How bad the Bot hits are on the Forum

[Roadgeekteen]

Just got my first not a robot. I wonder what sites are NOT having bot issues these days.

[1995hoo]

Just got my first not a robot. I wonder what sites are NOT having bot issues these days.

The verification thing didn't bother me at all when I started seeing it because I'm used to it from another forum I visit; they implemented it earlier this fall after suffering major performance issues. As kphoger says, the key thing is that we don't have to "prove" our humanity by clicking every square with a bus or whatever in it.

The thing that struck me as odd this morning was that when I hit F5 to refresh the forum (with the forum's home screen displayed), I got the Firefox pop-up warning about having to resend information. I assume it has something to do with the verification procedure. That's never happened on the other forum I mentioned. But simply clicking the "Home" button as an alternative to refreshing did the job equally well without the warning. Just need to retrain myself.

[kphoger]

I tend to view a few threads, go do something else in another tab for a little while, and come back, but the verification triggers every time I do that.

This doesn't bother me.  It's a small price for me to pay on the user end, if it's helping save the site from death by a million papercuts.

[Molandfreak]

Could be worse.

[Chris]

So many of the Facebook groups I belong to on niche topics are all but dead, and even the ones with impressive user counts have very poor engagement. Part of that is Facebook (as an example) prioritizing traffic to AI-slop groups.

I'm an admin on the Freewayjim Facebook group. The group is quite large but it's pretty rare for any one post to reach even 10% of the group members, below 5% is more common.

Engagement is even worse, the number of likes on posts is often only 0.5% of group members.

The problem is that all popular platforms have essentially devolved into 'passive scrolling'. This has consequences for the wider internet as well. Good posts on FB groups or on internet forums do not get a lot of engagement.

[ZLoth]

I'm an admin on the Freewayjim Facebook group. The group is quite large but it's pretty rare for any one post to reach even 10% of the group members, below 5% is more common.

Oh, another Facebook that I need to rejoin. Request sent.

The problem is that all popular platforms have essentially devolved into 'passive scrolling'. This has consequences for the wider internet as well. Good posts on FB groups or on internet forums do not get a lot of engagement.

I disagee, but for different reasons. Because of events in real life, it feels like that the internet forums and message boards have become charged, and what used to be polite disagreements have turned into hotbeds when your differing opinion can become a very nasty thread. I wonder how many accounts on Facebook are just abandoned with the users not logging in anymore.

[vdeane]

I think how annoying re-verification is has to do with how you check the forum.  I always queue every thread I want to read all at once and then read through them sequentially, with a refresh of the index page at the end to catch any posts that were made in that time by comparing timestamps on the recent posts list.  Some of the ways I've found out that I need to re-verify include the like button not doing anything and attempting to view who liked a post yielding a message that I had been banned.  The "confirm form resubmission" is common.  Annoyingly, refreshing with needing to re-verify doesn't keep the page on the recent posts list, but drops me back at the top (I suppose that helps with noticing new likes that came in, but it's also a higher cognitive load to remember what timestamp I need to compare to).  I even had one time where the refresh went through, but every tab I queued from the recent posts list had to individually re-verify.  Also interestingly, at work it verifies automatically, but at home I have to click the box.

So re-verification is probably no sweat if you keep to a single tab and browse on a device that can verify automatically, but more annoying if you queue a ton of tabs and protect your privacy well enough that you look like a bot.  Incidentally, I had the same issues on FFN while they were doing this; I had to load a dummy tab to do the verification before middle-clicking the folder with the fanfics I follow to queue them all up in separate tabs, and there were times I'd have to verify a few times while reading (which took forever on Android for some reason).

Just got my first not a robot. I wonder what sites are NOT having bot issues these days.

Good question.  I assume even mine is, given that IONOS says 52% of my traffic is from outside the US and keeps trying to sell me CDN service.  My Google Search Console numbers tell a very different story, with the overwhelming majority of clicks being the US, with Canada being a distant second, and the also distant third being essentially random with a single-digit number of clicks.

[DeaconG]

Alex, I definitely appreciate you keeping this forum up, I know it is a thankless task. I haven't been posting as much over the last few years, but I would be sad if this forum went away.
And don't feel bad, Skyscraper City has had the yips numerous times for the same reason, with the site being down at least a full day several times.
Effing bots.

[hotdogPi]

attempting to view who liked a post yielding a message that I had been banned

I got banned this exact way a few days ago. However, I thought it had to do with my internet connection, as it was very weak when I clicked the view likes page but not when I loaded the page.

