Future of TC (and Me)

GWS · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2025 3:52 pm

missnaut wrote:

I'm struggling with the site lately, either via Tapatalk or mobile/laptop.

You aren’t alone!

Headplant · **Posted:** Mon Aug 04, 2025 4:26 am

Forum sites are struggling with various bots which do not follow the older rules which were introduced to limit search bots. It seems a lot of them are AI related search bots.

GreatEx · **Posted:** Mon Aug 04, 2025 7:56 am

Gut the list!!

jezzarules · **Joined:** Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:09 pm **Posts:** 6075

Could we just switch to a discord server?
What do we lose functionality-wise?
Is it mainly the ability to customise the look?
Or issues with migration of the history from here?

sinbagger · **Posted:** Mon Aug 04, 2025 10:43 am

jezzarules wrote:

Could we just switch to a discord server?
What do we lose functionality-wise?
Is it mainly the ability to customise the look?
Or issues with migration of the history from here?

From memory the biggest issue is that we lose the history.

bluehammer · **Posted:** Mon Aug 04, 2025 1:22 pm

And at this club, history is all we have...

jezzarules · **Joined:** Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:09 pm **Posts:** 6075

sinbagger wrote:

jezzarules wrote:

Could we just switch to a discord server?
What do we lose functionality-wise?
Is it mainly the ability to customise the look?
Or issues with migration of the history from here?

From memory the biggest issue is that we lose the history.

This site could be archived as read only and be linked to from the discord?

GMCbris · **Posted:** Tue Aug 05, 2025 12:50 pm

from my understanding the whole issue was proprietary coding for the MVP voting.

Moving to discord will effectively mean this is gone.

And if thats the case, then making all the updates to the current hosting server and the forum software, installing as many anti bot softwares that we can muster is a simpler and easier option.

We keep the same feel just lose that one function (Which again is lost if we move to discord)

G

Headplant · **Posted:** Thu Aug 07, 2025 10:54 am

Bots appear to be an issue with discord as well. They are targetting all types of social media. The result is that as The Bluseum says, the symptoms are the same as denial of service attacks.

But to me, and some others, discordis more live chat than forums.

I don't like the discord style of interaction at all.

bluechucky · **Joined:** Sat Feb 26, 2005 6:29 am **Posts:** 13690

Headplant wrote:

I don't like the discord style of interaction at all.

me too.

maybe we should just archive this site and create a new phpbb site with the current software, and leave it vanilla?

Sidefx · **Joined:** Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:55 pm **Posts:** 7008

Look, I may not know what I am talking about as I can hand on heart say I know sweet FA about php, forums etc.
But can't we just block all guest access including bots and make people request to join the forum instead?

Headplant · **Posted:** Sun Aug 10, 2025 4:50 am

The problem is that bots just trying to access the home page are a significant part of the problem. Just the requests for the home page represent traffic we don't want, which means it works the same way a denial of service attack works. Overload due to simple page requests.

The complication is that the robots are coming from a wide range of IP addresses, which makes screening difficult.

Sydney Blue · **Posted:** Sun Aug 10, 2025 9:03 am

Why after 20 years have I just started to receive emails.
Being bombarded with them every time I look at a thread or post in it

Sent from my SM-F956B using Tapatalk

sinbagger · **Posted:** Sun Aug 10, 2025 11:59 am

Sydney Blue wrote:

Why after 20 years have I just started to receive emails.
Being bombarded with them every time I look at a thread or post in it

Sent from my SM-F956B using Tapatalk

yes me too, you have to go into your profile and unsubscribe from all the threads

sinbagger · **Posted:** Sun Aug 10, 2025 12:02 pm

Headplant wrote:

The problem is that bots just trying to access the home page are a significant part of the problem. Just the requests for the home page represent traffic we don't want, which means it works the same way a denial of service attack works. Overload due to simple page requests.

The complication is that the robots are coming from a wide range of IP addresses, which makes screening difficult.

Could we not swap in a very simple html public home page with just a login link? Something that can be served 100% out of cache, requires minimal processing and very light weight. Make every other page protected.

Sidefx · **Joined:** Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:55 pm **Posts:** 7008

sinbagger wrote:

Headplant wrote:

The problem is that bots just trying to access the home page are a significant part of the problem. Just the requests for the home page represent traffic we don't want, which means it works the same way a denial of service attack works. Overload due to simple page requests.

The complication is that the robots are coming from a wide range of IP addresses, which makes screening difficult.

Could we not swap in a very simple html public home page with just a login link? Something that can be served 100% out of cache, requires minimal processing and very light weight. Make every other page protected.

This.
I was going to ask about some form of a splash page for login outside the site, in my non IT mind or knowings.
Maybe getting rid of google ads etc is a way forward also.
We are all happy to chip in to keep the site running it seems, so their income may not be necessary.

camel · **Posted:** Tue Aug 12, 2025 9:56 am

Google ads are generating bugger all income these days anyway… and we get messages like below from time to time which I suspect are connected to the fact our site's platform is so out of date.

Quote:

Dear publisher,

This Google Publisher Policy Report gives you an overview of recent activity related to violations found on specific pages of your websites. As enforcement statuses may change over time, please refer to the "Page-level enforcements" section of the AdSense Policy Centre for the current list of active violations.

Please note this report doesn’t cover violations that may happen on an overall site or account level. You may be notified by a separate email if site or account level violations are found. Ads will continue to serve where no policy violations have been found, either at the page or site level.

In the last 24 hours:

New violations were detected. As a result, ad serving has been restricted or disabled on pages where these violations of the AdSense Programme Policies were found. To resolve the issues, you can either remove the violating content and request a review, or remove the ad code from the violating pages.

Further details on enforcement can be found in the AdSense Help Centre. To learn more about our programme policies, please view the AdSense Programme Policies.

Kind regards,
Google Publisher Policy

Headplant · **Posted:** Sat Aug 16, 2025 4:43 pm

I suspect it's related to the posting of YouTube links which may may be a violation of Google policy.

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