The Year of the Spammers

[DerVVulfman]

Dear friends,

Do not be alarmed that a good number of accounts have been banned since the middle of the month.  For none of these accounts belong to members who stayed for anything longer than twelve seconds.  In fact, one account was created in so brief a period of time, the time spend online actually displays None Registered. A very interesting occurrence if one indeed wished to be a member of the community.

But no.  None of these accounts belong to anyone wishing to join the community, and more than half either heralding from or associated with a single nation. And all of these, likely computer generated spambots.  Oh, I doubt they will return any time soon. But if a human operator accesses these accounts now banned, I hope they will appreciate their new custom membership avatar:

As to the timing of why more bots would wish to access any site, I believe that their rise coincides with the start of the U.S. Election Year. Upon checking the IP addresses of the spam-bots that have entered and those who are constantly viewing the "No Permission Page" having been shut out for spam activity, I have no illusions why spam content would be set to explode. 

However, the use of anti-spam software is online, and I strengthened the Security Questions system, removing the two weakest queries and replacing them with questions that comically may actually confuse AI-driven systems. Since added just yesterday, 75 registration attempts with these 'actually simple' questions were made, halting bot access and activity.

So please be at ease.  In no way will bot spam be allowed within the forum. And if any case of spam activity within forum posts or PMs (Private Messages) have occurred, feel free to send a report for it to be handled.