drop-down list and can be picked. If the ID's not in the drop down, I speculate that they've never been in the Community via the MFP-to-Community route.

If they have posts in the Community, those posts will appear in the search, with (I believe) one exception. I think that if they have posts hidden by moderator actions, there can be a post count that's higher than the number of posts that are listed in the pick list of posts, including the possibility that the count will be a positive number, but no posts show up on the search result. That would be someone whose total set of posts has been moderated into the back room, not visible.

I speculate that a zero post count is someone who's logged into the Community via the link in MFP, but has only read posts, never posted.

If I'm right, the bolded above, that's the thing that's suspicious to me. They're getting the IDs to which they send FRs from somewhere. If it isn't by signing in to the Community via MFP, and we don't have any MFP friends in common (as is sometimes the case), then I think they're likely a creeper (not for sure, just likely).

I've noticed that Community posts are searchable with web search sites (like Google). I wonder if that's where they're getting the IDs. I don't know.

I suspect parts of a process like that could be scripted (what people might call "done by a bot" or these days "done by AI", though those things might not be the right technical terms in truth).

ETA: None of the above is actual knowledge on my part. It's speculation based on what I've seen on searches, plus a little bit of history as a person who's often needed to test software to try to figure out exactly how it works or what it does (as part of my career).

@springlering62, I agree about the probability that there are especially vulnerable people among the wider group here, and think that if bad people read Community posts (either via MFP or web search), they can zero in on those. I suspect most of the scammers aren't that subtle, though . . . at least in their initial approach, which is likely more shotgun: FR a bunch of people, see who accepts (probably a higher proportion of less skeptical/critical people, more trusting people) accept. Start the "How are you doing today, are you have a good day" innocuous kind of chat via DM, see who responds, which probably narrows down the targets somewhat . . . and so forth.

It's morally reprehensible.

People here may boggle at my saying this, but I think MFP does a better than average job (compared with other social media) in monitoring suspicious actors, and weeding out those who are demonstrably baddies. It doesn't take much to be better than average, sadly. Facebook, for example, won't even minimally censor blatantly obvious catfishers, clones of real people, sellers of questionable financial investments or digital currencies, etc. It's awful there, and I think FB is more typical.

Personally, I'll keep accepting FRs from people who do have a Community history, especially if I've interacted with them on a thread(s) here. I'm not suggesting you should do likewise. If anyone acts even vaguely creepy (no matter how OK the FR looked), I'm reporting them.

kimny72 wrote: »

@springlering62 you and I must be on the same list! I've gotten about 30 invitations over the last couple of weeks,, mostly from the same user, but a couple with a similar id. Don't come up in search. I haven't posted in Community in forever, so no idea where they found me. I wasted a few seconds emailing help to see if it was a glitch or just some bot farm on speed, but I'm not expecting a response. 🤷

It's just a scammer; please continue to report them as you did before.