I'm generally on one tab throughout the entire forum (meaning I keep having to click the back button or more accurately swipe left with three fingers), with the exceptions of keeping a tab open permanently on Road Sign UNO and the 1-2-3 Route Number Addition Game, so I don't think tabs are the problem. However, like you, "Recent unread topics" is my home page, and I often reload it.

[formulanone]

I'm an admin on the Freewayjim Facebook group. The group is quite large but it's pretty rare for any one post to reach even 10% of the group members, below 5% is more common.

Oh, another Facebook that I need to rejoin. Request sent.

The problem is that all popular platforms have essentially devolved into 'passive scrolling'. This has consequences for the wider internet as well. Good posts on FB groups or on internet forums do not get a lot of engagement.

I disagee, but for different reasons. Because of events in real life, it feels like that the internet forums and message boards have become charged, and what used to be polite disagreements have turned into hotbeds when your differing opinion can become a very nasty thread. I wonder how many accounts on Facebook are just abandoned with the users not logging in anymore.

...and now you can argue with a bot, or at least synthetic people who act like them.

I'd imagine that at least 50-60% don't log in anymore, and that percentage could be a lot higher. In the example of forums, 10% of the posters make 90% of the posts, and the average account might make 3 posts. Lots of people tend to join, get their information, and then leave or find themselves not connecting with the rest of the membership. Because of the personal connections, Facebook still has a little more staying power; but there's also lots of people I know who have either stopped using it, ended their account, or never post anymore for one reason or another. I know a few family and friends who just deleted their accounts, and now we stay in touch with texting because there's no stupid algorithm pushing ads or nagging at you to stay glued.

Seriously, thanks for keeping the lights on @Alex and all of you on this forum for sticking around. Even if I disagree with you, it's still far better than no participation at all.

[Alex]

First off, I greatly appreciate the thanks conveyed in this thread. Between banned members sending me fan mail, having to learn how to run a dedicated server on the fly, debugging scripts both here and on the main site for days on end, running the website has increasingly tested my patience and resolve the past two years...

Now that Cloudflare has been running for a couple of days, I am deactivating the "Bot Fight Mode", which was an extra layer of security to enact since things devolved so bad with the bots. I too have gotten somewhat frustrated with the Cloudflare verifications, as even when I am logged into the AARoads custom-admin area, I go idle for 10 minutes and have to reverify.

The thing that struck me as odd this morning was that when I hit F5 to refresh the forum (with the forum's home screen displayed), I got the Firefox pop-up warning about having to resend information.

OK, I was wondering why I was getting the same thing when just loading a regular page on the site.

Would it be possible to tweak the Cloudflare settings to increase the time between re-verification? I tend to view a few threads, go do something else in another tab for a little while, and come back, but the verification triggers every time I do that. Maybe set it to something around two hours?

This appears to not be an option with the Free plan.

I would suggest even longer on the wiki - I keep multiple AARW pinned tabs open on multiple machines. I haven't yet had a scenario where the re-verification happens as I try to save an edit, but am concerned what might happen when that occurs.

I had "Under Attack Mode" activated, and deactivating is the lone way I can find to improve this.

Will just have to monitor how many "guests" the Forum gets and go from here. It was nice to see only 91 when I logged on.

[NE2]

Would it be possible to tweak the Cloudflare settings to increase the time between re-verification? I tend to view a few threads, go do something else in another tab for a little while, and come back, but the verification triggers every time I do that. Maybe set it to something around two hours?

I would suggest even longer on the wiki - I keep multiple AARW pinned tabs open on multiple machines. I haven't yet had a scenario where the re-verification happens as I try to save an edit, but am concerned what might happen when that occurs.

I've had it happen...it either saves it fine or says you were logged out and brings you to the diff for your edit so you can try again.

[PColumbus73]

It does make me wonder how long it will be before the forum, and others like it, goes defunct, either due to bot attacks or traffic being too low to justify. Even though the activity might be low, the information that gets shared here can be pretty valuable.

[Alex]

Site metrics will only get worse as search engines scrape data for their AI-powered results. My sites have been slowly declining in metrics for about a year now. Coupled with people getting information on social media (less on Facebook and more on short-form reel-focused platforms), forums and group-like sites are increasingly seen as irrelevant. So many of the Facebook groups I belong to on niche topics are all but dead, and even the ones with impressive user counts have very poor engagement. Part of that is Facebook (as an example) prioritizing traffic to AI-slop groups.

I really miss the earlier iterations of the internet.

Unfortunately I suspect that you are right.

It does make me wonder how long it will be before the forum, and others like it, goes defunct, either due to bot attacks or traffic being too low to justify. Even though the activity might be low, the information that gets shared here can be pretty valuable.

