WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE

[Keaton]

Yes, we realize that there are a lot of bots recently, and that the surge of bots has been ebbing and flowing for time immemorial.  It's because of SMF and the way that security is being updated.  Every time the bots manage to find a loophole in security, we get a surge of them as their code is updated.  SMF updates their code to match, but we're not always able to update right away due to the fact that our resident tech junkie, KP, isn't always around.

The most we can ask of you is to sit tight, grin and bear it, and remember that you have the "report post" button if you spy anything suspicious.

Bots are banned and deleted on sight, but they are the Persians, we are the Spartans, and this is Thermopylae.  They just keep coming and coming.  I doubt we'll ever be free of the cybernetic menace-- when it's not bots, it's people paid specifically to sit there and join websites and spam as much as possible.  We hope that bot posts aren't causing too much of a problem as we try to handle them as quickly as possible.  Until the time comes that we can be spammer-free, all we ask is that you try to ignore it and continue making TDC the great and ever-improving community it is today.

[MagmarFire]

Yes! Please use the Report to Moderator buttons! I do check my e-mail often, so in case I'm absent from the forum, I'll be able to return and do what I can as soon as I see the notification.

[once1second]

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[Keaton]

That's one ballsy bot.

[Twilight Wolf]

I was gonna delete the post until I saw where it was. Then I lol'd and decided against it.

[Keaton]

Haha, same.  I banned the account, sure, but this is a great example of what a bot looks like.  A ton of links in the post and their signature, a weird name, and most of their post doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[MagmarFire]

Why don't their posts make sense, anyway? Is it really just bad Engrish that the coders are writing?

[Keaton]

Two main reasons:

0) The programmers are mostly non-engrish speakers.

1) Most are mass-produced to be used by different spammer sites, scammers, etc.  Since they're all from the same build they just throw in different variables, and the bot tries to make sense of it, poorly.

[Hi no Seijin]

The boards have been switched around.  Is that because of an update to stop these bots?

Oh, no, the Link smilies are gone.

[Keaton]

Frankly, I have no idea what happened.  It must have been KP, GF or Jack.

EDIT:  Have no fear, Tacheon fixes everything

[MagmarFire]

:) ...Huh, I'm getting the default emoticons, too.

Two main reasons:

0) The programmers are mostly non-engrish speakers.

1) Most are mass-produced to be used by different spammer sites, scammers, etc.  Since they're all from the same build they just throw in different variables, and the bot tries to make sense of it, poorly.

I see you started counting at zero. I approve.

[kamakaziplumber]

OK so, I tried updating the forum but I encountered the same issues I had... what, a year ago? It just doesn't want to work. We can hope that overwriting the files for the upgrade will fix the bot issues for now, but I can't guarantee that it will. I'm just glad I was able to get the forums back up in the first place...

Smileys will be back when it's not finals week.

[MagmarFire]

Well, we do have a backup database and repository, don't we? >.>