# Who is the mysterious "system" poster? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 25, 2021, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-mysterious-system-poster/931431 "2021-01-25T07:21:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2021, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-mysterious-system-poster/931431/2 "2021-01-25T07:32:05Z")
See this topic I made shortly after the switch to Discourse: > [@The system user has taken ownership of some older posts](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-system-user-has-taken-ownership-of-some-older-posts/916080): > > Dear Straight Dope, I just wanted to bring to your attention that the system user appears to have gobbled up a number of posts in the thread, “[What will the UK do about Brexit?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-uk-do-wrt-brexit/829799/483)”. It appears that the user whose posts were gobbled up was named Andrew. It’s not just that thread either, if you look at [Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system/activity) you will see there are lots of posts being attributed to system, … The system user is part of the forum software itself, I’m not sure why it would take over any non-automated posts after the migration. The 2020 example might be the result of a mistake when banning a spammer - perhaps instead of having the spam deleted, due to a mistake perhaps it shows up as a system post. ~Max --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-mysterious-system-poster/931431)._