Information on Viewbombing Attacks on Fansites in News Section

[olympe]

Remember last year around the Winter Holiday breeding window, when a whole hatchery was under attack, resulting in countless dead eggs and an amazing hatchery being taken down forever? (I still miss EATW.)

 

Well, it seems to be happening again. There are several reports of Allure of Neglected Dragons being under attack, as it gives an incredibly high amount of views. Plus, there are now several reports of eggs being added there by a third party. I also saw one report of the same thing happening to Silvi's Lair, which I'm currently putting to the test.

 

Looking at the "I'm being viewbombed" thread in SD, I see something similar happening last year: Several Viewbombing reports came in, starting somewhere in mid-November. It might have been an unrecognized attack on just one hatchery, too. Anyway, there seems to be a pattern there. And personally, I don't want to lose another hatchery or two, much less lots of precious eggs that are only available once a year. 

 

So, my actual suggestion: @TJ09, please make a news post about occurrences where a whole hatchery seems to be under attack. It may not be a strictly DC-related problem, but it has the potential to affect all of the DC community negatively. A couple of tipps for inexperienced players (keep your eggs hidden if you cannot watch them closely, hide your scroll, stun/ward stuff you put in public transfers, do not put your fresh eggs in any hatcheries affected...) as well as an up to date list of affected hatcheries would also be appreciated - and could save a lot of dragons.

 

In situations like this, information is key. And a new thread in the News section can be viewed from the main page, which will spread the info wide and far.

Edited December 2, 2018 by olympe

[Okarnill]

Flip!! I had one got sick late last evening (my time) that I thought was odd at the time, I had fogged it, and it's fine this morning. Thank you very much for your warning!

[HeatherMarie]

Definitely think this would be helpful! I'm risking Allure at the moment to hatch some ERs, but keeping a close eye on everything. I wouldn't have known anything about the viewbombing if I wasn't so addicted to this forum, lol. A News post would be wonderful, and would show on the main page of the actual site which is even better. Not sure it'll happen since it's a third-party issue and not a DC-site issue, but definite support.

[Dalek]

7 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

Definitely think this would be helpful! I'm risking Allure at the moment to hatch some ERs, but keeping a close eye on everything. I wouldn't have known anything about the viewbombing if I wasn't so addicted to this forum, lol. A News post would be wonderful, and would show on the main page of the actual site which is even better. Not sure it'll happen since it's a third-party issue and not a DC-site issue, but definite support.

It may not be a DC-site issue but it's the most efficient way to hatch eggs. Without these hatcheries, it would probably take longer to hatch eggs

[cyradis4]

Support. 

 

Has anyone given a headsup to Allure's owner? There may be something they can do on their end. 

 

Cheers!
C4. 

[JavaTigress]

34 minutes ago, cyradis4 said:

Support. 

 

Has anyone given a headsup to Allure's owner? There may be something they can do on their end. 

 

Cheers!
C4. 

This is a very good idea.... though I am not certain WHO is in charge of that particular site.

 

At said, may I comment that while I UNDERSTAND why EATW's owner decided they no longer wanted to deal with it, their shutting down their site because of the attack pretty much INVITED further problems by validating the efforts of the trolls responsible? It set a VERY bad precedent that I sincerely HOPE doesn't become a pattern. It seems to me that giving trolls... and I would add, just as importantly, US as the users of those sites... the idea that they have the power to permanently shut down a fansite ... I think was a bad step. Doesn't it pretty much ensure that, whether whatever is going on CURRENTLY is a an attack or not, there is always the THREAT of such a thing. I'd have HOPED that the owners of the rest of our fansites would have taken steps at that time to prevent their sites from being targeted next.

 

At said, I often use AoND and I haven't had any issues.... though the last two few growing things I put on there were ER, anyway and I might NOT have noticed anything.

I DO think some sort of public warning system for situations that seem suspicious, at the very least , is an order.

Edited December 2, 2018 by JavaTigress

[Fuzzbucket]

I am in email contact with the owner of AOND, who is aware and watching. It seems to have stopped for the moment.

[osmarks]

@JavaTigress Apparently with EATW there was also something going on regarding API access which seems to not actually be documented anywhere, so I think it's not just the viewbombers who caused that. Maybe.

 

I support this. Yes, hatcheries are not official site features, but basically all egg hatching relies on them, and a news post about this would reduce the amount of stuff getting sick due to factors outside users' control, which is probably a good thing.

[Jazeki]

Support this or at the very least a sticky in the fan site section as many rely on hatcheries to raise their dragons.

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually - not to be a totally wet blanket - but in general TJ may not even know. Isn't it up to US to set up and maintain such a thread ?

[animatedrose]

I definitely support this. Having the info out there would be a good head's up for everyone, ESPECIALLY those that do not know what happened to EATW last year. I'd hate to have a repeat of it this year and watch another hatchery go down. Even if they're third party and it's technically not a DC-site issue, most (if not all) players rely on hatcheries to hatch their eggs. If those hatcheries go away, hatching things would be way harder unless TJ implemented an on-site method.

 

Even just a PSA on potential holiday bombing would be nice. Just so that people KNOW ahead of time to be careful!

[JavaTigress]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Actually - not to be a totally wet blanket - but in general TJ may not even know. Isn't it up to US to set up and maintain such a thread ?

Well, and actually, this is a valid point. After all, we as users are probably more likely to notice differences in the amount of views, clicks and such we get from a particular site day-to-day than TJ is. 

 

Perhaps it wouldn't NEED to be an official thing.

 

As long as such a thread wouldbe allowed ( I don't see why not, myself)

Edited December 2, 2018 by JavaTigress

[Kyleedj]

I miss EATW too... I didn't know that's why it had been shut down.

