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I've noticed in the last few days that the forum intermittently slows to a crawl when I click on things. Just wanted to check whether anyone else was getting this, and whether @SkullTraill had noticed anything?
@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.
@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.
I got a brief screen of "checking you are a hooman" before taking me to the forum. Don't know what other people's experiences are, but I could certainly put up with that if it keeps the bugs away
@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.
I got the Cloudflare check and it isn't problematic. Well, since it is now 3:08 P.M. in my country, the forum works fine. I will check back at 7:30 P.M. and see if it behaves way too slow like it used to do. If, and hopefully won't behave slow, it means that the bots / ai crawlers can go straight where they came from
@Robert Ramsay I'll leave it on for the next few days, please let me know if you experience any slowdowns during this time (to narrow down the cause) - I don't like keeping this setting on so if this fixes it I'll see about upgrading the cloudflare plan and implementing targeted rules.
Well, I checked at 7:30 P.M. (as per my country time) and it didn't slow down. Bravo @SkullTraill , now the AI crawlers will certainly know their place: the recycle bin
If the bots are the problem, then some trap might help. Back in the day when I was having a blog, we had a lot of problems with bots spamming our comments. We all solved it by adding to our webs link to antispamer web, which was a trap where the bots got stuck. Doesn't probably work anymore, but it was damn effective. Surely there is some more modern alternative today.
I've had to turn off the bot fight mode because it was blocking PayPal API notifications for new benefactor upgrades. However, since I know broadly speaking what works now, I'll work on a more targeted Cloudflare ruleset to curb the bots/scrapers. I'll also try and see if upgrading the server itself would be worth it.
I hadn't logged any times the slowdowns happened for me, but I did notice there were thousands of guests when it did happen (4000-5000+.) We had issues like this on the SA forum multiple times, especially before the end, and I thought they were caused by bots/crawlers as well, but didn't have admin access to look into doing something about it. I don't think the normal filters are reliable anymore with these AI bots, but don't know enough to help other than offer my opinion, I think you've found the cause.
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Slowdown starting 9am PST, Total: 5,777 (members: 26, guests: 5,751)
Continuing through 9:20am PST, Total: 6,074 (members: 19, guests: 6,055)
Still ongoing as I post this.
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Speed back to normal 9:34am PST, Total: 5,881 (members: 23, guests: 5,858)
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Return to notmal was brief, slowdown ongoing as of 9:58am PST, Total: 6,580 (members: 20, guests: 6,560)
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Now speed seems normal again, but not expecting it to stay that way. Total: 7,087 (members: 22, guests: 7,065)
. Too bad though that the people are those representative of the Dead Internet Theory 
