How bad the Bot hits are on the Forum

[NE2]

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

Bipping is all the rage now. 6-7 bips right on the highway.

[Alex]

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.

The "reason to join" mod stopped working, which was one of the reasons why registration was disabled. Whenever @rickmastfan67 logs on again, maybe he can look into it or find an alternate solution.

Otherwise I have manually registered about a dozen or so members over the last year. These are people who emailed with the requests.

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.

This is exactly what happened. I logged in one morning (Summer of 2024 IIRC) and there were around 180 threads started about keto on the Registration Problems board by "guests". They also all used the Interstate Business Route message icon, which is the default selected by a spammer generated thread. After manually removing them one by one, I absolutely did not want to go through that again and decided to disable the board.

If there is a method to use that board without it getting bombarded with spam posts that circumvent captcha and other SMF security protocols, then one of the staff can reactivate it.

[Voyager]

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.

The "reason to join" mod stopped working, which was one of the reasons why registration was disabled. Whenever @rickmastfan67 logs on again, maybe he can look into it or find an alternate solution.

Otherwise I have manually registered about a dozen or so members over the last year. These are people who emailed with the requests.

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.

This is exactly what happened. I logged in one morning (Summer of 2024 IIRC) and there were around 180 threads started about keto on the Registration Problems board by "guests". They also all used the Interstate Business Route message icon, which is the default selected by a spammer generated thread. After manually removing them one by one, I absolutely did not want to go through that again and decided to disable the board.

If there is a method to use that board without it getting bombarded with spam posts that circumvent captcha and other SMF security protocols, then one of the staff can reactivate it.

Doesn't SMF still have the new user registration approval option? You can set it to where Scott can approve new members, and create a custom field for registration to replace the "reason for joining".

[Scott5114]

You can set it to where Scott can approve new members

The last time I was in charge of anything having to do with that, I somehow managed to ban the entire East Coast.

[formulanone]

You can set it to where Scott can approve new members

The last time I was in charge of anything having to do with that, I somehow managed to ban the entire East Coast.

Banning the IP range 0.*.*.* through 63.*.*.* is never the answer.

[LilianaUwU]

I don't think anyone should be using Cloudflare considering their inaction towards hateful websites.

[Scott5114]

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

[freebrickproductions]

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

[Road Hog]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

[Scott5114]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

Well, are you a bot?

[LilianaUwU]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

Well, are you a bot?

No, and I'm fucking tired of having the company that intentionally platformed hateful websites ask me if I'm one.

[seicer]

It takes 2 to 4 seconds to verify. Not a big deal.

If you have a better idea for how to stop or slow down bot/AI traffic from profiting off AARoads, I'm sure Alex would be receptive.

[Alex]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

[LilianaUwU]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

[hotdogPi]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

I've never seen the Anubis loading page on the forum, only on the wiki.

[1995hoo]

It seems to me the forum management should use whatever tool (software or otherwise) they feel is most effective for their needs.

[seicer]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

No one is actually being prevented from accessing the websites.

But if people are rotating their VPN connections, then they should expect to have their traffic scrutinized. Most users do not use VPN funnels and passing off to be users from another country or region.

[LilianaUwU]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

No one is actually being prevented from accessing the websites.

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

Yeah, I was unable to reach this forum over the weekend due to what seems to be the only sport in existence over here, and not due to any particular team. Fuck Javier Tebas (the president of La Liga).

[Alex]

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

Per what rschen7754 told me, unfortunately the Cloudflare settings for the entire site caused conflicts with Anubus. Cloudflare was the last resort, as all of my other efforts for addressing the bot problem (going back to March) did not work. I spent many weekends consulting with A.I. with code changes to implement both at the server level, and for SMF directly, that failed to improve any of the site or Forum security.

[wanderer2575]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

No one is actually being prevented from accessing the websites.

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

Blaming Alex for that is a leap too far.

[Alex]

Blaming Alex for that is a leap too far.

I didn't take it as such, but can understand the frustration and disdain for the company involved.

[seicer]

Four times this weekend (including moments ago) I've been asked to prove that I am not a bot. Both on my phone and my laptop. I guess storm is brewing.

I reenabled the Under Attack Mode because the AARoads Wiki is still getting hammered by A.I. Scrapers. Hopefully will not have to keep this level of security in place for the long term.

We already had Anubis, that was fine enough and it didn't prevent legitimate users to access websites because of oppressive governments...

No one is actually being prevented from accessing the websites.

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

Ditto.

In what has got to set the record for the most absurd tech problem this forum has ever had, @CNGL-Leudimin tells me that he cannot access the forum at all when a particular soccer team is playing, due to a Spanish court case requiring Cloudflare to be blocked nationwide when that team is playing, in an attempt to prevent piracy.

God, I hate the 21st century.

Yeah, I was unable to reach this forum over the weekend due to what seems to be the only sport in existence over here, and not due to any particular team. Fuck Javier Tebas (the president of La Liga).

Yeah, that's not Alex's fault. But you are free to use a VPN to skirt around countrywide restrictions.

As always, if you have better suggestions, then please suggest.

-

Getting back to topic, I have seen noticeable traffic drops at many other forums I have frequented over the years. I was reviewing data for two, and this problem isn't unique for AARoads. But barring registrations wholesale is going to be problematic long-term. Could there be a manual vetting of requests similar to what we do for other groups (on Facebook)?

[hotdogPi]

[roadman65]

Well I've been faced with cloudfare lately when coming on. So thst must be slowing down those bots.