@ChristineCooper, unlikely. it will not stop pingbacks or jetpack. In any case I am not sure that there is any user registration by xml-rpc in core so your problem might be with something else, but if you want to disable xmlrpc to test the theory toscho's suggestion is the best.

I've started going through unanswered Q's tagged woocommerce and flagging most of what I find

Looking at some users' reviews, some have voted to leave open some posts which appear off-topic.. so perhaps part of the reason off-topic Qs take awhile to close is not just because we have a low number of close reviewers, but that we don't agree on scope

@TimMalone, your flag still doesn't count as a close vote. There were 4 at that point and mine was the one that closed it.

@MarkKaplun Oh I meant did my flag cause those people to come in and vote for it. Or was it just that it got you in? I'm not exactly sure how flags are seen in the close vote queue. I guess I'm asking... if I keep on flaggin' stuff, I'm helping, right?

Just shot the plugin-chat tag. Only one of the six posts with that label actually was about that specific plugin.

@cjbj should teach you something about two-words tags. :P

@MarkKaplun Thanks! We think they're using xmlrpc to update userdata. We've updated our custom made captcha to check if this will stop the bots. I'm still doubtful the registrations are being performed via the registration page though. If this doesn't work, we'll just disable the registration page completely and see if we get any more signups :D

Got rid of the pdo tag. PHP Data Objects would be off topic these days anyway.

@TimMalone, keep flagging, it goes into a queue that moderators see. in this specific case it was the pointless answer that cuased it to bump and made me see it. The other close votes are probably mostly from the time it was first published

@cjbj why?

@toscho Because the questions were old and the subject is off topic

@cjbj I mean: why would PDO be off-topic?

Because it's a mechanism between PHP and the database, basically shielded off by WP.

There are 9 questions with the collapse tag. That's a css thing. Because there are so many of them I thought I'll give an advance warning in case someone would like to keep it.

nah, collapse it