If there's anyway to stop this before the holiday season, I'm in full support.

#savethehatcheries

[olympe]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Actually - not to be a totally wet blanket - but in general TJ may not even know. Isn't it up to US to set up and maintain such a thread ?

While this is quite true, none of us can actually start posts in the news section... And that's the only section that gets displayed on DC itself, so it's the only way to get the word out there to everyone not on the forums and/or discord and/or the official chat.

 

Of course, I do not expect TJ to check these things on his own, much less 24/7, but maybe he could help spread the word through the news section? Because #SaveOurHatcheries is as accurate as it's sad. None of us will be able to prevent an attack from happening, but we can make sure that there is as little impact as possible. And forewarned is forearmed...

[Fuzzbucket]

Oh. Yeah - right. Even so - he may not know, so....

[olympe]

Right now, even a general warning with the "little" attack on AoND as a recent example would be a great help. And, considering I pinged him in the OP and have the relevant link both in the OP and (in big, fat, bold script) in my signature, chances are he does know by now.

[Starscream]

Honestly, I don't think he has the time to do this each and every time it happens. Mods can probably get in contact with him, but even I, who would likely poke him during situations, have had little time do more than minimum in DC (pulling 9 -  14 hour days). As it stands, I think the existing threads are enough to announce that there may be a problem. The news threads are for site news and site issues (such as the market issue, new releases or updates). The only way it could work is if it was mod managed

[Kaini]

4 minutes ago, Starscream said:

Honestly, I don't think he has the time to do this each and every time it happens. Mods can probably get in contact with him, but even I, who would likely poke him during situations, have had little time do more than minimum in DC (pulling 9 -  14 hour days). As it stands, I think the existing threads are enough to announce that there may be a problem. The news threads are for site news and site issues (such as the market issue, new releases or updates). The only way it could work is if it was mod managed

 

Yea, pretty much my thoughts.

 

Also the people doing the viewbombing are doing it for the reaction - for the drama it causes. Not to sound like a gradeschool teacher, but don't give them the attention and maybe they'll get bored. Every time the forum makes a big deal out of it... they're getting what they want. Don't give them the reaction - hide your eggs and move on.

[Starscream]

2 minutes ago, Kaini said:

 

Yea, pretty much my thoughts.

 

Also the people doing the viewbombing are doing it for the reaction - for the drama it causes. Not to sound like a gradeschool teacher, but don't give them the attention and maybe they'll get bored. Every time the forum makes a big deal out of it... they're getting what they want. Don't give them the reaction - hide your eggs and move on.

And my thoughts as well. People enjoy doing things out of pure spite. Get TJ involved with announcements, and the goons win.

[TJ09]

Making a news thread is easy enough that the time needed is irrelevant. That said, I have always maintained that Dragon Cave is not responsible for third-party sites and thus it doesn't make sense to treat happenings on those sites as official news.

 

If a site is doing abusive things (i.e. enabling people to add eggs without the owner's consent), that's grounds for revoking API access and potentially blocking links from that site.

[osmarks]

Er, literally every hatchery allows adding eggs without owners' consent, apart from one which allows API logins.

EDIT: is reacting publicly actually worse than having a bunch of people's stuff die for no good reason?

Edited December 3, 2018 by osmarks

[olympe]

The problem with the "do not feed the trolls" policy is that, if word doesn't get spread, someone will get their eggs killed and start the whole drama on the forums anyway. *shrugs*

 

And, yes, pretty much every hatchery allows you to add eggs, either through their code or through their owner's scroll name, but most definitely without any proof that you're allowed to do so.

[animatedrose]

Agreed with olympe here. "Do not feed the trolls" is nice in theory...until all your stuff dies because you're a newbie and have zero clue what happened because nobody could warn you about it. I got lucky my first year because I saw word of viewbombing getting spread early enough to know NOT leave my stuff unfogged when I'm away. I escaped losing anything during last year's holidays. I also know people that weren't so lucky and lost a lot of good things that they couldn't replace.

 

We have the perk of being on the forums. Word spreads here first, if at all. The News section is the ONLY one that has any appearance on-site and thus can reach ALL users, forum or not. No exceptions.

 

But *shrug* kinda obvious where TJ and mods stand on this. I don't know about you but if "feeding the trolls" keeps my and my friends' eggs/hatchies from being killed, then I'll be feeding. I like my dergs alive.

[Ruffledfeathers]

I was rather upset when EATW went down, as it was such a reliable site with many useful tools. Ever since, I’ve always felt that things hatch so much slower now

I myself wasn’t affected, I got very lucky to have missed it, as I didn’t add my eggs at the time.

 

People who are newer, or not on the forum may not know about viewbombing issues until they fall victim to it, so there should be a way to get the message across.

 

Hatch sites are really important, seeing as they are a the more fullproof method of growing dragons, as is news and updates on them. Maybe the sites should have forum or info section where users can warn of such things- perhaps separate to the site but linked?

 

An idea I thought up was a dragon cave automated hatchery, like a giant incubator which you can opt yourself to put stuff in, and viewing other growing dragons earns shards. 

 

[Keileon]

39 minutes ago, Ruffledfeathers said:

Hatch sites are really important, seeing as they are a the more fullproof method of growing dragons, as is news and updates on them. Maybe the sites should have forum or info section where users can warn of such things- perhaps separate to the site but linked?

 

An idea I thought up was a dragon cave automated hatchery, like a giant incubator which you can opt yourself to put stuff in, and viewing other growing dragons earns shards. 

 

 

This is a really nifty idea and deserves its own thread, I think!