Slow/Unstable Forum Connection Recently?

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

In that case, I would venture to say that this issue takes on urgency beyond the poor site performance. I'm not a big fan of the idea that AI bots are using my fiction posts to "learn" how to write marketing copy and slop mags. I'm sure it's not entirely preventable, but I'd appreciate an effort being made to curtail that.

Hopefully we can get some comment from Erik on this. If the answer involves a bump in hosting costs, I'd like to think we as a community can come together on this.

[Louella]

Hopefully we can get some comment from Erik on this.

Erik said on discord he won't be able to do much for a while. IRL stuff.

I do notice there's a lot fewer guests reported today, and the forums are a lot better. Very odd.

[Jarhead0331]

Hopefully we can get some comment from Erik on this.

Erik said on discord he won't be able to do much for a while. IRL stuff.

I do notice there's a lot fewer guests reported today, and the forums are a lot better. Very odd.

This would be expected if the problem is as I suspect. When the site goes down, the bot attacks temporarily stop, so function appears to return to normal. However, the attacks will start again resuming the cycle.

[LuuBluum]

I think what happens is that they restart the server once it becomes overloaded and the bot scrapers start back at nothing; once they climb up again down goes the server.

We're at 7000 guests and counting, so it should go down not too long after this message. Maybe an hour, tops? Assuming 10k is the max it can handle.

[Erik L]

more like the sql service crashes and is restarted.

I'm looking at ways to block bots/spiders

[xenoscepter]

Perhaps a tarpit thing? Something like Nepenthes or those Discord channels I see that are nothing but an insta-ban trap for bots.