Scheduled Maintenance and Security Update

[MJKlein]

We're performing important security and performance updates to protect our site from automated bots and unauthorized scraping. During this time, you may experience brief interruptions in site availability or functionality.

This update is crucial for ensuring the continued smooth operation and security of our community.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding and patience!

[KMaxwell]

What is the time frame of these "security and performance updates"? Is it all done already?

[MJKlein]

Its ongoing. Good question.

The huge increase in traffic is the result of AI scraping - which in turn trains the models so they serve up a summary when people do searches. The summary gives them the answer so they don't have to visit the site. Then Google doesn't have to pay me for the clicks. This is a huge conflict of interest and would be illegal in other fields.

I installed a honeypot file so I can find out who is scraping what, and block them. I also lodged a complaint against Google but they blew me off. I'm very busy but have in mind to get a class-action suit going. I am also considering de-listing with all the search engines since this site is already well known and the AI bots are serving up summaries anyway. Lots to consider.