One thing I have noticed... when not logged in, every other vBulletin software forum I've seen, besides this one, has a "random question" it asks when someone who's not logged in tries to search.
Maybe, we'll hold off examining until after the move. The administration had chosen to make
Registration here exceptionally easily --- no infuriating captchas that scarcely work; no activation emails, etc. etc. ---- and rely on filters and ferocious moderation to keep the boards free of spam, and actually that works pretty well. But it does include a random question to prove humanity. Many other aspects are always permissive over restrictive, since it's just petty to hinder people for any other reason than security. And that includes allowing guests to search.
Do people make bots to spam-search, and would adding a random question help deter them?
I've no idea. Spiders can use the search function, but then I've seen spiders playing games and spiders messaging ---
deep in the forest, after one has drunk a flagon of mead and the moon rides high --- this doesn't mean they were actually
doing anything. As far as I know, spam-bots need do only one thing: make a request of some sort. A random question wouldn't help once the request has been made.
It would be nice if vBulletin
a/ separated spiders better from humans; we supplement the standard procedure with vbulletin hacks and updates of the spiders file. But a glance at the front page will show, say, 150 guests then enumerate, say, 60 spiders. The rest may be mostly spiders; in which case they should be identified as such.
b/ separated members and human guests from mechanical guests. Probably impossible, yeah.
Anyone can go to one of the Russians or Chinese and in return for cash receive a software specified to ddos etc. a site, or, for more money arrange for them to do so for one. You have to remember we are a very small site, and what is trivial for a large site can overwhelm smaller sites.
http://www.110mb.com/forum/you-can-...-sites-without-being-programmer-t44434.0.html
http://www.opensc.ws/trojan-malware-releases/8111-dark-ddoser-3-0-hallafamer-x2.html
http://dos-attacks.com/category/tools/
It's rather as if jealous automobile owners had tools to paralyse other cars/trucks on the roads on a whim.
Inappropriate Behavior said:
Does the new ability to embed youtube links use a lot of bandwidth? I honestly don't know how it works. Also, some of the games in the arcade don't get played very often and I imagine those of us who spend time there can agree on eliminating some of them. Would that help?
In theory at least, all links off-site use that site's bandwidth --- which in the case of Youtube, Google can well afford. Besides as far as Google's bandwidth is concerned it makes no difference whether one watches it here or there; and they supply embedding links themselves. Only video/audio links from us would use our bandwidth, aside from that of the page on which it is viewed.
As for the arcade, I don't use it but should be sorry to let it go. The unused games can't use bandwidth, but just take up space. Maybe those who know could make up a thread to vote off useless/non-working games ? No moderator is ever going to play every single game several times over to see if it works. In fact I can think of only one man with the requisite temperament and steel nerves fitted to do this awful thing. And he's too busy playing to ever look up to be asked.
Claverhouse
EDIT: I'm moving this to General, just to keep things together.
Moved from The Lounge.
