You technically-savvy guys, help me out here.
 

OOTP:

What's Going On?
Currently Active Users: 105 (80 members and 25 guests)
	Most users ever online was 422, Today at 01:50 AM. SkyDog*, Aadik, abailey3313, AHound, andjbock, Astros02, Azamien, BadluckinOOTP, bigD4VT, Bogie, BondsFanatic, brokendown78, bulldog55, clett, CONN CHRIS, D Love, Dagrims, Danny, DavidPuddy, Driver 8, Elendil, enigk, eriqjaffe, Fallschirmjager, Ford Prefect, Groovercat, hays23, HolyCow98, IatricSB, ifspuds, ill16ca, JDOldSchool, Jeremy Weimer, Jestor, jimedrice, JML, Johnny99, Luis_Rivera, m0ng00se, matskralc, meade95, MikeyMikey, Mr.Opinion, Muppetus Galacticus, nate7891, newbieplayer, Night2000, nmleague, Nukester, obaslg, octones, PhilliesPhan, potatoman, PotatoPeeler, Qrusher14242, Ragnar, remangiii, RickPyz, scprideandms, sebastian0622, seth70liz76, SkeXis, slamminsammya, statfreak, TonyJ, Tosti, UngratefulDead, Viva Los Expos, warnman, Y0DA55, YankeePride, yankeesrule

FOFC

What's Going On?
[img]images/styles/yellow/buttons//collapse_thead.gif[/img] Currently Active Users: 108 (82 members and 26 guests)
[img]images/styles/yellow/statusicon/forum_link.gif[/img]	Most users ever online was 305, 12-11-2004 at 01:47 PM. | 421 users have visited today. SkyDog*, 3ric, Alan T, amdaily, Antmeister71, atatange1, B & B, bigdawg2003, Blackadar+, bronconick, bsak16, CHEMICAL SOLDIER, cougarfreak, CraigSca, Crapshoot, Cuckoo, cuervo72, DaddyTorgo, Desert Dweeb, DiG, digamma, dubb93, duckman, Eaglesfan27, Easy Mac, Emmett13, fantastic flying froggies, Flasch186, Fonzie, Franklinnoble, GabeRivers, Godzilla Blitz, gottimd, Havok, henry296, HerRealName, heybrad, hhiipp, hoosierdude, illinifan999, indoorsoccersim, jbmagic, JDurden11, Johnny93g, Katon, kingnebwsu, Klinglerware, lcjjdnh, LionsFan10, MIJB#19, MikeVic, MikeVick7, MizzouRah, MrBug708, Neuqua, Noop, panerd, portnoise, QuikSand+, Raven Hawk, rdo, rkmsuf, Ryan S, sabotai, Samdari, scooter, ShaefIllini, Shorty3281, Silver Owl, sterlingice, stevew, Surtt, TargetPractice6, Tigercat, TredWel, varacel, VPI97, Warhammer, WSUCougar, yabanci, ZXTT, Solecismic*+
[img]images/styles/yellow/buttons//collapse_thead.gif[/img] Front Office Football Central Statistics

Modern Muscle Cars (that forum that we bombarded one day and got it up to 90-something users--a record then)

What's Going On?
Currently Active Users: 21 (4 members and 17 guests)
	Most users ever online was 167, 12-06-2004 at 02:01 AM. SkyDog, 19Jeff99, DeckSetter, Dude

What could be causing this? When we hit that bogus 305, there were something like 240 people logged in as "guests." I'm guessing there's some sort of mass computerized auto-browsing message boards happening all of a sudden, but I certrainly don't know what or why. Anyone have any clue what's going on?

What? There's a guy named "Fallschirmjager" at OOTP?!? Good heavens.

Hey look! There's me!

All of the sudden, I'm having flashbacks to Romper Room and the magic mirror.

A) Bots scanning for emails?
B) Google, MSN, Yahoo trying to become search kings?
C)

Sir, we're being scanned. Shall I raise shields?

We need a guy named Fallschirmjager, too.

:(

Someone just turned it on...I would guess that the intended end result would be a scan of all major message board hosts.

terrorists... they want to hit us in our livelihood.

If the boards slow, it takes longer to read at work. The more we read, the less work we do. The less work we do, our economy collapses. Our economy collapses and they move right in.

Someone call Rumsfeld and grab a broomstick.

Why would this start happening all of a sudden, to multiple message boards?

lol easy. Oh yeah, and posts out of order in here again *grumbles and stares @ gamespy*

Plenty of reasons:

1. Spam-bots
2. (D)DOS attacks

...spring to mind quickly.

Nothing to worry about in light of it happening to a whole bunch of people at the same time.

Sorry for my continued questions, but I still don't get it. Who would turn it on, what would they be turning on, and why would they turn it on?

More questions from Ol' SkyDog....

1. What is a spam-bot?
2. What is a (D)DOS attack?

I'm not worried, just curious as to why some person or organization would want to do this...

In VB you can check to see the hosts that are viewing you site, if you are admin. It will show you all the hosts of the guests that are on your site at that time. Just click on the link that says "Currently Active Users", where it says IP Address it should either have IPs or DNS Lookups saying who the host is or who it is.

Microsoft is doing a major push through lots of sites lately with their websearch. You will also probably see Yahoo, GoogleBot, Inktomi, and any other site. Since FoFC has a large history it shows a lot of activity.

There are ways to prevent this indexing of the site, you can add records to the robots.txt file for specific rules or specifications as to how they are "supposed" to work with the website.

Most I've ever seen on my site was 117 at one time, and we generally only have 7-8 real people on at a time at most.

More info about robots.txt

http://www.searchengineworld.com/rob...s_tutorial.htm

Yep, I'd be interested in seeing the weblogs to determine the source of the visitors. I've had an uptick in visitors to my website recently, and from the looks of it, someone had started linking to pictures on my website (one of them used a pic of Cornholio as their avatar on a site in Sweden). So everytime someone read a thread this guy posted in, it made a hit to my site. Maybe someone has done a similar thing here and OOTP.

I have seen a Ask Jeeves spider on here before.

Websearch spiders. It's been happening for months on my message boards as well.

Well then, I guess we'd better get ourselves some websearch boots and smash 'em.

I see my name!

I bet it is that SkyDog dude. I can't believe none of you guys noticed he was browsing all three forums. It must be him.