Another DDoS attack?

Noooooooo! There has to be something we can do. Please ATS don't abandon us. We'll die! Well we won't die, but it would be tragic to lose so much!

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I am not blocking ads here. There are like 5 or more on each page. Lots of scantly clad women I might ad. That will cause a Muslim, Puritan uprising if you are not careful. That should not cause slow page load loads which I am seeing. Ad blocker should speed it up in fact. Maybe you should go to a P2P model where members provide bandwidth to other members by an installed node for ATS on the local host? Then you could afford full SSL like I have on my free social network site. Just a suggestion.

a reply to: TechniXcality

"You guys?"
I'm not one of those guys.

originally posted by: Night Star
Noooooooo! There has to be something we can do. Please ATS don't abandon us. We'll die! Well we won't die, but it would be tragic to lose so much!

A fairy is dying! Everybody! Clap your hands! Quick!

"I do believe in ATS. I do! I do!"




(I would/will be as bummed as any)

a reply to: Phage

bahahahahahaha

a reply to: Phage

If you become a bookkeeper, the rest of us might as well move back into the cave and polish up our hunting and gathering skills. Let's face it.

a reply to: Phage



Ahahahaha! That was perfect!

If things do come crashing down here there is a way to provide a community social media structure based on shared bandwidth between users in a P2P format that distributes resource allocation and allows hardened DDOS attack protection. I would need to understand the load needs of this site to formulate a distributed network protocol that can deal with the community load requirements. If anyone with that info can PM me to discuss it I think I can lend a hand, since that is what I do. It would not hurt to have a back up plan. I do network access optimization as a revenue stream as you might gather from my profile.

I'm... I'm so scared... I... I don't know what to do...



This is me without ATS:



It can't be true...

Just how much are the bots eating into the site?

a reply to: eisegesis

If Bot traffic is causing them lost revenue I think they should restrict bot indexing of old threads to free up bandwidth. This can be handled in bot rules scripts. These folks need some professional code workers who really understand the world of automated indexing and crawling of their site I think.

Come on, we have a lot of intelligent folks in here. There has to be a solution, we cannot allow ATS to die!!

Quick, everyone to the meeting chamber! Put your thinking caps on and start discussing what can be done, what is feasible.

a reply to: ratfintc

Ok, you're hired! Oh wait, I have no authority here. Well, you just brought it up at the meeting so we'll see what happens.

a reply to: TechniXcality

COULD WE START A BRAINSTORMING THREAD to see what options might arise?

e.g.

--Those posting above XYZ minimum making a deposit of $XX and each post subtracts a few pennies until time to recharge the kitty. I realize that we are giving content . . . earning more read pages etc. so it's a bit something to also pay to post. However, we are also those who probably use more of the ATS resources than the average lurker. And, we get some satisfaction from seeing our writing read and responded to.

--Tell us what the average earnings are per user from the ads. Let those who want to use ad blocking pay that average per month.

--I know of at least one person for whom the stress of the ads on their blood pressure was becoming debilitating to a serious degree.

--sell the forum to the users with retired IT folks managing that end of it?

--Be more transparent about the factors and issues and possible options that have already been thought of. This is, after all, our community/home, too. It could facilitate more effective brainstorming for solutions.

--I've heard here and at the largest conservative site--also with growing $$ problems due to the owner shooting himself in the foot because of trashing major donors--anyway--I've heard IT professionals say that there are several cheaper ways to skin the needed cats. I have no idea if that's true, or not. But could such be explored from several perspectives?

--For example, in that case, the donation-THON goes on now for almost the whole three months per quarter collecting around $85,000 per quarter. Some IT professionals have told the founder, they could run the whole operation on $30,000 per year. The user-ship has usually been about the same number of unique visitors/posters as ATS. He won't hear of it. Likes to have his sons on a significant payroll, evidently. So, he continues banning folks who've historically donated $5,000 per quarter . . . and seems to feel all self-righteous and justified in doing it . . . though his increasingly narrow and flip/floppy rigid political parochialism is also chasing users away.

Anyway--if the community is hurting to that degree . . . behind the scenes . . . at least disclose more to the whole community and let us brainstorm some possible solutions, PLEASE.

a reply to: Night Star

I have written the code for bots, spiders, and other indexing scripts and automatic crawlers of all sorts. They can take up a lot of site resources on large websites if no one bothers to write rules for their behavior. The crawlers and spiders that ignore these rules have to be IP banned if they do not behave. I run my spiders and bots through rotating proxies to index sites that deploy basic counter measures. Some are able to defeat my spiders and bot traffic. Most do not spend their resources effectively in order to block me. My clients pay me to get info for them from these connected sources. I do what I must to fulfill the contract. I mean no offense to the sites I target but I will fulfill my contract. Lets make a deal is my motto.

I am not at all technically inclined, so I'll leave the brain storming up to the rest of you folks. I'll be here cheering you all on though.

This site has been a second home to so many of us for so many years, it would be unthinkable to not be able to come here ever again.

a reply to: Night Star

Don't worry we "technically inclined" will think of something up I am pretty sure that ATS will still be up It's our home too!

a reply to: Deaf Alien

Good, because I didn't want any of us to be homeless. Hugs to anyone who can help in any way.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

Thanks for your detailed reply cheese, all this is mumbo jumbo to me, i am just very concerned for my favourite site.

What could Reldra possibly think i was insinuating ?

originally posted by: Night Star
a reply to: Deaf Alien

Good, because I didn't want any of us to be homeless. Hugs to anyone who can help in any way.

INDEED.

Though I think we need a much more knowledgeable and robust definition of the problem(s) before decent brainstorming could occur.

And folks would need to remember the foundational standard rule of brainstorming--avoid criticism. Even bad ideas can trigger great ones.