Definitely moving toward going defunct...


Impressions in purple, clicks in blue.

[hotdogPi]

I think part of the problem as to why this forum is declining is the lack of new users, since you can't register anymore.

[kphoger]

Because of events in real life, it feels like that the internet forums and message boards have become charged, and what used to be polite disagreements have turned into hotbeds when your differing opinion can become a very nasty thread. I wonder how many accounts on Facebook are just abandoned with the users not logging in anymore.

Removed excess verbiage.

[Walnut2]

I think part of the problem as to why this forum is declining is the lack of new users, since you can't register anymore.

No register/sign-up button, and no obvious forum announcement or sticky thread instructing would-be new members on how they can sign up otherwise (e.g. by contacting the administrator). There used to be a "Registration issues" board visible only to guests in which some replies/info about this could be found, but that's gone now too. Definitely a recipe for (even more of) a decline in forum activity. An inflow of new members is vital.

Another forum I'm on that uses SMF 2.1 has no problem with the sign-up button being enabled, so I'm not sure what the problem is here. The way that forum does registrations is that first one completes the registration form (which has questions/captchas to help filter out spam), then must send an email to the admin/global-moderator email address right away from the address they used for their account, mentioning their chosen username and describing why they are joining the forum (to prove they are not a spammer). Then a staff member approves the new account. A dedicated "Registration Instructions" board and sticky therein make it obvious as can be that these are the steps a would-be member must follow.

[epzik8]

Because of events in real life, it feels like that the internet forums and message boards have become charged, and what used to be polite disagreements have turned into hotbeds when your differing opinion can become a very nasty thread. I wonder how many accounts on Facebook are just abandoned with the users not logging in anymore.

Removed excess verbiage.

Jokes aside, most of the time I want to curse whoever came up with the idea of internet forums.

[rschen7754]

I think part of the problem as to why this forum is declining is the lack of new users, since you can't register anymore.

No register/sign-up button, and no obvious forum announcement or sticky thread instructing would-be new members on how they can sign up otherwise (e.g. by contacting the administrator). There used to be a "Registration issues" board visible only to guests in which some replies/info about this could be found, but that's gone now too. Definitely a recipe for (even more of) a decline in forum activity. An inflow of new members is vital.

Another forum I'm on that uses SMF 2.1 has no problem with the sign-up button being enabled, so I'm not sure what the problem is here. The way that forum does registrations is that first one completes the registration form (which has questions/captchas to help filter out spam), then must send an email to the admin/global-moderator email address right away from the address they used for their account, mentioning their chosen username and describing why they are joining the forum (to prove they are not a spammer). Then a staff member approves the new account. A dedicated "Registration Instructions" board and sticky therein make it obvious as can be that these are the steps a would-be member must follow.

This. If there are no new members, attrition will gradually cull away at the active members until the forum gradually dies.

I'm aware that a forum admin had to manually have an account for one of our AARW Discord users since there was no working signup process, and that isn't viable for growth or even maintaining what is there. And that was 45 days ago.

[hotdogPi]

The reason Registration Problems was disabled is because one person created over 100 threads about keto gummies. That said, hiding that shouldn't mean no registration at all.

[vdeane]

However, like you, "Recent unread topics" is my home page, and I often reload it.

That's not what I meant (in fact, I don't even know where that page is).  I was talking about the "recent posts" section of the index below all the boards and above the stats, users online, and users logged in sections.  When I finish my main check, I reload the index and then queue up the posts that showed up since the timestamp of the last post when I first opened the forum.  Although on the rare occasion there are so many that post is no longer visible, I have to go through and re-queue everything by opening the boards with new posts in new tabs like I do on the main check.  Then I repeat until there's nothing more and click "mark all as read".

Definitely moving toward going defunct...


Impressions in purple, clicks in blue.

Wow.  I wonder what happened in July.  Was that when registration was disabled?  If anything I would have thought the drop would have been during the forum outage in May.

[hotdogPi]

Wow.  I wonder what happened in July.  Was that when registration was disabled?  If anything I would have thought the drop would have been during the forum outage in May.

Registration was disabled on (or within a few days of) March 20, 2024.

[Molandfreak]

The reason Registration Problems was disabled is because one person created over 100 threads about keto gummies. That said, hiding that shouldn't mean no registration at all.

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Cheers,

Carl Rogers
"Environment first, transportology second"
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[bandit957]

This forum is great for road news and reading about the latest doings of our favorite Roads Scholars.

I don't think there's anything else like it these days.

[bandit957]

If this forum goes away, maybe we should bring back BipRoads. Why? Because it bips, that's why.