Forum Suggestions

[biometrics]

Contact Us form disabled due to spamming. Captcha not helping. Join the forum if you have something to say.

 

[Y2K]

Contact Us form disabled due to spamming. Captcha not helping. Join the forum if you have something to say.

Is there a challenge like on myBB? ie) What political is red? A. EFF

 

[biometrics]

Is there a challenge like on myBB? ie) What political is red? A. EFF

No.

 

[biometrics]

Objections to adding a Google banner ad?

Reason is to become visible on Google search (we are currently ghosted), not for income, we need some user growth.

 

[biometrics]

Right, tired off the hundreds of guests/bots sucking the life out of our server. Averaging between 500 and 800 “guests”.

These are mostly bots on the AI bandwagon training their large language models. It has zero benefit for us other than slowing down the server.

Going to change the forum to members only.

Any objection?

 

[biometrics]

Right, tired off the hundreds of guests/bots sucking the life out of our server. Averaging between 500 and 800 “guests”.

These are mostly bots on the AI bandwagon training their large language models. It has zero benefit for us other than slowing down the server.

Going to change the forum to members only.

Any objection?

Going to try this out, let me know if there are issues.

Anyone can register and access the full forum. We are not sent any traffic by Google etc as we don't run ads. The AI bots are just slowing down the site.

 

[biometrics]

Note for myself: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/how-to-make-registration-required.11383/

 

[biometrics]

I wouldn't like to make this a permanent setting. Hopefully the AI fad will pass. Or else I need to figure out more granular Xenforo settings. Btw, Xenforo is not easy to use.

 

[Baxteen]

I think that is a good move.

 

[satanboy]

The Forum is definitely faster.

 

[satanboy]

The Forum is definitely faster.

and 10 seconds later

 

[biometrics]

Moved the Forum to the bottom.

 

[biometrics]

Have enabled unregistered users to view the forum again, let's see how it goes. If it slows down again will need to consider an upgrade or block the bots again.

 

[AdrianH]

Have enabled unregistered users to view the forum again, let's see how it goes. If it slows down again will need to consider an upgrade or block the bots again.

What is the use of allowing bots to crawl the forum? Is it for search engines?

 

[biometrics]

What is the use of allowing bots to crawl the forum? Is it for search engines?

Used to be, now it's mostly training AI language models.

 

[AdrianH]

Used to be, now it's mostly training AI language models.

So no real benefit for the forum then?

 

[biometrics]

So no real benefit for the forum then?

None.

 

[AdrianH]

None.

What's your reasoning then for allowing them to crawl?

Just wanting to see if I should suggest to admin of SAG to block them or not.

 

[biometrics]

What's your reasoning then for allowing them to crawl?

Just wanting to see if I should suggest to admin of SAG to block them or not.

It's hard to filter out what you don't want. Forums tend to be an all or nothing kind of thing.

 

[AdrianH]

Objections to adding a Google banner ad?

Reason is to become visible on Google search (we are currently ghosted), not for income, we need some user growth.

How did this work out for the forum?