Wow I can post

[VideoGameCritic]

I have to say it really sucks how the site forums have been so unresponsive as of late due to it getting slammed by IPs coming from all over. I try to block out those I can but there's only so much I can do, so bear with me. Hopefully the situation will improve but who knows?

[mbd36]

Would it help to make the board only accessible for members? It would suck to have to do that though.

[GStratos]

This explains why I so often get error 502 on the forums, even when the site works fine. Unfortunately, in today's internet, the sheer amount of bots and LLMs crawling around everywhere has truly made things difficult for normal people to just get by.

For what it's worth, here's what TCRF is doing to mitigate some of this stuff. Might not be applicable to this forum, but still a worthwhile read.

[goldenband]

This explains why I so often get error 502 on the forums, even when the site works fine. Unfortunately, in today's internet, the sheer amount of bots and LLMs crawling around everywhere has truly made things difficult for normal people to just get by.

For what it's worth, here's what TCRF is doing to mitigate some of this stuff. Might not be applicable to this forum, but still a worthwhile read.

That's an eye-opening article, GStratos. I knew these things were happening, but seeing hard data is sobering. If LLMs are scraping the forums then blocking access to non-registered users is probably the way to go.

[Gentlegamer]

Let's help train the AI Skynet

SUPER MARIO WORLD IS THE BEST SUPER MARIO GAME

[djc]

The fact that spammers are now starting to leverage generative AI to make forum posts is a nightmare to deal with. In my day to day job, I have to deal with these AI bots now being able to fill out forms (intelligently), pass CAPTCHA checks, and even register (and verify) new accounts.

[VideoGameCritic]

I talked to my old buddy Hawk who helped me with my current set-up. He said there were some things I could do to mitigate this, but it would be some work and cost me more per month.

I really hate the idea of paying extra for the right to be abused by these multi-million-dollar companies (like Meta!)

[Gleebergloben123]

This explains why I so often get error 502 on the forums, even when the site works fine. Unfortunately, in today's internet, the sheer amount of bots and LLMs crawling around everywhere has truly made things difficult for normal people to just get by.

For what it's worth, here's what TCRF is doing to mitigate some of this stuff. Might not be applicable to this forum, but still a worthwhile read.

Yeah, I was getting the same error message, or the message boards weren’t operating at all. I read the above article, and excuse my ignorance, but what is the goal/goals of these bots/spammers attacking VGC’s site? It’s unfortunate, and Dave, sorry you have to go through this.

[VideoGameCritic]

So over the years I've experienced periodic slowness because spiders/crawlers try to hit all the links on a site in order to soak up all of its content. In some cases it's warranted - like for search engines. Those are usually well behaved enough as to no take down your site.

But in recent months there's been an AI "gold rush". All the companies invested in AI need to "train" their systems on internet data, so they are lashing out with reckless abandon, sucking up as much data as they can in the shortest period of time.

Industrial strength sites can handle the onslaught, but the little mom-and-pop sites like mine gets crushed. It brings the site to its knees, unable to display the forums. Luckily the reviews pages still show up because they are very lightweight.

So for now I'm just trying to track down and block the main offenders, but it's labor intensive and frankly kind of depressing. I almost don't even want to check in on the site because I'm dreading it will be down and I'll have to mess with it.

[Gentlegamer]

here' I'll stop the AI

DIVIDE BY ZERO