OneGuyFromBarlick

I put a suggestion in Bob's Bits that the thousands who read his anniversary notes on the site might consider making a donation......

I tried to donate last night and this morning and came up with a fault and try again later notice.

I've just donated with no problems.

I can confirm that quite few members have donated, thanks for that. I have checked this morning and the donate feature does appear to be working OK.

Do you get an error message Julie and if so at what point in the procedure?

Stanley wrote: ↑21 Sep 2025, 01:51 I put a suggestion in Bob's Bits that the thousands who read his anniversary notes on the site might consider making a donation......

Good luck with getting the robots to donate.
Once again I think we overestimate the number of people who read this board.

It' unusual to get more than two or three entities viewing a post at any particular time.
I've just had a surf through the membership list - an interesting experience, but if we deleted all those who have died, and anyone who had not posted for (say) five years - it would be greatly reduced. I would suggest there is a hard core of say twenty posters who are regularly on parade.Don't worry about it though - when you see what a state other 'social media' outlets are in, we have had a lucky escape. We get by as we are - appeals for donations seem successful and the technical manangement is great. Thanks Ian.

"If it ain't broke - don't fix it".

Pruning the membership list is a bit of laborious task as you cant select multiple accounts in the admin console which is the only place where you can delete members. You can list them via numerous different criteria such as joining date, number of posts, last active etc but can only admin a single account at a time. I agree about the number of active users, nothing we can do about that, it is what it is. I can disable all the bots but that would be counter productive. I cant find a way of excluding them in the statistics. There probably is a way to do it with some form of extension but we don't go there. I have already disabled the vast majority of the bots and spiders that load by default. The ones that remain can scan hundreds of posts every minute which as you know impacts the read counts.

If you look at the "Who is online" feature, the hidden ones quoted are the bots, spiders and crawlers. Guest users are what they say, (unregistered browsers), registered users are listed individually.

As I post there are 3 hidden, six registered users and 1457 guests who do not show in the topic counts.

I currently allow 8 bots in total, Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, and Chinese, American, Russian and European spiders and crawlers.

I should also add that I have excluded entire countries and continents in the Firewall to countermeasure the detrimental posts from the areas, many of which use automatic spam servers which have crippled the site on more than one occasion.

PanBiker wrote: ↑21 Sep 2025, 13:22 and the technical manangement is great. Thanks Ian.

I rest my case. Thanks for all you do. I just wanted to draw attention to the over optimistic view of how many people see each thread. I don't object to the bots. It's nice to search and get back to this board. I've done that a few times. I enjoy coming on here - it gives me a steam release from time to time - confident that no one who matters will ever see it. I don't post a lot of 'content' which would fascinate you all - but is best kept private. I have just donated without any problem. Long may it all continue., and good luck to all.

This printscreen taken from the donate bit. I didn't want to do it from paypal.

I checked.... 530 bots have accessed Bob's Bits since 14:30 yesterday....

Julie in Norfolk wrote: ↑21 Sep 2025, 16:52 This printscreen taken from the donate bit. I didn't want to do it from paypal.

Didn't want to do what from PaPal Julie?

The donate button is just a link which takes you directly to a simple PayPal page to enter the amount you wish to donate. It is fully secure and seems to be working perfectly, (not a lot to go wrong actually). After donation it should return you directly to the site on the "Thank You" sticky.

272 bots today....