Huge peak in number of users online

[Clitheroekid]

Apparently there's 503 online right now.

Ha! In just 9 minutes that's jumped to 530 - will we see the 640 record broken this evening?

[PinkDalek]

Apparently there's 503 online right now.

Ha! In just 9 minutes that's jumped to 530 - will we see the 640 record broken this evening?

Not yet, this morning!

I think what we are seeing is down to something tjh290633 (I think it was him) mentioned a while back. Previously, I think he said, the maximum user numbers was limited to 199 or similar. Stooz may have changed the settings. Thus the 640 we are seeing may not be the maximum over the two years TLF has been in existence.

I may be wrong though.

Is that the time - must roll (In total there are 302 users online :: 4 registered, 1 hidden and 297 guests).

[gryffron]

It seems staggering that there are so few registered users and so many guests. Who are all these lurkers?

I can't believe they are our regulars who just haven't bothered to login. The site is so much easier to navigate once you are logged on, as it colours new posts.

Gryff

[Gengulphus]

Must say I'm getting very fed up with the "The website is too busy to show the webpage" error, which I never remember seeing until the last few days but now seems to be hitting about 10-20% of my Lemon Fool page loads, I think pretty much at random. The timing of when it started suggests strongly to me that it's related to the large number of "guests"...

Gengulphus

[kiloran]

Must say I'm getting very fed up with the "The website is too busy to show the webpage" error, which I never remember seeing until the last few days but now seems to be hitting about 10-20% of my Lemon Fool page loads, I think pretty much at random. The timing of when it started suggests strongly to me that it's related to the large number of "guests"...

Gengulphus

I'm browsing the boards frequently and never see this problem. Well, maybe I have, but if so, it's so long ago I've forgotten about it.
I think Stooz has got it running very smoothly. Close to faultless, in fact.

--kiloran

[swill453]

Similarly I haven't had an error message for months, and I use the boards at various times of the day and night.

Scott.

[Ashfordian]

It looks pretty random, and the fact that there are quite a few attempting to reply to messages as guests suggests not very intelligent. Maybe a rather feeble attempt to spam the boards?

Gengulphus

Since phpBB is (one of) the biggest free BB software packages out there and since its settings can allow posts or replies without registering, spam bots scour t'Internet looking for phpBB installations and attempt spam posts with nefarious links. The creators know how to craft a message in the right format to simulate inputting content and hittng 'submit'

As it's automated, it doesn't care if posting to a BB is restricted to registered users as it just moves on to the next (hopefully) accessible BB.

Some will also be written to exploit bugs in previous versions, hoping to find hosts that have not updated their software.

I don't see it much now but I used to regularly see abandoned BBs with loads of spam replies stuffed full of links to .ru websites.

It will be as AndyPandy has described. A single desktop will easily be powerful enough to spam many sites/pages. It more likely that outgoing bandwidth will be the limiting factor.

[melonfool]

It seems staggering that there are so few registered users and so many guests. Who are all these lurkers?

I can't believe they are our regulars who just haven't bothered to login. The site is so much easier to navigate once you are logged on, as it colours new posts.

Gryff

It's not people, it's automated bot things. They look for what is written so they can focus their advertising. And some are spam bots.

On Reddit people write bots and if you write certain things they pop up. So if you accidentally quoted from a film the bot would pop up and tell you what film you quoted from. I like the haiku bot. If you happen to make a post of the right number of syllables, the haiku bot turns it into a haiku for you.
There's an archive bot.
Then there are just annoying ones that pop up and ask you to vote for the best bot.
There's a dude bot, but I can't recall what that one does.

There's loads of them.

If you don't like one you post 'bad bot' and it gets binned for a certain period time. If you want one to come up often you post 'good bot' and then it will appear more frequently.

Mel

[gryffron]

It's not people, it's automated bot things. They look for what is written so they can focus their advertising. And some are spam bots.

Not really convinced. What purpose do they serve here? The big search engine bots actually appear as registered users. I assume they are built into phpBB?

Gryff

[GrahamPlatt]

Must say I'm getting very fed up with the "The website is too busy to show the webpage" error, which I never remember seeing until the last few days but now seems to be hitting about 10-20% of my Lemon Fool page loads, I think pretty much at random. The timing of when it started suggests strongly to me that it's related to the large number of "guests"...

Gengulphus

I had just written that I've never had this problem. Hit send and got stuck at "problem loading page"!