A serious talk about mtm2.com content and user accounts

[Fila]

I don't really want to approach this subject but at the same time I feel like I must. The internet is not the same anymore from back when mtm2.com was created nor even back to 2016 when I took over. The internet now consists mainly of bots and crawlers which make up most of the traffic.

Which what leads me to this subject. I personally hate having to sign up for anything, even when a website is honest about its intentions, just signing up to download something quick is a pain in the butt and if it's not something crucial I don't do it. But the reality now is that this website is on a pretty decent but cheap hosting server which has limitations. I'm sure you guys noticed that occasionally the website is slow. Looking at the logs its because here and there the website gets hit by a crazy amount of bots/crawlers (a record was about 16k within a short time span). This could be resolved by hosting on an expensive server but I don't have the money for that.

So having all these bots/crawlers simultaneously access the website, especially the track/ truck page ia a pain. The track/truck pages are obviously databases so these crawlers run a lot of unnecessary queries just crawling around.

Furthermore, once the new patch is out supporting fancier formats, I probably have to increase the upload limits which, considering that it's open to the public, might result in this getting abused. So I've been seriously thinking, despite not wanting to, to gate the mtm2.com content behind accounts and using the forum accounts so that people don't have to have them separate.

So I wanna kinda get the feel of how others feel about this. My personal opinion is that I don't want it but being realistic, it's probably needed.

[Kmaster]

Whatever you think is needed to keep the site running.

On the positive side, it could also encourage people who are just stopping by to download something to check out the forums and maybe even get involved with the community.

I also have more of a suggestion than a question. When I go to the mtm2.com homepage and try to look at it from the perspective of someone who's never been there before, I wouldn't really know what the site is about. I think the main page could benefit from a short description explaining that it's a community and resource site for Monster Truck Madness 2.

It would help first-time visitors, and I imagine it would also help Google and AI crawlers understand what the site is about. Right now, unless you already know what "MTM2" means, the homepage doesn't really make that clear. I think just a brief introduction or a better title would make a big difference.

[OG_RuDeE]

Sounds totally reasonable to me. And I like kmaster's optimistic vision. It would be great if more people would get involved in the community. Maybe add a little note welcoming people to introduce themselves on the forum and say hi and to try to learn to make something if they feel inclined. It's never been easier!

[Fila]

Man, Comm Patch 3 is getting bigger and bigger to work on

[Fila]

One thing though, everyone's truck download counts will collapse ;)

[Legend_Of_Wii]

I had a weird feeling this would have to be brought up sooner or later.
But it may be for the better if you do this, friend.

Wait Fila, when you said that everyone's truck download counts will collapse, do you mean that all the download counts will revert to 0 or something? Lol!
That reminds me, even tracks needs download counts sometime down the road in the future.

[Fila]

No, lol, what I mean is that the download counts are not going to be in the hundreds no more, as a lot of those downloads are crawlers clicking everything.

[Legend_Of_Wii]

Oh! THAT is what you meant, ok.
Wait, most of my trucks that was downloaded was because of them friggin crawlers... augh. -_-

Oh well, better that we have legit download counts than fake ones with crawlers included.