Record Setting Month - Thank You!!

[Leto85]

That's just it Hosfac, this guide shows everyone they can still have fun playing the Sims 3 without corrupting their game and computers with mods and hacks.   And yes, this is the only site I have found where everyone is treated like family.  I'm Sim-plee loving it!

I am just realizing that I actually am a moderator on a very, VERY important Sims 3 fansite and forum with over a million hits since last month.

... wow ... makes me feel looking for words to describe this, but no matter what language I am trying to I can not find any.
It is just simply fantastic, fantastisch and hueco.

[RubyLovesSims]

Oh, I'm so proud of this Forum! I hope that we continue to be so popular, but still keep our "Family" sort of feeling.
 

[Carl]

For the record it seems we've survived an attack of sorts. I got database connection error emails from the web server. The inflated number of people online today was apparently some attempt against us. Too bad they messed up our real tally. The server weathered it just fine or it could have been worse.

[Leto85]

For the record it seems we've survived an attack of sorts. I got database connection error emails from the web server. The inflated number of people online today was apparently some attempt against us. Too bad they messed up our real tally. The server weathered it just fine or it could have been worse.

You're talking about spammers? I've deleted 3 at one night a few days back but they behave like hydras: killing one and two will come back.

[Carl]

Yes it had to be a spammer attack. I did put a link to the forum up on the guide but we don't see such traffic to cause an anomaly that huge. It was an intentional attempt by someone. The database is fully backed up along with everything else so I'm not worried... but I do hope it's not a sign of things to come. When it comes to such attacks we are at the mercy of the fool performing them to give up and move on.

I have read of attacks against governments in other countries. In those cases it's someone who has an agenda and they use many computers to bombard one system. I can't see it as anything else in this case as the number is so inflated. It must have been a spammer using bots to attempt to register.

 I have run tests on our server and it can handle many, many requests at once (although I would never reveal numbers here). Right now I'm just annoyed that it messed up our record and it'll be a very long time before we actually reach that. It would take a lot of work to strike that from the record so we're stuck with pageloads and visitors we see online as our metric.

[Saltypaws]

I guess I will never understand the benefit of a person or persons doing anything like that.  If I am going to do something, bad or good, I want to see the outcome. (I wouldn't do anything bad), but I am making a point.  If it is not going to benefit me in some way, why bother.  So in other words, whoever did what they did, our numbers are messed up, right?  That bites, good grief.  People never cease to amaze me. 

[Carl]

It's black hat search engine optimization. Everything I do is known as white hat. Their goal is to put up links at dead forums. So they end up posting here in hopes we won't nuke it. If they kept the links to their stupid Viagra sites they would rank better in google for simple searches. But we are quite far from dead... the sad part is that it takes little effort on their part and a lot on ours.

The good webmasters know that to get traffic you write good articles... unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones out to make a fast buck. They don't know the meaning of actual work.

But yep, our record is messed up because of some jerk and I can't spend the hours in the database figuring out what setting to change to fix it.

[Esther1981]

Oh my goodness, that is awful. People are so stupid sometimes. Why would anyone try to mess with this forum? That's just wrong, this forum is the best thing on the web don't they realize that?

[Leto85]

If they kept the links to their stupid Viagra sites they would rank better in google for simple searches. But we are quite far from dead... the sad part is that it takes little effort on their part and a lot on ours.

Viagra? Hmmm, why do I have to read that over here as well as I already reseive those stupid Viagra mails in my spam box on Hotmail? Looks like it hounts me or so. Good I can block adresses over there also.

I have run tests on our server and it can handle many, many requests at once (although I would never reveal numbers here). Right now I'm just annoyed that it messed up our record and it'll be a very long time before we actually reach that. It would take a lot of work to strike that from the record so we're stuck with pageloads and visitors we see online as our metric.

Is it possible to send every member a email for verification of their account? 10 months back you could send maximum 50 mails per day (I once actually needed to do that so I know) but I don't know how that is today.

Oh my goodness, that is awful. People are so stupid sometimes. Why would anyone try to mess with this forum? That's just wrong, this forum is the best thing on the web don't they realize that?

Could be just because they realize that. People can get jealous Esther. And when they do, they can react in a really childish way.
Well, I thought they eventually would think:  'If you can't beat them, join them.' Sad thing for them, we are not waiting for people like that. And they probably know that so they choose for a throlling therapy.

[Esther1981]

Could be just because they realize that. People can get jealous Esther. And when they do, they can react in a really childish way.
Well, my opinion would be: 'If you can't beat them, join them.' Sad thing for them, we are not waiting for people like that. And they probably know that so they choose for a throlling therapy.

True.

[Hosfac]

So it wasn't an overtly hostile attack in as much as it was an attempt at boosting search engine ranking?  How utterly lame.  The internet is full of talentless people who don't even understand how it works.

It's been a while since I signed up.  Is there some sort of bot defense for creating accounts?

[Pam]

So it wasn't an overtly hostile attack in as much as it was an attempt at boosting search engine ranking?  How utterly lame.  The internet is full of talentless people who don't even understand how it works.

It's been a while since I signed up.  Is there some sort of bot defense for creating accounts?

Any attack is considered hostile.  And, yes, we do have safeguards in place.  We don't discuss the specifics for security reasons.

[Leto85]

Any attack is considered hostile.  And, yes, we do have safeguards in place.  We don't discuss the specifics for security reasons.

I'm glad you don't. You never know who read them here also. Even not in pm traffic.
I admit that I am curious about the defence system but for above reason it's better not to tell.
Actually it's pretty sad this whole thing where discussing here, it means you can trust people to a certain degree.

[Hosfac]

Any attack is considered hostile.

I meant that the intent of the attack wasn't to shut the site down.

[Carl]

It frustrated me enough that I got the number fixed, although the date's off. I don't care about that though as it'll change soon enough.

As to real records, I'm really happy that we are seeing more regular guests and traffic here is up by a nice chunk