It probably has escaped most members notice but Art Makers has been under a sustained attack from "SpamBots" for a couple of weeks now.

A "SpamBot" is a special program written and run by spammers. It purpose is to attempt to join sites like this and then flood the forum with links porn sites and other undesirable places.

The reason why most of you aren't aware of this is that the forums are clean (so far) - the attacks just bounce of Art Makers's layered defenses. As far as I can tell, its normal humans posting in the forum.

We gained a lot of experience a couple of years ago when our other site RareList came under a sustained "SpamBot" attack and a few got in. Little damage was done but we learned some valuable lessons. We now apply that experience to all the sites we build including this one.

In the end, its a game of "cat and mouse" and I have no doubt that the spammers are hard at work and will eventually find a way round our defenses. But don't worry, I'm also hard at work developing the next layer of defense.